Chapter 22 Ivy
IVY
The weeks slip past like grains of sand through my fingers, every day bleeding into the next.
Morning light through the curtains with Leo soundly sleeping and pressed into my side.
Breakfast with our family, crayons at the table during lunch, dishes in the sink after every meal.
Walks to the park when the weather is kind, games of cards when it rains.
Bedtime stories that stretch longer than they should because I can’t bring myself to let him fall asleep without my voice in his ears.
It’s routine. Predictable and comforting.
I watch the way my son’s shoulders loosen little by little as the days roll on.
How the fear in his eyes isn’t so present anymore.
He clings a little less tightly when I step out of the room, and while he still doesn’t like me gone for long, the edge of panic isn’t there every second.
The nightmares still come, but not every night.
Little by little, he feels a little less scared.
That should make me happy, but guilt threads through it like second nature.
Because no matter what happens or how many milestones my son continues to hit, I can’t help but wonder what life would be like if I'd let Maksim stay.
If I'd asked him to be a part of our lives instead of pushing him out the door and telling him to return to Russia.
I tell myself it’s better this way, but still, it hurts to wonder about the what-ifs. They plague me constantly, unrelenting in their demonstrative hold over my mind and my dreams.
Then, unexpectedly, life shifts.
Leo gets curious.
It starts one night after I tuck him in.
He rolls onto his side, his eyes wide and serious in the faint light coming from the light-up whale figure plugged into the wall.
He seems far older than he should look when his mouth pulls down into a frown, those soft brows of his furrowing together in a way that makes him look just like his father.
“Mama… can I ask you something?”
“Of course you can, my love.”
He watches me for a long moment. His fingers curl around the sheets pulled up to his chest, twisting them until his skin turns white. Whatever questions roll through his head, he struggles with choosing just one. And when he does, it nearly doubles me over when he asks it.
“Maksim… is he a bad person?”
My chest tightens. I brush his hair back and kiss his temple. “No, honey. He’s… his job is very complicated.”
“But why were those men after us? I heard them saying it was his fault.”
“They weren’t after us,” I murmur carefully. “They were… they wanted to get Maksim’s attention. He had something they wanted and they wanted to take it from him.”
“What did he have?”
I can’t tell Leo the truth. Not yet. Maybe not ever. As angry as I am at his father for everything that’s happened, for everything that’s been done to us because of his Bratva, I don’t want to demonize him to his son.
It wouldn’t be fair.
As dangerous as Maksim’s life is, as frightening as his world can be, he never once set out to intentionally put me or Leo in harm’s way. Quite the opposite, actually. We were unfortunately swept up into the current of his war, and once it caught us, there was no swimming back to shore.
I brush my thumb over Leo’s cheek, soft and warm under my touch.
“It’s complicated, honey. Sometimes people fight because they want to hurt each other. You and I got caught in the middle of it because Maksim cares very deeply about us. Some people saw that and took advantage of it.”
Leo studies me, his lashes casting long shadows when they fan along his cheekbones. “So… the bad men wanted to hurt him too?”
“Yes. He fought to keep you safe. Do you remember how he grabbed you? How he carried you out of the restaurant after what happened?”
He nods slowly, his little mouth pressed into a tight line.
I pull him closer, cradling him against me, pressing another kiss to his hair. “That’s what matters most, baby. You’re safe. Maksim made sure of that.”
That seems to satisfy him for the time being.
He closes his eyes and curls into my arms as I wrap the blanket around us and lie back down onto the mattress.
I lie beside him until his breathing slows, listening to the soft rhythm of his chest rising and falling, counting each breath like it’s proof the world hasn’t taken him from me yet.
The questions don’t stop there like I thought they would. They keep coming.
A few days later, we’re sitting on the porch steps in the late afternoon, the sun dipping low behind the rooftops of the houses across the street.
The air smells faintly of cut grass and someone grilling down the street.
Leo kicks his heels against the wooden step, his popsicle melting as his tongue darts around to catch the teardrops.
His eyes follow a passing car with absent curiosity.
Out of nowhere, he says, “Why did Maksim and those guys have guns?”
The words drop like stones in my chest.
“What?”
His brows pull together in that frown that’s becoming far too familiar lately. “At the restaurant. They all had guns. Is Maksim a policeman?”
The laugh that nearly slips out tastes bitter on my tongue. The very idea of Maksim with a badge and a uniform is almost too absurd to imagine. “No, sweetheart. He’s not.”
Leo frowns deeper. “Then what is he?”
My chest tightens. The question is so simple, so innocent, but it twists me up inside until I can hardly breathe. Sleep is a luxury I haven’t had in far too long, and everything else—breathing, thinking, pretending we’re okay—is taking all the strength I have left.
How do I tell him that the man who pulled him out of hell that day is the same man whose world dragged him into it in the first place?
That his father isn’t a soldier or a hero in the way little boys dream of, but a Mafia boss?
How do I explain that the reason blood stains his memories is because of the man who gave him half his DNA?
That who I loved is the reason he’s suffered?
I pause, stalling for time, trying to dig through the fog in my mind for something I can live with saying. A way to reveal the truth without completely shattering his innocence. “He’s someone who tries to keep people he cares about safe. Sometimes when that happens, he has to be aggressive.”
Leo turns and searches my eyes for a long moment with a look far too serious for someone his age, weighing whether or not to believe me.
Then he nods slowly, turning back to watching the street.
The guilt of that settles heavily in my chest, because I know one day, maybe sooner than I want, he’s going to ask a question I’ll have no choice but to answer straightforwardly.
Later that evening, Lettie comes home from her university classes just as I’m finishing a basket of Leo’s laundry. I’m halfway to folding the last tiny pair of socks when her voice hits me from the hallway.
“Tell me why my nephew is drawing stick figures carrying guns, Ivy.”
I nearly groan.
Instead, I toss the pair of socks onto the pile and rub my face, dragging my hands down until my skin feels raw. I don’t even bother answering right away. What could I possibly say?
Lettie doesn’t wait for an invitation. She pushes through the doorway and steps inside, holding up a wrinkled piece of notebook paper like evidence in a courtroom.
Crayon lines scrawl across the page, crude outlines of men with thick black lines for weapons, red circles that could be bullet holes, and one tiny figure off to the side with curly hair.
Leo’s self-portrait. I know because he always gives himself green shoes.
“I found this in the living room,” she says, waving it slightly. “And before you ask—no, it’s not from some violent cartoon. He told me this was from memory.”
I stare at the drawing like it might suddenly burst into flames.
She softens a little. “Ivy. What happened?”
I want to answer… I need to, but the truth sticks in my throat like it always does.
Scooping it up, I drop the laundry basket onto the floor at the foot of my bed and collapse backward onto it with a hollow breath. I stare at the ceiling, eyes dry but burning. Lettie sits beside me slowly.
She doesn’t say anything for a long time. I know she’s waiting for me to speak first. For the past seven years, I used to tell her everything. I used to be the sister who had all the answers, the plans, the pep talks. Now I can’t even explain why my son flinches at loud noises.
“I know something happened,” she says quietly, almost like she’s trying not to spook me. “I’m not stupid. Does this have to do with Maksim’s gang? Or… whatever you call it? He got in trouble, right? And you and Leo got caught in the middle of it. That’s how things work in that world.”
“Lettie…”
She presses on, her voice tightening. “I know it was bad, but I don’t know how bad. And I need to because I don’t know how to help you otherwise. I don’t know how to help Leo. What kind of six-year-old fantasizes about dying?”
My heart twists so violently, I feel nauseous. “I want to tell you.”
She turns toward me fully. “Then tell me.”
I open my mouth and close it again, air escaping but no words.
I don’t even know how to start.
How do I tell her what we went through? How do I tell her that Leo and I were held in soundproof rooms, locked away without windows, without sunlight, without so much as a clue about what day it was? That I had to pretend to be okay for Leo’s sake, even when I thought we might never be found?
How do I tell her that Maksim nearly died because of me? That I did the worst thing possible and sold him out to his own enemy?
My sister only knows the surface. She knows Mikhail’s men took us and that we were “missing”, but whatever version they gave her, it wasn’t the full story. Not even close.
“I don’t… even know where to begin,” I choke out.
Lettie shifts on the bed beside me, reaching out. Her fingers skim my knee like she’s scared touching me too suddenly might break me.
“Anywhere,” she says gently.
I stare at the ceiling for a long moment, blinking against the sting in my eyes. The room tilts slightly, my body caught between fight and flight as memories flood forward like a dam breaking loose inside my head.
“I thought I was going to die,” I say finally. “I thought Leo was going to die.”
Lettie’s breath catches.
“I was kept in a room no bigger than this one. There was no bathroom, no windows. Only a door that was locked twenty-three hours a day. I was only allowed out to shower and when I needed to use the toilet. Meals were brought to me but they were slop, barely edible. Cameras watched me twenty-four, seven, and there were guards with guns who stood outside in the hallway.”
Her eyes go wide. “Where was Leo?”
“They took him from me.” I swallow, blinking a few times to clear my vision. “I only got to see him once when I negotiated to trade Maksim’s life for his. I sold him out… I sold out Leo’s own father to save ourselves.”
A soft chuckle leaves me. There’s no humor in it, just pure, unadulterated sorrow.
I continue, the shame curling up through my body. “I had to make choices I didn’t want to make… I had to say things to Maksim that weren’t true. I had to help his enemy lure him into a trap in order to kill him. I had to watch as a gun was put to my baby’s head… the trigger almost pulled.”
Lettie flinches. “Jesus, Ivy.”
The tears run down my cheeks then. Hearing the shock and horror in those two words she lets out are enough to break through the numbness that’s wrapped around me.
Lettie moves closer, wrapping her arms around me so fiercely, I almost can’t breathe.
She doesn’t say anything for a long time, and for once, I’m grateful.
Finally, when she does lift her head, she says, “are you going to go back to him?”
“I can’t. I sent him away back to Russia,” I croak out.
She watches me for a long moment. “Look… I’m not saying to go running back to him. But… aren’t you leaving both you and Leo vulnerable without being under his protection?”
I blink, taken aback. “What?”
Lettie sighs and shifts on the bed. She props herself up onto her elbow, leaning back just enough to look at me fully.
“I mean, he’s always going to have enemies.
Eventually, someone is going to dig up information on you two and find out you’re here with his son.
Doesn’t the Mafia… I don’t know, value that kind of thing?
Firstborns? Heirs to power? Isn’t that, like, a huge deal? ”
I nod slowly, silently… because she’s not wrong. And yet somehow, I haven’t thought about that.
Of course I’ve been obsessed with keeping Leo safe from the next threat, the next person who might come looking to hurt Maksim in the most devastating way possible.
I just never stopped to consider that even with us being far away from the Antonov Bratva, completely cut off from them and living our own independent lives, it would never save us from being snatched up again.
“Wouldn’t it be better to be under Maksim’s protection when his enemies come sniffing around again than to be here alone without it?” she asks.
I know she’s right, but I also know what it cost us the last time. I don’t know if I can survive putting Leo through that again. I don’t know if he can.
Is it worth the risk and taking our chances by staying here with my family? That if we kept our heads down enough, no one would come looking for us? Or am I setting Leo and me up for failure again, and perhaps next time, we won’t be lucky enough to survive?
Lettie sits up and leans over to put a hand on my arm. “Just… think about it, okay?”
I nod.
She doesn’t say anything else before getting up and leaving me to contemplate alone in my room.
God… now what do I do?