If, somehow, I had married Olga and we were in this situation, she would not have handled it with Mina’s grace. She would have gone catatonic, despite being raised in this world. I would have sent her away with the babies and hunted Vitaly down.
Even now, with this plan in motion, I wonder whether that would have been the better strategy. Mina is handling this better than I expected her to, but taking her with me into the lion’s den is a tall ask.
But she does not shrink from it. She hates this, and she is still here. I do not deserve a woman like her.
If we survive tonight, I will live every day trying to change that.
The closet waits with its dark hung order. Tonight the suit is black. Shirt black. Tie black. No shine. I button each button with hands that refuse to hurry and refuse to shake. My holster fitsskim to my body. The jacket settles right across the back. The bigger gun sits in the case at my feet and will ride in the car. I pocket a second magazine and a thin phone no one knows about.
On my way down I stop at the nursery and stand in the door. Two small shirts wait on a chair for a morning that belongs to us again. A toy truck sits under the dresser like it rolled there on purpose. I pick it up and place it on the shelf.
Soon they will play with that truck. Mina will pretend to rev it up, and they will laugh, and all will be right with the world. That’s all that matters.
Whether I’m alive to see that is inconsequential.
I go back upstairs and knock softly before I open our door. Mina is sitting now. Her mouth has color. Her hair is down. She looks like she’s ready for a battle no one else will know about until it’s too late.
“Ready?”
“Yeah, ready.” Her voice is steady. Her eyes are somewhere two steps behind it.
She takes my arm when I offer it. She fits at my side as if we have been doing this for years. I hope to. But I don’t count on it.
My son has a knack for getting what he wants.
Vitaly was always his mother’s creature, and his mother was trained by the best assassin I’ve ever known. He’s lethal, with a body count higher than most in that line of work.
But he’s sloppy. Prideful. When the moment comes, I will play to his flaws. I will let him think he has the upper hand, then take it from him.
That’s the only play I’ve got.
In the car she looks out the window as the gate opens. The trees make a tunnel. The city takes us back like it did not notice we left. There are small pieces of life in every frame. A man smokes at a bus stop and cups the ember when the wind pushes it. A girl runs with a bag held against her chest so it does not bump her ribs. A dog pulls a woman toward the thing it wants to smell.
This is why I fight the way I fight. None of these people know they are under a roof I built. I do not need them to know.
I look at my own hands. They are steady and used. The lines were made by work I inherited. They will do more tonight. I think about the boy who has his mother’s eyes and my build, and what he’d do if he were ever to inherit the work I did.
Vitaly would burn this city down if it meant he could wear a crown. It’s all he’s ever wanted, the only future his ego would accept. He has a quick temper and a quicker trigger finger. Our family’s name would end in the ashes of this city.
“I thought being pakhan meant I could do whatever I wanted,” I mutter to myself. The words arrive without me thinking about it.
Mina turns fully now. “Doesn’t it?”
“On the contrary, it means doing what everyone else needs. Pakhans—the good ones—do not live for themselves. They live for their people. It means fathering those who need fathered. It means helping the helpless. It means marrying the wrong woman to protect the right one, and still failing.” Old scars. “It means trying to do the best for your people at all times, even when it feels like the wrong thing. And sometimes, it means killing your own blood because they live only for themselves.Thatis my son’s failing.”
Mina sits silently for a beat. “I would have thought all the killing was his failing.”
“That’s the result of his shortcomings. A symptom of his sickness. He’d rather kill than negotiate. He’d burn a building down to collect the insurance instead of refurbishing it. If he can eliminate an obstacle, he will do so, because it’s easier than not getting exactly what he wants.”
“That’s why you think he’d be a bad pakhan.”
“Even if my son were to take the title, he would rule briefly. The others would not tolerate the chaos he would bring. It would be a year at most before he was taken out. Or the law caught up to him. He is too rambunctious and hateful to rule quietly.”
She studies my face. “You mean to kill him tonight, don’t you?”
I nod once. It is a small movement. It feels like more than I want to carry. “I wish it could be different. I do not want to kill him. But he has not given me a choice.”
The truth sits heavy when it is said aloud. I watch her breathe and see the small catch in it.
