Page 123 of 10 Days to Ruin

Sasha’s jaw tightens. Behind him, through the office’s smudged window, I watch snow begin to dust the Brooklyn streets.

Elena comes up to me and pats me on the shoulder. “I get the feeling that, tonight, you’re going to learn what I’ve learned about Sasha Ozerov: Don’t bother asking ‘why.’ Just take the man as he is. He gets awfully grumpy otherwise.” She smiles once more, then walks toward the door that leads deeper into the center. “This way! We need hands in the donation room. Sasha Claus sent gifts.”

I’m still dumbfounded as I trail along behind her. She spends ten minutes walking me through how items get catalogued and deposited in the various boxes for distribution, then leaves with a promise to come check in on us later.

We work in silence—Sasha sorts toys; I fold clothes. Every faded teddy bear looks like a grenade in his hands.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask after a while.

“You’re the one who wanted to surprise me. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Yes, but I— I— Dammit, it’s not fair that you keep turning the tables like this all the time!” I throw down a pair of toddler socks in a frustrated huff. “Just once, for one single, solitary time in my goddamn life, I’d like to seem like I know what I’m doing.”

Sasha laughs bitterly as he stops sorting and turns to face me. “Ariel Ward, if you think for even a moment that I’m in charge of what’s happening here, you’re mistaken. I’m as helpless as you are.”

A frown splits my face. “This feels like another trap.”

He spreads his hands wide. “No traps here. No games, tricks, or bullshit. I didn’t intend for any of this to happen the way it has. But…” He leans over and cups my fingers between his palms. “I’m not fighting it anymore, Ariel. I tried; I tried like fucking hell. But it failed. So I’m doing the only thing I can do now: seeing where it takes us.”

I want to believe him. Truly, I do. I just… can’t. Whether it’s a lifetime of trauma, a genetic predisposition to paranoia, or some other third thing, I simply cannot let myself take Sasha Ozerov’s words at face value.

Even when they’re nice words.

Even when they’re beautiful words.

“There’s just no way you’re not getting something out of this,” I mumble. My face drops in burning shame even as I gesture around with a hand to encompass the whole shelter we’re sitting in. I know I sound ridiculous—and I sure as hell feel that way, too. But I just have to press and poke until the truth is utterly undeniable.

“Like what?” he scoffs. “What could I possibly stand to gain from supporting a safe haven for people who have nowhere else to go?”

I shrug, face still aimed at the ground. “I know how people like you operate. You look for pretty fronts so you can clean your dirty money.”

I have to stifle a scream when Sasha slams the donation box down. “Do not ever accuse me of that again.” Dust motes swirl in the sudden silence. He grabs my face and makes me look at him. “You think I wipe ledgers here? With glitter glue and toddler socks? Or is it just that you think I’m so weak that I need to play charity to feel human?”

“I think I don’t know you at all.”

He stills. Beyond the thin drywall, where the women and children live in the dormitories that Sasha’s money rebuilt, a child’s laughter bubbles through—sweet, bright, completely alien in this bruised, battered world.

“You want my biography, Ariel, as if that will explain me. Since when do facts on a page explain a person? Are you summarizable? Does your fucking LinkedIn tell your story?”

I swallow hard. “I’m a reporter, Sasha. Is it so crazy that I want to know more?”

“It’s not crazy.” He catches my wrist. “It’s just… incomplete.”

“How can it be incomplete when there’s nothing there at all? Sasha, I barely know the first thing about you—other than how you make me feel. Just give me something to tether that to. Give me a reason to believe I can trust this.”

It’s the closest I’ve come to admitting that things have changed, havebeenchanging, between us. We’re two days shy of the end of this crazy game, and I’m less certain than ever of anything at all.

Sasha’s face smolders. Like this, in just a shirt and slacks, seated at a repurposed picnic table in this stale, quiet room, he almost looks human. The eyes, though, have seen things no one else was ever meant to see.

“You want a story? Fine. Here’s a fucking story. My mother once begged my father to let her visit her cousins in Minsk. She grew up with them, as good as siblings, and all she wanted was to see them again.” His voice grates like steel wool. “Do you know what he did? He hid her passport. Burned her letters. And when she tried to leave anyway, he broke her wrist.” His hand clenches into a fist on his lap. “She didn’t ask again after that.”

For a brief, hallucinatory flicker, I see the face of the boy Sasha imposed over the man. I can imagine him running to his mother as she cradled that hurt wrist to her chest. I can hear how she sniffled to dry up her tears so she could tend to his instead. How she used her good hand to hold him close and tell him everything was going to be alright.

You wanted an answer,I laugh at myself in loathing.Does this pass the test?

I reach for him. If I can just touch him, that’ll be the start of the apology he deserves. As soon as I feel his warmth, I can give up this stupid, silly game and let myself trust that the man in front of me, the man I’ve seen with my own two eyes, is no monster. He’s not a saint, but he’s not the beast I thought he was. He’s… he’s…

“Mr. Sasha!” A blur of neon leggings barrels into his legs just before my fingers make contact with Sasha’s knee. “You came back!”

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