Page 84 of The Mad Don
Annika comes back with Dimitri, her face wet. “It’s him, Yana. It’s him.”
I look around the gate. The walls. The other people. “No. No, I — I saw — I held him. I —”
He pulls his shirt open at the collar. The birthmark. The small dark shape below the collarbone. But I saw it. On the body. In the rain. I saw it.
“Run,” he says. “Don’t stop. I’ll find you; that’s what you told me.”
He takes my hands and squeezes them, twice, the way he did when we were small, and the dark was full of men.
“Christov?”
“Yana, my blood.”
I break down, and he hauls me into him, and I sob into his shoulder, and he holds the back of my head, and Annika’s hand is on my back, and I’m shaking so hard I can’t breathe right. He is alive. And over his shoulder, someone is walking toward us with a limp.
I look up.
It’s Lucia. “Lucia.” I can’t get the whole word out. “You’re — you’re alive —”
Her face is red and streaming with tears as she nods. Christov gets me to my feet. I cross to her on legs that aren’t mine, and I lift my hand, and I touch her arm, shoulder, cheek. I have to feel her; I have to know she’s there.
“I’m alive,” she says.
I pull her into me and hold her, and nothing makes sense, none of it. Is this a dream? Is this the thing the mind does at the end? But I can smell the soap on her;. I can taste my own tears, and if it’s a dream, I will not wake up; I refuse; leave me here.
I turn to Annika. She holds out a phone.
“It’s Kirill,” she says. I take the phone with shaky hands, and feeling it makes me realize I am not dreaming.
“What’s happening?” I say into it. “Tell me what’s going on?”
“The Don made me swear not to tell you anything until you’d landed. But I’m not his friend, it turns out. My loyalty’s with you. Annika has a file.”
I turn, and Annika holds it out.
I open it.
“He signed his foreign holdings into your name,” Kirill says. “It’s a legitimate business worth millions. You’re named on all of them. Full access to the accounts.”
“What?”
“He also got you clean passports. New names. You, Lucia, and Christov.”
I can’t make a sound.
“There’s a letter. It says it better than I can. But the short version is that he bought your freedom: yours and the boy’s. I’d have given you Christov regardless — that was always my promise — but Mondi set you up for life. You can walk out of this country and never look back. His one condition is that you keep his sister safe and sign half of it to her when you land in Australia.”
“Kirill, what is happening, please?”
“He wanted you in the air before any of this reached you. I’m telling you on the ground, so the choice is yours. Go, or stay.”
The letter is folded between the documents. My hands are shaking so badly I tear the edge of the envelope.
Lupa,
By the time you read this, you should be far away and safe. I’m sorry I trapped you in this long game. It was the only way to put my enemies’ eyes on me and keep them off you and Lucia. I hate myself for dragging you down into it.
I don’t deserve your mercy. But I trust you with the one thing that matters to me. You gave Lucia a chance to live when I was too blind to see what was killing her. I know you hate me. I’m giving her to you anyway.
