But vengeance, even then, felt meaningless. What was retribution to a man who had already lost everything that made life worth the living?
My thoughts, unbidden, drifted to another grave—not one of stone or earth, but of memory.
I was nineteen when I left my mother in that squalid hotel room, clutching a letter meant for Penelope.
When I returned, the room was empty.
No sign of my mother but the chaos left behind—torn sheets, shattered glass, the metallic scent of blood heavy in the air. Her scarf lay crumpled near the bed, stained and torn. The silence was unbearable, as though the walls themselves had witnessed and could no longer speak of what they’d seen.
She was gone.
Taken.
And the proof of what they’d done to her lingered in every corner, in every breath I drew.
I had tracked the address the receptionist gave me, my heart pounding with desperate hope.
The rain that night fell in thin, slanted lines, slicing through the city’s glow, soaking my clothes until they clung like regret. New York’s streets reeked of gasoline and fear, the kind that lingered in every alley, every flickering streetlamp.
I drove fast, reckless, my hands white-knuckled on the wheel, headlights cutting through the storm. Each turn of thetires felt like a countdown—to finding her, to saving her, to undoing whatever nightmare had begun.
When I reached the place—the hill just outside the Bronx, where the streetlights died and the city’s hum faded into silence—I knew, even before I saw her, that something had gone terribly wrong.
The wind carried the smell of rain and rust, the kind that clung to old fences and forgotten places. My heart hammered in my chest as I climbed the slope, my shoes slipping on the wet grass.
And then I saw her.
My mother lay there, beneath the dim glow of a flickering streetlamp—her body broken, her once-bright dress torn and stained, her skin bruised with the violence of what they’d done to her. Her hair fanned across the earth like spilled ink, her eyes open to the sky, glassy and still.
For a heartbeat, the world stopped. Then a sound ripped out of me—something between a sob and a scream, too raw to be human.
“Mama!”
I fell to my knees beside her, mud soaking through my jeans, my hands trembling as I touched her face, her throat, her chest. Nothing. No breath, no pulse, no warmth.
“Mama, wake up!” I begged, my voice breaking apart, tears blinding me as I shook her limp shoulders. “Please—please wake up. Please, Mama.”
But the night gave me nothing. Only silence.
Only the whisper of the wind through the grass, as if the earth itself was mourning her.
I pulled her into my arms, cradling her like a child, pressing my forehead to hers. Her skin was cold—too cold—and she smelled faintly of rose soap, blood, and rain. The scent I wouldnever forget. The scent that would haunt every breath I took after that night.
Something inside me shattered—quietly, completely.
I didn’t hear the footsteps until they were close. Didn’t register the crunch of gravel or the faint rustle of a coat until a shadow fell across us.
When I finally looked up, a man stood there—tall, broad, a dark coat clinging to him in the drizzle. His face was carved with the calm of someone who’d seen too much.
Ruslan Baranov.
“Come with me,” he said. His voice was low, steady—an offer and an order at once.
The world I’d known had died on that hill—under the dim streetlight, beneath the cold breath of the city wind.
Everything that tethered me to life had been torn away, leaving nothing but the hollow echo of her name in my chest.
There was nothing left to question.
