I’m standing in the music room. Since my mother died, this has been the shrine in our house. The chapel, the most sacred space. But as I learned at the Russian Orthodox church, sacred spaces don’t mean much.
The last time I came in here was with Yelena.
Now I have her brother tied to a chair in the center of the room.
A few days ago he officiated my wedding. He put the ring on my finger, planning to put a bullet in my head only a few minutes later.
Life is endlessly surprising. For all of us.
I haven’t bothered to gag Adrian. I don’t care if he wants to talk. It won’t change anything.
He’s been stubbornly silent, watching me with those violet-colored eyes that are so disturbingly alike to his sister’s.
As the light begins to fade in the room, his skin looks pale and bleached, as if he’s already dead. He’s as still as a corpse. Only his eyes move, as he follows my progress back and forth across the room.
The two-hour window in which I was supposed to meet his father on the prairie has almost passed. Yenin hasn’t called or texted Vale’s phone. I don’t expect him to. I don’t believe for a second that he’s driving out of the city right now. In fact, I think that any moment Mikolaj will call to tell me that Yenin’s armored car is heading down my street.
I’m not really thinking about Yenin, though.
It’s Yelena who’s on my mind.
Where did she go, when she left my house? Why did she run? Did she think I was going to hurt her?
She gave herself to me last night, fully and completely. I think it was as cathartic for her as it was for me.
But maybe she changed her mind this morning.
Or maybe she thought I did.
I should have talked to her before I left.
The problem is this impossible dilemma that neither she nor I have been able to successfully navigate. The survival of each of our families depends on destroying the people that the other loves. No amount of conversation can change that. And the more time I spend next to Yelena, the more I can’t bear to do what has to be done.
I wish I ran away with her the day I met her.
In a game of winners and losers, the only happy ending was not to play at all.
I’m looking out the window, at the sky flushed with the last tinges of sunset. No stars yet.
Maybe Adrian knows where Yelena went. He won’t tell me if he does.
His voice startles me, speaking after so many hours of silence.
“You underestimate my father,” he says.
I look over at him, considering this statement.
“I don’t think I do,” I say, at last.
“He’s brilliant,” Adrian says. “And relentless. He’s a force of nature. Anyone who’s tried to stand before him has been swept away.”
“Is that why you betrayed Yelena for him?” I ask Adrian, coldly.
His face flushes, and I can see his arms straining against the rope holding his wrists bound behind him.
“Yelena turned her back on us,” he says, coldly. “She proved herself to be exactly what my father always said she was—a woman, with a woman’s weakness.”
“You and your father have a man’s arrogance.”
“The endgame will tell if it was arrogance or accuracy,” Adrian says.
His use of the word “endgame” jolts me.
“You play chess?” I ask him.
“Of course I do,” he says, coldly. “All the best masters are Russian.”
A ridiculous statement—I could ask him, “What about Jose Raul Capablanca, or Magnus Carlsen?” But that’s an argument we would have if we sat across from each other in this room as brothers-in-law. Not as bitter enemies.
In another life, we could have been friends. Yelena told me that Adrian is an athlete too—that he did boxing, fencing, and gymnastics in school, that he likes to run and swim. She told me of his humor, and his kindness to her.
I don’t see any of that in his face now. Just hatred, and the burning desire to finish the task he failed to complete in the Orthodox cathedral.
“This house is a shithole,” Adrian says. “And your father was half-senile. We did you a favor killing him.”
He’s trying to make me lose my temper. Maybe because he doesn’t want to be used as bait against his father. Maybe he thinks I’m stupid enough to untie him so I can beat the shit out of him better.
What he doesn’t realize is that all my wild emotion has been burned away. I’m finally taking my father’s advice—the last piece he gave me.
Play the endgame like a machine.
I’m a fucking android now. Nothing will stray me from my course. Rodion dies. Yenin dies. Adrian dies. There will be no loose ends this time. No forgiveness. No enemies left alive to seek their revenge on me and my family.
The room is almost fully dark now. Adrian looks unnerved that I didn’t even respond to his taunt.
“I wonder if you’ll feel sorrow when I kill your father in front of you,” I say to him. “I did, when you shot Papa in the face. My father was a good man, and he loved me. I don’t think you can say the same. You might be surprised by the relief that washes over you. If you’re alive to see it happen at all.”
Adrian looks frightened, and that makes him look young.
A seed of sympathy tries to sprout up inside of me. I crush it at once.
My phone buzzes in my pocket with a text message from Mikolaj:
They’re coming.
I go back to the window so I can see the three black SUVs creeping down Meyer Avenue, with Yenin’s armored car in the center of the group.
My mother’s music room is one of the only rooms in the house that faces the street, unobscured by the massive oak and elm trees crowding round the house.
I stand in front of the colored-glass window that runs floor to ceiling, almost the exact same height as my 6’7 frame.
Now it’s me who takes out Vale’s phone and dials.
After a moment, Yenin answers. He doesn’t actually speak—just picks up the call, listening silently.
“I must have a terrible memory,” I say, “because I thought we were meeting in Midewin.”
Two of the SUVs are pulling up to the curb. I watch Yenin’s men jump out, dressed in dark clothing, their faces covered by Halloween masks. I see a Michael Meyers, a Slenderman, a Jigsaw, and a Scarecrow. In their hands, they clutch dark, cylindrical objects that I recognize too well. I sigh, knowing what’s coming next.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I say to Yenin.
With that, I flip on the lamp next to the window, illuminating the room in which I stand. I can’t see Yenin inside his car, but I know the light will draw his eye up to my window. He’ll see me standing there.
With three swift strides, I grab the back of Adrian’s chair and drag him over in front of the window. Now it’s Yenin’s son who is silhouetted in front of the glass, while I stand to the side of the window frame, shielded from any gunfire.
“I’ve got your son,” I tell him. “Your daughter, too.” That part is a lie, but I doubt Yenin knows that. Wherever Yelena might have gone, it’s not back to her father. “Will you sacrifice them both to get your revenge?”
“I’m only sixty,” Yenin says, with chilling calm. “I can make more.”
Responding to his unseen signal, his men rush my house. I don’t see Rodion’s massive frame amongst them, but he must be here, maybe in Yenin’s armored car. There’s no way Yenin would come to the last dance without his top lieutenant.
I stay next to the window, watching.
Just as I’d hoped . . . just as I’d assumed . . . Yenin has stepped out of his armored car. He can’t help himself. He has to watch the culmination of his efforts. Not through glass—out in the open. Unprotected.
There’s at least a dozen soldiers, masked and armed. They break down the front door and throw their incendiary grenades inside. I hear a deafening boom, and the entire house shakes on its ancient frame.
I’m wearing a Kevlar vest, but that’s not going to do much good against grenades, or the collapse of the entire structure. I immediately start running toward the back of the house.
“WAIT!” Adrian screams after me.
I don’t even look back at him. As the next grenade detonates, I hear Adrian’s chair topple over behind me.
I run to the back staircase. Instead of going down, I’m going up—all the way to the rooftop. I spent the last few hours in my family home in my mother’s sanctuary. Now I’m going to my father’s.
I sprint across the deck, beneath the pergola laden with grapes so heavily ripe that they’ve almost turned to wine on the vines. I see my father’s favorite chair, next to the little table where we always set up his chessboard. His worn woolen blanket still sits neatly folded on the seat cushion.
Already smoke billows up from the windows below. The house creaks and groans as the ancient wood succumbs to the immense heat of the fire.
I hear gunfire breaking out on all sides beneath me. Mikolaj and his men are attacking Yenin’s soldiers, closing in from two directions, aided by Bosco Bianchi Antonio Marino, Stefano, Zio, and Tappo.
Still, we’re slightly outnumbered, so I’ve got to get down there. This battle has to be swift and decisive, before the cops arrive. Yenin isn’t slipping away from me this time.
Reaching the corner of the patio, I scrabble across onto the branches of the ancient oak tree that grows right next to the house. I’ve lived here all my life—I know a dozen different places where I can climb down unseen.
I wait in one of the lower branches, peering down, until I see a man in a Pennywise mask. He’s got his AK up on his shoulder, aiming at one of Miko’s men. I drop down on top of him, hearing his muffled scream of pain through the rubber mask as his leg breaks beneath him.
I pull my Glock and shoot him twice in the chest. He stops moaning.
My family’s house is going up in flames like a tinderbox. Everything is burning—the pictures of my great-grandparents in their dusty frames. The posters on my bedroom walls. My mother’s piano.
I never could have let this happen if my father were still alive—it would have killed him. But like Yenin, I’m willing to lose something I love to get my revenge. I sacrificed a piece that had great value to me, to lure him out of his car.
And now I can see him, standing on the opposite side of the street, arms crossed over his broad chest, lank gray hair loose around his shoulders, craggy face illuminated by firelight.
Distantly, I hear the wail of sirens. I have minutes to kill him. Only minutes.
As I start to jog toward him, something explodes inside the house. I’m thrown sideways by the force of the blast, bits of leaded glass cutting the right side of my face and body. The heat from the inferno is so intense that the fighting is driven outward toward the street. Looking up, I see Mikolaj shoot Jigsaw in the face, then pull a knife from his belt so he can slash Slenderman once, twice, three times across the belly, chest, and throat.
Mikolaj moves with shocking speed and grace. He’s like a dancer himself—a cruel and lethal analog of his wife. In less than a second he’s seized Michael Meyers by the hair and cut his throat as well.
It’s almost like having Nero with me. Nero always prefers knives over guns.
But I don’t have time to appreciate any of this. I’m fixated on one thing only: the grizzled form of my enemy across the street. Glowing in the reflected flame light like the Devil himself.
I shove myself up off the grass and I run toward him, Glock still clutched in my hand.
Yenin has kept two of his biggest guards at his side. Both are wearing masks, but neither has quite the size to be Rodion. I’m disconcerted, wondering where the fuck his lieutenant has gone. I can’t imagine that Yenin would dispatch him for anything trivial.
I can’t help worrying about Yelena. If Rodion had a choice of where to go, it would be to find and drag home the object of his fixation. If he found Yelena . . . if he fucking even touched her . . .
Yenin’s guards see me coming. They already have their weapons drawn. The one on the left has the quicker reflexes of the two—but not quick enough. Before he can even aim at me, I’ve shot him in the neck and chest. His friend is slightly more successful. He shoots me in center mass before I can hit him between the eyes. Too bad for him my vest is stronger than his bullet.
The impact fucking hurts though, and it throws me off balance. This turns out to be a good thing, because it means that Yenin’s shot goes wide, grazing my bicep instead of the head.
Not wanting to risk another shot, I plow into him, tackling him like a football player. I let go of my Glock so I can grab his gun hand in both of mine, slamming his wrist repeatedly against the cement until his Colt skitters away beneath his armored car.
If at any point I actually did underestimate Yenin it would be right now, in this moment. He’s a 60-year-old man, four inches shorter than me. I should be able to pound him into the pavement.
But he has the kind of strength and strategy that can only be honed by a lifetime of combat. He attacks me with the rabidity of an animal and the precision of a sniper. He slams the heel of his hand up into my nose, then elbows me in the throat. Then he goes for his real target: my knee. He brings his foot smashing down on my formerly-shattered kneecap, right in its most vulnerable place.
It’s like I’ve time-traveled back to the lakeside pier three years ago. My kneecap breaks apart once more, in a supernova of pain that wipes all signals through my nerves. I can’t move or even breathe. All I can do is scream.
Yenin tries to roll away from me, his blue eyes gleaming with triumph. He’s getting to his feet, whether to grab for his gun or to kick me in the face, I have no idea. My pain-addled brain decides that he’s trying to run away, and whatever else happens, I’m not letting that happen. With every bit of strength I have left in me, I grab him around the knees and jerk his legs out from under him, sending him crashing down to the pavement once more. Then I launch myself on top of him, ignoring the shrieking agony as the pieces of my kneecap grind together.
This isn’t a fight anymore. It’s a fucking brawl. We’re punching and clawing and head butting each other, fighting with a viciousness that makes me want to bite and tear, to rip off his fingers and his eyelids, to destroy any part of him I can reach. I find those hateful blue eyes and I dig my thumbs in, trying to blind him.
This man took my father’s hand in friendship, and then he blew Papa’s jaw off, so I couldn’t even identify his face. He stole the last years of my father’s life—our last chess games together, Papa’s last opportunities to hold his grandchildren. Yenin will never have the chance to feel those pleasures himself. He doesn’t get to gloat. He doesn’t get to win. I’ll eradicate him off the face of this earth so he won’t feel another moment’s satisfaction ever again.
Yenin is strong but I’m stronger. He’s cruel, but I’m a fucking sadist. He’s dying at the hands of the monster he made.
Our hands are locked around each other’s throats and he’s squeezing with all his might. I choke him back twice as hard, until I hear the bones in his neck snapping. My fingers dig into his flesh until the blood runs down, and still I keep squeezing till the only light in his eyes is the sparks of my house burning down.
Only then do I let go.
And still I’m not done.
I cross the road, heedless of the bullets flying all around me. I’m limping along, leaning heavily on my good leg, dragging my screaming knee after me.
Mikolaj’s men are still fighting the last of Yenin’s soldiers. The fire is raging, and the sirens are drawing closer. With a crunch of tires on broken glass, I hear another car pull up. Someone shouts my name.
I keep walking.
I see nothing but fire. I feel nothing but rage.
This isn’t over yet—not till Rodion and Adrian are dead.
I’m searching for the hulking figure of the silent giant. Or the shock of white-blond hair of Yelena’s brother.
I almost step on Adrian.
He’s lying in muddy, trampled grass on the front lawn. His hair isn’t blond at all anymore because most of it has been burned away. The whole right side of his face and body is charred. I can see the smoking remnants of the rope around his left wrist, and a piece of the broken chair to which he was tied.
He looks up at me, one eye swollen shut, the other clear and tinged that particular shade of violet.
“Please . . .” he croaks.
I look around on the ground. There’s a discarded Kalashnikov a dozen yards away. I pick it up, limping back toward my enemy once more.
I point the barrel right between his eyes, my finger curled around the trigger.
“SEBASTIAN!!!” someone screams.
Not someone.
Yelena.
I would recognize her voice anywhere.
I’m frozen in place. Every impulse of my brain is screaming at me to kill Adrian, to do it now. He would shoot me, given the chance again. He’d shoot anyone I love. He might even shoot Yelena.
But as soon as Yelena gets close to me, my brain isn’t in charge. My body takes over. It turns toward her, without thought or choice, like a flower turning to the sun.
She looks filthy, frantic, scratched, and beaten up. Smoke-stained, in torn and bloody clothing. And yet she’s so beautiful I can hardly stand it.
Her lovely eyes are fixed on my face, filled with tears and pleading with me.
“Please Sebastian,” she begs. “Please don’t kill him . . . I’m begging you. Please don’t.”
The gun is still pointed at her brother.
I swore to myself that I wouldn’t stop. I swore I’d be a machine.
But my heart is throbbing, straining against my chest in automatic impulse the closer Yelena gets to me.
“Please,” she whispers.
I flex my fingers to see if I still have control of my hand.
I do. I could shoot Adrian if I wanted to.
But I don’t want to anymore. The sight of Yelena has washed away the last remnants of my pain. She came back. And not for Adrian—I can see that in her face. She’s here for me.
I drop the rifle on the ground.
With a sob, Yelena flings herself on me, almost knocking me over. I grunt with pain.
“Are you okay?” Yelena sobs.
“Yes,” I say. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
She hugs me hard, with that same ferocity I saw the very first day I met her. She hugs me like a Valkyrie. Like she’d kill anything that tried to come between us.
Then, when she releases me, she drops down by her brother and cries, “Adrian!”
Her brother looks up at her, his teeth gritted in pain.
“The ambulance is coming,” Yelena cries. “Hold on . . .”
“This . . . this . . .” Adrian grunts.
“What?” Yelena says. “What are you saying?”
“Your fault . . .” Adrian hisses. He’s not looking up at his sister with love, or even relief that she’s still alive. He’s looking at her with pure hatred.
I see that look and I want to snatch up the rifle and kill him here and now. I don’t want him in an ambulance, or a hospital bed. I don’t want him recovering in his body, while his mind still seethes with rage at Yelena.
Yelena casts a swift look up at me, like she knows what I’m thinking. Her lips press together and she gives one quick shake of her head.
She won’t do it. She doesn’t want me to do it either.
I don’t like that at all. It makes me worried, and afraid.
But my love for Yelena is stronger than my worry.
Someone grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me around.
“Seb!” Aida shouts. Her face is likewise smoke-streaked and she’s clutching a gun in her free hand. Callum is right beside her, covering her in case anyone tries to attack her from behind. The yard is littered with dead Russians, and at least two of Mikolaj’s men. I see a face-down figure that looks like Bosco Bianchi.
But the gunfire has died out. The sirens are wailing close by, and I don’t think there’s anyone left to fight.
“Let’s go!” Aida cries.
“Where’s Mikolaj?” I ask.
“He already left with his men.”
“We better do the same, right the fuck now,” Callum says. “Or no amount of bribes are going to get us out of this shitstorm.”
Leaning heavily on Yelena, I hobble as best I can back to Callum’s car. Yelena and I get in the back while Callum takes the driver’s seat, and Aida sits shotgun.
As Callum speeds away down the street, Aida casts one devastated look back at our burning house. The rear-view mirror is full of the flashing lights of squad cars, fire trucks, and ambulances.
I assume they’ll find Adrian in time—but I hope they don’t.
