Page 2 of The Pakhan's Captive
The closet door clicks shut and I stand in the cedar dark with the drive pressing into my palm and my heart slamming against myribs so hard I am sure someone will hear it, because that was all I could hear.
What is this drive? What is he doing? What is?—
An explosion thunders from the other side of the house.
I stop breathing.
The sound of it is enormous—wood shrieking off its hinges, a crack like something breaking that cannot be unbroken—then boots are pouring across the marble foyer in a wave.
Heavy.
Multiple.
Too many, way too many.
Oh Lord. Please what is going on?
I press my eye to the thin gap between the closet door and its frame.
I need to see.
The angle is bad but I can see the mouth of the hallway, the edge of the living room beyond it.
It is enough.
Enough to see the men fanning out through our home in dark clothes, enough to see Papa standing near the fireplace with his hands at his sides and his chin up, and enough to see the man who walks in last and stands in the center of the room and looks at my father the way something looks at a problem it has already solved.
“Pyotr Sokolova.” Not a question.
Papa says nothing.
“You know why we’re here.”
“I know what you’ve been told.” Papa’s voice is even. Impossibly even. “What you’ve been told is a lie.”
The first hit comes so fast I don’t track it.
A fist, the side of his face, and Papa’s head snaps sideways and I shove both hands against my mouth because the sound that tries to come out of me is not a sound I can afford to make.
My back hits the closet wall.
My legs are shaking.
My whole body is shaking.
Papa!
No! I’ve got to stop them…help him.
I reach for the doorknob, but my legs have given up under me. Fear grips me hard.
I clamp my hands harder against my mouth and beg in my head.
Shut up. Please.
“You killed him.” The man standing over Papa says it like a statement of fact. “You had the Pakhan killed.”
“That’s not true.” Papa spits blood onto the floor, turns his head back, and meets the man’s eyes. “I have served this organization for twenty years. I would never?—”
