Page 79 of Godless Saints

He kept tearing the flower apart.

“You never tell me shit,” I said. “You joke, you let Aleksei take all the heat, and then he hits me with ‘Misha’s in trouble with Pakhan Lovchy’ like I’m supposed to just know what the fuck that means.”

His fingers stopped. “Aleksei told you?”

“So?” I asked. “What the fuck is going on?”

He stared at the ruined flower in his hand, petals stuck to his fingers. “This summer I…”

His throat moved. I sat up straighter.

“I got taken.”

“What?”

“Not like—I mean, yeah, like that, but—”

“Misha.”

“I’d like it noted I was taken under protest,” he said.

“Who?”

The smile died. He looked away.

“Misha.”

His fingers crushed the flower stem.

“Adrian Mirovsky.”

I moved before thought caught up. Grabbed his wrist and forced him to look at me.

“Mirovsky?”

Misha didn’t pull away.

“The fucking Mirovsky?”

He nodded once. My grip tightened. I scanned his face, his throat, his hands. He kept one wrist turned in, hiding it by habit.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No.” He tried to pull his arm back.

“No, Cil.”

Bullshit. His face said otherwise.

“You said he took you. Where?”

I tightened my grip.

“The Belaya Noch.”

“Then don’t tell me he didn’t hurt you.”

“It’s not that simple.”