There is only the screen behind him, my children gone from it, and the truth standing between us with nowhere left to hide.
I step back from him. For the first time in my life, my father looks afraid of what I might do next.
And he should be.
31
ROMAN
I’m still leaningagainst the car when she comes out.
A little way down from the front steps, leaning against the car, one hand in my coat pocket, the other wrapped around a coffee I forgot to drink while it was still warm. The morning has that pale, strained look winter mornings get in this part of the city, as if the light itself is reluctant to commit. Markov men move in and out of the house with purpose, but none of them come near me.
They know who I am, or enough.
They know I brought her back. They know better than to start something on the driveway unless Sergei gives the order himself.
So, I wait.
All of that’s true.
It’s also true that I cannot make myself leave while she’s still in there.
The front door opens twice before she comes out. A maid. Then one of Sergei’s men with a phone pressed to his ear. Neither matters. The third time, it’s her.
I know something has gone wrong before she’s halfway down the steps.
Her face gives it away first. Not tears exactly. She’s past that for the moment. What I see instead is the look people get when the ground under their lives has shifted and they are still trying to stand as if it hasn’t. She walks straight toward me, not seeing anything else, not the drive, not the men, not the car.
I push off the hood before I can think what I’m doing. “Katerina?—”
She reaches me and throws herself into my arms so hard I have to widen my stance to keep us both upright.
For a second I don’t move. Not because I don’t want to. Because I understand immediately that this is not a woman coming to be kissed or reassured or talked down from a scene. This is pure instinct. Grief or fear or shock, driving her toward the nearest place she thinks might hold.
Then my arms are around her.
She presses her face into my chest and breaks.
The sound she makes is low and terrible, the kind of crying people do when they’ve been holding themselves together too long and suddenly can’t anymore. I put one hand over the back of her head, the other around her waist, and hold her there while she shakes against me.
“It’s all right,” I hear myself say, though I know perfectly well it isn’t. “I’ve got you.”
She clutches at my coat like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she loosens her grip. I can feel her breathing in jagged pulls against me. “They’re really gone,” she continues to sob. “I can’t believe it.”
“What do you know about the children?”
She swallows. “Not much.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Her fingers tighten on my sleeve. “They were in the schoolroom. The tutor stepped out to get one of Sofia’s books. When she came back, they were gone.”
“How long was she out of the room?”
“A few minutes. That’s all anyone keeps saying.” Her mouth twists. “As if that makes it less insane.”
I nod once. “A car?”
