My father sat still and silent on one of the chairs Tau had brought into the room. My mother perched on the edge of the bed, attempting to fluff my pillows into a more comfortable arrangement. My brother stood in the background like a guardian angel—close enough to intervene, far enough to give me space. Galina sat on the other side of my father, studying her nails, already bored.
My face and shoulder were still badly bruised. The shock on their faces when they saw me confirmed what the hospital mirror had already shown—it was an improvement on before, but not by much.
Galina was her usual self. Blood or not, there was a distinct quality to her attention that told me she was pleased to see me in this condition.
My mother tried to pacify me. I would heal. There would be more children. God’s plan. Silver linings.
I didn’t utter a single word.
I did decide, quietly and with some conviction, that I needed to find a gun for my room. Not for a fatal shot. Just enough to wing someone. Enough to shut them up.
“Aren’t there any refreshments being served?” Galina sighed, addressing no one in particular.
My father raised his head.
The warning in his eyes was clear.
“What?” she said.“She’s alive, isn’t she?”
Before my father could respond the door opened and Tau came in.
He crossed the room directly to Galina—all six feet of him, black and beautiful and entirely certain—and took her by the scruff of the neck. She screamed. Not the theatrical kind she deployed for attention. Genuine terror. The specific sound of someone who has just understood that the person holding them is not performing.
Tau’s eyes met mine as he dragged her toward the door.
Something flickered in my chest.
Gratitude, possibly.
Ruslan watched her go past him and shamelessly took the vacated chair, settling into it with the satisfaction of a man who had been waiting for exactly this outcome.
That was the only eventful moment of their visit.
I was glad to see them leave.
Ruslan remained with me, no doubt a limited courtesy granted by the Pakhan.
I found myself thinking about Tau. The contract killer from Tswana. He answered to no hierarchy, bound by no Bratva code—which meant his loyalty, when he gave it, was a choice rather than an obligation.
That distinction might matter.
My brother pulled the covers up around me, fussing with the edges the way a mother hen would. Tucking. Adjusting. Checking.
Unlike my mother’s duplicity, I had no doubt about his intentions.
Chapter 39
Vadim
For days no one tortured Tolam.
He sat strapped to a chair and watched what we did to the other two men. We gave him water. Enough food to keep the mind sharp and the fear sharper. Anticipation, I had found, was its own cruelty—far more efficient than anything my brother’s hands could produce in the early hours. Let him watch. Let him count the days. Let him wonder why he had been left untouched when the men beside him had not.
My brother moved towards one of them with the clay pot. Tolam’s eyes were drooping. I leaned over and slapped his face. The sound was vicious even through the beard, flesh meeting flesh with the certain flatness of a man who had stopped flinching at the right moments.
“Stay awake,” I said quietly.“You’ll want to see this.”
Bogdan held the pot flush against the man’s stomach while Konstantin arranged the coals with the patience of someone who had done this many times and found no reason to rush. They glowed orange in the dim room, the only warm light in it. Konstantin tugged away the dividing lid, and for a moment there was nothing—just the heat and the dark interior of the pot and the man’s ragged breathing.
