Chapter 52
fifty-two
I stand over the freshly dug gravesite, my hand clenching Ava’s tightly, but she hasn’t once complained. Tears streak down her porcelain face for a woman she has never met. My Little Red might have turned into a little psychopath but hasn’t lost her ability to empathize.
My father stands to my right, his face hard and impassive, unwilling to break down in front of his men as he watches them lower his long-lost wife into the crypt.
It isn’t until this moment that I realize how truly lucky I am.
Compared to him and Ivan, I’d gotten so much more time with her. Time none of them will ever get.
Ivan stands on the other side of my father. If the event wasn’t somber, I might have laughed earlier when he tried to approach Ava. The only reason she didn’t deck him was out of respect for my father.
It is nearly summer in Russia, but the wind is still biting cold.
The graveyard is nearly filled to the brim with the men and women who have come to support their Pakhans.
Even Tomas, who once swore to me he would never step foot in his home country again, is here, standing just behind me with Vas and my brothers in arms.
What I wouldn’t do to turn back time to save her, but then I wouldn’t have all of this.
I wouldn’t have Ava, the goddess beside me, and that is unacceptable.
Seamus and Kiernan have joined us as an extension of our alliance with the Kavanaughs, but Liam stayed behind to keep an eye on Katherine, who, despite the progress she has been making, isn’t clear to fly long distances.
“You know,” my father muses once the pomp and circumstance is finished. “Your mother used to sing to you in the womb.”
Ivan groans, but I just smile.
“Bayu Bayushki.” My father beams at me. “She sang it to me every night.”
“I tried to keep that tradition going when she—” He swallows hard. “But Ivan and Antony told me I sounded like a tone-deaf opera singer that has a cat’s yowl for a voice.”
Ava snorts.
“And that was being generous,” Ivan mutters. My father winks at Ava and me.
“It wasn’t so bad.”
“The entire lullaby was bad,” Ivan argues.
Andrei shrugs. “She liked it, and that’s all that mattered.”
“Gave Antony nightmares.”
The three of us stand over her grave, swapping stories about the woman none of us ever truly got to know.
Even after eleven years with her, my mother is still as much a mystery to me as she was to the man she married and the other child she birthed.
Because the woman I grew up with was changed by the cruel world that took her.
Ava stands by my side quietly, her eyes drifting closed as she leans into me.
My Little Red has been fighting jetlag for half the day.
I pick her up in my arms, and she gives a small groan of protest before I narrow my eyes at her in warning.
That shuts her up fast, and instead, she leans her head against my shoulder as I walk through the cemetery toward the line of SUVs waiting for us.
By the time I reach the car, she is fast asleep in my arms.
Vas opens the back door, and I gently slide inside, careful not to wake her. Once Vas is behind the wheel, I nod at him that we are good to go. He pulls out from the curb, following the route to take us to the hotel.
My phone dings in my pocket, and I dig it out.
Unknown
Tell her to stop looking.
It comes from an unknown number, but it can only be one person.
Me
You know I can’t do that, Kenzi.
Day after day, my wife has been leaving messages for her sister to come home. She has Mark scouring every inch of CCTV footage she can get her hands on, just hoping to catch a glimpse of her sister.
Unknown
It’s too dangerous. I could have seriously hurt her.
That is an excuse.
Me
But you didn’t.
I’d bet money that Kenzi didn’t know about the hidden phrase she had been trained to obey. It isn’t uncommon practice when brainwashing someone to hide a subliminal message deep in their subconscious. We were lucky that Kenzi seemed to be relatively immune to it.
And you won’t.
She doesn’t answer, but I send her another text anyway.
June 24th. I’ll send you a pin for the address. Don’t miss your sister’s big day because you are too scared to face it and too prideful to ask for help.
I throw my phone on the seat of the car and wrap my arms tighter around the woman snuggled up to my chest.
My life.
My love.
The woman who stole my heart and will never give it back.
I watch the wreckage of my childhood fly by out the windows as we drive through St. Petersburg. My mother’s family has been buried here for generations before her father uprooted her to America, and it is where she always wanted to be buried.
I think it will be painful to come back here, even after all the time that has passed, but I realize that the memories are only painful if I let them be.
My childhood is paved with blood and pain, my life often hanging on by the tip of a knife, but none of that matters anymore.
Because each and every decision has led me to this exact moment and to the woman I love.
Sometimes the most beautiful things are forged from the pain of the past.
And I wouldn’t change any of it for the world.