"Him. Me," I agree. "The Russians." I tilt my head. That gets a real reaction.
Gustave laughs again, this time wet, ugly, and broken. It rattles out of him until it turns into a coughing fit that folds him forward, pain tearing through his body as he struggles for air. He wheezes through it, eyes watering, mouth twisted in something close to delight.
"The Russians?" he chokes. "They’ll kill him." He laughs again, softer now, like he’s savoring the punchline. "I can't believe you asked Grigori to babysit his sworn enemy."
He drags in a breath and looks up at me, eyes shining with cruel amusement, and for half a second, it yanks me backward in time. When we used to watch old movies together. All three of us, while mom was in the hospital, again. I remember bad jokes. Him laughing on the couch like this world wasn’t already rotting. I swallow it. There’s no room for ghosts here.
"You always did think in straight lines," I say quietly. "Grigori doesn’t kill what he can use. And he doesn’t waste blood without profit." Gustave’s smile falters. Just a fraction. "And you," I add, stepping closer, voice dropping, "are finally out of moves."
Something shifts then. Not fear. Not regret. Resignation.
He exhales hard, like a man who’s been holding something in his chest for decades and finally decides it’s not worth protecting anymore.
"You deserve to know," he says hoarsely. I don’t respond. I don’t need to. He knows I’ll take the truth whether he wants to give it or not. "Marisol didn’t want to marry Viktor," he says. "She wanted out."
I kind of assumed as much, but I don't interrupt.
"She was married to him for politics. You know how our world works." Gustave’s eyes drift to the ceiling, unfocused. "She ran the first chance she got. With Maurice."
"Maurice?" I echo, faintly remembering having heard that name before.
"Your uncle. You never met, or if you did, you wouldn't remember it."
He's wrong; now an image of a man pops up in my mind. Tall, lean. Full of fun and jokes. What I don't remember is what happened to him. One day, he simply never came back. "He was your mother's favorite brother. She loved him almost as much as you." Gustave shakes his head, confusing me for a moment until I realize there is some actual fondness there. For Mamma.
"Marisol didn’t know she was pregnant when she left," he continues. "Found out later." He coughs, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips. I don’t move to help him. "Your mother knew. Maurice came to her. Asking for her help.Fucking Marisol got him in a shithole of trouble and wouldn't consider taking care of the problem properly. Fucking Catholics." He curses. I understand—Marisol refused to have an abortion.
"He knew what Viktor would do if he found out. What he’d do to Marisol. To the child. To him. So he begged your mother to pretend to be pregnant and to claim the child as hers when the time was right."
He glares at Nico. The child.
"She fucking lied to me. For a fucking year." The anger he must have felt for my mother is palpable. "She pretended she was pregnant just like Maurice asked her to, while he and his whore hid out in the suburbs."
A picture is forming. I must have been around six, and I remember vividly how excited my father was that my mom was pregnant again. At six, I didn't know that they had been trying for years, but it was always only me until Nico.
"When she was nine months pregnant, your mom insisted on going to our house outside Beacon. I had no clue that this was where Marisol and Maurice were hiding. I didn't even know who Marisol was." Sweat beads down his forehead, and he wipes it against his shoulder. "I got a call one morning,congrats, you have another son." Even the bitterness over what he found out later can't fully disguise the elation he must have felt at that moment. "I rushed to the estate. Your mother was in bed, beautiful and radiant as ever, holding," he pauses,swallows, "Nico." A shudder moves through him. "Doc Baresi, Brown's predecessor, was there too. All happy and smiles, fucking liar."
His gaze returns to me, "For a while all was good. You were happy having a younger brother, your mother bloomed, the only drawback was that… " he exhales loudly, like a man who should have read the signs, "hermilkwouldn't come in."
He breaks off, probably caught in memory, and I give him time to catch himself, while Nico starts pacing like a caged animal. I keep an eye on the gun he's still holding. Finger at the side of the trigger, not on it. Good, he at least had more training while he was gone.
When Nico stops and opens his mouth as if to say something, Gustave continues, "It was a good time. Nice. But then we received word that Christine's brother, Maurice, had been killed. By the Russians. He and his lover, Marisol." He snorts derisively. "I remember thinking, stupid ass, he's finally done it. You know, your uncle was always in trouble with husbands, brothers, and fathers. It was only a matter of time before he got caught with his pants down in the wrong place."
He groans, moves his foot slightly, and groans again. "There was nothing the Rossi family could do. I mean, they tried, but the Russian Pakhan killed a man who had run off with his wife." He shrugs and winces. "Every choice leaves a body. This one just happened to be your mother's little brother. I knew a shitstorm was about to land, I just didn't know how much."
I guess he probably didn't. "Your mom changed after that. I thought it was grief. Grief was part of it. But she became extremely anxious. A month later, she finally broke down and confessed. She confessed that Nico was Voronin's son. She had bribed the doc into forging the birth certificate…"
He trails off again, caught up in his own memories, and I almost feel sorry for him. Had he not tried to kill Nico and me, I would. He is my father after all. And up until a few weeks ago, I thought we had a decent relationship. But now I start to understand mom's depression, her anxiety.
"She didn't know if Viktor would come after us, after Nico, and it killed her." He looks at Nico with contempt. "She loved you like you were her real son."
That must have cost him to say, but I'm willing to bet it means a lot to Nico. To at least know that the woman he’d thought his mother had loved him.
"The fear was slowly killing Christine, and… yeah, I was a bit rattled too. The Russians aren't a joke, but Viktor was… a special kind of crazy sadist. His ambition was to become a Czar, did you know that?"
I didn't, but I don't give a shit either. The man is six feet under.
"So I paid for intel," he continues. "I found out that after Maurice was killed, which I heard took a while, Marisol told Viktor that he had a son, Alexei, but he'd never find him. No matter what they did to her, she took that secretto the grave." He looks impressed. "I was assured that was the truth, and after nobody came knocking, I started believing it. And when Viktor was killed, I relaxed, but your mother never did." He glares from me to Nico, making sure he understands that he blames him.
