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My eyes locked on his. “One of two reasons? I don’t understand.”
Andrei nodded. “We used to hide in that hut when my father was first found dead. We were so scared the mob would come for us next, living off cans for weeks. We were almost starved when I decided to go and face the head of the mob, do whatever it took to save us. As you can see, it worked out quite well, or at least I thought so.”
“What happened?” I wondered.
“You,” Andrei said. “Officer Noah Davis, well, Carter, came out of nowhere and stole my sister’s heart. Showed her how unbearable my golden cage really was, how all the gold in the world meant nothing once she felt real love.”
The words filled me with shame. I meant so much to Mila, and in return, this is what I’d done to her.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I apologized in a soft voice, meaning every word of it.
Andrei frowned, then sighed. “I know. And in some ways, I’m glad things happened the way they did.”
“What?”
“This life I’d given her, it wasn’t sustainable. I move in circles as dangerous as they were tempting. My and her life as we know it would have come to an end, one way or another. And looking at it that way, I’m glad it happened with you, like this.”
A sad longing glittered in Andrei’s blue eyes as he stepped next to me and looked at the small hut.
“Will you,” he said, pulling out a letter from his pocket, “give her this?”
I accepted it and nodded.
“What about the other reason? You said there were two reasons why you won’t face the feds. One is Mila’s happiness. What’s the other?”
Andrei looked at me, then focused back on the hut. “Another time, Officer Carter. I have to go now,” he said. “Please...” he paused. “Please take good care of her.”
As if he couldn’t quite make himself leave, he kept staring at the wooden hut, his face full of sorrow and regret. I knew this look all too well, had seen it in my own reflection for weeks.
“I will,” I promised.
Then he turned and strode back the way we’d come.
“Andrei,” I called after him. He stopped right at the entrance to the forest and turned.
“Those men you killed, were they really all bad guys?”
As bizarre as it was, he laughed. “Does it matter?”
“It does to me. And her.”
It really did. I’d risked everything keeping my mouth shut. Denied my station the funding it desperately needed, and now I was letting one of the most wanted men in the country walk away without even trying to stop him. I needed to know it was for the right reasons.
Andrei grew serious again. “In that case, yes, Officer Carter. You can believe me or not, but my sister’s blood also runs through my veins. I’m not the monster you might think I am.”
I felt as if part of the heavy weight that had been on my shoulders for so long had fallen off, let me breathe again for the first time in weeks.
I faintly smiled at Andrei, a sign of relief and respect and, most of all, gratitude.
Andrei smiled back at me. “I still don’t like you, Carter, but I don’t hate you so much anymore.” Then he walked into the woods and was gone. I stood there for a moment longer, looking at the spot where he’d disappeared, then I turned and started running—not walking, not striding—over wet roots and rocks, all the way around that lake until I found myself in front of the hut that was my last chance at ever finding happiness again.
