Chapter 41 Bastian
BASTIAN
abattoir /?ab??tw?r/: noun
Consciousness returns, one bloodstained fragment at a time.
First is pain. A throbbing bass drum behind my left eye, pounding out a rhythm that makes my teeth ache. Something wet and sticky is plastered across my temple. Blood, I’m guessing, dried to a crust.
The second is smell. Rust and river water. It’s a decay I know well. In our teen years, when we each were finding our ways in this world, Aleksei used to come home reeking of it. We must be within spitting distance of the Chicago docks.
Third: restraints. My wrists are zip-tied to the arms of a metal chair. My ankles are bound, too. Whoever fixed them did a thorough job. I can barely feel my fingertips, and I can’t move a fucking inch.
I force my eyes open.
The warehouse looms around me, cavernous and empty save for rusted machinery and the ghosts of whatever used to be processed here. Through grimy windows crusted with decades of grime, I can see dawn’s arterial bleed leaking over the Chicago skyline.
Dawn. That means I’ve been out for hours.
My first coherent thought isn’t of Aleksei or escape or even survival. It’s of Eliana, waiting in my bed. The promise I made to come home to her.
That hurts too fucking bad to linger on, so I switch gears to Zeke.
I hope for my best friend’s sake that he didn’t make good on his vow to charge after me into the parking garage.
Or, if he did, I hope Aleksei’s men had already clubbed me and dragged me out by then.
The thought of him bound and bloodied in a place like this is nauseating enough.
Almost as bad is the thought of him standing all by himself on that empty, dusty parking garage floor, surrounded by blank-eyed vehicles and rats scurrying through the darkness, wondering where I went, who took me, why, how.
The warehouse door groans open. Footsteps approach. They’re lackadaisical, utterly at ease. The steps of a man in no hurry at all.
“Out,” Aleksei commands to the various hooded wraiths standing sentry all around the perimeter of the room. “All of you. Wait by the cars.”
I hadn’t even seen them, but now that they move, I realize there were half a dozen guards spread around the room.
At Aleksei’s orders, though, boots shuffle and the shadows recede.
The door creaks again. In their wake, there’s silence, save for the distant lap of water against the docks and the steady drip of something trickling from the ceiling just behind me.
Then Aleksei emerges from the darkness.
He looks immaculate, as always. Navy suit tailored to within an inch of its life, not a single thread out of place despite the hour and the filth of our surroundings.
His shoes gleam, freshly shined, and yet here he is picking his way across a floor slicked with God knows what, not even bothering to watch his step.
That’s Aleksei. Always above it all. Always untouchable.
His hair is slicked back, though I see hints of silver threading through the dark at his temples.
Haven’t noticed that before. He has our mother’s jaw, sharp and gaunt, and according to her, he also has our father’s dead eyes—though I wouldn’t know that from personal experience.
The old man fucked off before I could form memories.
He’s smoking, of course. The cherry of his cigarette bobs in the gloom like a malevolent firefly as he pulls a second chair across the concrete and sets it down in front of me. The screech of metal on stone sets my teeth on edge.
Aleksei settles into the chair backwards, arms folded across the backrest. “You look terrible, Semyon.”
“I blame your hospitality. I’m leaving a negative review when I check out, just so you know.”
Aleksei chuckles. “Still with the mouth. Some things never change.”
“Neither do some people.” I test the zip-ties again. No give. “Is this really how you wanted our reunion to go, Aleksei? Zip-ties and a warehouse? I thought family meant something to you.”
“Family means everything to me.” Aleksei takes a long drag, then exhales twin jets of smoke through his nostrils.
“That’s why we’re here, little brother. Because you seem to have forgotten what that word means.
” He gestures around the warehouse with his cigarette.
“This is not punishment, you know. You think it is, but it’s not.
Zip-ties, warehouses, a little blood on the face—these things are good for a man who has lost his way.
And you, bratishka, have lost your way.”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” I snort.
He ignores me. “Lost men need reminders. You needed a reminder. You and I, we came from nothing. We came from a junkie mother who couldn’t keep her legs closed and a father who didn’t stick around long enough to leave a fucking forwarding address.
We built ourselves from the ground up, Semyon. Together.”
“We were never together,” I spit back. “You built a life one corpse at a time. I wanted no part of it.”
Aleksei’s mouth screws up in a smile. “And yet here you are. Covered in blood that isn’t yours, having done things that would make our mother weep, if she wasn’t too strung out to give a damn.
” He leans forward, cigarette dangling from his lips, to squint at me.
“You think you’re different from me, Semyon?
You think running restaurants and fucking blind women makes you a better man? ”
My jaw clenches hard enough to crack teeth. “Leave her out of it, Al,” I snarl against my better judgment. Aleksei feasts on shit like that, the sentimental shit, the weakness, but I can’t stop myself from spewing it at him anyway. “She’s not part of this.”
“No?” Aleksei spreads his hands, the picture of innocence. “She’s already in it, isn’t she? And I had nothing to do with that. You’re the one who brought her in!” He pauses, then adds slyly, glancing away, “… You think I don’t know about the baby?”
The blood drains from my face. My whole body struggles against the restraints.
Aleksei nods happily. “Ah. There it is. The look of a man who finally understands how fucked he truly is.”
“If you touch her—”
“At ease, soldier.” He waves a dismissive hand.
“I have no interest in your pregnant girlfriend. She’s collateral, at best. A pressure point.
Nothing more.” He takes another drag of his cigarette, then holds it in front of his eyes, contemplative as he examines the burning end.
“Though I must admit, I’m curious. What is it about this woman that made you throw everything away?
The kingdom we were building together, the future I had planned for our family—all of it, gone.
For what? A blind girl with a cane and a belly full of your bastard? ”
I jerk in my seat. My wrists strain against the zip-ties until I feel skin tear and hot blood ooze between my fingertips.
Aleksei reaches into his jacket and produces a tablet. The screen casts pale light across his beaked nose and hooded eyes as he swipes it to life. “Let me show you something, bratishka.”
He turns the screen toward me. The first image is grainy security footage of a parking garage. At the bottom of the frame, a figure carves through shadows. I know that posture, because the figure is me. The timestamp reads six weeks ago.
Aleksei swipes to another photograph. I know this one, too. It’s Eliana’s clinic attacker with his face caved in, my bloody handprint smeared across the wall beside him.
Swipe to more. The warehouse on the South Side. That Greek mobster’s body, his fingertips charred off, his face unrecognizable. He is me, I am him, we are both dead.
Swipe. Forensic reports.
Swipe. DNA samples.
Swipe. Bullet casings matched to the gun I carried.
Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.
He has proof of it all.
“You thought you were doing my dirty work,” Aleksei says as the screen goes dark again. “But really, you were building your own prison. I’m a careful man, brother, and these are my careful notes.” He taps the blackened tablet with one fingernail. “It all leads back to you, Semyon. Only you.”
“Why?” I croak.
He smiles forlornly. “Insurance. Against exactly this kind of betrayal.”
The tablet disappears back into his jacket. Aleksei rises from his chair and crosses to the nearest window. Through the grit caked on the glass, he looks out at the bleeding sunrise with his hands clasped behind his back.
“So here is what happens now,” he says without turning around.
“You have a choice, Semyon. Two doors. Behind one: destruction. I take this evidence to my friends in the FBI, the ones who owe me favors, and Bastian Hale—or whatever’s left of him—spends the rest of his miserable life rotting in a federal prison.
Your pregnant girlfriend raises your child alone, always looking over her shoulder.
Sage grows up knowing his brother is a murderer.
Young Zeke loses his restaurant, his reputation, everything.
” He turns to face me, silhouetted against the dawn.
“Behind the other door: freedom. For them, at least. And for you, too. In a way.”
He reaches into his pocket and produces a manila envelope, thick with documents. He tosses it onto my lap.
“This contains a new identity and the passport to go with it. There is a plane ticket to S?o Paulo, too. It leaves tonight.” His voice is almost gentle, like he truly thinks this is mercy in the making.
“You will disappear, Semyon. Forever. No contact with Eliana, with Sage, with Zeke, with anyone from your former life. In exchange, I bury the evidence. Your loved ones live in peace.”
I stare at the folder as the blood on my hands goes tacky and crusted.
“You were always the sentimental one,” Aleksei adds softly. “I’m giving you a chance to protect them the only way you still can: by vanishing completely. Let them mourn Bastian Hale and move on with their lives.”