Chapter 36 #2
“You look exhausted, Alyona,” Z murmurs, his eyes never straying from me. Rodion’s hold tightens around me.
I am. But we need to get everything out on the table.
“We can leave and talk tomorrow if you need to get some rest,” Andru offers, but I shake my head. There’s something I want to know, and Z deserves to know.
“What happened to Zahkar’s family, the Chesters?” I blurt and the room goes deadly still, silence so deafening I wonder if time stopped.
Rodion’s body tenses beneath me, muscles taut like tightly coiled springs. Z’s piercing blue eyes narrow as his pupils dilate, darkening to almost black and consuming the vibrant color. He takes a heavy, labored breath, before turning to Andru.
“Well?” he prompts, his voice thick with expectation, tension hanging in the air like a storm about to break.
Ven pushes away from the counter, announcing, “I’m going to go to the hotel to give you all some space.” He slaps a hand on Andru’s back. “I’ll send the driver back for you.”
When it’s just the four of us, Andru grips his glass so tightly that the rim creaks ominously under the pressure of his hand.
He sets it down as if worried about smashing it in his fist. Then, he rises to his feet, his footsteps echoing softly against the hardwood floor, until he reaches the head of the table.
With a deliberate motion, he slips off his tailored jacket and drapes it over the back of a chair.
His shirt stretches over his broad shoulders when he crosses his arms.
Clearing his throat, he nods his head, and a haunted look takes over his face and leaks into his posture. A bone-deep ache throbs under my skin. Something in the pit of my stomach warns me that nothing good will come from what he’s about to say.
“Two months before my Katrina, Rodion’s mother,” he clarifies for my sake, “killed herself, she was attacked in a grocery store parking lot while putting groceries in the trunk.”
Thud.
“Someone came up behind her with a knife, forced her inside the car, and raped her.”
Oh God. The air chills and my stomach knots harder. My eyes cut to Rodion and tears well in my eyes. He knew this. There’s no surprise on his face. I place a hand on his chest and his comes up to cover mine.
Exhaling a weary breath, Andru continues, “She wasn’t raised with wealth, you see.
Instead, she grew up in a small, humble home surrounded by the church community.
Her family valued hard work and integrity.
They shunned the idea of having servants cater to their every need.
” His face becomes animated with his words, emotion written there for us all to witness—love, anger, sorrow.
“She found joy in the simple tasks of life, taking pride in grocery shopping and cooking meals for her family.” His eyes close briefly, recalling the memories of her.
“She was three months pregnant and lost the baby due to the brutality of the assault.”
The weight of his confession bares down on us all making it hard to breathe. My hand clutches Rodion’s.
“I’m so sorry, Ro.” I choke, watching him as he fixates on Z’s profile. He’s scared.
My attention is dragged back to Andru as he continues.
“I sometimes wish I was as forgiving as her. She was beautiful, gentle, and too good for the evils of this world. She wanted to forgive. Immersed herself in prayer.” He goes to the bottle of vodka and drinks straight from it before slamming it back down.
“I was not like her.” He shakes his head.
“When I found out who did that to her, my rage fueled my need for revenge. I couldn’t eat, drink, or sleep. It consumed me.”
“Who was it?” Z asks, his voice shaking, his head bowed like he already knows the answer coming. Shadows flicker across his face. The horrors of his past are an irreversible scar that he will never fully heal from, and they’re about to be ripped back open.
Andru’s jaw flexes and then he says, “A young man, barely twenty-two. His name was Daniel Chester.”
A gasp slips past my lips and my hand rushes there to cover it.
Z’s back hits the kitchen cabinet, shame washing over his beautiful features.
I get up and attempt to go to him, but he holds a hand out toward me.
“Don’t.” He swallows, the action visible in his throat, causing the serpent inked there to shift with the movement.
My legs tremble. Every fiber inside me is desperate to ease the pain in him.
Rodion follows after me. His hands come to my shoulders, keeping me back.
“Z,” I say, emotion clogging my throat.
“You killed them,” he says to Andru, his hands clenching into fists, squeezing his eyes closed. His tone drops to a deadly octave. “You let them do that to my mother? An eye for an eye?”
My heart pounds like a war drum against my ribs. My blood rushes in my own ears.
Z moves so quick, I startle from the fluidity of it.
He picks up a chair and launches it across the room toward Andru, missing him by an inch.
Rodion pushes me behind him and backs me up into the corner of the room.
The crash as it pings off the end of the table and chips the corner of the counter echoes through the room.
Both Rodion and my eyes dart to the baby monitor but Roza hasn’t moved.
“I witnessed what the man did to my mom,” Z roars, tears slipping down his cheeks. Prodding a finger to his head, he hisses, “It lives here.” Then to his chest. “And here.”
“I didn’t sanction that, Zahkar,” Andru rumbles. “You should know I would never authorize that kind of violence on a woman. That man paid with his life for that insubordination.”
Z is breathing so heavy he looks like a beast rather than a man and I want to go to him more than anything, but Rodion’s arms are like a steel wall in front of me keeping me back.
“But their murder?” Z’s shoulders heave. “You killed them all because of what Daniel did?”
“They knew. They knew what he was!” Andru bellows. “He’d done it before, here in the States, to three other women. One was an eleven-year-old child.”
My hands shake. I want to go back in time and not ask Andru the damn question.
“They brought him to Russia to hide him. Your mother was born there, so they had ties. They knew what he was and protected him.” Andru’s infuriated eyes narrow on his son. “If they hadn’t, Katrina would never have met that fate.”
“Why not kill me?” Z asks, the question so fragile on his lips. A sob escapes my chest. I feel his agony like a physical presence inside me.
Loosening his tie, Andru’s eyes drop to his shoes. “I arrived late. My men moved in before I got there, and you were never supposed to be there. You were supposed to be at school.” He works his jaw. “I didn’t take into account that private schools run longer days than public schools.”
Because Rodion’s school would be private but Z’s would not have been back then.
Touching his scar, Z laughs without humor. “It was you that day,” he says in disbelief. “You gave me this scar.”
Silence.
Then Andru picks up the chair that Z threw and leans against its backrest. “I didn’t keep secrets from Katrina, so when I told her about you, she wanted us to raise you. She believed God would have wanted that.”
“She couldn’t even look at me,” Z snaps, swiping an arm across his face, but the tears still cling to his jaw.
“The demons from that day haunted her. My actions haunted her.” Andru scrubs a hand down his face.
“He fragmented her mind, and she couldn’t reassemble it.
The worst thing she could have done in her faith was kill herself.
It's the ultimate sin but that’s how broken she became. The only way to quiet the noise.”
Z’s body slows its heavy breathing, and he turns and places his head against the wall counting in a hushed voice, “One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.”
“What about Daniel?” Z suddenly says, turning once more to face Andru. “A policewoman told me he died but the reports say different.”
Andru pales, his knuckles turning white against the backrest.
“Dead, right?” I interject sharply, glaring at Andru. “Those reports saying differently are wrong?”
Z looks at me in confusion, like he didn’t expect to hear my voice. His scar seems more prominent when his brows pull together.
“Right?” I say to Andru again.
“Yes,” Andru finally spits out hesitantly, a fleeting brow furrowing in my direction. “He’s dead.”
Watching Zahkar nod his head, processing all the information, I finally manage to slip past Rodion and go to him, brushing a palm cautiously up his arm.
His hand comes to the side of my neck, his forehead resting against mine.
“That’s my family, Alyona. A fucking rapist and parents who covered it up.
” His voice catches in his throat and my eyes weep for the man who’s the strongest person I know.
He was a boy who witnessed the worst parts of humanity and survived it.
“That’s not who your family is, Z,” Rodion says, pain staining every word. “We’re your family. Have been since I found you that day.”
Z’s brows pull down further. “You didn’t find me, though. You came there looking for me.”
Rodion flinches and my muscles coil tight.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Z accuses him.
“No.” Rodion shakes his head, his jaw ticking. “Not then.”
A ragged exhale blows from Z’s lips. “Not then? So, when?”
Silence.
“When, Ro?” Z snaps.
Brushing a hand through his hair, Rodion bites his lip and then says, “I had memories of that time. My mom was so broken, ranting about what happened to her, the scars left on her body. She changed before my young eyes and then I started having these nightmares in my teens about her.”
“I remember them,” Z says in a whisper, turmoil flashing across his eyes. Moving closer to Rodion, his palms frantically clench around Ro’s face. “I remember them. You were fifteen. They kept us both up, and I’d talk to you for hours to soothe you.”
Ro’s eyes trace every pained line on Z’s face. “I told my father about the dreams, and he told me what happened.” Rodion’s voice cracks.
“Zahkar,” Andru says his name but it’s useless.
Z is wholly focused on his brother, his best friend, his soulmate. “Since we were fifteen you fucking knew?”
“I’m sorry. What good can come from knowing that?” Rodion looks desperate for Z to understand his reasoning.
“That’s my right to know. It’s my fucking history,” Z roars, his spittle spraying Rodion’s face.
Andru moves and stops me when I attempt to intervene, he gently coaxes me out of the way and grasps Z’s arm.
“Zahkar,” Andru warns.
Flinching back, Z shoves at Andru’s chest and storms from the room. My heart plummets when the front door slams shut.
He’s left us.
Rodion takes off running after him and I attempt to follow but Andru grasps my upper arm halting me.
“What do you know about Daniel?” he demands, searching my face for the answers.
I pull free from his grip and sneer. “I know you kept him in Yuri’s basement, tortured, and barely alive. Does Rodion know about him?”
Please say no, please say no, please say no.
Surprise flashes over his face but he masks it quickly. “No. And Daniel deserves every fucking minute of it,” he says with conviction.
“Does Zahkar deserve it, though?” I say the words thickening with my emotions. “How can you love him so much and still keep Daniel like that?” My lips twist in disgust.
“Zahkar is my son, my fucking boy,” he bites out stabbing a finger to his chest, “who I raised and loved despite the pain it sometimes caused me to look at him. Daniel is an evil plague on the earth that I hold no regret about.”
“Was,” I correct him.
“What?” He blinks in confusion.
I lean in closer to make sure he hears me. “Was evil. He’s dead now. It’s been long enough. Z suffered enough without knowing the details or time in which Daniel died.”
His head rears back. “You killed him?” There’s that shock and disbelief again.
“It was probably another heart attack. A lot of that is going around at the moment.” I raise a brow and turn on my heel.
There was no way I was leaving the man who shared Z’s eyes like that.
Even after learning what he did, I don’t regret ending his suffering.
An air bubble injected into his drip line was easy enough.
He’s the devil’s problem now, and Z never has to know. Some secrets are worth keeping.