Page 124 of Sexting the Pakhan

I have one job.

Get my children out.

Ruslan is not my responsibility anymore.

He made sure of that six years ago.

I tighten my arms around Mila and turn toward the door.

Behind me, Ruslan’s breath catches. It’s small. Controlled quickly. But Mila hears it. She lifts her wet face from my neck and looks over my shoulder.

“Mama,” Mila whispers, “that man is hurt.”

I close my eyes for half a second.

Of course she sees him. Of course my daughter, who cries when worms dry out on sidewalks and once made me apologize to a chair because I bumped into it, sees him.

“I know,” I say.

Mila’s fingers dig into my cardigan. “We have to help him.”

My throat tightens.

The hallway outside is still a mess of voices and fear.

“Mila, baby, we have to find Nadia,” I say.

Mila shakes her head, panicked and stubborn. “But he’s bleeding.”

Ruslan says, “Zoya, take her and go.”

His voice is rough with pain, and that makes me angrier than it should.

I turn on him. “Don’t give me orders.”

His mouth tightens. “This is not the time.”

“No, this is exactly the time,” I say. “You don’t get to appear out of nowhere, bleed all over a kindergarten mat, and still speak to me like I’m one of your men.”

Mila looks between us, eyes huge. Then she whispers, “Mama, do you know him?”

The question lands like a dropped glass.

Ruslan looks at me.

I look at him.

For six years, I have imagined this moment in different ways, though I never admitted that to myself. Sometimes I was calm and devastatingly composed. Sometimes I slapped him. Sometimes I told him everything. Sometimes I said nothing and walked away with my daughters on either side of me.

In none of those versions are we crouched in a nap room during a shooting while my child asks why I know the bleeding man on the floor.

“Yes,” I say carefully. “I knew him a long time ago.”

Mila sniffles. “Is he bad?”

The answer should be easy.

Ruslan says nothing.