Does guilt count as grief? Can I claim partial credit?
Another stranger approaches. Middle-aged man, expensive suit, cold eyes. "Sorry for your loss."
"Thank you." The words come automatically now. I've said them maybe fifty times today.
"He was a good man."
Was he? I barely knew him. Boarding schools from age six onward. Expensive presents at Christmas that proved he remembered I existed. Brief, awkward visits where we sat across restaurant tables like strangers performing a script. Because that's what we were. Strangers who happened to share DNA.
When I turned eighteen, that changed. Suddenly he wanted me at events—these Bratva parties full of dangerous men with dead eyes and women who looked at me like I was already a corpse. He'd grip my arm too tight and parade me around, telling me to smile, be polite, don't embarrass him.
I never understood why. Never asked. Just endured it until I could escape back to my dorm room and pretend it hadn't happened.
And now he's dead and I can't even manufacture tears.
"Vera."
I turn. My Aunt Sofia stands in the doorway of the viewing room, her face pale. She's been crying enough for both of us, her eyes swollen and red. At least someone loved him.
"What is it?" I ask quietly.
"Someone's here for you." Her voice shakes. "You need to come. Now."
"I can't leave."
"Now, Vera."
My stomach drops.
I follow her through the funeral home's maze of beige hallways, my heels clicking too loudly on the tile. She leads me to a private room at the back, the kind they use for difficult family conversations. The door is closed.
"Who is it?" I whisper.
Sofia's hand trembles as she reaches for the doorknob. "Pyotr Maksimov."
The name means nothing to me. Should it?
Then, a flash of memory. Age eighteen. Spring. Sitting at the kitchen table doing calculus homework. My father bringing me tea that tasted off, too sweet, wrong. The room going fuzzy at the edges. Papers in front of me that wouldn't stay in focus.
"Just sign here, Verochka. For your university fund."
My hand moving like it belonged to someone else. My signature on documents I couldn't read.
Pyotr Maksimov.
Oh God.
Sofia opens the door.
The man inside stands with his back to us, silhouetted against the window. Tall. Broad shoulders straining an expensive black suit. Dark hair threaded with silver catches the afternoon light.
He turns.
Oh.
Oh.
This is what apex predators must look like when they walk among sheep. Sharp cheekbones that could cut glass. Strong jaw shadowed with stubble. Ice-blue eyes.
