Finally, the knob turns and the door opens. Ember looks up at me with her soulful eyes. They’ve gone from their normal icy blue to a wintry gray. The sadness in them is so heavy, I can feel it in the hallway.
She only looks at me for a moment before looking away and stepping aside. “Come in.”
The moment I step in, Sasha says, “Dad, tell her she can’t leave.”
She’s standing there, still in the clothes she had on when we found her. Her face is still dirty and her red hair is still mussed and streaked with warehouse muck. The dirt on her face and hands makes her look all the more desperate.
“Please.” Tears have welled up in her eyes and are starting to fall down her cheeks, cutting through the dirt in streaks. “Tell her to stay.”
“Sasha,” I start, and she cuts me off.
“No! Don’t tell me to leave or that it’ll be all right. It’snot.It won’t be all right as long as you’re letting Ember go! She can’t go! Sh–She loves you. And she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you! Don’t you see that?”
I take Sasha gently by the shoulders and say, “Youare the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Sasha. You’ve been through a lot today and I won’t have you getting wound up over something you don’t even understand.”
Her face crashes before me, tears rolling down in rivers now. “Dad,” she whimpers. “Please don’t do this.”
I sigh and brush a bit of her hair out of her face. “Go take a shower and get changed, please.”
“Dad…”
“You heard me, Sash.” I don’t yell. I don’t even command. The words are firm, insistent. It’s enough. She steps back from me, throwing a helpless look over my shoulder at Ember. Then she leaves us alone.
And so here we are. Ember walks past me and to her suitcase and starts zipping it up. “This is hard for her,” I say.
She nods. “She’s fifteen. She doesn’t understand. But don’t worry. She won’t be mad at you forever. You’re still her father.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say. This ache inside me wants to reach out to her.
“I know that there’s nothing more I can say to you,” she says softly, her fingers tracing the line of the suitcase. “I’m not going to waste your time or beg for you to let me stay. What I did…” She pauses and takes a small breath. When she speaks again, her voice shakes. “I know better. I was raised by a cop. I knew the risks that might come with talking to the FBI and I… I met up with them anyway.”
“Ember—”
“Let me finish.” She turns me to me, her eyes steady even though her voice isn’t. “I knew about your meeting, but I never told them. Something inside me kept me from telling them anything that might hurt you. I think it’s because… it’s because I never wanted you to have to suffer. Is that strange? Me wanting that of you?”
I don’t have a response. All I can do is watch. It’s like I’m standing here and letting water drip through my hands.
“Anyway, you can hate me for meeting with them. You can decide that I can’t be trusted for all that, but I’m standing here, telling you right now that I’m not the mole. I never was. I could never?—”
“I know, Ember.” The words come out almost involuntarily. “I know you didn’t tell them anything.”
She tilts her head curiously at me. Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out.
“For the record, it was Ivan. You know, myobshchak?”
Her nose wrinkles. “The accountant? With the glasses?”
“Don’t let his meek appearance fool you. He was Bratva, through and through. He just happened to serve another Pakhan and I never knew it.”
She stares for a long moment, then, “So… you believe me, then?”
I sigh. This feeling I’ve been trying to reconcile, the thing in my heart that I was fighting against even though everything in front of me was telling me otherwise… “I think, deep down, I always did,” I say. “You have to understand, Ember, the idea that no one can ever be trusted, it’s engrained in the brotherhood. We’re taught at a young age that even your blood will betray you if it suits them to do so.”
She nods and takes that in for a second. “I don’t know if that makes all this any better or not.”
“It doesn’t,” I say. “I pushed you away because I’ve been taught not to listen to myself. The Bratva is everything, you see.”
She just stares at me, all the hurt I piled on her reflected in her eyes. After a few moments, she looks away from me, down at her hands.
