Her breathing has changed now. Faster, shallower. Her hand on the gun is still steady, but her face has gone bright with something feverish.
“I loved him,” she says. “I would have given him sons. I would have given him a life that made sense. I would have stood beside him and never made him feel trapped. But you—” Her voice breaks on the word and turns vicious. “You got his name. You got the sympathy. You got the children.”
My whole body is shaking now, though I’m trying not to show it. “They are not his.”
The words slip out before I can stop them. Vika goes still.
For the first time since this began, her expression truly changes. Not anger. Not satisfaction. Confusion.
“What?”
I hear my own breathing. Mikhail’s. The distant water behind the warehouse. The whole ruined morning hanging on one impossible second.
I stare at my sister and say it again, clearer this time. “They are not Lev’s children.”
Vika stares at me.
For one second, I think I’ve shaken something loose. Not remorse. she isn’t built for that. But confusion, maybe. A crack. Enough to throw her off the line she’s been feeding herself for years.
Then her face hardens again. “No,” she says.
The word is flat. Final.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” Her voice sharpens, almost shrill now. She pushes me away. “You would say anything now.”
I take one step toward her before I can stop myself. “Vika, listen to me. They are not Lev’s?—”
She fires.
The sound blows the yard apart.
Pain tears through my ankle so suddenly I don’t understand it at first. Then my leg buckles and I go down with a cry I cannot hold back. The gun skids out of my hand onto the gravel. For one confused second all I can see is the ground rushing up and the dark splash of blood blooming over my shoe.
Mikhail fires at the same moment.
Too late. Too rough.
His shot goes wide.
Vika shoots again.
This one hits him.
He makes a terrible choking sound, one hand flying to his stomach, and then he folds sideways onto the concrete as if someone cut the strings holding him up. His gun clatters out of reach. He tries to catch himself and can’t. In another second he’s flat on his side, blood already running through his fingers.
“Mikhail!”
He doesn’t answer.
My ankle feels like fire. I drag myself backward over the gravel, half screaming, half gasping, trying to get my weight off the leg and failing because everything hurts and nothing makes sense and Vika is still standing there with the gun in her hand like this is only becoming more convenient for her.
She looks down at me with cold disgust.
“You always did make things ugly at the end.”
