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As we entered our apartment, we shook off the snow and laughed when I nearly slipped. I took off my beanie, gloves, and scarf, placing them on the kitchen table, and called for my babushka.
The apartment was silent except for the TV, which she kept on just in case Stalin came back from the dead. As I entered the living room, I found her asleep on the couch. I kissed her cold forehead, but an unsettling feeling washed over me.
Approaching her again, goosebumps spread across my body. My gut told me something was wrong. She looked peaceful, with a small smile on her lips and her hands clasped on her chest. It hit me: she was gone. The scene made me nauseous, and guilt overwhelmed me.
Why did I leave her? Had I hugged her before we left?
Panic set in as I called for my dad, tears streaming down my face. I recited the prayer she taught me years ago, hoping for some comfort.
“Gospodi, prosti nam nashi grekhi i sdelay nas takimi zhe dobrymi i miloserdnymi lyud’mi, kak ty. Lord, forgive us our sins and make us as kind and merciful as you are.”
I kissed her cheek and dropped to my knees. My father rushed in, embracing me and doing his best to comfort me despite his own grief.
I was eleven when I first faced death.
Little did I know it would become a recurring part of my life.
“Did you find her?” Igor asked, pulling me out of my thoughts and refocusing my attention on him as the memories began to fade.
Did I find her?
Of course, I fucking found her. And by "her," he meant Helena Melov.
They don’t call me Volk for nothing. Hunting is what makes my blood flow. Finding her was the easiest job he ever gave me. For someone on the run, she did a pathetic job of covering her tracks.
In less than two hours, I knew where she lived, worked, and who she was fucking. I had to thank her little maid for that.
Curiosity sparked when Igor first mentioned her. He never told me why he was looking for Helena, and I never asked. To be honest, I didn’t care about her at all. My sole concern was getting the job done. End of story.
But let’s not pretend curiosity hasn’t poked at me a few times.
“Da.”
“Otlichnaya rabota. Good job,” he said, nodding as he approached me and patted my shoulder. His crooked smile widened, pride glinting in his eyes.
Since that incident years ago, Igor had always been like a father to me. Without him, I might have ended up homeless, in prison, or worse. I owed him everything. He was the only one who believed in me and gave me a purpose.
“Bring Helena and her daughter to me.”
He returned to his desk and sank into the armchair and scratched his beard thoughtfully for a moment. “I haven’t seen her in quite some time. I think it’s time to confront her again.”
Confront her again? His tone, laced with menace, and that chilling, Machiavellian smile suggested Helena’s fate was already sealed.
I grabbed a cigarette from his desk, lit it with my golden Zippo, and exhaled a cloud of smoke.
Sofiya Melov was tall and curvy, with long dark brown hair and sandy-tanned skin. She was pursuing a master’s degree in Greek mythology—an area of study as uninspiring as her life seemed to be. Before moving to San Francisco, where her mother worked as an English professor at a private college, Sofiya had been homeschooled for most of her life. Her mother had managed to keep her position by having an affair with the married principal—likely one of his many mistresses.
I wondered how many bastards the principal had scattered around the city, aside from the unattractive Charles Noels at home, who looked like a humanized version of Quasimodo.
In stark contrast to her mother’s scandalous affairs, the twenty-four-year-old led an uneventful life. No boyfriend, no real friends, no pets—nothing. If "boring" had a definition, her name would probably be next to it.
Digging into her past, I found that at age ten, shortly after moving to the States, she was diagnosed with pneumonia and was hospitalized at Seattle Children's Hospital for three weeks.
Other than that, her record was spotless. She had never been in trouble or had any incidents since then.
Our little sheep might as well be a nun in Siberia. Despite looking like her mother, she seemed like her complete opposite. The only person she appeared close to was her maid, Dasha Metalova, a woman in her late forties who had moved with them from Russia years ago. The more I learned about this enigmatic Metalova, the more intrigued I was to confront her. How did someone like Dasha manage to climb the social ladder and end up working for Helena?
Wonder filled my mind as the unsettling possibility arose: this little bitch might have lied about her past to her boss. But you know what they say—when a lie takes the elevator, the truth takes the stairs. It may take its sweet time, but it always crushes deceit and brings reality to light.
