“No, Semyon.” Aleksei steps closer. “This,” he says softly, almost tenderly, “is what happens when you try to leave family behind.”
The fight drains out of me. It leaves nothing behind. I hang there, empty, hollowed out, a shell of meat and broken bones suspended from a hook in a dank, death-filled basement. The fluorescent lights sing their indifferent hymn. Blood pools beneath my feet in a spreading lake of failure.
Eliana.
Her name echoes through the cavern where my heart used to be.
The baby.
I can’t even go there.
I failed them.
I failedher.
All those promises I made, they’re ash now. They’re smoke and ruin and the wet crunch of Brandon’s fists meeting flesh.
Daddy, watch me jump.
The kitchen of my happily-ever-after disappears. The sunlight fades.
There is only darkness left.
“I did this once before and it didn’t go well. But being the merciful man that I am, I’m going to one last chance to choose what happens next,” says my brother.
He begins to pace again.
“It’s the same as before. Insist on staying and I will kill you, then them. Option two,” he continues, “is more generous. You disappear. Tonight. Leave the country and never come back. Never contact Eliana. Never meet your child. As far as anyoneknows, Bastian Hale died in that warehouse, and this time, itstaystrue.”
He stops in front of me.
“In exchange for your vanishing act, I will call off Brandon. I’ll let Eliana and the others live their quiet little lives in peace, far away from me.” His eyes bore into mine. “But you must be gone by sunrise. And you cannevercome back.”
All my meager options circle through my skull like vultures waiting for something to die.
Fight back.But I’m chained to a fucking hook with broken fingers and pulverized ribs, and Brandon is already there, already with them, already?—
No.Don’t think about what he’s doing right now. Focus.
Bargain.Offer Aleksei something else, some other piece of myself he hasn’t already carved away. But what’s left? He has Sage. He has Eliana. He has leverage in every direction and I have nothing but blood pooling beneath my feet.
Find an angle.Some loophole or weakness in his logic. Aleksei always has blind spots. But none of those blind spots help me when the clock is ticking and Brandon’s hands are?—
The truth settles into my bones like concrete hardening.
If I stay and fight, everyone dies tonight while I hang here, useless. The only variable I can remove from this equation is me.
That sunlit kitchen flickers back into existence one last time, but it’s different now. Sepia-toned. Bittersweet. Like looking at a photograph you know you’ll never get to take.
Evening glow slants through windows that face west. The backyard stretches out, backlit in gold and amber, as fireflies begin their slow blink above the grass. Our daughter runs barefoot through the yard with a mason jar, trying to catch stars that won’t stay caught.
Eliana sits on the porch swing, bare feet tucked beneath her, watching with a smile that could light up the night. She’s laughing at our little girl.
Neither of them misses me.
I would have been an overbearing father. I know that. Overprotective to the point of suffocation. Irascible. Unapproachable. God forbid she ever bring a boyfriend home.
But I would have beenpresent.
