I sit upright and see that Alyssa has fallen asleep already. I press a kiss to her cheek and cover her properly with the blanket. Then I twist off the bedside lamp, grab my phone and clothes, and sneak out of the room.
I can hear laughter floating down the corridor as I dress in the dark and close the door behind me. I walk downstairs to find Dimiv and Nikolai once again on the back porch, sipping vodka and smoking cigars.
“Come, brother,” Nikolai calls over when he sees me. “Join us.”
For some reason, seeing them this relaxed pisses me off. “I’ve got work to do.”
Both of them turn in their seats to look at me. Nikolai’s smile falters but Dimiv gives me a carefree wink. “We got Polly back. Today was a victory, cousin. Come and celebrate with us.”
I shake my head. “Don’t you get it? Sobakin is still out there. Someone helped him escape. Someone on the inside. Which means we’re vulnerable.”
Dimiv looks too drunk to care. “That’s tomorrow’s problem, eh?”
“No, it’s today’s. Tonight’s. And it’s only going to get bigger the longer we put it off. The two of you can go ahead and celebrate—but until Sobakin is dead, I’m not celebrating shit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
I turn and walk away, leaving them sitting on the porch in a far less celebratory mood than when I found them. A part of me feels like an asshole. Another part of me feels justified in my annoyance.
I suppose they get to take some time off, unwind, talk, laugh. The weight of responsibility doesn’t sit on their shoulders; it sits on mine.
I’m the pahkan. I don’t have the same luxuries.
I step into the study at the far end of the ground floor. I pull out my phone to find a message there from Kruger.
Sobakin’s trail has gone cold. It’s like the man disappeared into thin air. I’ll keep looking and if I find anything, you’ll be the first to know.
“Fuck,” I mumble.
I look out the exposed windows at the mass of waving trees before me. I have to protect them all, all the innocent lives hiding out behind these walls. If I can’t, then who am I? What is the point of my crown if my kingdom is open to any vulture who wants to rip off a hunk of it for themselves?
I walk over to the window. I’ve been trying to do this single-handedly from the moment Lev was taken. But true strength is admitting when you need help.
I may be the pahkan, but I can’t protect the family all by myself.
Perhaps the first step to victory is accepting that.
36
ALYSSA
Uri won’t allow any of us to leave the cabin. It’s a beautiful hideaway, but with six of us living in it and a limited number of things to do, it’s quickly starting to wear on everyone’s nerves. Especially after a week of confinement.
There’s also the fact that both Lev and Polly are having trouble adjusting. For Lev, it’s a break in his usual routine, a change of environment he wasn’t prepared for. He misses Svetlana and George and his video games and the blackout curtains over his windows.
For Polly, it’s about reorienting to life outside the confines of captivity. It’s about shedding the fear she’s been carrying with her for the last few weeks. It’s about trying to process what she’s been through.
I’ve taken to sleeping with her most nights now. The nightmares came back after the sleeping pill wore off and it’s not like we can drug her every night. I know Uri is bothered that we rarely sleep together, but he doesn’t say a word. He just wears that pinched grimace on his face that seems to read, Whatever she needs is what must happen.
Polly isn’t the only one who’s having trouble sleeping. I spend most nights tossing and turning right along with her. My growing belly is getting more and more unwieldy but I can only blame a piece of my discomfort on my pregnancy. The rest is due to fear.
Every time I try to sleep, Boris Sobakin pops back into my head. I picture his sinister leer, his beady eyes, the way he had looked at me like I was a piece of meat at the market.
I’m on my usual hamster wheel of anxiousness when Polly groans in her sleep, her head lashing back and forth as though she’s trying to keep something from touching her face.
“N-no… no… no…”
I don’t wait for the nightmare to get worse; I sit up and shake her awake. “Hey, Polly, it’s okay; you’re safe. You’re in the cabin with me, with your brothers and cousin…”
Nudging her gently, I keep talking until her eyes flicker open. There’s a thin sheen of sweat along her brow and when she opens her eyes, I notice a tear crystalize at the tips of her eyelashes.