33. Thea
THEA
Galina returns with twelve stitches in her lip and seats herself beside me as a woman who is descending amidst a lifetime of suffering. “Pasha?”
“He’s out of surgery. They expect him to make it.”
She crosses her chest and whispers a few words in messy Russian that I can’t follow.
“He has months of recovery, but they expect him to fully recover.”
Her eyes shimmer with tears, and her tough face briefly falters before she regains her composure. “Good. Stupid boy, taking a bullet through a door. He cannot do that to me again.”
She wouldn’t have survived the loss of him. I hear it in her voice.
“There’s more.” I keep my voice low. “Max sent Lev. After Sokolov. To finish it tonight. This will all be over soon.”
She takes this with a gentle, knowing nod, her expression unchanging—she knows what it means. “Of course he did. It’s what must be done,” she murmurs softly. “Niklaus?”
“Needs blood. That’s where Maxim is right now. Donating. It’s bad, Galina. The lung. I’m sorry.”
Something complicated moves through her face then. “Why sorry? He is a snake. He hurt Pasha as much as that bullet.”
But I know she doesn’t mean it. There’s no anger in her voice as she says it. Only hurt.
Galina cared for Klaus, serving him soup and cleaning his scraped knees while his dad sent birthday cards from abroad. She has also watched that same boy attempt to set the house on fire. This situation is hard for her in a different way than anyone else.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. He’s a treacherous, selfish, stupid little snake.
” A breath. “And then he stepped in front of the gun. For the baby. After everything, he did that.” She shakes her head slowly, as if the two facts can’t fit together in her mind, and I understand her feeling because they don’t fit in me either. Her tears fall.
“I keep trying to make it make sense. It doesn’t. People don’t make sense sometimes.”
She pats my knee as she nods, final. “Something to keep in mind while you raise your child.”
My child. The one who has never made sense since the day I rescued him. “Oh my God, Potato. Galina. Potato. He was in the study when it, when they came, and I lost track of him, and I don’t know if—”
“Stop.” She squeezes my hand. “That cat is the smartest creature in the entire house. The moment he heard intruders, he ran and hid—”
“Are you sure?”
“He darted past my legs and toward your room. He’s probably under your bed right now. Animals know before we do.”
I breathe again, my heart slowing. “You’re right, you’re right. He’s smart. He lived on the streets before I ever came along. I’m sure he’s fine. I’ll feel better when I see him, though.”
“Soon. I’m sure it will be soon.”
I believe her, both because I need to, and because she’s right. Potato, the lucky, furry bastard, has more than nine lives.
Galina takes both my hands in hers, her cool, strong fingers, and looks at me straight. “You saved my life.” I start to wave her off, but she holds on. No. You listen. That man had his gun on my head, and you made him miss. I saw it. I will not forget it.”
“Galina, you were, I mean, I was only—”
“I was saving the boy, and you were saving me—that’s exactly my point.” Her eyes stay on mine, fierce and certain. “That’s what family does, Thea. We save each other. You are family. Never forget this.”
I’m overwhelmed, sitting in a plastic chair in Pasha’s dried blood, being called family by the most intimidating woman I’ve ever encountered. I can’t find any words, so I simply hold her hands.
Which is when I see Maxim.
He’s rushing down the corridor toward us, his coat billowing behind him. His face looks like a stranger’s. Whatever has gone through today’s grief has turned into something empty and frightening. He is standing upright only by sheer force of will.
Only one thing a face like that can mean. Klaus. He didn’t make it.
I’m on my feet. “Max. Max, no, is he—”
“I have to go.” He pauses in front of me, resting his hands on my shoulders.
When I look at him closely, the hollowed emptiness in his face looks even more pronounced.
It’s as if he’s barely in there. “Thea. I have to break my promise. I have to leave right now, and I cannot tell you where or why, and I need you to forgive me for it later when you understand.”
“Consider it done,” I say, because grief like this doesn’t need my questions. “What do you need? Tell me what to do.”
“Stay here.” His grip tightens. “In this hospital, inside these walls, with my men. You do not leave. You do not step outside. You don’t go anywhere they cannot see you. Galina can escort you to the restrooms—”
“Max—”
“It might take hours, maybe a day, Thea, I can’t say for sure. But stay here where it’s bright and crowded until I return for you myself. Swear it to me.”
“I’ll stay. Whatever you need.” I take his ruined face in my hands the way he’s taken mine a hundred times. “Go do what you have to do. I’ve got the baby and Pasha. We’ll be right here.”
He leans down, pressing his lips to my forehead first, then quietly moving lower to kiss the gentle curve of my belly. It’s such a tender moment in the grieving chaos, as if he’s saying goodbye to two precious parts of me at once.
Then he heads out, rushing down the corridor and through the doors without a second glance. I have a feeling that if he had looked back, he might not have been able to leave at all.
Galina and I stand behind him. The doors swing open, then close slowly, and finally stop.
“He is going to bury a piece of himself.”
I nod, unsure what to say.
“Come. All that’s left for us to do is to take the next step together.” And she lowers herself onto her knees, hands folding, gray head bowing, and begins to pray in Russian, low and steady, the old words.
I’m not religious. I haven’t prayed since childhood, sitting in stiff pews, mouthing words I didn’t feel and directing my prayers to a ceiling I didn’t believe in. It all felt pointless.
But I get down on my knees on the cold hospital tile beside this woman who just called me family. I fold my hands, and I don’t have words of my own, so I think about what I hope for. That’s all it really is—prayers are hopes given form.
I pray for Klaus Vernigora. Because I will grieve him despite his mistakes. The entire contradictory mess of him. The grief is as complicated as he was.
I pray for Pasha Kagan. The man who was willing to give everything. Not for just a paycheck. For a family he wasn’t born into but is a member of all the same.
And I pray for Max. That he will slaughter Alexei in the worst ways imaginable. That it hurts until Sokolov breathes his last breath, and then it hurts worse when he hits the fires of Hell.
When we get up, my knees ache, and my face is wet again. We sit in the worn hospital waiting room seats and do what the room says. We wait.
“Where would he go, Galina? Tonight, with Klaus gone. Where does a man like Max even go with something like this?”
She considers it, wiping her eyes with the back of one hand. “A drive. Or perhaps to Irina. To her grave, to tell her about their son. Perhaps to stand over what is left of Sokolov. With Maxim, at a time like this, it could be anything.”
That would make sense, all of it. Except that Maxim’s twins, who have drifted closer to us since he left, are wearing a look that does not make sense. I can’t read it. Not grief. Horror. One of them keeps glancing at his phone, then at me, then away.
“What is that face? Both of you. What’s happened?”
Neither answers right away, and the not-answering is its own answer, and my heart starts up again in the bad way.
My voice crackles. “Who?”
They share a look, the tense silent agreement of men coordinating how to give a woman something dreadful. Then one moves closer, extending his phone to me with the screen visible, an apology already in his eyes.
“It went to everyone, miss. From Lev’s own number.”
The screen shows Lev. He’s half slumped in a chair, his intestines spilling out. Mouth sewn shut. Arranged. Displayed. Purposeful. A message.
Lev, who slowed his careful Russian so I could understand. Patient like a teacher. Maxim trusted him enough to send him alone to handle Sokolov tonight, because Lev was worth ten others. The man who was always by Maxim’s side.
Galina leans in to look at what I see and makes a sound next to me that I’ve never heard from a human. Low and torn. Her hand quickly covers her own stitched mouth.
My mind goes white. Thoughts eddy out, leaving only pictures behind. Maxim’s face. His running. His goodbye.
Not because of Klaus. It was Lev.
Out of the blankness, an old woman’s certain voice. “That’s what family does. We save each other.”
We couldn’t save Lev. But I can save Maxim.