Sofia
I’m leaving class on my way to the SUV when my phone buzzes. The number on the screen is one I don't recognize. I almost let it go to voicemail. Then I see the area code and I know.
“Everything okay?” Nelson asks.
“I don’t know.”
I answer and listen to the woman from the hospital on the other end.
It's a patient coordinator. My father has been moved to palliative care.
As his power of attorney, there are forms that require my signature.
She's very professional about it. The word dying isn’t said once in the conversation, but it's in every word.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” I reply.
“Should I call Sergei?” Nelson asks.
“No. He’s got his hands full.”
“Where are we going?”
“Hospital.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
He nods and we keep walking toward the SUV. I still have a full contingent of guards. Nelson tells the driver to take us to the hospital.
Nelson doesn't say anything in the car. He sent the requisite text to Sergei. I’m not upset. I know it’s his job, and Sergei keeps close tabs on me out of love.
The hospital is on the Upper East Side. Private. Expensive.
The coordinator meets me at the desk. She walks me through the forms efficiently. I sign where she indicates. I don't read everything. I don’t care what any of it is.
"He's asked to see you," she says.
I look up. "He asked?"
"This morning. He’s been heavily medicated since he came in yesterday.”
I shouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing my face. We’ve said our goodbyes.
"What room?" I ask. She points down the hall.
Nelson walks me down and stops outside the door. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to.
I stand there with my hand flat against the wall beside the door frame. Not touching the door. Not ready yet.
I've been trying to figure out what I want from this since we left the brownstone. I'm not here for an apology. I know better than to expect one from a man like him. I'm not here for closure, either. I don't think that's something a hospital room can give me.
I think I just want him to know.
My hand drifts to my stomach before I can stop it. A habit now, automatic, like checking for my knife. I press my palm flat and feel the small, insistent warmth of it.
He's going to die today or tomorrow or the day after. And he's going to do it not knowing that the things he spent twenty-one years trying to control, me, my choices, my future, are already decided. Already alive. Already more his than he deserves and more mine than he can touch.
I'm going to walk into that room carrying his grandchild he will never meet.
I'm going to stand over him and let him look at me, and he's going to see that I'm still here.
That she's still here. That everything he tried to bury is standing in front of him in the last hours of his life and there is nothing, not one single thing, he can do about it.
That's what I want.
I push open the door.
I step into the private room. It’s bright and I suppose it’s cheery, but I smell death in the air. The soft, slow beep of a machine is the only sound in the room. That and his labored, short breaths.
He’s lying in bed, the head partially raised. His eyes are closed. I've watched him diminish over the past year, but this is different.
He’s dying. We’re down to hours instead of days.
I keep waiting to feel an ounce of sadness.
It doesn’t come. I look at this frail man and see him kicking my beautiful mother so violently it killed her.
Mikhail Baranov, who once ran half this city's underground, is weak. The man I have been afraid of and impressed by and desperate to please for twenty-one years will take his last breath very soon.
I pull the chair close, but I don't touch him. I sit. He opens his eyes. They’re unfocused and cloudy, but he recognizes me. Neither of us says anything for a moment.
"You came," he says.
"I had paperwork to sign."
A pause. I almost feel bad for him. Almost.
"Sofia," he starts.
"Don't." I say it quietly, but I mean it. "It’s too late for remorse.”
He closes his mouth.
"I'm not going to pretend the past didn't happen," I say.
"I'm not going to sit here and tell you I've forgiven you.
I haven't. I never will." I look at him.
"You murdered my mother. You let me grieve her for eight years without telling me what you'd done.
You watched me fall apart. You let me try to make you love me.
You are incapable of such a thing." I pause.
"Those aren't things I can make peace with in a hospital room. "
He says nothing. He's listening. That's new. Mikhail Baranov has never simply listened to me. There was always the sense that he was calculating his response.
He just listens.
"I'm also not going to let what you built rot," I say.
"I'm not going to let it fall to someone who would make it worse.
That's not for your sake. It's for the people who work inside it.
It's for the businesses that are legitimate and the ones I'm going to make legitimate.
" I lean forward slightly. "Parts of it are worth keeping. The rest I'm burning down myself."
The machine breathes with him.
"Yuri is dead," I say.
Something moves across his face. Grief or disappointment. I don’t know which. Relief, maybe, underneath whatever else.
"Sergei?" he asks.
"Yes."
He nods slowly.
I look at him with his dilated pupils, thanks to the strong narcotics pumping into his veins. The comfortable bed. Nurses waiting on him hand and foot making sure he isn’t feeling any pain.
I think about my mother, who died in a warehouse in excruciating pain. The woman who asked a near-stranger to protect her daughter because she knew the man she'd married wouldn't.
Rage rises. I can’t kill him, but I can add to his misery.
I get to my feet.
“My child will never know your name,” I say. “Instead, they will know all about my mother.”
The room is quiet except for the machine and his breathing. I think that's all there is.
"She was better than all of us." His voice is barely a whisper. He's not looking at me. "I knew it then."
I don’t reply.
"Don't tell them about me," he says. "Your child."
I don't know if that's shame or the last mercy he has in him. I decide it doesn't matter.
I turn to leave the room.
"You have her courage,” he says.
I pause for a brief second, and then I leave.
Nelson falls into step beside me. He doesn't ask anything. He reads my face, and he doesn't ask.
We walk to the elevator. I step inside and watch the doors close. I won’t be back.
“I want to see Anton,” I tell Nelson.
“I’ll check—”
“Nelson, I’m going to see Anton.”
Half an hour later, I knock on the door and wait. Anton is the closest thing to a father I have. When he opens the door, I smile.
“Sofia,” he says, and his smile is everything I used to need when I was ten and afraid of nightmares.
I step inside and let Nelson follow. He stays close to the threshold. Anton watches him, then shifts his gaze back to me. There’s that little question in his eyes: what did you do now?
“I need you on my detail,” I tell him.
He blinks. “What?”
“I want you working with me. Full time. On my security team.”
He laughs once, short and incredulous. “Are you trying to get me killed? I’m on crutches, Sofia.”
“I need someone I trust on my side. You and Nelson. My father will be dead very, very soon. I’ve just left the hospital. I’m sure you know Yuri is dead. It’s all mine, Anton. And I need you beside me while I run it.”
There’s a softness that comes over him first.
“Do you have any idea what you’re asking?”
“I do,” I say. “And I need you because you are the only person I trust to keep my baby safe.”
“Baby?”
“I’m pregnant.”
He glances at Nelson then.
Anton swallows. “Talk to Sergei,” he says finally.
It’s not a refusal. It’s not acceptance either.
He leans forward and hugs me before I can protest. I’ve missed his hugs. They were rare but when I let him do it, it made everything just a little better.
“I’ll protect you until it’s the last thing I do.”
“Thank you.”
“Sergei will be in touch,” Nelson says.
“I’ll be waiting,” Anton replies.
We leave and I feel like I'm finally taking control of my life once again.
As we reach the elevator, my phone buzzes.
I already know.
The coordinator's voice is kind and professional. She says the words carefully. I listen. I thank her. I end the call.
Nelson is watching me.
"He's gone," I say.
He nods once. He doesn't offer anything else. He knows me well enough not to.
I stand in the hallway for a moment. I wait for something to move inside me. Grief. Relief. Rage. Something.
There's just quiet. The particular quiet of a door closing that has been open your whole life.
I press my hand against my stomach.
"Let's go home," I say.