"I can't?—"
"You can. You've done harder things than this." He swerves around a corner and the pursuing car follows, close enough now that I can see the shapes of men inside. "Roll down your window, aim for the driver, and pull the trigger. Don't think about it, just do it."
I don't know where the courage comes from—maybe it's been building inside me all along, waiting for the right moment to emerge, or maybe desperation has a way of making you braver than you thought possible—but I find myself rolling down the window and twisting in my seat. Rain immediately pelts my face as I point the gun at the car behind us. The wind tears at my hair and the water blinds me. My arms are shaking so hard I can barely keep the weapon steady, but I squeeze the trigger anyway.
The first shot goes wide, sparking off the pavement somewhere to the left. The second hits the hood of the pursuing car but doesn't slow it down. The third… the third punches through the windshield, and the car swerves violently, careening across the rain-slicked road before clipping a guardrail and flipping end over end in a spectacular explosion of fire and twisted metal that lights up the night behind us.
I stare at the wreckage for a minute as Lev speeds away. The flames are beaten down right away by the rain, but with a fire that hot, a little rain can't stop it. I sink back into my seat, now trembling from the adrenaline as much as how cold I am, and I let the gun fall to my feet at the floor.
I did that. I killed those men.
"Good girl," Lev says, but his praise feels sickening. "You did good, Vivika."
I can't even respond to him right now because this is crossing lines. I can't even cry. I feel like shock has a death grip on me. All I can do is stare at the weapon on the ground and shiver until the car heats up enough that the shaking stops, but the shock never quite wears off.
We drive for what feels like hours. Lev doesn't speak and neither do I, both of us lost in our own thoughts as the distance between us grows. Being his pawn is one thing. Killing for him is another. I feel like I'm living a nightmare right now and I just want to wake up.
When he pulls up to an old home that looks like it's seen better days, I finally look up. The porch is leaning, and the windows are dark. If anyone is home, they're sleeping, and Lev doesn’t seem to care about any of it.
"Where are we?" I ask, coughing to clear my throat of the knot that's formed there.
"Somewhere safe." Lev parks the car in front of the house and kills the engine. "Come on. Let's get inside before we both freeze to death."
The farmhouse is even more imposing up close. Its wooden porch is sagging under years of neglect and its front door hangs slightly crooked in its frame. I follow Lev up the creaking steps and through the entrance. Every step squishes more water out of my soggy shoes, leaving puddles on the flooring.
Inside, it's so dark I can't see a single thing, but Lev walks right in like he knows the place and I hear him rummaging around before a match flares to life and illuminates his face in a warm orange glow. He touches the flame to an oil lamp on a nearby table, and the room slowly emerges from the shadows—a large living area with furniture draped in white sheets, a stone fireplace against one wall, and windows that rattle in their frames every time the wind gusts.
"There should be wood by the fireplace," Lev says, already moving toward it. "Help me get a fire started."
We work together in silence, crumpling old newspaper and stacking logs and kindling until Lev lights a wad of paper and tosses it in. The flame catches and begins to grow and it helps light the place up more, and slowly, gradually, warmth begins to seep into the room and into my frozen bones.
"What is this place?" I ask, settling onto the floor in front of the fireplace and holding my hands out toward the heat.
Lev sits down beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. "The original Gravitch home. My great-grandfather built it when he first came to Russia, before the family moved to the city and started building the empire Yuri controls today." He looks around the room nostalgically. "Nobody comes here anymore. It's too far from everything. But that's what makes it safe."
"Is there any food here?"
"Probably nothing edible after all this time. The place has been empty for years." His hands stretch out toward the fire too, like he's wanting to warm them, but instead of fear that mirrors my own, I see calmness in his eyes. He's so used to these sorts of things happening that he doesn't even register it anymore.
Is that how he survives this? He just locks it out? Or maybe he's too desensitized to the violence to care anymore. His world is in a constant state of upheaval, so this is normalized to the point that he can't even see it as surprising when someone pulls a gun. It makes me sad and frightens me.
I watch the flames dance and crackle and think about everything that's happened since Lev's men grabbed me off that street corner all those weeks ago. The fear, the training, the moments of tenderness that caught me off guard, the violence that seems to follow him everywhere he goes. I've killed people now. I've watched him kill people. I've become someone I never imagined I could be, and I don't know if I can ever go back to who I was before.
Lev pulls out his phone and begins scrolling through messages, his brow furrowing as he reads whatever Yuri's sent him. I lean against his shoulder and let the fire warm my face, too exhausted to do anything except exist in this moment of temporary peace.
"My life's never going back to normal, is it?" I ask, hugging my knees to my chest as I rest my chin on my arms. If he cares about me at all, I know he'll help me. Inessa said Lev cares, but I have to see it with my own eyes to believe it.
Lev sets his phone aside and takes both my hands in his. I manage to look up at him, but he doesn't seem angry about my asking about my future this time. "I don't want you to go back to normal."
"What?"
"I want you to stay with me, Vivika." His grip tightens on my hands. "I know this life is dangerous and violent and nothing like what you imagined for yourself. But I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about you, and I can't let you walk away without at least asking you to stay."
I don’t know if I can do what he's asking. Staying with him would mean constantly running from people, looking over my shoulder, and being afraid. Before all of this started, the scariestpart of my life was the spider that lives above my shower head. I'm not cut out for Bratva life.
"Lev…" I pull my hands free and wrap my arms around myself again. "The life you live—men are constantly trying to kill you. They're trying to kill me just because I'm standing next to you. I'd never feel safe. You wouldn’t want me to live that way, would you?"
"It won't always be like this." He reaches out and cups my face in his hands, forcing me to meet his eyes. "The war with the Veches will end. Yaros will fall, and when he does, things will stabilize. The constant danger, the running, the fear—that's because we're in the middle of a conflict. Once it's over, once we've won, life becomes quieter."
