Page 71 of Twisted Addiction

Not the casual transliteration I’d seen in dossiers or printed papers — my name in the language I’d never thought would be spoken to me again. The letters were smudged from years and rain, but there they were, undeniable.

She held it to my face.

The chain smelled faintly of chamomile—the same soft, honeyed scent Penelope loved.

The familiarity hit like a blade under the ribs, the memory of her splintering through me. My chest clenched, heartbreak surging anew, raw and needled, like pressing on a wound that refused to close.

“You keep that with you?” I asked, breathless, half-command and half-hope.

“My mother gave it to me the night you were born,” she said, voice low. “She kept a record of your name. She carries things in Cyrillic so only family will recognize it. If you doubt me—read it.”

My fingers hovered over the locket, clumsy with cold.

When I touched the paper inside, the ink smeared slightly, and that small, messy imperfection made it feel less like a prop and more like proof.

I heard the dumb, stupid part of me — the part that had learned to distrust everything — whisper that any mark could be forged. But beneath that whisper there was something harder: recognition.

A memory unspooled — a lullaby in a language I had listened to once and then locked away, the cadence of a woman humming by a bedside; a name spoken in the dark as if saying it could hold someone back from the world.

I followed her at last, the weight of her words settling unevenly in my chest—half hope, half disbelief, all exhaustion.

The rain didn’t let up; it hammered the pavement like a warning. By the time we reached her car—a dull gray sedan crouched beneath a dying streetlight—I was shaking from more than cold.

She slipped behind the wheel, movements quick, practiced.

I slid into the passenger seat, the leather groaning beneath my soaked clothes.

My knuckles stung, the cuts splitting open again as I clenched my fists.

She started the engine, and the windshield wipers carved furious arcs through the downpour, slicing the world into broken flashes of light and shadow.

I stared out the window.

Brooklyn was just a blur of wet neon and ghosted reflections—Penelope’s name, my foster father’s threats, my mother’s face—all bleeding together until I couldn’t tell which wound hurt more.

The locket hung heavy against my chest, cold and real, proof of something I’d spent my whole life denying.

Russia awaited, she said. A new beginning. Maybe even revenge. But the road ahead was nothing but darkness, and I knew one thing with bone-deep certainty—whatever boy I’d been tonight, he died under that tree. What got into that car was something else entirely.

Chapter 18

DMITRI VOLKOV, 19 Years Old

The hotel room was a dim cocoon, the faded wallpaper and heavy curtains swallowing the weak glow of a single lamp.

My mother—my biological mother, a stranger just hours ago—slept fitfully on the narrow bed, one hand clutching the edge of the blanket, her breath shallow and uneven, her face carved with years of loss.

The silver threads in her hair caught the light, fragile and human, and for the first time I saw not the mystery of who she was, but the weight of what she had endured.

I sat motionless in the corner, knees drawn up, my back pressed against the wall as though I needed the cold to remind me I was still alive, listening to her shallow breaths mingle with the muffled hum of rain outside.

She’d said we would talk in Russia, that her heart couldn’t rest until we were safe on her soil.

But waiting felt like torture.

A thousand questions gnawed at me—about her, about my biological father, about the years that had been stolen. Yet, as I watched her, exhaustion dulled the storm inside me.

What I felt now wasn’t anger. It was something rawer. Protective.