Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Right, because Sonya never interacted with the help the way I did. Never saw them as more of her family than the people who were actually her blood.
I carefully set the picture down in the back where it was hidden. “The kids?”
“The first two are his,” she confirms. “But they never really knew him. The picture is in case of questions. It’s the only one. I remarried.” A glance at her hands reveals her twisting the wedding ring on her finger. “He’s—”
“Do not try to tell me he’s kind,” I sneer. “Not if he’s the one who gave you that. Or that,” I point at her wrist. “You went from a rapist to someone who beats you—”
“Presumptuous of you to think Sebastian didn’t beat me too.” Everything, everything, inside me goes completely still. “Presumptuous even,” she goes on, tears filling her eyes. “To assume you were the only one who ever suffered in Grandfather’s house.”
I shake my head. “Tell me they never—”
“No, he never sold me. Not nightly anyway. My virginity was more valuable. But that doesn’t mean you were the only one who suffered.
I was hit too, Grigory. Just not anywhere anyone could see.
Andrei, he….” Her chin trembles and I swear, my heart actually halts.
“My virginity as far as anyone would check was kept pristine.”
That motherfucker. I have never been gladder in my life that I killed that monster. Bashed his face in until he was unrecognizable. I should have done more. I should have put a bullet in his balls, taken his own switchblade to the dick he’d dared to bring anywhere near my sister.
Before I can think better of the gesture I’ve crossed the few feet between us and ripped her into my arms. For the first time probably ever, I just hold my sister.
I hold her tight, as if my embrace alone can squeeze all the pain she endured from her bones.
The pain I could have prevented sooner. The pain she endured after that I knew nothing about.
The pain she endured just yesterday or even today.
I never used to think about how strong my sister was to just exist in that house.
Now, I know she was never just existing at all.
She was more of an expert at masking than I’d ever been.
“I’m so sorry, Sonya,” I whisper into her hair. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. If I had—”
“Don’t,” she pulls back, wiping her eyes.
My hands squeeze her upper arms gently, never with enough force to cause more harm.
“Don’t dwell on the past, please. I have spent so many years trying to forgive, there is no need to do this now.
I’m sorry I didn’t do more for you too, but there is nothing we can do to fix it now. ”
She shakes her head, raising a hand to brush a thumb along my cheek. A soft smile curves her lips despite her tears, and I lean into her touch, the touch of an older sister I never experienced before.
“You look like him, you know?” She whispers, her eyes taking in every one of my aged features. “ Like your father. So handsome.”
I offer her the best smile I can manage given the circumstances, but it has always been something I’m proud of.
My father loved our mother. Properly loved her.
Treated her well. Cared about Sonya and me.
I wish I could have known him longer. I wish I could have known him better, properly.
Maybe if she’d been allowed to marry him things could have been different.
The front door opens and before either of us can even turn around, the deep twang of a male voice fills the space. “Who the hell is this?”
Sonya immediately drops her hand, and I turn to see a well- dressed man standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips. He wears a suit with cowboy boots- the real fine leather kind that have never seen dirt a day in their life- and is glaring between us with evident suspicion.
There’s a wedding band on his left hand.
Her husband.
My vision fills in red as my eyes fall from him to the bruise around the wrist that still grips my arm.
“Sean,” she says in broken English. “You remember I said I had brother. This is Grigory. He stopped by for visit.” She looks up at me with a wary smile that I don’t really see because my gaze is locked on the bluish skin along her cheek. “Grigory, this is Sean. My husband.”
Sean steps forward, holding out a hand, polite in mixed company the way most pieces of shit like him learn to act.
“Nice to meet you, Gregory,” he butchers the pronunciation of my former name.
“Can’t say I’ve heard much about you. Sonya rarely talks about her family.
Said you were dead, as a matter of fact. ”
Bet you liked that, asshole. Knowing there was no one around to protect her from you. Knowing you could swoop in, offer to take care of her kids, and do whatever you wanted.
“Grigory,” Sonya whispers, not a correction to him, but a warning to me.
My jaw tightens. “Very much alive,” I supply with gritted teeth.
“I see that.” He looks me over one more time. Takes in my fine suit, my build, the way my hands clench. Then he looks at Sonya. “You make dinner, honey?”
She nods demurely, just the way she was taught growing up in a family like ours. “Yes, dear. I will warm up plate.” Sonya squeezes my arm, a warning. “Grigory, would you like to eat—”
“English, Sonya—”
“She can speak whatever language she wants with me,” I snap before I can think better of it. His cold, brown eyes narrow as I tell her in quiet Russian, “No, thank you. I’m fine.”
She nods and then goes to pass her husband into the kitchen.
His hand snaps out, fingers wrapping around her bicep as he leans in, first to kiss her cheek then to whisper in her ear something I couldn’t hear if I tried because suddenly there is nothing but a violent cacophony of buzzing inside my head.
He’s grabbing her and to anyone else it might look like he’s being gentle because her face remains perfectly neutral, but I see how white his knuckles get.
He’s squeezing, warning, bruising her through the sleeve of her blouse.
Presumptuous of you to think he didn’t beat me too, she’d said.
Not a denial of what is happening to her in this house, only confirmation of the kind of men she keeps getting stuck with.
Men I should have been protecting her from all these years.
Especially back then. I should never have let Sebastian Rossi leave after what he did to me.
I should have killed him too. I should have hunted him down and put a bullet in his head for every scar he left on my soul.
My vision is blurry. My ears are humming. I don’t even know I’ve moved until my fist hurts and there’s blood streaming down Sean’s nose when he stumbles into the stairwell.
Sonya tries to stop me from going for him again. “Grigory! No! Stop, he’s—”
But I don’t hear a word. My fist goes for him again and I get two more good punches in before his collides with the right side of my face. Then the left. Then he’s wrapping an arm around my throat, spinning me around and pinning me to the opposite wall.
“Sean, stop!” Sonya begs in a way I never once heard in our grandfather’s house. “Leave him alone! He didn’t mean it! He is hot head—”
“Back off, Sonya!” He snaps and I struggle in his grip.
“Mom?” The voice of a teenage boy I’ve only seen in pictures calls down from the loft. “What’s going on? Who is that—”
“Go back to bed, Jamie!” Sean shouts and that’s when I feel the cool metal of handcuffs come down on my wrists. “You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say can and will be held against you.”
“Cono…” I bang my head against the wall.
“Oh no is right. You just assaulted a detective, Senyor Gregory.” The way this racist piece of shit butchers both my native languages makes me snarl like an actual animal.
The crackle of a radio comes alive as I assume he pulls it from his belt.
“This is Detective Palermo, anyone in the area near Sunset Hills.”
“Sean, please,” Sonya begs but he shoves her away before she can get a hand between us.
A voice over the radio reports in. “This is Officer Daniels. I’m two minutes away.”
“I have a domestic and assault on an officer,” Sean tells the cop on the other end.
“What’s your location?”
“My house. You know the address.”
“On my way.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Sean pulls me away from the wall, shoving me toward his front door.
When we’re far enough away from Sonya he leans in, growling in my ear.
“I don’t give a shit who you are, you stay the fuck away from my wife and the fuck away from this house.
You understand me, buddy? Swear it and I won’t press charges—”
“She’s my goddamn sister—”
“And she told me you were dead the last seventeen years.” He yanks the door open just as a cop car is pulling up to the curb. “So why don’t you do us all a favor and go back to being dead?”
A few words are exchanged between Sean and the officer and then I’m being shoved into the back of the patrol vehicle.
Sonya is standing on the front stoop, her arms wrapped around herself as she watches her husband give the officer his statement.
Pictures are taken of what I did to his face, then of mine.
I want to tell them to go take pictures of hers too. Of her wrists.
I don’t know why I don’t. I don’t know why I keep my mouth shut, watching as Sean heads back to the house, wrapping an arm around my sister and kissing her temple once before leading her back inside. As if he actually loves her. As if people like him are even capable of love.
But I don’t say a word, watching as my sister disappears in a rearview mirror for the second time in my life. Not knowing, just like the last time, if I’ll ever see her again.