"It's done, Mat." I look at him, this boy who's Gervasii's spitting image. "Go home. Tell Cass—" I stop. My throat closes. "Just go home. Live your life. That's all I ever wanted for you."
They drag him out and the door bangs shut.
Good. That's done. That's the only thing I came here to do, and it's done.
Now, there's just me.
"Sit him down," Reznik says.
A man kicks a chair into the back of my knees and I drop into it. Another stands behind me with a hand on my shoulder, pinning me in place. My wrists are still bound behind the chair back. There are six men in the room with us now, that I can count. More outside, I'm sure.
Reznik gets up out of his throne and comes over. He crouches in front of me so we're eye to eye, the way you'd talk to a child.
"I have waited a long time for this," he informs me.
"So have I," I say. "I just didn't know it was you I was waiting for."
"No?" He leans his head to one side. "Come on, Afon. You always were the smart one. Gervasii had the ambition and you had the brains. You must have wondered."
"I wondered about a lot of things."
"You wondered," he fills in, "about your wife."
Every noise in the background fades away. It's just gold-toothed Viktor Reznik leering at me that I care about now.
"Yelena," he purrs, savoring her name. "Pretty, sassy Yelena."
I keep my face like stone, because that's the only thing I have left. But inside me, something old and terrible is unfurling itself, something I thought I left behind when I retreated into the mountains.
Violent, vicious rage.
"You want to know," he says. "After all this time, you still aren't quite sure. So I'm going to tell you. It's not like it matters anymore, because you're not leaving this lodge anyway."
He leans in close enough that I can smell the cigarettes on him.
"It was me," he croons. "I killed her. I was twenty-two years old and hungry in a way that even you could never understand. I wanted what you and Gervasii had. The route. The money. Therespect. And you two were going to keep me a runner forever, a kid you sent up the mountain in the cold while you sat in warm restaurants and made deals. So I decided to make a move."
I grunt wordlessly. I won't give him the satisfaction of a real response, even though every word he says is another knife in my stomach.
"I followed her out of the city that night. On a snowmobile, paralleling the road in the trees. I came out of the woods at her, fast, lights off. I only meant to spook her." He shrugs. "But she swerved. The car rolled. And then it was quiet, and I sat there on my machine in the dark and I thought,Well. Now, they'll understand. Now, they'll know."
My hands have gone numb. I don't know if it's the zip tie or the storm raging in my chest.
"You killed her," I say, "to scare us."
He nods in agreement. "And it didn't even work! You and Gervasii didn't quit. You doubled down. So I had to think differently after that."
He stands up and starts pacing a small loop in front of the fire.
"Gervasii," he tuts. "Now, Gervasii, I didn't kill. Not with my own hands, at least." He turns. "But I sold him."
The man behind me tightens his grip on my shoulder. I think he feels me twitching.
"You always thought it was bad luck." He shakes his head, almost sad. "It wasn't, Afon. It wasme. I went to the men you were dealing with, and I fed you to them. I knew Gervasii wouldn't come out of it. And once he was gone, and you crawled back to Lukas with your tail between your legs, the Lastochka had no owners. Just an empty route through the mountains, waiting for someone hungry enough to take it."
"Someone meaning you," I say.
"That's right." He smiles again, gold and chilling. "I built everything you see on the bones of the thing you and your brother made. It's served me well for these last twenty years. And the whole time, there was only one loose thread left in the world who knew where I came from." He points at me. "You. You're the last one, Afon. The last witness. Gervasii's dead. Yelena's dead. All the other men from back then are dead or scattered. It was just you, hiding up on a mountain with that fucking mutt. And then, would you believe it? You walk rightback into my territory and build a cabin one valley over from my operation." He laughs, delighted. "The universe handed you to me. I couldn't believe my luck."
