Chapter Text
Prologue
October 2003 — Moscow
His jaw ached. When he looked down, he could see crescent marks in his palms where his nails had dug into the skin.
But Ilya refused to cry. Crying would only make it worse.
Men aren’t weak.
The pressure in his palms helped him pretend this day wasn’t happening.
Later that day, he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. The door beside his was slightly open, a thin stripe of light cutting across the dark hallway.
He pushed it open.
Katya was curled into a ball on her bed. Even from the doorway, Ilya could tell she was pressing her face into the pillow to muffle the sound of her sobbing.
His jaw tightened again.
He stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. He shrugged off the suit jacket he had been forced to wear and let it fall to the floor. Then he climbed onto the bed, not bothering to pull back the covers.
“Katenyka?” he whispered.
She didn’t answer. She just kept crying.
Carefully, he reached for the pins in her bun and removed them one by one. Her curls tumbled free around her shoulders.
Curls like his. Like their mother’s.
“Why did she go away?” Katya asked, her voice small and broken.
“She had an accident,” Ilya said, repeating the words he had already spoken a hundred times that day.
Her shoulders trembled. He wrapped his arms around her.
She was freezing.
“She didn’t mean to,” he added.
“No,” Katya whispered. Her voice sounded tired now. “She didn’t have an accident. Don’t lie to me. Not you.”
Ilya wished she hadn’t followed him that day. Hadn’t been there when he found their mother.
Maybe it would have been easier for her to believe the lie.
“They killed her,” Katya said.
There was something in her tone that made his chest tighten, something sharp and unfamiliar. Too harsh for her. He pulled her closer.
That sounded wrong.
Her hands were still trapped between her face and the pillow. Gently, he tried to pull one free so he could hold it, just like he had wanted to at the funeral.
When he moved her hand, he saw the bruise was blooming on her cheek.
He swallowed. Saying anything would only make him angry. And it would make her anxious.
Did Father slap her?
Ilya had never seen their father raise a hand to Katya. It seemed impossible. And yet…
He thought of the funeral. Of the way their father had stood there: stone-cold and untouched. Not a single kind word about their mother.
Not one.
“Don’t leave me, too,” Katya whispered. Her voice was so quiet that, if the house hadn’t been completely silent, he might have missed it.
“Never,” Ilya promised.
She turned and buried her face in his chest, crying harder now. Ilya held her tightly and stared at the ceiling.
I’ll get us out of here.
He had promised that to Mama. On the days she couldn’t leave her room. On the days Father screamed and screamed until the walls felt like they were shaking. When Ilya gently put ice in her face after she stood between Ilya and his father.
When they were alone, Ilya had promised her he would become so good at hockey that he would take them somewhere beautiful. Somewhere warm and full of sunlight. He would take Mama and Katenyka far away.
A place where she could finally be happy again.
He had failed her.
The world had been too cruel to his mother, and it took her before he was old enough to save her.
He wouldn’t let it take his sister too.
