AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I want to leave her behind. So badly it makes my bones ache.
But I see her in this moment so clearly. She is my wife.Mywife. And she is right. “You will do as I say,” I tell her, taking her face in my hand, forcing her to look me in the eye. “Stay where I tell you to stay, hide where I tell you to hide, wait when I tell you to wait. You will not set a fuckingtoeout of line; do you understand me? I know it’s not in you to do it—but this once, Katerina, I need you to submit.”
Her eyes are luminous, shining with tears and determination, and, if I’m to let my romantic sentiments say a thing—with love. “Yes,” she says. “I will. I swear.”
I want to leave this instant, but a deep and sorrowful part of me knows that one or both of us may die now. So, I bend and kiss her, hard, because I know that even in her broken state, she can take it; and tenderly, because I can’t help myself, and I love her, and loathe her, and need her. I want her. I choose her. Not for her protection and not for my politics, but for love. For who she is. For the fight in her heart. For the family and the future we could come out of this sharing.
She stands on her toes and slides her hands into my hair, clutching me to her like a lifeline, drinking me sweetly. “I love you,” she says, and looks startled when she says it, like it’s a confession she wasn’t sure she wanted to make.
“I know,” I say, and her smile is sharp when she kisses me again. “Now—it’s time. Are you ready?”
I believe her when she says, with a curt nod of her head: “Yes.”
***
It’s the deep, rich black velvet of night when we arrive at the clearing. This time, it was not hard at all to find Konstantin.
He wanted to be found.
He stands there in the black, with a row of cars parked behind him. Their high beams are on, lit on him like spotlights. Fog pours up out of the earth and rolls in a slow, heavy tide. Konstantin may be smiling, his hands locked before him. He may have his chin held high and be wearing his best brushed jacket.
But man—has Kat done a motherfucker on him.
As we roll into the clearing, our own contingent of vehicles sliding in after us in a long, snaking line, I can barely suppress a cold, grim smile. Konstantin’s face is every bit as battered as hers. His bad shoulder hangs stiff, the one she popped a shot into at the farmhouse, and a thick patch of gauze has been secured over his ear. That gives me a slight chill, and I slide my gaze to Kat. The blood on her face back at the cabin…there was so much of it. There is still, clinging to her, visceral and dark. We didn’t waste time washing, just got in the car and drove.
But I can’t help but wonder now, at my wife. At just what the hell she’s capable of.What did she do to you, Konstantin?If we get out of this alive, I’ll make it a point to ask. It’s always good to know just how far one’s spouse is willing to go.
“Are you ready?” I ask Kat, because I know this negotiation—or whatever the hell this is about to be—isn’t going to go down with her waiting in the car. Like a guest of honor at some mad king’s table, she is expected. “Leave the gun, he’ll demand it anyway.”
I can see she wants to fight me on this, but instead, she nods once, and looks to me. “I’m ready.”
I want to kiss her again. She looks fierce in the sheer, hard contours of both the night and the headlights. But I don’t want to make a spectacle. I hope she sees it in my face, how much Iwant to touch her;but not now, not just yet. Soon.I reach for her instead, and gently, reassuringly, I squeeze her knee. Then I get out of the car.
“My, my,” says Konstantin, in his near-perfect English. “If someone isn’t just a little bit late to the party.”
Hell, he’s proud of himself.Even looking like he’s been hit by a runaway train, nothing can match that shit-eating grin. I hear Kat close the passenger’s side door, hear her boots on the gravel as she rounds the nose of the truck and comes to my side.
“That’s far enough,” says Konstantin, when we’ve taken a few steps further. As if the warning and the raised hand aren’t enough, a spatter of gunfire kicks up dirt at our feet, forcing us back. Konstantin chuckles. In the dark, I see his men move like specters. “Who would have thought it, then? I’m certain that you didn’t, did you, Aleks? You didn’t think I had it in me. Admit it. I outplayed you.”
He has. But I won’t admit it. “You’ve got me where you want me, that much is true,” I say blandly. I gesture to his line of trucks, and mine. “We’ve both had casualties. We’ve both had wins and losses. Some of us more than others,” I add, giving him a scathing, slow once-over. It’s enough to make him squirm. “But here we are, with armies facing armies. It is no different than in Russia.”
“Oh, but it is. See…my brother is still dead. And I still want for recompense.” He raises a hand in signal. Along the line of SUVs, a door swings open. Boots crunch on gravel, and I feel every muscle in my body ratchet tight—as one of his armed guards paces slowly to Konstantin’s side, his hand resting on a little boy’s shoulder.
Adam.
Kat makes a soft, horrible sound, her hand flying helplessly to her mouth. She takes a reflexive step forward—only to be answered by a punishing spray of bullet. She shrieks, staggeringback. I grab her arm, yanking her to my side. Her little boy is drawn and pale, and he flinches at the gunshots—but he doesn’t cry.
That is a Lukin boy, I think, and it isn’t the first time I’ve thought it. Only the first time I’ve let myself, and the first time that I have known it to be true.A Lukin. My son. Our son.Heat flows through me, thawing the rage and fear off of my old bones.
“No, we are not just armies facing armies,” says Konstantin. “We are not just enemies with a tally of wins and losses. From where I stand, I do not just have something that you want, Aleksander.” His smile is broad, cut far too wide as he takes Adam by the shoulders and brings him in front of him. “I haveeverythingthat you want.”
I clench my hands into fists. I study my enemy. I think of him; of everything that I know of him, of his hatred and of his pride, of his rage and the price of his brother’s life. He doesn’t want Adam, some squall that isn’t his, that has only half-Russian blood. The son of his enemy, a legacy that will grow into a man and learn to hunt him. This is all part of the game; though perhaps Konstantin doesn’t know it yet. I simply have to offer him something better.
And there is only one thing he wants, if it is not his brother brought back to the land of the living.
Konstantin wants me.
But there is no pride like the pride on a man like him. I can’t simply offer myself. He’d take it as an offense. He’d lash out, I know that he would. And he’s proven he at least has the patience, though looking at him now, I have a sense that it’s running very thin. I can’t offer him anything but myself. And I must make it look fair.
