Page 152 of 10 Days to Ruin

“A man’s legacy…” Baba once again reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out that silver case. Pills rattle as he dry-swallows two more. “A man’s legacy is his children. And tonight, I give mine to a worthy?—”

The mic squeals. Someone in the crowd coughs. My skin prickles as Baba sways, sweat glistening on his waxen face. This isn’t the calculated monster who threatened me ten days ago—this is a marionette dangling from his last remaining string.

“Come,” Sasha murmurs, steering me toward the stage. “Let’s go give your father a hand.”

I nod and we start to cut through the crowd in that direction. We’re almost to the foot of the stage when I see him: Uncle Kosti, half-hidden behind an ice sculpture. My uncle’s usually twinkling eyes are red-rimmed. When he sees me, he crooks a finger in my direction.Hurry,he mouths.

I hesitate. My father is on stage, listing badly to one side and murmuring something that the microphone can’t catch. The crowd is murmuring, too, wondering what’s happening.

So am I, to be honest. Why is Kosti looking like that? Why is hehiding,ducked out of sight, and waving his hands to me frantically?

Baba glances down from the stage and sees us waiting. He extends a hand. “Ariana… S-S-Sash…”

I wrench free of Sasha’s grip. “Ari—” he growls.

But I’m already running toward the only man who ever felt like family.

When I reach Uncle Kosti, he grabs my arm hard enough to hurt. He reeks of sweat and his hair is badly mussed. “I can’t do it,koukla.I can’t let you go. Not without—not withoutknowing.I’ve been trying to-to-to protectyou. But I?—”

“Uncle Kosti, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

His fingers dig into my arms. It feels freakishly wrong to see this horror painted on his face. “I got a call last night, Ariel. From Jasmine.”

I recoil. Try to, at least. But my uncle doesn’t release his death grip. “Jasmine’s dead, Uncle Kosti.”

“No, dammit. You’re not listening! She’s— I’m—Gamoto,just—Here.” He fumbles with his phone, nearly dropping it before he manages to dump it in my hands.

A voicemail waits on the screen. I press play. A woman’s voice crackles through the speaker.

It’s a sweet voice. Soft, but not timid, and melodic despite the hint of an edge. Almost exactly as I remember—if I scrubbed fifteen years off the ghost in my memories.

“Hi. It’s me. I don’t have long—he always said calls home longer than a minute can be traced, so I want to keep it short. But… I saw the papers. The engagement announcement. She can’t… You have to tell her not to do it. Tell her she can’t trust him. He’s doing it again, the same plan, the same… He said if I ever… She has to know that— And, Kosti… tell her I love her, too. Okay. That’s it. I’m so sorry. I’m so?—”

A hand reaches past me and snatches the phone away.

I turn to see those blue eyes I know so well.

Sasha’s face isn’t blank. Isn’t cold. It’s worse: resigned. Almost…sad.One look at him and I can see the whole horrible truth written there. Not every detail, but the bulk of it, the unbearable mass of it, like the hulking silhouette of something that’ll break me if I see it eye-to-eye.

He said if I ever…

His thumb hovers over the voicemail. Deletes it.

She can’t trust him…

His scar glints under chandelier light. The saw-toothed line of a father’s cruelty.

He’s doing it again.

My knees buckle. Sasha catches me, grip bruising. “Ptichka?—”

“Youknew.” The words shred my throat as surely as that barbed wire did to Sasha’s. “You knew she was alive. And you let me think— You let me believe?—”

I can’t finish the sentence. For ten days, I’ve told myself that he’s not the man I thought he was.

I know better now.

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