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Chapter 20
Alexei
I don’t nap. I don’t even sleep particularly deeply, as my ears are always tuned for danger. Yet on this warm, humid afternoon, with the thick clouds gathering on the horizon and bringing the distant smell of rain, I close my eyes and drift off with Alina at my side.
The dream creeps in slowly. On some level, I’m aware that it’s a dream. It has that soft, hazy quality to it, as if I were entering into a fog. But then the fog becomes all that is real, and I forget that anything else exists outside of it.
There’s a woman. A heavily pregnant woman. She’s soft and warm. She smells like vanilla and lemons. I burrow closer to her side. Strangely, I fit there, under her arm, even though I’m a big man. Except… I’m not.
I’m small.
I’m a child.
The realization should be shocking, but it’s not. I burrow closer to the woman, listening to her melodious voice, one of my little hands resting on her huge belly. Mama. The word comes to me from the fog, and I accept it, just as I accept the knowledge that inside that belly is my baby sister.
Mama is speaking. No, she’s reading. There’s a book in her hands.
I sigh contentedly, listening to the story, feeling my baby sister kick inside Mama’s belly. “She’s playing football,” Papa would always say. I’m jealous. I want to play football with her. Ruslan is too young to be any good at it right now, but maybe my baby sister is better. She’s getting lots of practice.
Kick. Kick. Kick.
They’re getting stronger.
Mama stiffens.
No, that’s wrong. That’s not how it goes.
There’s something red on the sheets.
No, no, no.
The sheets are soaked now, covered with blood.
“Mama?” My voice goes high. “Mama, are you going to die?”
Kick. Kick. Kick.
The huge belly ripples, and I feel it beginning to tear. No, not tear. It’s being sliced open from the inside. My baby sister. She has a knife.
The blood is everywhere, coating Mama, covering me. My heart beats like the wings of a trapped bird, and I feel sick. I scramble off the bed and start running. But my feet don’t move. I’m frozen in place, unable to go for help.
The belly splits.
Mama screams.
“Alexei?”
I jackknife to a sitting position, the fog evaporating in a burst of light.
“Are you okay?” Alina asks, sitting up to stare at me with unconcealed concern, and I realize my breathing is labored, like I’ve just sprinted ten miles.
I force myself to take a deep breath and slowly let it out.
A dream. It was just a fucking dream. Somehow, I managed to fall asleep out here and have a nightmare.
As a kid, I used to have nightmares after Mom died. I don’t remember all the details, but there was always something about blood. It’s been years—no, decades—since I’ve had one. Were they always this vivid?
My voice is hoarse as I attempt to speak. “It was just a dream.”
I don’t know if I’m trying to convince Alina or myself.
She nods, but she doesn’t lie back down. Instead, she regards me with a curiosity that I’d appreciate at any other time. “What was it about?” she asks softly.
Blood. A C-section gone wrong. A baby killing the woman I loved.
My stomach twists, and I taste bile.
Swinging my feet off the lounger, I stand up. “Excuse me. There’s something I have to do.” My voice is strained, my throat so tight it’s a wonder I can get the words out as I step away on legs that feel like I’m coming off a three-day bender.
I don’t know where I’m going. The yacht suddenly feels too small, a prison of my own making. Fuck, even the ocean around us is too small to contain the emotions welling up inside me. As a child, I did my best not to think about my mother and her death. I let myself forget the softness of her embrace, so I didn’t have to remember her screams at the end. I never forgot that she died from childbirth complications, of course, but the memory of that day slowly faded until it felt like a story I’d heard on the news rather than something that had devastated my life. The nightmares faded too, and by the time I entered my teens, I was able to talk about my mother’s death as dispassionately as befits the son of Boris Leonov—and to think about pregnancy and childbirth the way everyone does: without giving much thought to the risks the process entails.
My throat tightens further, threatening to choke off my air. I’m already by the staircase—on autopilot, I was heading below the deck—but I reverse course and beeline for the hull, where I dive overboard, not bothering with the ladder.
The shock of being submerged in cool water clears away the remnants of the nightmare, and by the time I surface, I can actually breathe.
