He smiles forlornly. “Insurance. Against exactly this kind of betrayal.”
The tablet disappears back into his jacket. Aleksei rises from his chair and crosses to the nearest window. Through the grit caked on the glass, he looks out at the bleeding sunrise with his hands clasped behind his back.
“So here is what happens now,” he says without turning around. “You have a choice, Semyon. Two doors. Behind one: destruction. I take this evidence to my friends in the FBI, the ones who owe me favors, and Bastian Hale—or whatever’s left of him—spends the rest of his miserable life rotting in a federal prison. Your pregnant girlfriend raises your child alone, always looking over her shoulder. Sage grows up knowing his brother is a murderer. Young Zeke loses his restaurant, his reputation, everything.” He turns to face me, silhouetted against the dawn. “Behind the other door: freedom. For them, at least. And for you, too. In a way.”
He reaches into his pocket and produces a manila envelope, thick with documents. He tosses it onto my lap.
“This contains a new identity and the passport to go with it. There is a plane ticket to São Paulo, too. It leaves tonight.” His voice is almost gentle, like he truly thinks this is mercy in the making. “You will disappear, Semyon. Forever. No contact with Eliana, with Sage, with Zeke, with anyone from your former life. In exchange, I bury the evidence. Your loved ones live in peace.”
I stare at the folder as the blood on my hands goes tacky and crusted.
“You were always the sentimental one,” Aleksei adds softly. “I’m giving you a chance to protect them the only way you still can: by vanishing completely. Let them mourn Bastian Hale and move on with their lives.”
For a long moment, I don’t say anything at all. The envelope sits heavy on my lap like a tumor. Inside it is a way out. A coward’s mercy dressed up in the clothes of sacrifice.
Disappear,Aleksei says.Let them go. Move on.
And the sick thing is—the truly fucking sick thing—part of me wants to take it.
I could be on a plane tonight, and tomorrow would find me sipping caipirinhas on Copacabana Beach, watching the sun set over an ocean that’s never heard the name Bastian Hale. I could let Eliana believe I’m dead, actually dead this time. And she’d grieve, yes, but grief fades. Grief scabs over. Eventually, she’d meet someone else. Someone without blood crusted under his fingernails. A kinder man who could hold her in the dark without wondering if his hands remember how to do anything besides kill.
She’d be safe.
Our baby would be safe.
And isn’t that what love is supposed to be? Putting others’ happiness above your own selfish need to be near them?
My throat closes around something jagged. I think of Eliana’s face in the darkness last night. I could love a face that looked at me the way she did then.
I think of Sage. My baby brother already believes I abandoned him once. Eight years I’ve spent trying to earn back his trust. Eight years of physical therapy appointments and video games and arguments about homework. All the small, tedious, sacred work of being someone’s caretaker. If I vanish now, he’ll never know why. He’ll spend the rest of his life believing I chose to leave.Again.
Which is crueler to them? The quick amputation of my absence? Or the slow rot of my presence poisoning everything it touches?
“You’re quiet,” Aleksei observes. “That’s unlike you.”
I keep staring at the envelope. My hands are shaking. I can’t make them stop.
Take the deal,whispers the part of me that has always believed I was born broken.You know what you are. The kindest thing you can do for the people you love is remove yourself from the equation entirely.
Let her go.
You were never going to deserve her anyway.
I could say it. It’s only a few simple words, even if they hurt like hell.Yes. Fine. I’ll go. Just leave them be.
But then I remember Eliana’s hand finding mine on that suburban sidewalk and the delight in her eyes as I guided her fingers to the petals of a yellow rose. I remember her laugh when I took that knife to the pullout couch, that startled, incredulous sound, like she couldn’t believe I was real. I remember the way she said,You’re the father,with her chin lifted and her shoulders squared. Like she expected me to run.
I didn’t run then.
I’m not fucking running now.
“No.”
It’s not even a whisper, but it detonates in the warehouse like I just dropped a fucking nuke.
Aleksei’s eyebrow arches. “Excuse me?”
“I said no.”
