I didn’t force them to take drugs.
It was their choice.
I just made it easier.
But sometimes, no matter how hard I try to tell myself that they brought it onto themselves, I have a hard time not feeling guilty about being an active participant in their self-destruction.
I shudder when Ilya runs his knuckles along my jaw.
“What have you done, Mishka? I’m sure it isn’t as bad as you think,” Ilya whispers as he looks me in the eyes.
I look away.
It doesn’t matter what he’s involved in or whathehas done.
These are my own personal demons.
For some reason that doesn’t make sense to me, I don’t want him to see me in that light.
If I’m going to get him to trust me, though, I need to give him something. I have to make him see me as a potential ally. “I hurt people,” I tell him after several long moments.
People who’d made their own decisions.
But I’d still hurt them.
Ilya’s smile doesn’t lessen, but his eyes get sadder. “It’s the way of the world. Even children hurt others.” He pulls me even closer to himself and kisses my jaw gently.
My heart pounds against my ribs. This is it. This is when I can try to get something out of him. This is what I’ve been working up to.
“Have you?” I whisper.
Ilya closes his eyes and takes a long breath. “I hurt my mother when I didn’t help her. I hurt my sister when I didn’t believe her. I hurt my colleagues and subordinates.” He clutches my hips. “I went to prison in Russia. There was much pain there.”
“What… What did you do?” I ask, and it’s my turn to brush my lips against his cheek. “I won’t think badly of you, Ilya.”
I need to know.
I need him to tell me.
I need something to tell Adam.
“I was convicted of…” Ilya says a Russian word. “It means I beat a man. I broke his leg. He could only walk with limp after that.”
My heart thunders in my ears. “Why?” I ask him.
That’s the most important question, isn’t it?
What crimes had the man committed to earn a beating like that? Or had it been nothing at all, and Ilya really is the violent gangster Adam says he is?
“Because his face made me angry.” Ilya lets out a dark, bitter laugh. “If he had been a different man, I wouldn’t have gone to jail. But he was my father. He had connections. And if I did not go to prison, he would have killed me.”
So much violence, passed from generation to generation.
I wonder if Adam’s father had hurt him, too.
“I’m sorry,” I say, cupping his cheek before kissing his lips. “But he hurt your mother.”
His father had deserved what was coming to him.
