Page 78 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

Then the phone buzzes in my hand, and a picture loads. I look at it because I cannot not look at it.

Lev, slumped sideways in a chair he’s bound to, his head fallen at an angle no living neck permits. His coat is open. His shirt is open too, and what belongs inside a man is no longer inside him.

It is in his lap. And on the floor. Dark and glistening tubes, pulled every which way out of his abdomen. Viscera in all directions.

His mouth is sewn shut, with blood around the needle holes. They did that to him while he was alive. Sewed his mouth shut. Then gutted him.

My back presses against the corridor wall. I don’t remember it happening—only feeling the cold tile through my shirt and hearing a nurse ask a question I don’t reply to.

Lev. He’s gone.

“Sir, your son is alive⁠—”

I blink at the nurse. “What?”

“He’s not gone. He’s alive. I know he looks terrible, and I’m sorry for that, but your son is alive.” She pauses. “I can call a social worker if you need someone to talk to. Or a priest, if you’d prefer.”

“I—what did⁠—”

“You said he’s gone, but he’s not. I know the machines look brutal, but they’re doing their job.”

Job. Right.

I take another breath. This one nearly chokes me. “Thank you. I… I’ll be alright. No need to call anyone for me.”

The machines have Niklaus. I have Alexei.

I realize now that the day isn’t over for me. It has merely been waiting for me to catch up.

33

THEA

Galina returns with twelve stitches in her lip and seats herself beside me as a woman who is descending amidst a lifetime of suffering. “Pasha?”

“He’s out of surgery. They expect him to make it.”

She crosses her chest and whispers a few words in messy Russian that I can’t follow.

“He has months of recovery, but they expect him to fully recover.”

Her eyes shimmer with tears, and her tough face briefly falters before she regains her composure. “Good. Stupid boy, taking a bullet through a door. He cannot do that to me again.”

She wouldn’t have survived the loss of him. I hear it in her voice.

“There’s more.” I keep my voice low. “Max sent Lev. After Sokolov. To finish it tonight. This will all be over soon.”

She takes this with a gentle, knowing nod, her expression unchanging—she knows what it means. “Of course he did. It’s what must be done,” she murmurs softly. “Niklaus?”

“Needs blood. That’s where Maxim is right now. Donating. It’s bad, Galina. The lung. I’m sorry.”

Something complicated moves through her face then. “Why sorry? He is a snake. He hurt Pasha as much as that bullet.”

But I know she doesn’t mean it. There’s no anger in her voice as she says it. Only hurt.

Galina cared for Klaus, serving him soup and cleaning his scraped knees while his dad sent birthday cards from abroad. She has also watched that same boy attempt to set the house on fire. This situation is hard for her in a different way than anyone else.

“You don’t mean that.”