by Nikki Wild
"Lucy?"
Daniil. I leaned up, blinking at him in the doorway. Was he real? Was I still dreaming? I hadn't seen him since...
"Daniil?" I heard the croak in my own voice, my tongue dry and swollen. "You're here?"
"I'm here, Lucya," he said, stepping forward. "I'm here."
Chapter 31
Lucya
You can add "having my brother wake me from my sex dream" to the list of experiences I would rather not repeat. Already on that list: getting locked in a room by my uncle, hearing that my lover is dead, and breaking off my entire pinky nail trying to use it as a lock pick.
If it wasn't for the fact that I needed to make sure Alyona was alright, I wouldn't even have bothered trying to break out. None of the various boyeviks who came in to deliver my meals would say anything to me. About anything. They were perfect, stone-faced soldiers. Those meals usually went back intact. I couldn't eat. Food turned to cement as soon as it hit my tongue.
Three days without more than a mouthful of food had left me looking pale and thin, but what did it matter? Who would I ever be trying to impress again? The only man whose opinion mattered was dead. I would starve myself into invisibility, I could make myself ugly in his memory. No one would ever touch me again – he’d be the last man to lay a hand on my flesh.
The hunger was bad for sleep. Or maybe it was the grieving that was bad for sleep. When I could sleep, I tried not to. Because those dreams hurt too much. They were knives in my heart when I woke up. The dreams where he was still alive and everything was alright. The dreams that taunted my body with their promises, only to burn me up when those promises proved false.
I wasn't sure how long I'd been asleep when Daniil came through the door, shutting it quietly behind him, like he was afraid to be caught. Maybe he was. Alexei couldn't have endorsed this visit.
"He can't do this," Daniil said. Before explaining where he'd been, before asking if I was alright, before questioning the things that had led me there, he was fighting for me. I loved him for that.
"Where have you been?" I asked, rising to sit on the bed, inviting him to sit beside me. I could feel the thin sheen of sweat on my skin, I knew I was flushed. I wondered what kind of noises I'd been making when he came in, before waking me.
We had bigger problems than Daniil knowing I was, in fact, a real human woman with real human desires.
"Boston," he answered. "Alexei sent me off on a wild goose chase. I didn't know about this, Lucya, I swear I didn't."
"I know," I said, grabbing his hand, letting myself take a single second of relief in my brother's presence. He was always so strong. He was quiet, and frustrating at times, but he was so fiercely protective that there had been times I was more worried about him finding out about Sinner than Alexei.
Sitting there on the bed, watching the concern in his eyes do battle with the anger, I remembered when I was seven and an older girl was giving me trouble at school. Basic bullying, but I came home in tears every day. Daniil would never hit a girl, but he did make sure she got the message to lay off his sister. I don't know how he got her lunch bag, but he made sure to put the "sand" in sandwich, and the prank dye in her grape juice stained her teeth for days. She never bothered me again.
And that boy who had a crush on Alyona in seventh grade, and only knew how to express those feelings through literal mud-slinging, was probably still looking over his shoulder every time he walked past a jungle gym. I still don't know how Daniil avoided expulsion on that one; probably one of the times being a Maximovich actually came in handy.
"Daniil, is Alyona okay?" I asked. "Have you seen her?"
"Yes," Daniil nodded, and relief flooded through me. Though immediately after that, I realized that without fear for Alyona taking up emotional space in my heart, there was just more room for grief. "She's fine. You know how Alexei is about her."
Right. Alyona's timid nature appealed to Alexei's bullish ego. He doted on her, at least as much as Alexei doted on anyone. I couldn't blame him; who wouldn't dote on Aly, with her big doe eyes and her bright laugh?
I hadn't gone three days without seeing my sister in years. I missed her.
"That's good," I said, knowing that the words didn't match my eyes. "That's really good."
"Tell me about him," Daniil said after a moment. "The man who caused all this."
"He didn't cause anything," I said. "He wasn't even involved in the theft. He just happened to be a part of the Rogue Tide."
Daniil sensed my defensiveness and matched it with suspicion.
"So he said," he argued. "Regardless, surely you both knew what you were risking. He knew your relation to Alexei, and he knew what Alexei was capable of."
"So did I," I spat. "I knew better than he did. But when I tried to break it off, Daniil, I couldn't. By then, he meant too much to me."
I still hadn't told anyone about Amy, hoping against hope that she was long gone. Even being with her abusive mother would be better than being somewhere Alexei could get his hands on her.
"Why?" Daniil challenged. "Tell me about him."
"Like what?" I said, biting back a sob. "What, like his favorite ice cream flavor was strawberry? Like he killed three men since he was patched into the Rogue Tide? Like he had long blond hair and a beard and gray eyes? A Don Quixote tattoo? Better at pool than me, never drank vodka, size eleven shoes, liked thrillers and Bruce Springsteen?"
"Lucy..."
"No," I said, realizing that I was crying. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know, Daniil. When he touched me it was like he set me on fire, when he sat down on a bed it caved under him, he only wore Levi jeans, he liked cinnamon in his coffee, his favorite breakfast cereal was Honey Bunches of Oats, he rode a 1993 Indian, he listened to London Calling on repeat when he got drunk, he'd never been outside the United States.
He painted his nails black once when he was a teenager, his brother died at three from pneumonia, his father was a banker who beat his wife, his mother was a homemaker who took the abuse, his ex-girlfriend's name was Danielle, and he shot himself in the foot when he was 14 and had a fucked up big toe because of it."
Breathless, I finally stopped. Sometimes if you have a headache, it helps to throw up. That verbal vomit was its own unusual relief. The grief was still there, but it felt less like a tightening vise and more like a slow-flowing river. I took a deep breath and pulled my hand back into my lap. I could feel Daniil staring at me, trying to figure out what he was supposed to feel about his younger sister loving a man most people wouldn't consider any good - and how he was supposed to feel about that man being dead.
"You love him?" Daniil finally asked. I was tired of talking about that. Qualifying it. Like loving him made up for anything. Like loving him made it okay that I led him to his death.
"Yeah," I muttered. "I did."
"But not anymore?"
"What? Daniil...he's dead," I said. "Of course I still love him. But loving a dead man is...it just hurts to much to say."
Daniil nodded slowly, absorbing everything in that awful, slow way he had. The way he did everything. He was so much like our father. And so unlike our uncle.
"Why have you started trusting Alexei now?" he finally asked.
"You think he's lying about Sinner?" I said.
"It would hurt you," he explained. "It would make you feel hopeless. That's what he wants."
"But Daniil," I said. "I can't latch on to some hope that he's lying. Because if I do that, and he's telling the truth, it'll be like losing him all over again. And I can't handle that. Hearing it once was more than enough for one lifetime."
"Okay," Daniil said. "I understand."
He looked down at his hands. He was sliding them together, up and down, palm against palm.
"He doesn't get to hurt us anymore," he said. "I'm not going to let him. He's taken enough already."
I knew what my brother was saying. And it chilled me all the way down. Once Daniil decided something, it was decided. There was no changing
his mind.
"Don't you dare," I said, feeling my face drain and go pale. "Don't you fucking dare, Daniil."
My tone surprised him, his head snapping back on his neck as he met my eyes.
"If you get your stupid fucking ass killed, trying to avenge my love life..."
"And our parents," he reminded me, tone scathing. "This isn't just about you."
"It's not about you either," I spat. "It's about us. The three of us. You, me, and Aly. Deda isn't going to live forever. I need you to be here when he's gone. If you're gone, and it's just Aly and I against him, we won't stand a chance. Just like without Aly, you and I wouldn't have anything to fight for. It's three of us, or none of us. You understand that?"
"You weren't thinking that when you were running off with your lover," Daniil said. "Alexei could have created an 'accident' for you anytime."
"Don't act like I didn't know that," I said. "What would you have wanted me to do, Daniil? Deny my heart because I was so afraid of Alexei? Is that the life you want to live? Tiptoeing around our desires because of him?"
"That's why I'm going to end this," Daniil said, rising to his feet, that determined look on his face.
"Daniil..."
"It's not a debate, Lu," he said. I felt like my heart was already being crushed, and he just delivered the final impact to turn it into pulp. Daniil hadn't called me Lu in years. Just like I hadn't called him...
"Danny, please. Don't let him hurt you."
"He already has," Daniil said, one hand on the door. "He killed my parents, broke your heart."
"That's not what I mean, idiot," I said. "Don't get all fucking poetic on me."
"I'll be Vor soon, Lu," he said, the ghost of a smile on his face. "You can't talk to me that way."
I screamed into a pillow as he shut the door behind him. Like losing my lover wasn't enough, I was about to watch my brother dig his own grave. If I played my cards right, maybe my sister would hang herself in the closet, and Deda would chug bleach. And I'd be forced to stay alive. As one by one, everyone I cared about died, I'd be stuck here, getting lonelier and lonelier. This opulent jail cell already felt smaller than it had the day before. Soon, the walls would start moving, crushing me between them. And I'd still be alive, haunted.
Hell isn't other people. It's their ghosts.
Chapter 32
Sinner
"Aren't you...you're fucking one of them," Tusk rose like a viper from his seat. "What the fuck are you doing here? Boy, you must have hit your damn head this morning, walking in here like you have any right!"
The man, who was clearly related to Lucya, if I had to judge by his eyes and bone structure, stood his ground. He'd walked right through the front door. Fucking balls of a bull, this guy. Three days since his friends bashed their way in here and fucked up our homestead. He was lucky it was Tusk and I on guard; if it was Army, he’d probably be shot on sight.
At any rate, I was having a hard time concentrating on what kind of nerve he had to have, looking at him and seeing Lucy's face hidden inside his.
If I had to guess, I'd guess he was here for me.
Ding ding ding. We have a fucking winner.
"Please," he said sternly, the word not quite living up to its definition when it came out in his harsh voice. He was looking at me like I had three heads. "Are you Sinner?"
Tusk turned to me, eyes open wide. We'd been sitting in the front room, where we'd taken to posting a guard ever since the raid. Someone to watch the road and sound the alarm if the bastards tried it again.
"This guy knows you?" Tusk said. Well, fuck, I guess he did. Which might just blow whatever cover I had left. But then his surprise melted into laughter. "Ain't that some shit?"
"Yeah," I said, making eye contact with the stranger. "It is. What's it about?"
If it was about Lucya, I didn't want to fucking hear it. I never wanted to hear her name again. Even just seeing him was too much, the echoes of her identity in his eyes and the sharp, high triangles of his cheeks. He was a fuckton uglier, for sure, but yeah. I wasn't all that over her yet.
"If I'm reading you right, I think you have some clue as to who I am," he answered, being all cagey and shit. I didn't like that, even though he was fucking right. "Do you really need me to spell it out for you?"
"No," I spat, only because I didn't want Tusk knowing anything. He was already looking dumbfounded, staring at me like an alien had just touched down and I'd started speaking its language. "I don't want to hear anything any Maximovich has to say. I think I've heard enough already."
"Not enough of the truth, I'd wager," the guy said, and I could sense a bit of his stoicism breaking down. Whatever he wanted to talk about - whatever Lucy sent him over here to say - it must have been pretty important. '
"If you're not out of here in thirty seconds, son, you won't be getting out of here at all," Tusk cut in, pulling his pistol and cocking it very deliberately.
"I'm here to help," he made one last plaintive attempt. I rubbed my upper lip with my finger, trying to hide the twisting of my lips as I battled with my own emotions. I could tell myself from sunup to sundown that I was done with that woman and anything she had to say, but...
"Outside," I cracked, standing up and lifting an open palm to Tusk, trying to show him it was alright. Maybe Tusk was my best friend among the Rogue Tide boys, but he shot me a look I didn't much like as I walked out the front door with our sworn enemy leading the way.
"What is it?" I said as soon as the door shut behind me. The guy looked around uncomfortably.
"My car..."
"Say it here, or don't say it at all," I snapped. It was cold as Hitler’s heart outside, the mid-April sun concealed by clouds, winter staking the very last of its claim on us. The sooner this was over with, the better. And fuck me; I wasn't getting in a car with anyone of his bloodline. "What're you, anyway? Her cousin? Brother?"
"Brother," he said, his hand twitching. In another universe, I guess, we would have been shaking hands as we introduced ourselves. Didn't seem like the right thing to do now, but I could sympathize with the instinct. "Daniil."
"Yeah, alright," I said. "So spill."
"First of all, she thinks you're dead," he said. Well. Okay. I didn't really know how to take that - or what it meant. He sensed my confusion and continued. "Alexei's got her locked up like a goddamn fairy tale. He knows she'll come to you if he lets her go."
"Why? To rub it in?" I sneered. Now, he was the one looking confused. "Listen, I don't know what the fucking game is this time around, but I'm not playing. Fool me once and all that, you know?"
"She was never trying to play you," Daniil said, stoic eyes blazing with the first true sign of life I'd seen. "I don't know what Alexei told you, but it's not true. My uncle is - he is not a good man."
"Ha," I laughed. "And you are? For that matter, do you think I am? No one in this house behind me is a good man."
"My uncle killed his brother and sister-in-law in cold blood, stabbed them in their marital bed, so he could take over the Bratva," Daniil spit out with some effort. Revealing this little bit of information obviously pained him greatly, and I got a weird feeling in my stomach. My instincts were betraying me. Something about his fervor was very, dangerously believable. "He lied to you. My sister loves you. She always has. You really trust a stranger who invaded your home, over the woman who shared your bed?"
Well, that was weirdly intimate for a brother to say, but it rang with the kind of truth that made me sick. I glanced away from his overbearing eyes, feeling the tides of my heart shifting.
"So, what? You're here to reunite us? What am I supposed to do, ride in on my Indian and rescue her?"
"Actually," Daniil hissed. "Yes."
My eyebrows rose halfway to my hairline. This motherfucker couldn't be serious.
"My uncle is planning to return, with a brigade from Maine," he said. "Tomorrow. Enough men to take you out, considering the damage already done."
Fuck. Did I believe him? Co
uld I afford not to?
"If you attack first, before they get here..."
"I've seen Star Wars, motherfucker," I said. "I know a trap when I see one. You get us all riled up, riding into an ambush? No fucking way."
"If you don't do this, you won't live to see another sundown," he said. Big fucking words.
"What if we just called up our outlying contingents?" I challenged. "Get our boys from downstate and Connecticut up here to man the barracks?"
"Try it, if you want," Daniil said. "But I'm offering you something rare. I'll tell you everything you need to know to take my uncle down."
"Why? Just because your sister loves me?"
"No," he said. "Because that bastard didn't just take my father's life. He also robbed me of my inheritance. Once Alexei has a son, any claim I have to the title of Vor is gone."
"I don't trust you," I said flatly. "That's kind of all there is to it, kid. Sorry."
My stomach was sicker than ever, and I had a taste in my mouth like when you brush your teeth after drinking orange juice. I had no idea if I was doing the right thing, but I knew I was doing the safe thing. As I turned to go, Daniil grabbed my sleeve. When I turned, a snarl on my lips, I wasn't entirely surprised to find myself looking down the barrel of a gun. I was surprised when that gun flipped around, offered up to me like a joint between friends. Daniil's blue eyes blazed at me over the black metal.
"Take this," he said. "You can shoot me right now, if you want."
I scoffed, not following this new insanity train at all.
"Or you can use it to shoot my uncle," he said. "The man who's done his very best to poison you against my sister. The man whose life you spared, only to have that favor returned in blood. Kill him, and the Bratva answers to me. And I'll be sympathetic to your cause."
I took the gun without thinking about it, holding its weight in my palm.
"Why don't you just kill him yourself?"
Daniil smiled mirthlessly.
