4. Cara
CARA
Boston, present time
Five years later, I know three things for sure. Patrick is still trouble, I’m better at pretending I’m fine, and my little boy has Dmitri Antonov’s eyes.
When Patrick shows up, I have marinara sauce on my sleeve, a bath towel hanging from one shoulder, and a security alert blinking on the laptop beside a pile of crayons.
I’ve just walked in from my cybersecurity desk at a financial compliance firm, and my eyes burn from fraud flags, locked accounts, and men with more money than sense trying to blame software for their bad decisions.
The stove smells of garlic, tomatoes, and Mikhail’s favorite turkey meatballs. Mikhail is my four-year-old son, the tiny dictator of pasta shape, bath towels, and whether dinosaurs should face outward on pajamas. I picked him up from Kathryn’s place on the way home.
Mikhail has been at Kathryn’s preschool since he was two and a half.
He started in the toddler room and moved up to Pre-K there, and somewhere along the way, our arrangement became routine.
She teaches him during the day, keeps him after school until I can get across town, feeds him snacks, lets him draw on printer paper, and sends me texts when he refuses to nap because he’s “thinking about trucks”.
Tonight, dinner is ten minutes from being done, which counts as ambition on a weeknight. Turkey meatballs, tomato sauce, and enough grated cheese to earn one of his big, sticky smiles.
Patrick says he needs five.
He says it the way he says everything, with one hand already on the doorframe and the answer decided before I open my mouth.
Five minutes, from Patrick, is never five minutes. It’s my brother standing in my doorway after I’ve worked all day, picked up my son, cooked dinner, and tried to gather my life into something that belongs to me.
“You always need five minutes,” I say, blocking the door with my hip. “It becomes an hour, then I’m fixing something you should’ve paid a consultant to fix.”
He lifts a flash drive. “A client portal locked me out after a certificate update. I sent you the credentials. You click around, get it unstuck, and I’ll be gone before the prince notices I exist.”
By prince, he means Mikhail. Patrick knows I don’t like him talking to my son.
Patrick leans past me. “Hey, Mik. You driving that thing or parking badly?”
Mikhail looks up from the rug, where six toy cars sit in a crooked traffic jam.
His hair sticks up from his bath, and his pajama shirt is inside out because he insisted the dinosaur needed to face him.
His blue eyes brighten the second he sees Patrick, full of the open, careless happiness only children give before they learn who deserves it.
“I’m racing,” he says.
“Poorly,” Patrick says and steps inside before I can say come in.
I close the door, lock it, and slide the chain into place. Patrick notices. Patrick notices everything that doesn’t belong to him.
“Still doing the fortress act?” he asks.
“Still asking questions you don’t need answered?”
He drops onto the couch and picks up Mikhail’s red car. “Your mom worries about you.” He says it to me, with his eyes on my locks.
I yank the towel off my shoulder and throw it into the washer. “Mom worries because you call her and make my life sound tragic.”
“Family checks in,” he says. “You act offended when I care.”
“Family checks in. You strong-arm me into free tech support, eat my food, and report my tone to our mother.”
His smile barely moves. I hate that he can still do this. Walk in. Sit down. Touch my son’s toys. Say Mom like it’s a leash. The fastest way to get him out is to give him what he wants, so I sit at the table and plug his flash drive into the isolated adapter I keep for Patrick-shaped disasters.
Patrick leans over the back of the couch and frowns at the setup. “Jesus, Cara. You think I’m carrying state secrets?”
“I think you’re carrying something stupid.” Patrick may not be a spy, but he’s absolutely the kind of man who brings malware in his pocket and calls it “a small issue.”
“You got mean after motherhood.” He lifts himself from the couch and sits cross-legged on the floor beside Mikhail.
“I got busy. There’s a difference.” I hurry, urging my hands to finish the job he came for.
Mikhail scoots closer to Patrick and pushes a blue car into his hand. “This one wins.” I’m almost done. My fingers fly on the keyboard.
Patrick studies him longer than I like. His thumb rolls the wheels back and forth as he says, “He’s got those eyes.”
He’d said this before, usually with that same little tilt to his voice, testing whether I’d flinch. He always got the same answer. “What eyes?” I keep my voice controlled.
“Blue. Big. Serious.” He tilts his head. “Reminds me of someone.”
“Fuck off, Patrick.”
Mikhail looks between us. “Mama said a bad word.”
“Mama is making a grown-up point,” I say, then soften my voice for him. “Mik, go sit at the counter and choose your pasta bowl.”
“But I haven’t had dinner.”
“Exactly. Bowl first, then cheese mountain.” My voice comes out firmer than I mean to. It makes me hate Patrick a little more.
Patrick raises both hands, still holding the car. “Easy. I’m making conversation.”
“You’re poking.”
“You always were touchy when I got near the truth.”
I send Patrick a new login link and close the laptop.
“There,” I say. “Portal works. Get your act together and pay an actual cybersecurity person next time.”
“I have you.”
“No,” I say, “you don’t have me.”
His smile stays, yet something behind it moves. “You’re my baby sister.”
“I’m thirty.”
“Still.” That word sinks deep. Still means he can ask for favors, and he can walk in when he likes. Still means Mom will call if I hurt his feelings, because he’s Patrick.
Patrick stops by the door and glances at the fridge, where Mikhail’s drawing hangs under a magnet from the aquarium. Three stick figures stand beside something that might be a rocket or a building on fire. One figure is tall and black-haired, with thick arms and a big, frowning face.
“Who’s that?” Patrick asks.
“My friend,” Mikhail says before I can answer.
I open the door wider. “Goodnight.”
Patrick turns back from the hall. “You don’t have to do all of this alone.”
“I’m fine,” I say and lock the door after him.
He whistles on his way to the elevator, pleased with himself, and I want to kick him in the shin the way I did when we were kids.
I slide the chain, check the deadbolt twice, then wait at the peephole until the elevator doors close around him.
Dinner goes the way dinner usually goes.
Mikhail eats pasta with his fingers after swearing he won’t.
He asks whether sharks sleep. He puts a meatball in his milk and tells me it’s science.
He doesn’t ask about Patrick or why I get angry when he comes over, and I’m grateful for that in a way that makes my chest hurt.
For one second, I see another face in his. A man I knew for one night five years ago. Then I look at Mikhail again. My son. His unfinished dinner. The sauce on his chin. The toothbrush he’ll fight me over because he thinks mint is “spicy”.
I clean the table, wash his hands, help him brush his teeth, and tuck him into bed.
The apartment belongs to me, at least until morning. Patrick’s flash drive goes into a plastic bag near the sink. I don’t trust anything he brings into my home. Then I make hot chocolate, my one small indulgence. I sit on the sofa, tuck my feet under me, and check Kathryn’s last message.
You alive?
I type back, Alive. Dinner survived. Patrick came by.
The reply arrives fast.
Emergency phrase?
No, I write. He was being Patrick.
That's an emergency itself.
I almost laugh.
You want me to come? Kathryn types fast.
For a second, I just stare at the message. She always offers before I ask, makes room before I fall apart.
Check in the morning, first thing, I type.
I walk to the hall closet, move the towels, and touch the strap of the go-bag hidden behind them.
Clothes for Mikhail. Cash. Copies of papers.
Granola bars he hates and eats anyway. A burner phone I pray I’ll never need.
I tell myself this is because of Patrick and his friends with money and secrets.
I tell myself it has nothing to do with a Russian man who left my bed five years ago and vanished before sunrise.
I check on Mikhail before I sit down to work. His face is soft in sleep, yet his body has a stillness no four-year-old should have. I see Dmitri in it. I hate myself for knowing exactly where it came from.
A knock hits the apartment door. My heart skids, once. Patrick would text first. Kathryn just told me to call her in the morning. I haven’t ordered anything. No neighbor would knock this late unless the building were flooding or on fire.
I know before I move. The knock can only be trouble. For four years, some part of me has been waiting for this sound.
I close Mikhail’s door carefully. In the hall, I pause before the front door. The knock comes again. Whoever is outside hasn’t come to ask if I feel like opening the lock.
I cross to the door and check the peephole.
Three men stand outside my apartment. They don’t belong in my hallway.
No loud voices, no cheap jackets, no shifting from foot to foot.
Dark coats. Clean shoes. Hands placed where weapons can be reached fast. The man in front looks straight at the peephole, as if he knows I’m there.
Volkov.
It has to be. My stomach drops, then turns cold. I know the type before I recognize any face. Patrick once told me Volkov soldiers don’t pound on doors or buzz from downstairs. They arrive with building access, dead cameras, and the confidence of men who already own the ending.