Page 58 of Vasily the Hammer

I close my eyes and let myself breathe for a few seconds. This isn’t how I wanted to meet her, but I’m glad I finally am. Kseniya was right; I should have come a long time ago. I do my best to be careful as I squeeze Maribel and let myself be filled with the soft scents of baby powder and clean shampoo.

I have a ton of questions to ask Miguel, an entire list to go over that will keep me sane enough to stop thinking for two seconds about what terrible things might be happening to Kseniya or might no longer be happening because...

Well . . .

The thoughts all hit me in the gut as they’ve done so unendingly today, no matter how many pills I take. Kostya talked me into handing them over in one of the few moments of quiet I’ve had, when I tricked myself into thinking that Kostya was right, I didn’tneed it anymore and might absently overdose unthinkingly if I keep them in my pocket.

And now I’m thinking about Kseniya’s body discarded like trash in a ditch somewhere.

I hug Maribel just a little more tightly, but she seems okay with it. And I want to immediately leap into those questions, but I can’t stop myself from starting with, “I have a son.”

Miguel gives me the blankest expression imaginable, but I get it. He was already looking shell-shocked when he opened the door. After all, he started out handing me a baby. Not even in a “I can’t handle this right now” way. It was so mechanical that I’m guessing there’s been a stream of people coming by, and they’ve all had their hands out to take Maribel from him, just to relieve him of any responsibilities when he has to be freaking out, too.

He blinks, tilts his head to the side, and narrows his focus so much on Maribel that his pupils begin to vibrate.

Then he says, “What?”

Not in alarm. I’m not sure if he processed it. And that’s fair. I’m not processing super well either. The sole reason for me to take this detour was familial responsibilities, but there is the added bonus of giving my brain some extra time to work through that ill-advised combination of anxiolytics.

I clear my throat. My second pass at, “I have a son,” doesn’t go as cleanly as the first. I stumble over it, and the words come out with a reckless momentum that ends up building onto the story. “Ana. Ana had my son. His name is Artom, and I met him yesterday and he doesn’t know who I am.”

My hold tightens a little more as Miguel continues to stare at me, but then Maribel lifts her head and turns it, I’m thinking tojust rest on her other cheek, but she manages to crack the top of her skull against my jaw.

That wakes me right up. Gets Miguel, too.

“Shoot,” he whistles, reaching for her, but I wave him off. I gotta learn how to hold babies.

“Yeah, this whole week has been—shit, you don’t care about my week. Doesn’t matter.”

Miguel’s a good man. He looks at Kseniya like she hung the moon. They were high school sweethearts, then both moved away for college. Only a couple hours though, in opposite directions but really, what’s four hours to see the person you love. Neither of them lasted the full four years outside of Flagstaff and away from each other. I know Kseniya dated a couple guys while she was in college, but Miguel confessed to me the night before their wedding that he’d lied and told her he’d dated too. Really, it was only ever Kseniya for him. He was proud of that; he just worried Kseniya would feel guilty if she found out. I promised I would take that secret to the grave.

Not much longerwhispers in my mind, but I shoo it away. Yeah, fate— and the IRA fuckers— have dragged me to Flagstaff and thrown so much on my plate that if I take inventory of it all, I’ll go mad, but I gotta figure out how to outsmart fate. I have a son. He needs to know he has a father.

A father who loves him even if he never met him.

So I feel a selfish satisfaction when, despite the most pressing issue at hand, Miguel is spun enough that his first words are, “Kseniya has a nephew?”

Regret stirs in my chest. I have a niece, and it took me months and a disaster for me to meet her. Kseniya will walk her ass to Phoenix the moment she finds out about Artom if I refuse to take her immediately.

I nod, knowing that emotion is going to make my voice rough. I’m not trying to act the tough guy for Miguel; he’sfamilyfamily in a way my Bratva brothers aren’t. But he’s teetering on the edge. I can see it in his glossy, red-rimmed eyes.

“And Ana? You two are . . .?”

I have to clear my throat for this. Maribel grumbles, so I sway back and forth. It’s instinctual. “It’s... complicated.”

Miguel chuckles hoarsely. “It always was. God, Kseniya’s going to be so pissed when she finds out you told me first.”

“She’s gonna be pissed she wasn’t here for me to meet Maribel, too.”

That has us both laughing, but only for a second. And then Miguel blinks, and I see it.

I see his fear.

“I can’t do this without her.”

“I will get her back,” I promise, refusing to entertain the possibility that I’m lying to him. I embrace Maribel snugly, protectively, as I vow, “I will find her, and I will kill whoever did this. They will feel pain so acute they will wish for death, but it will come to them slowly.”

Miguel is middle management at a boring job in a boring industry. The khaki chinos and baby blue button-down he wears is his work uniform, although the buttons are a mess right now. The time they got squirrels in their attic, he insisted pest control use humane traps, and he cries at other people’s weddings. But he gives me a stern, encouraging nod.

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