The day of my release was anticlimactic. My lawyer, Ronan Black, came to oversee the paperwork.
Ronan was the kind of man who liked to dress up in suits and pull a veneer of civility over his brutality, but he was just the same as the rest of us. His stepfather, Brian O’Connor, had made sure of that. Despite going by a different name, Ronan Black was known in our circles as a man you didn’t want to cross. Luckily for me, Kirill employed him on behalf of the Chernov bratva. Funnily enough, he was Bran’s stepbrother. He didn’t go by the surname O’Connor in his professional life. The name was too notorious. Instead, he took his mother’s maiden name and played pretend that he wasn’t the son of a mob boss and his clients weren’t all criminals. Many a man had disappeared who dared to go against Ronan Black, and even the odd, irritating coworker. In the last few years, I’d enjoyed seeing him make the trek out to the prison sporadically to see me. He had hated every second.
“Well, today’s the day, Chernov. I finally get to see your ugly face for the last time.”
“Sure, until I get arrested again.” I smirked at him.
He shot me a glacial look. “Here, I have a cell phone for you. My number is in it. Do not call me for any reason, other than getting arrested again, and for fuck’s sake, Nikolai,” Ronan warned, his voice firm, “stay out of trouble.”
I took the phone from him, turning it over in my hands. “Even phones have changed,” I muttered.
“Congratulations. You’re a time traveler. All your favorite things will still get you in trouble, however, like violence, murder, and general mayhem. Try to not do them too quickly, or I might just kill you myself, instead of representing you again.” His clipped, polished voice sounded at odds with his words.
That accent was as fake as the friendly smile he shot the guards. Ronan had no respect for the police or legal system. He simply enjoyed playing with it, pulling people’s strings to his advantage. I was pretty sure he was a sociopath. Suffice to say, I enjoyed his company.
He’d brought me clothes to wear. A gray suit and shirt. It didn’t feel like me at all, and the material felt odd and too soft after years of rough overalls.
Leaving the prison after many checks, I stopped to collect my belongings, before realizing that, of course, I didn’t have any. I’d left my dog-eared books to the prison library.
The first step outside, onto free land, felt stranger still. I looked around the scrubby car park and the deserted road beyond. A shiny car was sitting at the curb, in the no-parking zone. I approached, knowing only a few assholes who would flaunt the rules right outside a prison. Ronan came out of the building behind me, having dealt with the last of the paperwork. I had Ronan to thank for getting out of jail so quickly. His reduction of my sentence to self-defense had been a masterclass I was sure they’d teach in hell.
“That your car?”
“Sure is. Hop in, I’ll give you a lift into town.”
He took off toward the vehicle without a backward glance. He got into the front passenger seat, which was odd.
Someone was in the back.
I approached, and the window slid down. The sight that met my eyes sent a reluctant grin to my lips.
“Well, well, Mallory Madison, you’re a sight for sore eyes, princess.”
“It’s Molly Chernova, which you know, and don’t call me princess. Kirill might send you back inside if he hears it,” Molly quipped as the door opened.
She pushed herself along the long cream leather seat in the back of the town car, and I ducked in beside her. I inhaled the scent of her perfume. Fuck, it was good to smell something other than male sweat and agony for once.
“Right, and where is your uglier half?”
“Russia. He’s back next week.”
I noticed three more black cars pulling in behind as we left the prison grounds.
“So, Kirill isn’t around. Is that why you’ve got a security battalion following us? Why Russia?”
Molly sighed. “He’s building a goddamn castle in the woods, complete with a crocodile-filled moat.” Her tone told me this was a contentious subject.
I looked out the window, watching the changing landscape as we headed into the city. It all seemed so mundane. Everything had continued on just as before, while I’d been outside of the world for seven whole years. “Of course he is. Kirill can’t help but be extra as fuck.”
Molly tutted. “He’s lost his mind.”
“Why? Every pakhan needs a retirement plan. I like it. Kirill and Mallory, the great star-crossed lovers, growing old, safe and sound in their snowy Russian castle. You’ll keep the east wing for me, of course, so I can be the monster who lives in the shadows up there and scares the kids. You didn’t bring them?”
“No. They’re in school.”
“School?” I sucked a breath through my teeth. I missed it all. Seven years. An entire childhood. “For the record, I also think the PTA at Kira’s new school sounds like a satanic cult.”
Molly smiled. “So, you got my letters? I guess my replies got lost in the mail.”
“You didn’t want to hear from me. You’re the kind of fucked-up, pathetic bleeding heart who would have worried for me, and there wasn’t any point. I enjoyed reading them, though, for what it’s worth. I liked not being forgotten.”
Molly laughed, a sound like silver bells. “Like anyone could forget the great Nikolai Chernov.”
I clenched my hand in my lap as Sofia’s name seemed to float in the air between us.
“Does Kirill know you’re here?”
Molly slid a slideways glance at me. “What do you think?”
“I think he has no intention of letting me anywhere near his family until he can be sure about my mental state. He’s not an idiot.”
“And how is your mental state? You look well. Terrifying but healthy.” Molly looked me up and down.
“And you’re still a terrible judge of character, clearly.”
Molly turned to me, one eyebrow cocked. “So, you’re not well?”
I watched the world pass by outside the car. “Isn’t that what my brother warned you? Isn’t that why you didn’t bring the kids?”
Molly was quiet for a long moment before rallying. “Kira wouldn’t be scared of you anyway. She has a way with monsters.”
“She gets that from her mother,” I noted. “And Ruslan?”
“He’s protective, but he’ll love you. You’re his uncle, and he’s heard all about your escapades.”
“Don’t scare the kid.”
Molly was quiet for a long moment. “If you’re going to haunt the east wing, you need to be alive.”
She finally broke a chuckle from me. “Oh, princess. My ghost will haunt your fortress of Russian solitude just fine. Don’t worry about me. Nothing good ever happens to people who worry about me. It’s safer not to risk it.”
“Okay, I changed my mind. I didn’t want to come. This is a total downer,” Bran complained, a few hours later, when we pulled up at the ornate gates of Silent Grove, a cemetery in New Jersey.
He’d called me just as Molly and Ronan had left me at some faceless hotel downtown. I’d only been in Manhattan a few hours and was already itching to leave. I’d been waiting seven long years for this moment, and I couldn’t fucking wait one more second.
“Like you had anything better to do.”
It was a dry fall day. Perfect weather really. I left Bran at the car and pulled my cap low over my face, grabbed the stuff I needed from the trunk, and headed through the marked graves in the general direction of the De Sanctis family plots. The graveyard was well tended and full of fresh flowers. Well, it seemed that way until I reached my lastochka’s grave. It was bare of adornment. Even in death, Antonio’s daughter was an afterthought.
I kneeled on the wet grass, setting aside my supplies and laying a bouquet of lilies against the green grass that covered the woman I loved. I might have always been fucked up, but that I loved Sofia couldn’t be denied. She was my ghost, haunting my days, always just tantalizingly out of reach. The inscription on the headstone made me itch to visit Antonio De Sanctis this second and even our debts.
Here lies Sofia Leonora De Sanctis,
dutiful daughter and beloved sister.
May she find the peace that eluded her in life, in death.
“Dutiful daughter?” I snorted into the still air. “Fuck you, Tony. I’ll get you for that.”
I backed onto a bench, positioned to look at the boring patch of ground that now held my little swallow’s cage. A prison she’d never escape. A bird flew from the underbrush right then, and I gazed upward, following its flight. Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe in death, she’d escaped. Maybe she’d finally flown far, far away.
“I’m sorry he buried you here. You’d hate it.” I looked around the place. There wouldn’t even be a good view of the stars with all the trees overhanging her grave.
“They didn’t let me come to the funeral. We weren’t family, well, not in the way the penal system can understand.” I opened my palm and stared down at the S carved into my skin. It was a light scar now, silvery, but still there. If it ever disappeared, I’d cut it back in.
I eased a hand over my shaved head, the stubble bristling against my palm.
“I’ll be visiting your father soon. I hope you can forgive me for the things I’m going to do to him, but even if you wouldn’t, that won’t stop me. I’ll ask for your forgiveness, instead of your permission, prom queen, when I see you again.” I stood then, feeling cold through and through. “In the next life, or the one after. I’m a man of my word, after all, and I promised you I’d always find you. Wait for me.”
I pushed myself to my feet. The chaos inside my chest was screaming at me, louder than ever. It hurt. It really fucking hurt.
“First, lastochka, since I know how much you’d hate it here, I brought a little ‘fuck you’ to your father, so he understands that I’m coming for him. Nothing is better torture than fear, and I want him to be afraid. I want him to understand that his end is near. I’ll see you soon.”
Turning from the silent grave, I looped around the other De Sanctis family plots and found the small church on the grounds and went inside. It was reserved for the De Sanctis family alone, a place where Antonio could come and not worry about getting shot, apparently. It seemed he didn’t come too often, as I hadn’t seen more security than CCTV cameras. Antonio had always been sloppy, and now he’d only gotten worse. It’d would only make terrorizing and killing him easier.
There were a few chairs for prayer, an altar with flowers on it, and not much else. The chairs were padded and opulent-looking. Even when praying, Antonio thought a lot of himself. I couldn’t wait to teach the arrogant bastard the ultimate lesson.
I uncapped the gas can I’d brought with me and poured it liberally over Antonio’s chair. I could tell exactly which one it was, since it was the most obnoxious. I was surprised he hadn’t had it bedazzled with his initials or something equally tasteless.
When I flicked the lit match at it, it went up in a whoosh, and I enjoyed the sight.
I watched it burn, the air growing thick inside the incense-scented room, before leaving.
Soon, De Sanctis, I’ll be doing the same to you.
I strode from the graveyard, with only more darkness dawning inside me. I’d thought I’d feel closer to her there, but I didn’t.
There was no hint of Sofia in that dreary place. Bones and decomposing flesh wasn’t people, and my lastochka had been in the ground long enough to be both.
She wasn’t here. Not even a trace remained.
She was gone.
