“I am not asking. I am telling you that if he puts you in that box and there is no other way, you take the way that keeps our sons alive. You trust that I will do everything to make sure it never comes to that. You also trust that if I fail and you have a knife in your hand,youdo not fail.”
I try to shake my head. The cuffs hold. “I can’t do it.”
“You can. You will. Our sons are counting on you.” He reaches up and presses the release on my left wrist. The cuff opens with the soft click he showed me. He does the right and then the ankles, slow and kind so my blood can come back without sparking. He rubs my wrists with his thumbs to bring the feeling down.
He cups my cheek. The sadness is not gone from his eyes. It sits there like an old friend who cannot be convinced to leave. “You should have told me at once.”
“I know.” It is all I can give him. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, in case he bugged something or was listening some other way.” I glance around the room. “I’m still scared he heard me.”
“Scared is fine,” he says. “We use it. We do not let it use us.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“You will. When the time comes.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and let him hold my weight. He takes it without stepping back. He breathes into my hair. I count his breaths until mine match and the panicked edge goes from razor to dull.
“When you’re ready, we go out there and finish this. One way or the other.”
I gulp down air, and there’s just not enough of it. “I can’t kill you.”
“You’re not going to kill me. You’re going to save our sons.”
“That’s the same thing!”
He takes both of my hands in his and kisses my knuckles. “If you save them, you’ve saved the best part of me. Nothing else matters.”
My heart shatters hearing that. “You matter to me! I love you!”
His eyes shine in the low light. “Hearing that from you is all I’ve ever wanted in this life. I didn’t know it until now.”
He opens the door, and we plunge back into the dark.
28
ROMAN
We returnto the throne the way a tide returns to shore. The floor opens. I sit and the chair takes my weight like it always has. Mina folds across my lap. Faces tilt. Bodies angle. Everyone finds a reason to be looking without getting caught doing it.
We give them a show. I set a hand to her hip and let the grip read as possession because she is mine. It is theater and it is not. I want her again. I also watch the mezzanine, the stairs, the dark cut of the private hall behind the riser that runs to the staff restroom.
Vitaly likes the element of surprise. He will not get it here.
Her fingers find my collar. She draws my head down and kisses me as if there is no one else in the room. The man at the far pillar stops pretending to talk. The woman in a red lace mask leans against the rail and angles for a better view. We have the crowd’s attention.
Mina moves on me in a rhythm that tells the room we are lost in it. She is not lost. She is calculating every possible equation.I feel the insistence gather. She is pulling me toward a line she said she does not want to cross.
I completely understand that. I don’t want to cross it either. But what I want stopped mattering a long time ago when it came to Vitaly.
I wanted a son I could bring up to be better than me. One that grew into a man I respected. I wanted to rest on my deathbed knowing the world was a better place for the man I brought into it.
If this goes right, I’ll rest on my deathbed knowing the world is a better place for the two boys I saved.
I let my palm settle on the arm where the switch hides. I do not look down. I do not look at her hand when it closes over mine and squeezes once. Earlier she asked me to keep the walls down. Now she presses my wrist and does not pull me away from the panel. I read the change and accept it.
She is ready for the walls to go up. If I raise the walls, I tell a boy who wants a crown that I feel safe. He will make himself known, and all of this will be over.
I press. The motors hum below the sound of the music. The panels rise clean and slow. A hush follows the lift. New quiet. The walls climb until the room is sealed. The light inside the box is softer by a shade.
