But this is Katerina.
And that’s the problem.
I care what she thinks. More than I should. More than makes any sense, standing here on her father’s lawn with shell casings in the grass and her looking at me like I brought death to her door.
“And if this happens again?—”
“It won’t.”
She gives me a furious look. “You can’t promise that.”
“Yes, I can.”
That only angers her more. “You always talk like that. Like you can force everything into place if you decide hard enough.”
“No,” I say. “I talk like that because I know what I’m doing. Besides, you’re perfectly safe. The bullets were meant for me.”
She barely flinches at that.
“That’s not supposed to make me feel better.”
“It isn’t.” I look at her. “It’s supposed to make you understand.”
Her mouth twists. Then she says, lower now, “This is why I ran.”
And I believe her.
The bitter part is that I can even understand it. The worst part is that I still care. Too much.
Enough that I’m standing here trying to make her believe me while she raises another man’s children under her father’s roof. Enough that the sight of her still wrecks my judgment. Enough that the irony of it feels almost cruel: wanting her this much while thinking those children belong to my half-brother who still haunts me even after his death.
Before I can answer, Mikhail comes back across the lawn with a casing in his hand. He slows when he sees us still standing there.
“We’ve got the caliber,” he says.
I nod once.
Katerina looks between us, and whatever had almost shifted in her face closes up again. “Good,” she says. “Then figure it out.”
Then she turns and walks back toward the house.
I watch her go.
Mikhail comes up beside me and says quietly, “That went well.”
I look at him.
He shrugs. “Better than it could have, I mean.”
That, unfortunately, is true.
26
KATERINA
It has beenthree days since the shooting, and the house feels wrong.
Not louder. If anything, quieter. That’s what makes it unbearable.
