Shattered Altar （Makarova Bratva Duet #1）
Nicole Fox
1
OLIVIA
“Delayed?” I blurt. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me.”
The airline agent blinks back at me with a painted-on smile. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Domino effect. The previous flight was late.”
I swallow my disappointment. “How long will it be?”
“A few hours. I’ll make an announcement as soon as we know more. In the meantime, why don’t you take a seat?”
She might as well have said, Sit your annoying ass down—the dismissal is that obvious. I have no choice but to nod back. “Okay. Thank you.”
I slink away to the furthest row of seats facing the main terminal and check the time. We should have been boarding now. Instead, I’m settling into a hard plastic seat in a crowded airport and avoiding a stain on the armrest that looks suspiciously like vomit.
Needless to say, I’ve had better vacations.
My phone pings five times in a row, but I know who it is without having to check. Mom is technically the owner of a functioning cell phone, pays the bill and everything, but hell will freeze over before she figures out how to turn the dang thing on.
My brother Rob isn’t really the texting type. If he has anything to say, he just picks up his phone and calls.
Which means my dearest sister is the one blowing me up. I pull up her texts.
All I can see at first are a bunch of exuberant emojis. Smiling, I scroll down until I see actual words, written in actual English. Mia is ten years older than me, but she still types sometimes like she’s a twelve-year-old girl stuck in an early 2000s AOL chatroom version of purgatory. Lots of omgz and lulz and rolfcopters.
One thing hasn’t changed, however: in typical Mia fashion, her thoughts are split across half a dozen different messages. It’s a little peek into how her brain works. A hundred miles an hour in every direction.
MIA: hav u boarded yet?
MIA: ill be there to pick u up.
MIA: Tht way we can tlk abt Mom and Rob b4 we r all trapped in 1 house 2gether.
MIA: so excited to see you, munchkin!!!
MIA: cant wait to smush ur face.
Punctuation is a rare treat. She must be giddy. I can’t help laughing and feeling instantly better. I’d sit through a hundred delays if it meant I got to see my family at the end of it. Lord knows I need it.
Since moving to New York two years ago, I haven’t seen them as often as I’d like. Mia visited twice; Mom came once. Rob hasn’t made the trip yet.
His job keeps him busy, which is understandable. And then there’s the other thing…
I take a deep breath, worried about my headstrong brother and how he’s going to handle his first Christmas without Isabella.
I send Mia back a bunch of hearts and smiley faces before I start typing out an actual text.
OLIVIA: I’m excited to see you guys too!!! But my flight has been delayed. Don’t know for how long yet.
She texts back almost immediately. Noooooooooo!
I see that she’s typing something else, but then the three dots icon disappears. A second later, my phone starts ringing. I pick it up with a smile.
“Hey, hey, hey!” I say in a deep, albeit squeaky, but mostly just terrible impression of Fat Albert. It’s been our inside joke for years. Mia used to chase me around the house saying it over and over again, tickling me half to death whenever she caught up.
“Delayed?” she groans, not even bothering to do the return line. “What a load of crap. Well, you should have a snack and drink some water if you’re gonna be waiting a while.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I have one mother already, thank you very much. I don’t need another.”
Given how close we are, you’d think there was a smaller age difference. But Mia’s a full decade older than I am. When we were younger, she was like my second mother. Now, we’re friends first, sisters second. Unless Mia is tipsy, then she likes to tell everyone we’re “ballers first.” I’m honestly not even sure what that means.
“Okay, rude!” she scoffs.
“Anyway—yes, I’m hoping it’s not a huge delay.”
“It always is,” Mia says immediately.
“Don’t jinx it.”
She laughs. “You superstitious little weirdo.”
“Yeah, well, sue me. I am what I am. I’ll let you know when I know more. I don’t want you camped out at SFO waiting for me.”
“Honestly,” she says, lowering her voice, “I don’t mind…”
I cringe. “Oh no. Is it Rob?”
“No, but… well, it is his first Christmas without her,” she says. She doesn’t have to explain much more.
“Is he doing any better?” I ask tentatively. “Every time I call him, he seems so distracted.”
“Well, that might not be about Isabella. I think there’s something big going down at work,” she says.
“Ooh, drama at the Bureau,” I giggle. “Did he say what? Is it a serial killer? I bet it’s a serial killer. It’s always a serial killer.”
“No, you clown,” Mia says with an exasperated laugh. “He never talks about work. It’s freaking annoying. Especially because he’s the one with the cool job. It’s rude to work for the FBI and never talk about it!”
“Guess he’s burying himself in work then. Is that healthy?”
“I don’t blame him, honestly. I’d probably do the same.”
I nod, feeling that sharp pain in my chest whenever I think about Rob and everything he’s gone through in the last year. It’s changed him. There are moments when he feels like a different man altogether. Like the brother I loved is gone and he isn’t ever coming back.
“Wait—so if you weren’t talking about Rob, what did you mean?”
“Nothing,” she says, a little too quickly. “It’s just… Christmas is always hard on Mom.”
Immediately, the lump forms in my throat. Well, “forms” isn’t the right word, because it’s been there for so long now that it’s starting to feel like a part of me. More like it throbs with a pain I’ve tried so, so hard to forget.
Dad loved Christmas an unreasonable amount. We were the only house on the street that had their decorations up at the beginning of November, and the last house to take them down on the final day of January. If it weren’t for Mom, he would’ve left them up until summertime, probably.
“I can’t believe he’s been gone seven years,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says. “It’s weird. Feels like he’s been gone forever, honestly.”
“Really?” I ask. “For me, it feels like it happened just yesterday.”
We sit with our shared grief for a moment. There was a time when I avoided talking about Dad altogether. It was just too painful. But over the years, I’ve learned to open up to Mia. She is still the only one I feel comfortable crying around.
“You were so much younger,” she says.
“I was eighteen,” I point out. “I was old enough. Old enough to know better.”
“Oh, honey, let’s not go there, okay?” she says. “I thought you were done with the guilt.”