She hands me back my phone.
Dmitri's last message stares up at me.
I'll be watching.
And some broken, reckless part of mewantshim to.
Dmitri
The country house sits on forty acres of land my grandfather bought when he first arrived in America. Back then, it was nothing but a farmhouse and a dream. Now, it's a sprawling estate with a main house, guest quarters, and enough security to rival a small military base.
I pull my car through the iron gates, nodding at Viktor who mans the security booth.
I should be focused on James Rogers. On finding the dirt that will bury him before Saturday. Instead, I'm here, driving an hour outside Chicago because Karolina called.
My sister never calls.
The main house appears through the trees, its stone facade softened by my mother's garden—the one Karolina maintains with religious devotion, even after our mother's death.
I park beside Vladimir's truck and kill the engine. For a moment, I sit in the silence, watching the late afternoon light filter through the oaks. Aleksander's motorcycle leans against the garage. Oleg's sedan is parked near the guest house.
Everyone's here.
That can't be good.
Inside, the house smells like borscht and fresh bread. Karolina's doing. She's the only one who cooks the old recipes, the ones our mother taught the staff before she died giving birth to Natalia.
"Dmitri." Vladimir appears in the hallway, a glass of vodka already in hand. At thirty-six, he's filled out from the lanky kid he used to be. Same pale eyes as me, same dark hair, but softer around the edges.
"What's going on?" I ask, accepting the glass he pours me.
"Karolina found something in the attic."
My stomach drops. "What kind of something?"
"Mother's journals."
Fuck.
I drain the vodka in one swallow. The burn does nothing to prepare me for what's coming.
We find the others in the library. Aleksander sprawls across the leather couch, Karolina his twin perched on the arm beside him. At twenty-seven, they still move in sync, finish each other's sentences. Oleg stands by the window, his priest's collar a stark white against his black shirt. And Natalia?—
Natalia sits in our father's chair, a leather-bound journal open in her lap.
She's twenty.
"You shouldn't read that," I say, my voice harder than I intend.
Natalia's eyes meet mine. "Why? Because it might tell me the truth about how she died?"
"You know how she died."
"I know the family version." Her fingers trace the faded ink on the page. "I didn't know the doctor warned them. Both of them. That another pregnancy after the twins could kill her."
The silence in the room thickens.
Karolina wipes her eyes. "Dmitri, we've never talked about this. Not really. Father killed that doctor, and we all just?—"
