Page 137 of Lethal Alliance

There isn’t much to say to that, so we just shoot the breeze for a while about nothing in particular, until Darya comes out in that ridiculous bikini and I find an excuse to take her upstairs.

“Roman.”It’s the following afternoon when my mother says my name quietly, from the open room where she’s set up an informal workshop. It seems that dressmaking is the one thing that has remained unchanged in her life since my childhood. I’ve found a strange comfort, these past weeks, in hearing the hum of her sewing machine and the snip of scissors through silk. She’s been making Darya’s wedding dress. From the giggles that come endlessly from this room, she’s apparently outdone herself. Not that I’d know. The dress itself is safe behind a screen, which might as well be Fort Knox for all the chances I have of seeing behind it.

“Thank you for making this.” I nod at the screen. “I know it means a lot to Darya.”

“It’s my pleasure.” My mother smiles gently. I feel slightly awkward, as I always do in her presence. We’ve all had time to absorb one another’s stories, to forgive the mistakes of the past. But forgiveness doesn’t take away the pain of more than two decades of absence. I’ve continued calling Rosa by her given name, for example.

Mamais a person who left when I was a child. The name itself is full of pain and abandonment.Rosa, on the other hand, is a kind and compassionate woman, with a rather wicked sense of humor and a core of strength I can’t help but admire. It’s this person I’m getting to know, and who my children have taken to as easily as they once did Darya.

“There’s something I would like you to have.” Rosa opens a drawer on her worktable. “When I left, your father gave me both of these. So I would remember him, he said.” She smiles sadly. “As if I could ever have forgotten Aleksander. He was the very best of men.” She hands me a small drawstring bag. “I’ve had them cleaned.”

I open the bag to find two white gold wedding bands, simple and elegant. On the inside, both are engraved with a lone rose. “Aleksander made them himself,” she says softly. “The rose was from his family crest. It symbolizes hope and love, optimism for the future. I don’t know if you have rings yet or not, but I wanted you to have them anyway.”

“Thank you.” I turn the rings over in my hand, and for a moment it is as if my father’s hands cover my own, large and comforting. “He never forgot you,” I say quietly. “Neither of us did. The house was... empty with you gone.”

Rosa’s eyes cloud over. “I never should have gone.”

“If you had stayed, you would be dead now too.” I take her hand and press it gently. “Instead you are here, giving me my father’s rings and making Darya’s wedding dress. Running was the right choice. The only choice, really.”

It’s taken me a while to get to this conclusion. But the hard truth is that no matter how much I might want to blame both Sergei and my mother for the decisions of the past, I can’t. I know there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep Darya safe. Nor can I avoid the fact that only a few short weeks ago, I was actively helping her run.

While she was pregnant.

I shiver. I might never get used to the horror of that thought.

“If you would allow me to suggest something else?” Rosa looks at me tentatively.

“Of course.” Part of me hates the caution with which we both dance around one another. I’m also horribly aware that nothing but time can fix that hesitancy.

“Maybe talk to Sergei before you take Darya shopping for an engagement ring.”

It’s all I can do to keep an even tone and not roll my eyes. “More secrets?”

She smiles gently. “This one I think you will want to hear.”

I findSergei sitting in a wide wicker chair on the terrace beyond his bedroom. He stubs his cigarette out hastily when I open the doors, then relaxes when he sees who it is. I wave a bottle of Graf vodka and two glasses, and he smiles appreciatively as I put them down on the coffee table and pour. He looks remarkably cheerful, given the impressive array of bruises on his face, and still bloodied knuckles.

“Za zdorov’ye.” I raise my glass.

He touches it with his own. “Za zdorov’ye.”

“I looked up Graf vodka,” I say, glancing at him. “Apparently it was started by a group of guards at the gulag in which you were born?”

Sergei nods, his eyes twinkling. “Our fathers made the original still. By the time your father and I finally left the gulag, we’d been running the business for decades, along with the guards who oversaw it.” He gives me a sideways grin. “I will always take credit for the quality of the vodka. Aleksander and I refined our fathers’ recipe. I like to think we improved on it.”

“Did the Russians know it was you who owned the company?” I ask, curious. “You were exiles. How did you pull it off?”

“Ah.” Sergei lights another cigarette and draws deeply, his pale eyes gleaming. “The gulag never dies, not really. There was always a fine line between those who ran it and those who were imprisoned in it. Especially for men like Aleksander and me, who were born and raised behind those walls.” A ruthless light crosses his face, there and gone. “That’s how wepulled it off,as you put it: power. Guards came and went. But to us, the gulag was our home. Our school. Our world. By the time we left, that world had belonged to us for many years. Men lived and died in the gulag depending on rules we made. We owned secrets and lives that extended far beyond those walls and those years.”

He turns to me, holding my eyes with his own. “Unfortunately, that world followed us into this one. It never left us in peace. In the end, it took your father’s life and stole too much of yours. I failed to stand between that world and you, Roman, just as I failed to protect my children from it. I will never forgive myself for that failure, and I do not expect you to forgive me for it. But I do hope you will allow me to give you this, at least.”

I’m so taken aback by his unexpected apology that I’m temporarily lost for words. Sergei reaches into the pocket of his shirt and pulls out a small box. “Aleksander made this for Maria,” he says quietly. “The diamond in it is from a ring that belonged to my mother, the only thing of value she carried into the gulag. She melted the gold down long before I was born, traded it for survival. But no matter how hungry or desperate she became, she never traded the diamond.”

I open the box. The square-cut diamond is simple, but also of perfect quality. It is the lone feature of the elegant white gold ring.

“I understand if you both wish to have no more association with the past.” He lights another cigarette, blowing a stream of smoke over the valley. “But that diamond belongs to Darya either way. And Aleksander always said that ring was some of his best work.” He lifts a shoulder, his eyes softening. “Beauty never ceased to matter to your father, regardless of the savagery that surrounded us. Aleksander was... different.” He sounds almost wistful.

I think of my peaceful father, the gentle movement of his hands on metal, the soft touch as he guided my own.

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