AllFreeNovel
Share Us
By the time I enter the house Phoenix has disappeared, likely off to talk to Mother. I follow the sounds of Nikita and Milos arguing into the sun porch. “Mother is going to kick your ass for smoking in here.” I warn Nikita.
He sighs. “Shut up, I’m stressed. Aracely is on me again for another baby. And what’s the story with you? Boy or girl?”
I sink onto the sofa. “Boy. I’m fucked.”
Milos frowns. “I thought you believed a boy was better for Phoenix?”
All the air leaves me as I lean back. “I thought so too. Only it’s causing the first fight that promises to be one that could test us. She wants to call him Raymond.”
Both of them sit up and shake their heads at the same time.
“I know. I fucking know. I told her it isn’t happening. She became someone I haven’t seen since she shot me. This isn’t going to end well.”
Nikita squeezes his eyes shut. “You can’t tell her, not while her health is fucked up the way it is. It could send her into the hospital.”
“Or premature labor. You have to wait.” Milos is shaking his head.
“Fuck. I was really hoping one of you would argue against waiting. I hate the idea of not…”
“I get it. But you cannot. I thought you were exaggerating her fragility and her belief in her uncle—you weren’t. It will destroy the both of you. Celia thought you should have told her before the pregnancy. I disagreed with her. I apologize, maybe if I told you then this wouldn’t be an issue but it’s past time. You have to wait until she delivers. It’s not going to be a whole lot better because her hormones are going to be all over the place those first few weeks after she has the baby. But it’s better than right now. She’s too early for it to be safe.”
Mother hovers in the doorway. “Lunch is ready.”
As we exit the room, she catches my arm. “What’s going on?”
I shake my head and kiss her cheek. “More than I can speak on right now.”
Pulling back, she meets my eyes. What she sees, I don’t know. Finally she nods. “All right.”
Lunch is as bad as I feared it would be. Phoenix is refusing to acknowledge me. Everyone is tense.
Nikita tries to break the tension. “At least I came back early from Moscow to better weather than they had there. I’m also never going again this late in the year.”
Milos nods. “I was shocked the time I left a freezing but not so bad Moscow to come home to a frozen over Chicago. I never thought I would be happy to miss a Christmas with my family but the weather was better in Moscow the whole month I was there.”
The words stiffen Phoenix. “You were in Moscow for the last freeze, or the one before it?”
It takes a moment to figure out why Phoenix asked the question. There was an icing over of the city four years ago and another ten years ago. I want to scream no as Milos answers the question. Only it’s too late. It was too late ten years ago.
“The one before it.” He answers as he sips his wine.
* * *
Phoenix
Everything in me goes still. I’m not sure how I get the words out. “You were stuck in Russia for a month from December to January?”
Milos is curious. “Yes. It was from mid-December to mid-January.”
I force a smile as I swallow down water and fight not to choke. Ray disappeared a week before Christmas ten years ago. Milos wasn’t in the country to meet with Ray before ordering him killed the way he told me. Aleksander killed Ray. For Milos to lie and say he ordered Ray killed means Aleksander didn’t simply order Ray killed—Aleksander killed Ray.
What could Ray have done to make Aleksander kill him? Aleksander didn’t need to kill, he avoided it…so why Ray?
I’m lost in thought, mimicking everyone around me, mouthing the words without knowing what they are. Aleksander feels the change in me. His eyes are on me, demanding I meet them—I can’t. I can’t. Dear god, I just can’t.
I blink, the world goes hazy. Suddenly, we’re in the back of the SUV speeding home. No one says a word. I try, I try so hard, but I blink and the tears fall and they don’t stop. They won’t stop.
The front door closing is ominous. I shake my head. I can’t look at him. I don’t dare. “You killed him.”
