Page 74

The question reveals the loneliness beneath his cheerful exterior. How many hours does he spend alone in this room, waiting for visits, for connection?

“Of course I will,” I promise, meaning it completely. Whatever happens between Aleksei and me, whatever impossible decisions lie ahead, I won’t abandon this boy. I can’t. “You’re her brother. That’s important.”

Satisfaction spreads across his face. He looks down at Polina, who has started to drift toward sleep, her eyelids growing heavy. “Hear that, Polina? I’m important.”

The simple statement, delivered with such innocent pride, nearly breaks me. In this moment, watching these two children— one born to privilege but confined by disability, one newborn with endless physical potential— I feel a fierce protectiveness that transcends the complications of their parentage.

They are innocent. They deserve better than the legacy of pain and vengeance their father and I have created.

Whatever my future holds— whether I can find a way to stay with Aleksei despite our bloody history, whether I can build something new from the ashes of the past— I know one thing with absolute certainty: these siblings will have each other. I will make sure of it.

As Polina finally surrenders to sleep in her brother’s arms, Bobik looks up at me with eyes bright with intelligence and hope.

“We’re a family now,” he says simply.

And despite everything, despite the impossible complexity that statement ignores, I find myself nodding.

For them, at least, it can be that simple.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Aleksei

I’ve picked out socks with more forethought than I’ve given this journey.

Which is none, whatsoever.

The plane’s controls vibrate beneath my hands as I push the Gulfstream to its limits, cutting through Russian airspace without proper clearance. My mind races faster than the aircraft, thoughts colliding madly.

Your mother… she’s alive.

My father’s words echo in an endless loop, destroying twenty years of certainty. Twenty years of hating him for a murder he didn’t commit. Twenty years of grieving a woman who wasn’t dead.

Vostok.

The name alone brings up images from whispered Bratva legends— a Soviet relic where the mentally ill share corridors with political prisoners, where experimental treatments continue behind closed doors, where people disappear.

Where my mother has spent two decades of her life.

I left California hours after my father’s revelation. No explanations, no preparations, no goodbyes. Diana’s calls went unanswered. Stella’s questions about my sudden departure received vague reassurances about “business matters.” Sasha’s concerns about security protocols dismissed with a curt order to guard the manor.

The BratvaPakhanleaves no loose ends, makes no impulsive moves, plans three steps ahead. Yet here I am, flying into the Russian wilderness on nothing but my drunken father’s word.

“Bezumiye. Polnoye bezumiye, mat’ yego,” I mutter. This is a complete fucking madness.

The navigation system alerts me to my approach. Below, the Kolyma region unfolds— endless white broken by dark stretches of forest and the occasional scar of human settlement. This is Russia’s forgotten corner, a place where Stalin sent those he wished to erase, where winters kill as efficiently as bullets, where isolation itself becomes a prison wall.

I land at a private airstrip owned by a Bratva associate who asks no questions when enough money changes hands. The desolate landing strip appears suddenly through the snow-laden clouds, little more than a crude gash carved into the wilderness.

Yuri Popov— a man who’d sell his own mother for the right price— greets me with a curt nod as I disembark. No paperwork, no customs, no record of my arrival. This is how business is conducted in the forgotten corners of my homeland: with cash, silence, and the unspoken threat of what happens to those who break either.

The cold hits like walking into a wall of solid ice as I exit the aircraft— minus forty degrees, the kind of bone-deep cold that freezes lungs and crystalizes eyelashes. My breath forms clouds that the wind immediately shreds.

A driver waits with a Soviet-era UAZ, its engine running continuously to prevent freezing. He nods once, accepting the thick envelope I offer without counting its contents.

“Vostok,” I tell him in Russian. “Bystryy.Fast as possible.”

“Three hours,” he replies, gesturing to the passenger seat. “If roads are clear.”