Chapter 109: Chapter Fifty-Four

Andrei

“Mama!” I ran in circles around her legs until she finally noticed me and picked me up.

She was the prettiest woman I’d ever seen.

“Pretty.” I touched her cheeks and giggled. “You love me, Mama?”

Her eyes filled with tears as she nodded and whispered so nobody would hear. “I love you so much, Drei, more than my own life.”

A door slammed. “Get away from my son!”

Mama slowly dropped me to my feet.

I clung to her leg as my dad stomped into the room.

He was always angry.

He didn’t hug me.

And he hated it when my mom did.

He said it was weak.

I was weak.

“Andrei…” He jabbed his finger at me. “…go get your brother and sister.”

“Okay.”

I had just had my fifth birthday.

I didn’t realize that in two years my mom would ask me to kill her.

I didn’t realize that my life was about to change.

I didn’t realize it wasn’t normal. My life.

I would know on my first day of school that I was different.

I would know shame.

I quickly ran into the nursery. They were twins. Three years old and silly, and they cried a lot when Mama couldn’t hold them, so I tried to hold them too.

But it wasn’t the same.

I knew that.

It didn’t feel the same as a hug from her.

“Come on, we gotta go see Dad.”

“Dad?” Katya repeated. “He’s home.” She didn’t sound excited as she slowly rose to her feet and grabbed her doll. I hung onto her hand and squeezed it.

“Pace, come on.”

Pace’s hair was bright blond.

He clutched a truck to his chest.

And slowly we walked back to the kitchen where my mom was sitting at the table, her tears dripping on top of it.

“Katya, Pace,” Dad barked. “Get in the car.”

Pace began crying. “Where?” He wanted to know where they were going.

My dad grabbed his toy truck and threw it against the wall. “Listen to me for once and go wait at the door!”

Pace nodded, his expression hurt as he went to the door.

Katya slowly lifted her gaze to Dad’s. “We go on a trip?”

Dad didn’t answer.

He grabbed her doll.

She couldn’t sleep without it.

“Dad, Katya needs her doll if she’s going—”

His slap cracked my cheek so hard that I fell to the ground. My mom didn’t come get me.

I could hear her cry harder.

“Say goodbye to your children,” he hissed.

Mama rose to her feet and reached for Katya first just as Pace came running.

They hugged for maybe three seconds.

I didn’t count.

And then Mama said, “What about Andrei?”

“He’s the oldest. He stays.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to beg him to let me leave.

But my cheek still hurt.

He gathered my brother and sister with another man, and they left the house.

The doll was at my feet.

The truck was in pieces near the wall.

“Mama?” I felt sick to my stomach. “They’re coming back, right?”

She didn’t answer, but she went to the pantry and opened a bottle of something that smelled sweet and strong. She chugged and then set it down on the counter. “No, Drei.”

“Where are they going?”

Her eyes flashed and then she fell into fitful sobs. “To heaven, baby, they’re going to heaven.”

And I knew, she’d lied.

She’d lied.

I grabbed Katya’s doll and cried with my mama while my other older siblings turned on the TV as loud as they could.

“Prosti!” I screamed as I came back from the nightmare. “PROSTI!” Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.

My lungs burned as blood wet my face slipping down my chin onto my battered body.

“Prosti!” Tears mixed with blood.

He’d sold them.

Sold his own kids to the highest bidder.

Used them as collateral.

And kept me as his protégé.

Katya.

Pace.

I never said their names.

Never.

It hurt.

I let out another scream of pain.

The sound of a door opening didn’t bring me from the darkness, from the pressure in my lungs as more memories surfaced.

“Kill her.” Dad shrugged. “She’s of no use anymore.” He gave me his gun.

“She’s twelve,” I snapped at him, ready to point the gun in an entirely different direction now that I was sixteen.

“She’s costing us money,” he spat. “Kill her or I may just let her kill you.”

He was bluffing.

I picked up the gun and pointed it at her.

I didn’t look in her eyes.

I made it quick.

And I could have sworn her soul said thank you when she crashed against the cold hard ground.

Later that night, with shaking hands, I took a nail and etched another mark in my bedpost understanding that most guys my age did that for an entirely different reason.

To remember the women they’d slept with.

I did it, to remember the ones I had killed.

Thirty-two.

“Prosti.” I clenched my teeth tasting blood as I threw my head back and roared until my voice was hoarse.

Something touched me.

The fires of hell were coming.

Licking at my heels.

Burning themselves against my flesh.

I deserved it.

I deserved it all.

And then I was moving, maybe my body was leaving this plane, going into a darker one, if that even existed.

Hell couldn’t be any worse than living life as a Petrov.

Something wet touched me next. It was warm.

And then it smelled like rosewater.

Lips pressed against my temple.

The same temple I always held the gun against.

“Sleep... Andrei... Sleep.”

“Mom?” I rasped. “Mom?”

Arms hugged me.

Held me close.

“I’m sorry.” My body shook so violently it was hard to get the words out. “So fucking sorry.”

“Don’t ever be sorry for sacrificing yourself, don’t ever be sorry for living,” the familiar voice said. “Now rest.”

“The things I did…” My body pulsed with pain so intense that I felt like I was convulsing. My eyes couldn’t focus on anything other than the ceiling.

It was dark.

Nighttime?

I couldn’t tell.

The lips pressed against my face again.

And then my hand somehow found another hand.

I almost pulled away.

Gloves, I needed gloves.

Her hand was too hot.

My skin wasn’t worthy.

And yet, I couldn’t find it within myself to let go.