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I lock eyes with Kolya, wondering how, in a matter of mere months, this stranger knows me better than anyone else ever has.
It started with lemon soda and the scent of vanilla. And now, here we are.
Who the hell knows where we’ll end up next?
“Adrian’s demons were not ones I could conquer on his behalf, June,” he tells me gently. “I tried. Believe me, I fucking tried.”
His tone isn’t quite as apathetic as his expression suggests. I find myself taking a step closer, leaning toward his warmth like a flower seeking sun.
“What happened?” I whisper, before I truly know if anything happened at all.
“You don’t even know his real name, do you?”
I suck in my breath. Of course he had a different name.Adrian—it’s so wholesome, so All-American, so obviously fake. Somehow, in all this time, I’ve never thought to question it.
“Bogdan,” Kolya fills in. “My brother’s name was Bogdan Uvarov.”
“Bogdan,” I whisper, trying to associate the name with the man I knew. It doesn’t fit. Not at all.
“By the time we hit our late teens, our father decided that I had been protecting Bogdan for long enough. He wasn’t satisfied with the progression of Bogdan’s training. So he decided to take matters into his own hands.”
The phrase alone has me shivering. I know what it means now when a man like Kolya “takes things into his own hands.” And if I’ve learned anything about his father, it’s that he was capable of far uglier things than Kolya would ever do.
“We were called into the cellar late one night. There was a woman gagged and bound to a chair. I was told to stand in the corner and not to interfere, no matter what. My father ordered Bogdan to kill her.”
“Why?” I whisper, even though I know it’s a pointless one. Stories like this only end one way.
Kolya shrugs. “To this day, I don’t know what her crime was. It could have been as big as betraying my father to our enemies, or as small as being insufficiently polite. He didn’t see the world in shades of gray, or even black and white. It was one color only: red like blood.”
My body goes cold. I want to tell Kolya to stop, but my mouth has gone numb.
“The first thing Bogdan did was look at me. Our father pulled out his gun and pressed it to Bogdan’s temple. He told him that if he looked at me again, he’d be dead. I had to stand there and watch.”
“H-he did it?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“With his bare hands. She screamed and clawed at his face, but he did what he was told to do.”
My stomach twists with horror. Had I really spent years with the man in this story? Had I kissed his brow at night and told him everything would be okay in the morning? If only I’d known. I’d never have said such things. How could anything be okay after that?
“No. No. No,” I say again and again, as though my sheer willpower can turn back time and stop this from happening.
“My father had Bogdan bury the woman’s body himself. He was never the same after that. He had always been a little lost, but after that, he was utterly broken. He followed our father’s orders like a trained dog. He became as ruthless, as cold as he was told to be. So you’re right about one thing, June: it is my fault. If I had done what I did sooner, I would have spared so many so much pain.”
I feel my legs buckle, so I limp over to the couch and sit down gingerly. My entire body ripples like jelly. And at the same time, it feels like there are a thousand different needles pricking at my skin. Pins and needles, but painful. Excruciating.
“He walked away from the life he knew, thinking that was what he wanted. But it was too late. Neither one of us realized that until later. Changing his name and identity couldn’t change what he’d done. His demons followed him into the outside world, and he unleashed those demons on the people he found there.”
He doesn’t have to say the last piece:people like you.
I haven’t heard Adrian’s voice in my head for a long time. Probably around the time I started developing serious feelings for Kolya. I felt guilty for that for a while.
But not anymore. Now, I’m glad I don’t have his voice haunting my thoughts.
I don’t want to know what he would say.
“Your suffering is a byproduct of my inaction,” Kolya says, pulling my back from the abyss I’m close to falling into. “I was the one who sent Adrian out there.”
“Kolya…”
