The moment the car slowed and turned through the graveyard gates, the anger dissipated. The tension with it. This wasn’t the place for it. This wasn’t the time.
Radovan parked and stepped out to open my door.
“You don’t need a gun to hurt someone,” Tau said quietly.
I nodded without looking at him and climbed out.
Their footsteps followed at a distance behind me.
I saw the headstone before I was close enough to read it. Polished black marble catching the light. Small. Right-sized for what it marked.
I smiled as I drew closer.
A small engraved teddy bear on one side. A cross on the other.
Makari Kozlov.
Beloved son of Iskra Natalya Kozlova.
Taken too soon.
Until we meet again.
The date in smaller print at the base. I had asked for that specifically—I didn’t want to see it glaring up at me every time. Stupid, really. The date was already etched into everything. My body knew it before my mind did. It was the right choice because this seemed to hurt less.
“It suits him,” Radovan murmured from somewhere behind me.“Makari.”
I smiled at the tiny grave and crouched down.
Someone passed me the flowerpot.
Siberian Squill. A flowering plant that would come back every spring — small blue flowers pushing through the soil year after year whether anyone remembered to tend them or not.
Small blue flowers for my boy.
I took my time. The men shuffled around me and said nothing and let me have it.
I felt drained by the time I got back into the car. The distinct emptiness of having done something that needed doing and finding it both exactly right and nowhere near enough.
Harmed by everyone who was supposed to love me.
Just like Makari Kozlov.
I rested my head against the cool glass.
But the same way the silent pain of not knowing what had happened to Makari had plagued me until Vadim saw fit to converse with me—now another question had settled in its place. Heavier, somehow, for arriving so soon after the grave.
Could I be pregnant again?
I could stall all I wanted about the STI test. Manufacture delays.
But he would return regardless.
With a vengeance.
??????
I retreated to my room.
