Page 64 of One For my Enemy

“Your magic is compromised,” Ivan noted, and slammed the Fedorov back against one of the cement pillars, pressing his spine flat against it. “Perhaps you should have thought of that before making an enemy of the Antonovas.”

“You’re not one of them,” the Fedorov spat, looking sick with rage and fear. Perhaps more of the latter, Ivan thought, stepping closer. He sniffed the air slightly, like a dog, and let his gaze fall coldly on the man before him. Theatricalities, Marya had always said, were Ivan’s most ferocious form of muscle. “Youworkfor them,” the Fedorov said, abruptly switching tactics, “and if you can be paid, then surely your loyalties can be bought.”

“You underestimate Marya Antonova,” Ivan noted. “Worse, you underestimate me.”

The Fedorov scowled. “If you’re planning to kill me,” he said bluntly, “just get it over with.”

“Is that the kindness you gave Marya?” Ivan asked him, and the Fedorov flinched at the mention of her, but only barely. “She would be ashamed, I think, to find her killer begging for his own death. You make a mockery of her by doing it.”

“Who says I killed her?” the Fedorov said.Histheatricalities, Ivan thought, were far less threatening. They were like a child’s shield; something to hide behind. They did nothing to mask his shame, or anything else that had crept into his dark eyes.

“Do you know what happens,” Ivan posed softly, “when you kill something someone else loves?”

The Fedorov said nothing.

“Do you really believe people are so isolated that when they’re gone, nothing grows in their place? To really kill something, you have to kill everything. You have to raze it to the ground.” Ivan lifted the Fedorov’s chin, eyeing him. “Do you have the stomach for that?”

“How many did Marya Antonova kill while you watched?” the Fedorov demanded, defensive. “Are you really telling me she felt remorse each time?”

“I’m telling you nothing,” Ivan replied, shrugging. “I’m not here to teach you.”

“You’re here to kill me,” the Fedorov replied nastily, and again, Ivan shrugged.

“Blood for blood is not uncommon practice,” Ivan said. “Why shouldn’t it be yours next?”

“Do it, then,” the Fedorov spat. “If you think you need to scare me, there’s no need.” He grimaced, suddenly relenting in his restraints. “Living would be worse,” he muttered under his breath, and Ivan, to his dismay, felt himself hesitate, pausing briefly to regard the man before him.

“An unhealthy attitude,” Ivan noted, and the Fedorov scowled up at him.

“Just kill me,” the Fedorov said. Roman, Ivan thought suddenly. Roma, probably. Surely his brothers and his father called him Roma. “Just do it.”

“Why should I,” Ivan noted, “when you appear to be killing yourself just fine? I’m not a weapon at your disposal.”

“You’re Marya Antonova’s weapon,” Roman snapped. “That’s all you are. The knuckles of her fist. The blade of her knife. You don’t even wield yourself, do you?”

“Do you?” Ivan asked.

To his surprise, Roman let his head fall, a breath escaping him in anguish.

“I thought I did,” Roman said. “But if you let me live now, my brothers are in danger. I owe a debt I can’t possibly pay, except with my life. I promise not to haunt you.” He looked up, something close to mirth in his eyes. “I promise my death will not haunt you, Ivan of the Antonovas. You would only deliver me. Have peace from it.”

Ivan stepped closer, near enough to let his hand linger over Roman’s chest. He had killed any number of ways, either with magic or without. There were so many ways to drain a life, some easier than others; some more intimate than others. He could empty Roman’s veins, let them drain onto the floor below. He could whisper something, a few words, and cause a clot in Roman’s brain. He could slam Roman’s head backwards, into concrete, into smithereens. He could stop Roman’s heart, stop Roman’s breath, stop everything and watch as vacancy would inevitably set itself in Roman’s eyes, like the deadness in Marya’s. In Masha’s. And then Roman would be like Masha, and would be nothing, and gone from Ivan’s sight.

Gone, like Masha, and what possible justice was that?

“Peace doesn’t come from death,” Ivan said eventually, and Roman let out a shaky breath, equally tormented and relieved. Ivan took a hard step back, releasing his hold, only to hear a threatening growl behind him.

“Apologies, Ivan,” snarled Stas Maksimov, “but I respectfully disagree.”

III. 16

(Elementary Principles.)

Stas hadn’t meant to follow Ivan. He’d considered himself uninterested in the ongoing nature of his wife’s family’s feud, but then his limbs had taken over; had unwisely taken him here, in fact. His feet, first, and then some sense of hunger, of pain, once he’d realized what Ivan was doing. What Ivancoulddo: a balancing of the scales.

Blood for blood. The most elementary of principles. The most ancient of reparations.

The Fedorov whose spine was pressed into the concrete pillar looked nothing like Dimitri, and yet, somehow, the likeness was unmistakable. The too-proud chin, the too-keen stare, the hair that—while dark where Dimitri was fair—flowed like a crown around his head meant thatthisman, like all the Fedorov men, was responsible for Marya’s death. Worse, he was the one who’d done it himself. He’d held the blade that did it.

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