Page 30 of Prior Claim
“Twelve years,” Sevastyan said softly. “We’ve been doing this for twelve years. They haven’t made a mistake big enough. Perhaps a mistake mistake requires assistance.”
Anton shook his head again, not meeting Sevastyan’s eyes. “Too dangerous.”
Are you even trying? Sevastyan bit down on his doubt, keeping it behind his teeth.
Sevastyan
Russia, twelve years ago
Sevastyan shrugged out of his coat and tossed it over the back of the ratty couch. The entire place felt unlived-in and dusty, but there were sounds of movement upstairs and in the back. The man who had let him in was like so many of his mother’s flunkies, nondescript, slightly dimwitted looking, and silent. He wore dark khakis and a wool coat and stood near the door. The guns he was sporting weren’t even a little bit hidden. A warm, motherly welcome, for sure.
Sevastyan looked around again. It was a new house to him. His mother had texted him the address with orders to show up. Considering he’d been in New York at the time, attending class, merely arriving had taken over twenty hours of travel to manage.
Which was just like her. His professors were going to throw fits. The only saving grace was that he’d managed to send in most of his homework for the next few days once he’d landed at the airport in Moscow. Just as a safety precaution, he’d left his computer, fake papers, and foreign phones behind in a lock box at a bank. Let her try to mess with him. He’d learned a few things, and he had his own money. Did she really think he wasn’t going to start a side hustle with the way she was jerking his chain around? Do this, do that, be available. The woman was batshit, as his UK classmates would say. Of course, he wasn’t going to uni with any of them because she wanted him to cultivate a United States accent and United States contacts. So off to New York it had been.
The door at the back of the front room opened abruptly, and his mother stepped through. She was a full ten centimeters or more shorter than Sevastyan. The two of them looked nothing alike. Her hair was dark, where his was blond almost to the point of being white. She had rounded features, but his were angular. A hint of her Mongol heritage could be seen around her eyes and the undertone of her skin. One had to be looking for Asian features to even guess at them in Sevastyan. If anything, he was a throwback to her father, a Russian from the far western end of the country with ancestral roots in the Rus and Viking history of the nation.
“Mother.”
She glared at him. “What took so long?”
Sevastyan raised both eyebrows. “New York to Heathrow. Heathrow to Amsterdam. Amsterdam to Moscow. Moscow to here.”
She scowled. “You’re not over there to learn nasty western manners toward your elders.”
Sevastyan spread his hands. There was no reasoning with her when she was like this. And he hadn’t messed up. So someone else must have.
“Come.” She motioned with a clipped dip of her head and turned back, leading him down a hall and up stairs. The house was bigger than it looked from the front, and it was set up more like an office building than a home. The living room and tiny kitchen by the front door was just a front.
“When’s the last time your father spoke with you?”
“Right after I graduated, so like, four months ago. He sent a text.”
“About what?”
The hair on Sevastyan’s spine prickled. “Graduating. He asked me what I was going to study in New York. I told him econ and languages.”
His mother did not respond. There were men ahead, and a woman. One of the men opened a door and his mother led the way inside.
Cuffed to a table under bright lights was Sevastyan’s father, face bruised, eyes dark and hollow. Sevastyan’s steps slowed as he entered and their eyes met.
Anton groaned and looked away. “Really, Raska? You had to involve him?”
“He’s your son, of course he’s involved.”
Sevastyan’s eyes took in the space. The walls were reinforced to block sound. There were no windows. Some of the items in the room actually looked modern, unlike the rest of the house. There were cameras and recording equipment. He didn’t recognize any of the people around, but not all of them were flunkies. One of them looked like they probably had as much if not more authority than his mother. The floor was covered in pinned-down tarps. Someone, not naming names, was ready for torture.
His mother pointed to a plain metal and plastic chair with four spindly legs. It faced his father across the table he was cuffed to. “Sevastyan, sit.”
He didn’t want to. By all that might be holy, he didn’t. His father was looking away, refusing to meet his eyes. And none of the flunkies would meet his eyes either.
So he was already being dismissed and set aside. People didn’t like to look at someone about to be othered. Execution was certainly a sort of othering.
Fuckety fuck fuck. And he’d scrambled to get his ass across the Atlantic for this.
Sevastyan lowered his lanky body into the chair. It was too low and too small. He sprawled on it, slouching with his legs spread out. Fine. He’d play his mother’s game. She’d made the first several moves. Now it was his turn.
Sheep didn’t talk before their throats were slit. So he wouldn’t be a sheep. He tilted his head toward his father and lifted his chin in a greeting. “Thought you were in California.”
