"You promised," I interrupt, before he can launch what I'm sure will be a very reasonable and logical chain of thought that will nonetheless make me want to eject him into orbit. "You said,once I knew everything, I could choose what to do next with my eyes wide open. Well, look around, Afon. I'm safe now. I'm warm. I'm fed. I'm clean. There's no blizzard, there's no Reznik, there's no bullet in your side. The conditions are perfect, and there are no more reasons on the Reason Tree. So tell me."
He stands there a long moment, dripping a little onto the carpet. Then he sits down beside me. He doesn't touch me, which is how I know it's bad.
"You're sure?"
"I came up that mountain for this," I reply. "Whatever it is, I'm ready."
He nods. His thumb finds the bronze ring and turns it, once, slow.
"You know about Yelena," he begins. "What I didn't tell you is what came after. What I did about it."
I wait for him to continue.
"I told you I looked. Quietly, for years. That's true. But there was a stretch, early on, the first year, where I wasn't quiet at all. I was out of my damn mind, Caroline. She'd been gone a few months and I couldn't sleep or eat, and I was certain—certain—someone had run her off that road. I started asking questions in places you don't ask questions. Pulling on threads that didn't want pulling." He exhales. "And I got in trouble. Men I'd never met started taking an interest in me. Lukas couldn't shield me from the consequences I was incurring, because what I was doing wasn't Bratva business."
I don't understand yet how this leads where I know it has to lead. But my stomach is already cold.
"I needed help," Afon says. "Lukas had made it clear that I'd brought this on myself, chasing ghosts against his orders, and he wasn't going to spend the family's resources cleaning up my grief. I was on my own. So I needed someone outside."
He looks at me, and I see it coming like a car with no brakes flying down the highway straight for me. That half-second of total clarity where everything slows down and there's nothing you can do.
"My father," I understand.
Afon nods. "Bill," he explains, "was the cleanest man I'd ever met. Brilliant lawyer. Upper East Side. Pro bono cases, charity boards, a brilliant wife and a precocious little girl. I knew him a little, through Lukas—Bill did legitimate work for some of Lukas's legitimate businesses. Strictly above board. He didn't know what the rest of it was. He didn't want to know. Can't say I blame him, really."
I can't breathe quite right, but I make myself keep listening anyway.
"I went to him," Afon continues, "because I was desperate and out of good options. I told him I was in trouble—but I didn't exactly explain how and why, or that some of it was well-deserved. It was better, I figured, if Bill thought he was helping an innocent man." He swallows hard, his throat clicking audibly. "And he did help me. Everything I needed and more, he gave me, and by the time he was done, I was free."
I feel sick for some reason I can't explain. But I can't stop from insisting, "That doesn't sound so bad. He helped a friend. He thought you were innocent. That's not a crime, right?"
"That's not the end of it, Caroline." His voice is so gentle it's unbearable. "Because somewhere in those months, he figured it out. He wasn't a stupid man. He started pulling threads of his own, and the threads led places. He found out who I really was, what I really did." He shakes his head slowly. "And by then, it was too late. He'd already gotten his hands too dirty. There's no coming back from that."
The sickness doubles and triples. It's like a stomachache in my head, a migraine in the pit of my belly. My dad was agoodman, wasn't he? Wasn't he? Right?!
"I tried to stop it, but it was too late," Afon says. "And besides, that's not how it goes. The rabbit hole to the criminal underworld only runs in one direction. So once your dad took that first step… Well, he just kept sliding deeper and deeper."
"My mother," I whisper. "The screaming. The working late."
"Yes."
"You did that?"
"I started it," he agrees without flinching. "If it weren't for me, if I'd just left him alone, I think your dad would have been a good citizen with a clear conscience." Afon's head drops into his hands. "I pulled him in, Caroline. So everything that came after, everything that happened to your family, to you… It started with me, standing on his doorstep, asking for help I didn't deserve."
I'm shaking my head, over and over, like that could change the past. "But you didn't— you didn't kill them. My mom and dad… It was Reznik, right? Or the Vainakh—you said the Vainakh Syndicate and Dad's partner, Raymond Snyder?—"
"That's just the natural consequence of getting involved in the world I introduced him to," says Afon. "Does it matter in the end who pulled the trigger? I don't think so. I just know that I dragged him in. What happened is my fault. All of it."
I'm on my feet suddenly, though I don't remember standing. I know why this feeling is so familiar—because this is how I felt when I cracked my head on that rock in Afon's clearing, days ago, weeks ago, lifetimes ago.
Sick.
Dizzy.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
"You ruined my family's life," I whisper. "For what? Forrevenge?Revenge that you didn't even get?"
