Page 106 of Kingmakers, Year Four

I’m remembering a December six years past when my father took an unexpected trip. He came home five days before Christmas.

It doesn’t prove anything. My father travels all kinds of places all the time.

Still, the image of Kyrylo Lomenchenko burns in my brain: his body hanging over the dock, cut from neck to groin . . .

I’ve seen my father gut a deer in exactly that manner.

My stomach heaves.

Anyone could have killed Estas’ brother. Maybe my fatherdiddo it, but he had a good reason.

But then . . . why lie to me?

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

I mean,I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry you lost your brother.

Estas just looks at me, through the mask of swollen flesh blanketing his face.

“You really don’t know anything he does, do you?” he says.

I want to deny it.

I want to shout at Estas that I know my own father.

Instead, I turn and run out of the Keep.

26

Ivan Petrov

Marko visits me early in January.

We’re both in a dark mood.

Me, because it’s the fourth Christmas I’ve missed with my family.

Marko’s swirling anger is a mystery to me. He comes into my cell with none of his usual mockery. His face is stone, his eyes blank and dark as a shark’s.

He doesn’t greet me—he only jerks his head to the folding chair, a silent order to sit down so Kuzmo can cuff my arms behindme.

Once I’m seated, bound in place, he doesn’t bring out the phone. Instead, he orders Kuzmo to leave and close the door behind him.

“Are you sure?” Kuzmo asks, with a significant look in my direction.

Marko reacts in an instant, seizing Kuzmo by the throat and slamming him against the wall with all the might of his massive frame. He snarls into his lieutenant’s face, “Do you think I can’t handle one fucking man tied to a chair? A man who’s been locked in here for four fucking years as my prisoner?”

“N-no sir,” Kuzmo stammers. “I mean yes, of course you can handle him. I only meant?—”

“Get out,”Marko hisses at him.

Kuzmo stumbles out of the room, swinging the heavy door shut behind him.

Now Marko and I are truly alone, for the first time in years.

His shoulders are still heaving with rapid, angry breaths. He stares at the wall, trying to recover his calm. Then, at last, he sinks down heavily onto my cot, the metal springs creaking beneath his weight.

“You have a son and a daughter,” he says, his rasping voice cutting through the silence.

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