“Too late.”
He watched me.I hated the next part.
“I arrived after the attack.”
The room shifted.All the air left it.Archie’s face closed.He knew exactly which attack I meant.The one that had nearly killed him.The one that had brought him close enough to death that maybe, somewhere in that darkness, he had heard me.
His eyes widened slightly.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me.
I saw the memory move through him.Maybe not clear.Maybe just a shadow.A voice.A presence at the edge of death.
“You…” His voice dropped.“I saw you.”
I said nothing.
His face shifted into something shattered and furious all at once.
“I thought I was dying.”
“You were close.”
“I thought I imagined you.”
“You didn’t.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, turning away from me, then back again.
“I had spent years thinking I would recover, find you, and bring you home so we could take him down together.That was the dream that kept me alive when my body did not want to be.You and me.Shoulder to shoulder.Ending him the way we should have done from the beginning.”
My voice hardened.
Archie stared at me.
“I came back to Russia,” I said.“I walked into this house.I stood in front of our father.And I killed him.”
There was only silence as Archie’s eyes held mine.
“You killed Viktor.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I did not look away.
“With my own two hands, looking right into his eyes, I squeezed the life out of him.”
43
Rasputin
Nothing could balance what Viktor had taken.But it was something.
