Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Giovanni
Kirill’s voice comes through the earpiece into my ear.
“It’s confirmed: Fabiano has ties to Zaki. And Zaki has been approving orders large enough that they can’t take them through the minor routes. Which means —”
“Which means they’re getting ready to take me down and control my routes.”
“That’s my read. You don’t have much time?”
I am at the window of the first-floor hall. Below me, in the garden, Yana has wheeled Lucia out to the flowerbeds. They are stopped at the roses. Lucia is pointing at something and laughing, and Yana is bent down beside the chair, and I can hear, faintly, the sound of her laughing.
“Tell me something, Pakhan,” I say. “How often have you seen your bodyguard laugh?”
There is silence on the line.
“Don, we keep this at business. Don’t make me regret the favor.”
I laugh.
“Send your men at midnight. I’ll hand over everything I need you to have.”
“Alright, take it easy.”
“Pakhan.”
“Mm.”
“Will they forgive me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” I watch the garden. “I’ll miss you most of all, Pakhan. I feel like you and I are soulmates who—”
The line dies on me. He hung up, so strait-laced.
I laugh again, alone, at the window. Below, Lucia has taken Yana’s hand.
She is holding it in both of hers and laughing at something.
I go down to meet them, removing the dailies and putting them in my pocket.
Lucia sees me first. She lifts her free hand and waves, delighted, the way she used to wave when she was small, and I came home with something in my pockets for her.
She has color in her face. I notice it as I come closer, there in her cheeks and her lips. She has put on a little weight. She is sitting up in the chair without the slump she has carried for years.
How was I so blind? How did I let her fade for years? How did I miss the plot happening under my own roof in my own corridor in the room I visit every night?
I force the smile and bend and kiss her chin.
“There’s my girl.”
“Giovanni.” She is glowing. “You came out.”
I straighten and look at Yana.
She has stepped back. She has gone from kneeling beside my sister, her face open, to standing a pace away, her hands tense at her sides and her face shut.
She is a guard again. I haven’t spoken to her properly in days.
I have barely seen her; she wakes early, runs her laps, and spends her hours with Lucia.
She has made my sister her whole project.
It is a good thing, I tell myself.
“We’re having a picnic,” Lucia says. “The cook is bringing food. Stay with us, please.”
I look at Yana, but she gives me nothing.
I tilt my head.
“Volkova.” Her last name, because I want to see if it moves her. “Is it all right if I join you, Gus?”
Lucia pinches my arm. “Don’t tease her!”
I keep my eyes on Yana, waiting.
“As you wish, Don,” she answers.
I look at her while she is not looking at me.
The black activewear. The line of her arms which are stronger than any of the soft women at the Marchetti estate.
The curve of her waist. Her mouth. I think about whether it would be so terrible to take one more bite of it before this is over.
Because it will be over; Fabiano will move soon.
I will have to let her go, too. Two women I am about to lose at once.
A maid comes across the lawn with a basket. Yana takes it from her. “Come on, you two,” Lucia says. She stretches out her hand.
Yana takes it. I wheel the chair to a flat green space under the big tree, and Yana spreads the cloth.
I move to lift Lucia down.
“No,” she says, smiling. “I can stand on my own. Let me show you.”
I step back and watch her plant her good foot down. She grips the arm of the chair. She pushes up, her face tightening with the effort, and she stands. She stays standing for a moment, swaying slightly, proud. Then she lowers herself onto the cloth, carefully, on her own.
Yana leans in and says, quietly, “Good job.”
Lucia blushes.
I blink quickly, and I sit.
“I had the cook make your favorite meals,” Lucia says. “You’ve been stuck in that awful study for days. You need something nice and hot.” She lifts the lid off the small pot, and steam rises off it.
Yana helps her dish out the food, and when she hands me the plate, our fingers touch. She pulls her hand back fast.
I chuckle. Yana brings out another pot and opens it. “This is for you,” she tells Lucia. “You need it.”
She puts it out for Lucia, who takes it with a smile.
“Tell us about yourself,” Lucia says to Yana.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
She says it mildly.
“What about your family?”
Yana takes a breath. “I have a brother. That’s all.”
“Oh.” Lucia lights up. “That’s so sweet. I’d love to meet him.”
“Me too,” Yana says quietly. “I saw him last when he was barely a teenager. I lost him.”
Lucia gasps.
“He isn’t dead,” Yana says quickly. “Just missing. I’ll find him soon.”
Lucia goes still. “That’s so horrible.” She turns to me. “Giovanni, why don’t you help her find him?”
“No need,” Yana says immediately.
I wipe a bit of porridge from the corner of my sister’s mouth.
“I’ll help her.”
My eyes meet Yana’s, and she looks away.
For the first time, I see it plainly: the sadness in her eyes over her brother. He is a wound she carries. Of course, he is. If I lost Lucia, I would lose my mind. She has lost hers for fifteen years.
“He’s lucky to have a sister like you,” Lucia says to her.
Yana changes the subject. “How was your childhood?”
Lucia goes pale.
Yana sees it instantly. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean —”
She does not know. Of course, she does not know. She assumed we grew up the way people in this world usually do. Sheltered from the evil of the world until we could profit from it.
Then I remember the dissociations; would reminding Lucia of our childhood trigger anything? I turn to Lucia, and I watch her face.
“I’m fine,” she says.
She turns to Yana, who is still apologizing with her eyes, and she forces a smile.
“Our father used to hurt us,” Lucia says. “A lot. We never knew our mother. She died when we were very little. All we had was him, and he used to hit us.”
I look at my sister. I was the one who got hit for stealing food when he starved us and tried to bring money home. She got hit for the times she put herself between me and his belt.
Yana looks shocked.
“I — I’m —”
“You thought we were rich kids,” I say, eating.
“No. I — I —”
She falls silent. Lucia breathes in. My eyes are on her. She wipes her eyes.
“It’s okay, Angel,” I tell her.
“I’m so sorry,” Yana says.
“You don’t have to be,” I say. “I killed him.”
The silence goes tense. Yana’s eyes meet mine, but there is no shock on her face. There is understanding, almost.
“He deserved it,” Lucia says. “I’d kill him myself if I could.”
“Killing is bad,” I say fast. “You can’t.”
Yana laughs.
It comes out of her suddenly, and her whole face changes with it. Lucia and I both turn to look at her.
“Sorry,” she says.
I wait.
“It’s just ironic,” she says. “You saying killing is bad.”
Lucia hides a smile, and I chuckle. It is darkly funny. Our line of work makes it so
“Let’s talk about something nicer,” Lucia says, still giggling. “Flowers. Which flowers do you like, Yana?”
“I don’t know much about flowers.”
“You have to have a favorite one.”
“The ones that don’t need much. That grow anyway.”
“That’s not a flower, that’s a personality.”
“Lavender, then.”
“Lavender.” Lucia nods, satisfied. “I like peonies. Giovanni hates flowers; he pretended to like them for me when I was little. He always got bitten by bugs trying to pick them…”
They go on like that; I sit back on the cloth, and I watch them.
And underneath the warmth of it, in the place where I keep the things I do not say, I let myself feel the truth I have been pushing down for days. I wish I had lived a different life.
A life where I could keep my sister safe and keep this woman beside me. I watch my sister eat porridge and laugh. For the first time in my life, I find myself regretting every decision that brought me here.
* * *
I tuck the blanket up around Lucia’s shoulders.
She is asleep. She went down easy tonight, easier than she has in months, worn out in the good way from a full day in the sun.
Her face is untroubled. There is still color in it, even now.
We spent the whole day with Yana; the picnic ran long.
Lucia talked until her voice gave out, then made Yana talk, then made me talk, and by the time the sun started to set, she was leaning against the side of the chair, half-dreaming, with a smile on her face.
I brush her hair back and kiss her forehead.
“Goodnight, Angel.”
I close the door softly behind me, and Yana is in the corridor.
She has waited. She is leaning against the wall a few feet from the door with her arms crossed, and she straightens when I come out.
“How is she?”
I nod.
“That’s good,” she murmurs, almost to herself.
I take her hand; she looks back at me and then down at my hand around hers.
“I’ve missed talking to you,” I say.
She looks at me like the words are a trap. Her eyes move over my face, reading it. I pull her gently away from Lucia’s door, around the corner, into the quiet of the next hall where the lamps are low.
I cup her face, and I kiss her the way I have wanted to all day, watching her across the picnic cloth, watching her laugh at my sister’s jokes, watching her hands put the porridge into a bowl. Finally, her mouth under mine and my thumb against her jaw.
She does not resist. I pull back and look at her. Her lips, her eyes, the small line between her brows that has gone soft.
I take her hand again, and she follows.
I lead her down the corridor to my room and open the door and bring her inside. I shut it behind us, and I turn to her and cup her face in both hands.
“It feels like ages,” I say, “since it was just you and me, Lupa.”