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Heat invades my face. “I think you better leave.”
“I will. Just tell me, Chloe… Have you already fallen for him? Did that handsome face of his fool you into thinking he’s your knight in shining armor, after all?”
I take a deep breath. “Alina, listen… I don’t know what beef you have with your brother, but I think it’s best if we talk when you’re feeling better. Nikolai and I have started dating, but that doesn’t mean—”
She sways toward me. “Poor child. He did fool you, didn’t he?”
“Uh-huh.” I grip her shoulders, steadying her; then I turn her around and march her toward the door. “We’ll talk more about this later.”
She twists out of my hold. “You don’t understand. I’m trying to help you.” Her glassy eyes are wide, imploring. “You need to listen to me. He’s just like him.”
I shouldn’t listen to anything she says in this state, but I can’t help myself. “Him?”
“Our father. Kolya is his carbon copy, in all ways.” She grips the lapels of my robe. “Do you understand? He’s a monster, a killer. He—” She stops, her face turning even paler as she realizes what she’s said.
Releasing my robe, she backs away as I stare at her, my stomach churning as every suspicion I’ve ever entertained about the Molotovs surfaces like a poisoned cork in a well. Alina is clearly out of her mind, but to call her brother a killer?
That’s not an accusation one throws around for no reason, even when drunk or high.
She’s already reaching for the door handle when I shake off my shock-induced paralysis and dash after her. “What are you talking about?” Grabbing her arm, I spin her around to face me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
She’s shaking her head, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Forget it. I just… didn’t want you to end up like her.”
“Her?”
“Just leave, Chloe. Go before it’s too late.”
I grit my teeth. “I can’t. Pavel lost my car keys. But even if I had them, there’s no way I’d just—”
“I found them. In Kolya’s nightstand drawer.”
I step back, reeling. “What? When?”
“Yesterday morning, when I went into Kolya’s room to get the cash for you.” Her jade-green eyes look haunted. “That’s when I knew.”
A chill wraps around my spine. “Knew what?”
Ignoring my question, she steps around me and unsteadily makes her way to the bed, where she starts digging through the folds of the blanket. “Here.” She holds up a pair of keys on a pink, furry keychain. “That’s another reason I came here—to give this to you.”
The sick churning in my stomach intensifies. She’s lying. She must be lying. She could’ve found the keys anywhere, wherever it was that Pavel had lost them. Because if she’s not lying, if they were in Nikolai’s nightstand yesterday morning, then they were never lost. That or Nikolai found them before leaving for his trip—before our video chat in which he claimed Pavel couldn’t locate them.
As if reading my mind, Alina says unevenly, “Pavel doesn’t lose things, by the way. I’ve known him all my life, and he’s never misplaced so much as a holey sock—at least not by accident. He’s like my brother in that regard. Whatever he does is planned.”
My heart pounds at my ribcage like a mallet. “Give me the keys.” Stepping toward her, I snatch them from her hand and stuff them into the robe’s pocket. My mind is racing, my thoughts tumbling over each other like pieces of colored glass in a kaleidoscope. I don’t know what to think, what to believe.
Why would Nikolai lie about my keys?
Why would Alina?
“What did you mean when you called your brother a killer?” I ask, staring into her drug-clouded eyes. “Who is this her?”
Her face crumples. “You don’t want this. Believe me, you don’t.”
“I do. Tell me.”
She shakes her head, more tears leaking from her eyes.
“Alina, please… I have to know. I have to know because—because you’re right. I—” I suck in a breath, my chest tightening as the truth sinks its fangs into me. “I am falling for him, and fast.”
Her shoulders shake with silent sobs as she sinks to the floor, her back against the bed and her long hair falling forward to hide her face as she hugs her knees.
Desperate, I kneel in front of her. “Please, Alina. I have to know. How’s he like your father? How’s he a monster? What happened? Who is he supposed to have killed?”
For several long moments, there’s no response. Finally, she lifts her head, and through the black veil of her hair, I see the screaming agony in her eyes. “Our father.” The words come out in a broken, ragged whisper. “He killed her. And then Kolya killed him. Sliced him open, right there—” Her voice cracks. “Right in front of me.”
