Page 33 of Property of the Bikers

I know you found something. I don’t know what, but I know you. You wouldn’t run without a reason, and you wouldn’t leave without proof of the reason. I’ve been thinking about what that proof might look like, and I keep coming back to the same place, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Call me. Please.

I put the phone down on the table.

Maya looks up from her folder. “Everything alright?”

“My brother is emailing me.”

She doesn’t react dramatically. “What does he want?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I say.

I pick up the phone again and open the fourth email. It’s from yesterday evening.

Mira.

I need to tell you something, and I need to say it properly.

When Viktor approached me four years ago, he told me he was interested in meeting you. He said he’d seen your work, your translation credentials, a paper you’d written that got some attention in certain circles. He said he admired your intelligence. I believed that. I wanted to believe it because he was also talking about a position in his organization for me, a real position, not the low-level work I’d been doing. I told myself those two things were separate. I was introducing my sister to a man who was genuinely interested in her, and, coincidentally, a business arrangement was also being discussed.

I knew they weren’t separate. I just didn’t want to look at what they actually were.

I didn’t know what he was planning. I want you to understand that. I didn’t know about any plan to remove you. I thought he married you because you were exactly what he said you were: intelligent, capable, presentable, the kind of woman a man like him would want permanently. I thought you would have a life, a difficult one maybe, but a real one.

I didn’t ask questions I should have asked. I didn’t check on you the way I should have. I told myself the distance between us was normal and that you would tell me if something was wrong, and I used that to avoid thinking about what I already knew: I sold you to a man I didn’t fully understand for a position that made my life easier.

I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t fix anything. I know you probably don’t want to hear from me. But I needed you to know that I know what I did, and that I’m sorry, and that if there’s anything I can do from here, I will do it.

Dmitri.

I read it all the way through once.

Then I put the phone face down on the table and look out the window.

The two men at the gate are still in their positions. The mountains are still there. Maya is still in her chair with her accounts folder, watching me with the particular quality of attention that doesn’t push.

Dmitri is four years younger than me and we were never close in the way siblings are close when the family around them gives them reasons to be. We grew up in a house in Portland that was functional and quiet and didn’t produce the kind of closeness that requires warmth to develop.

I left when I was twenty-two, and I sent postcards, called twice a year, and told myself that was enough contact for a relationship that had never been more than proximity.

He introduced me to Viktor at a dinner I almost didn’t attend.

I remember the way Dmitri moved through that room. Brighter than usual, and more confident. He introduced us across the table, and Viktor listened to me with his full attention.

I pick the phone back up and open a reply window.

I type one sentence: You traded me for a position. Don’t contact me again.

I send it before I can think about whether it’s the right response, because it is the right response, and thinking about it further would only produce the same sentence with more words around it. I go to the sent folder and delete the sent email. Go to the inbox and delete all four of his emails. Empty the trash.

Done.

Maya is still looking at me.

“Former family,” I say.

She holds my gaze for a moment, then nods and goes back to her folder.

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