Chapter 23

“How did she take it?” Freya asked him when Michal walked out of the room.

He sighed.
“Not good. I told you it would be better to wait. Hear it from her father.”

Freya winced.
“Yeah, I was eavesdropping. She thinks you’re out to get her and I don’t blame her much.”

Michal glared at his brother’s wife.
“You don’t blame her? Whose side are you on here?”

“You, obviously. But the fact remains, she had lived a sheltered life till now, safe in ignorance. You knew what your father was before you knew who he was. You just walked in there and told her that the man she has known for twenty years is most likely involved in everything illegal.”

“Wait. You told me to tell her. I said to wait. Now it’s my fault that she’s upset?” Michal was perplexed. How the turn tables.

“Well, I had no idea it was going to turn out this bad. You stayed with her longer. You should know how she would react to the news.”

Michal threw his hands in frustration.
“And I tried telling you but you wouldn’t listen!”


“Hey, keep your voice down. You might scare the kid,” Semion said.

Michal rolled his eyes at his brother.
“And your wife set a trap for me and I walked into it. Besides, your kid must have heard more than its own share of loud noises. You should keep her away from the main action, you know.”

“She can handle herself,” Semion said.

“She? Are you referring to the baby or your wife?” Michal narrowed his eyes. Freya was due any moment now but they had decided to wait till birth to find out the gender.

“He wants a girl,” Freya said, “We don’t know the gender yet, though.”

“She’s a girl. Feisty like her mother,” Semion placed a hand on her belly.

“We said that we would not assume the gender,” Freya told him, “but he wants a daughter who can bully all the boys and shoot a semi-automatic. I told him that I would sever his manhood if he ever let my child go near a gun.”

“You know how to shoot better than I do,” Semion pointed out, “and you have four brothers. I see no problem in giving her a gun and training her to protect herself.”



They bickered back and forth, pointing out arguments for and against the motion.
Michal watched them, fondly.

He was happy for his brother. His brother grew up following their father’s footsteps, devoting his time to making things work. He attended meetings in the old man’s stead and he had no social life.
Semion watched the first woman he ever loved die in front of his eyes after he was caught in a gang crossfire while coming back from an outing. They had been engaged at the point and planning their wedding.

After her death, his brother swore to never fall in love again. But Freya- she was a miracle. A miracle he was grateful for.

But there was also a pang in his heart. He wanted what they had, wanted the intimacy and love they shared. He didn’t know what it felt like to be loved- to love someone wholly and want the best for them. His mother reminded him of how much she hated his father every single day till he found her on the floor, overdosed.

His father reminded him of how much he hated his mother, and never failed to tell him that he was the product of a mistake he never wanted to make again.

His uncle constantly compared him to the failure that was himself, taking pleasure in reminding him that he was the second son and would always remain in the shadow of his elder brother.

And the woman he-
*No, he could not think about her. He had hurt her enough. She deserved better than him.



“If you want to eavesdrop, you should do a better job of it. I can hear you clearly even with the door closed.”
His line of thought vanished at the sentence.

Katya was standing at the door- that was open, arms akimbo. The eavesdroppers- him, Semion and Freya were also standing in front of the door. They never once did move away.

“We should have been more subtle,” Freya said.

“You think?” Katya raised a brow at her.

And Michal chuckled lightly. He could see a bit of the real Katya that he knew. The stubborn woman who would not back down from a challenge or would find some way to make you pay.

“My fault,” he gladly took the blame, “I lured them here.”

“What you said. Is it true? Is my father really somebody else?”
The hope in her eyes was visible. She wanted him to say no, to tell her that he wanted to be the good guy, to return her reality back to the way she knew it to be.
But he could not lie to her, not when she deserved the truth.

“It is the truth. I don’t want to hurt you anymore than you are but I will not lie to you either. You came to find the truth, the least I can do is tell it to you,” he said.

He watched as tears gathered in her eyes and she fought to keep them at bay. Her lips quivered and trembled but she fought to remain calm. Her fingers flexed and fisted but she stood straight.

Michal wanted to comfort her, tell her that everything would be okay. He wanted to shield her from the rest of the truth- the gruesome parts he hadn’t told her. He took a step towards her but her eyes begged him to stay away, to let her be strong.

So, he held his peace and waited.

“Is that everything? I know that there is more you haven’t told me. I want to hear it- everything.”

*The truth would shatter her.

“Katya-

“I’m not the fragile girl you know, Michal. I can handle the truth.”

“Alright then.”










———

“When did you know about my father?”
They were seated. Semion and Freya had excused themselves to do whatever it was that married people did.

“All my life. My father made sure that I was aware of all his rivals so that I could protect myself. Also, he made me handle minor infractions with smaller gangs. I grew up knowing that your father was one of his biggest rivals.”

His father would take him along to every physical fight-out. He took Semion to formal meetings where disputes were settled amicably but Michal grew up knowing the difference between a punch and a punch that could put a man in a coma.

“Your father made you protect yourself? You must have been very young,” Katya noted.

“Well, technically he only emphasized on what I already had to do. I took care of myself and my mom when she was alive. After she died, I had to pickpockets to keep from starving. At least in his house I had a bed and enough to eat with clothes on my back,” Michal explained.

Not that he did not pay for that privilege with blooded knuckles and bleeding bruises.

“Oh.”

“Yes. I saw your father a couple of times but we mostly clashed with mercenaries that he would send. Sometimes, my father would pay them double to go away but other times he would make them pay for crossing him.
Especially when they touched women and children.”

Katya gasped.

*One more thing she did not know about her father was he had no moral code. Which was why she remained a surprise to them.

“Women and children? Did my father make them do that?” She asked.

Michal shrugged.
“Your father wasn’t a man who cared about people who could not defend themselves. He sent the mercenaries and as long as they got the job done, he was satisfied.”

“Do you have a moral code?” She wanted to know.

“Yes, we do. My father might be a hard sonofabitch but he made sure we knew that women and children, except those that were trained to fight, were not to be touched.”

“He is a better man,” Katya said.

*Some would argue that a man who would treat his son like a servant was worse than a man who would take his child halfway across the world just to protect her. But then again, her mother was an example of just how evil the man could be.


“So, tell me. Why did my father hide those letters from me? I know and you know that my mother wrote those letters. Why did he never give me and why were the letters sent from my aunt?”

Michal sighed.
“I’m somewhat confused too. I know that your father hid the letters because he did not want you knowing more about your relatives from his and your mother’s side. Like I said, he wanted to keep you to himself. But I don’t know why they came from your aunt.”

“And I can’t leave? To meet her?”

“I’m afraid not. Not only because we want your father but because the moment you leave this place, your life will be in danger.”

Katya nodded and said nothing more.

Michal watched her as she went through different stages of emotions, trying to process what he had just revealed.
He told her enough. The most she could handle.

*The rest was up to her father.