The private jet touches down in Brussels, and my heart hammers so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my fingertips, in every cell of my body vibrating with anticipation and terror in equal measure.
Four months since I’ve held my brother.
Four months of video calls and encrypted messages and counting the days until I could see his face in person, touch his hair, confirm with my own hands that he’s safe and growing into the man our mother would have been proud of.
Roman’s hand finds mine as we descend the stairs, his grip steady and grounding while I fight the urge to run across thetarmac toward the convoy waiting to take us to Ghent. His right hand stays in his coat pocket, hidden.
“Breathe,” he murmurs against my ear. “He’s safe. He’s healthy. And in forty minutes you’re going to hug him so hard he complains about his ribs.”
“What if he doesn’t want—”
“He wants.” Roman’s thumb strokes across my knuckles, the gesture so automatic now that I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it. “I’ve read his messages to Galina. He asks about you every week. When you’re eating. Whether you’re sleeping. If the nightmares are still bad.”
“He asks Galina?”
“He didn’t think you’d answer honestly. Smart kid.”
Roman guides me toward the armored SUV with his hand warm against the small of my back. “He’s also asked her three separate times whether I’m ‘treating you properly.’ Direct quote.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “That sounds like Mishka.”
“It sounds like someone who loves his sister and doesn’t trust the man who married her.” Roman opens the SUV door for me. “I’m looking forward to changing his mind.”
The drive to Ghent takes thirty-seven minutes, and I spend every one of them with my hand in Roman’s and my eyes on the landscape scrolling past the bulletproof windows. My heart is pounding with the knowledge that we’re getting closer, closer, closer.
The boarding school appears through bare trees, and my breath catches at the sight of it—grey stone buildings arranged around a courtyard dusted with snow, windows glowing warm against the April cold, teenagers in blazers and scarves moving between buildings.
Mishka is somewhere inside those walls.
Safe. Educated. Normal in ways I fought and bled and killed to give him.
“There.” Roman points toward a figure emerging from the main building, and my whole body goes still.
Mishka.
Taller than in January, his growth spurt was finally catching up with his appetite. Dark hair falling across his forehead, the way it always has, the way our father’s did. Blazer rumpled because he’s never cared about appearances, messenger bag slung across his chest, hands shoved in his pockets against the cold.
He hasn’t seen us yet.
He’s walking toward the dormitory with his head down, probably thinking about equations or robotics or whatever project has captured his brilliant mind this week. I want to run to him so badly my legs shake with the effort of staying seated.
“Go.” Roman’s voice is soft. “I’ll follow.”
The SUV door opens, and I’m out, my boots crunching on gravel as I move toward my brother with four months of missing him burning in my chest.
“Mishka.”
He looks up.
His face goes through a dozen expressions in the space of a heartbeat—shock, disbelief, hope, fear, joy—and then he’s dropping his bag and running, actually running across the courtyard toward me. I catch him in my arms with a sob I couldn’t suppress if my life depended on it.
“Anya.” He’s taller than me now. When did that happen? His arms wrap around me so tight I can barely breathe, and I don’t care, I don’t care about anything except the fact that he’s here and solid and alive and holding me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
“Ya zdes’,” I whisper into his hair, breathing in the smell of him—teenage boy and cafeteria food and the expensive shampoo the school provides. “I’m here, bratik. Ya zdes’.”
“You came.” He pulls back just enough to look at my face, his eyes searching mine with an intensity I recognize from our mother. “You actually came. I thought—the messages said—”
“I know.” I cup his face in my hands, checking every detail—the new sharpness in his jaw, the faint acne across his forehead, the dark circles under his eyes that tell me he hasn’t been sleeping well. “I’m sorry it took so long. But I’m here now, Mishka. You’ll be sick of me.”
