Chapter 55 Marlena
I sat on the floor of my small bedroom at the safe house with old photos spread around me like fallen leaves. They were pictures I'd kept in my wallet for years, bent at the corners and faded from being looked at too many times. But I couldn't stop staring at them now.
Luka at ten years old, grinning with his two front teeth missing. Luka at fifteen, tall and gangly, throwing a peace sign at the camera. Luka at twenty, before the cancer, healthy and strong and so full of life it hurt to look at.
I picked up each photo and held it carefully, my fingers shaking as I traced the outline of his face. In every single one he was laughing or smiling, always so happy despite everything we'd been through. Even when we had nothing, even when Mom was in prison and I was working three jobs to keep us fed, Luka could find something to smile about.
Now he was gone and I would never see that smile again.
The tears came hard and wouldn't stop. I cried until my eyes hurt badly, until my throat was raw and my chest ached from sobbing. I cried for my baby brother who'd fought so hard to stay alive. I cried for all the time I'd wasted with Nikolai when I should have been with Luka. I cried for the future we'd never have, for the life he'd never get to live.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand and I almost ignored it. But something made me reach for it with my free hand while the other still clutched a photo of Luka.
It was a message from Damien Cross.
We have new evidence. Financial records linking Volkov Industries directly to weapons shipments. Your testimony combined with this will be enough to prosecute. Can you meet next week?
I stared at the message for a long moment, then typed back with fingers that shook from anger more than grief now.
Yes. I'll help with anything you need. I want him to lose everything.
The response came quickly. Good. I'll send details tomorrow. I'm sorry about your brother.
I put the phone down and looked at the photos again. Luka's smile stared back at me from a dozen different moments in time. He'd died while I was fighting Nikolai's war. He'd slipped away while I was in Monaco being used as bait. He'd needed me and I hadn't been there because of a man who saw me as nothing more than a tool.
Nikolai had taken everything from me. My freedom. My trust. My baby. My time with Luka. And now Luka himself was gone and I would never get those months back.
I wanted Nikolai to hurt the way I was hurting. I wanted him to lose everything like I'd lost everything. I wanted him to know what it felt like to have your whole world ripped away.
I gathered the photos carefully and put them back in the small box where I kept them. My hands were steadier now, the tears drying on my cheeks as rage burned hot in my chest. I would testify against him. I would help the FBI build their case. And I would make sure he paid for every single lie he'd told me.
I found Elena downstairs in the living room, sitting by the fire with a blanket wrapped around her thin shoulders. She looked up when I came in and her eyes filled with tears when she saw my face.
"Oh dorogaya," she said softly, opening her arms.
I collapsed onto the couch beside her and she held me close while I cried about Luka all over again. Her arms were thin but strong around me and she rocked me gently the way she used to when I was little and had nightmares.
"You did everything you could, my love," Elena whispered into my hair. "You gave him the best treatment money could buy. You fought so hard for him. He knew how much you loved him."
I shook my head hard against her shoulder. "I wasn't there. When he needed me most, when he was dying, I was fighting someone else's war. I should have been with him every single day."
"You couldn't have known," Elena said, stroking my hair with gentle fingers. "The doctors said the cancer came back fast. Even if you'd been there the whole time, you couldn't have stopped it."
But I felt so guilty I could barely breathe. Guilt for signing that contract with Nikolai. Guilt for going to Monaco. Guilt for getting shot and spending weeks in the hospital when I should have been flying to see Luka. Guilt for every single choice that had led me away from my brother when he was running out of time.
"We'll move far away soon," I promised Elena, my voice muffled against her shoulder. "Somewhere peaceful where no one can find us. We'll start over and have quiet days with no danger and no pain. Just you and me building something good."
"That sounds perfect," Elena said softly. "But first you need to let yourself grieve. Don't rush through this pain, Marlena. Luka deserves to be mourned properly."
We sat together by the fire for hours while rain started falling outside. Elena didn't say much, just held me and let me cry whenever the tears came again. Sometimes she hummed old songs from when we were children. Sometimes she just sat in quiet while I stared at the flames and remembered every moment I'd ever shared with Luka.
By the time we went to bed, I was completely drained. My eyes were swollen and my head pounded from crying. But being with Elena had helped somehow. She understood loss in a way few people could. She'd spent years thinking her children were dead, locked away and drugged while Viktor told her we'd died. Now she had one child back but had lost the other forever.
That night I dreamed of Luka.
He was young again, maybe eight or nine, running through a park I remembered from our childhood. The sun was bright and warm and he was laughing as he chased after a soccer ball. His legs were strong and healthy. His cheeks were pink with life. He looked so happy and free.
In the dream I called out to him and he turned and waved at me with that huge smile. "Come play, Mar!" he shouted. "Stop being so serious all the time!"
I tried to run to him but my feet wouldn't move. I watched him play and laugh and be alive, so perfectly alive, and I wanted to grab him and hold him and never let go.
Then the dream shifted the way dreams do. Suddenly Luka was in a hospital bed, pale and small. He reached for my hand and said, "It's okay, Mar. I'm not scared. You don't have to be scared either."
I woke up with wet cheeks and my heart racing. For a moment I forgot he was gone and reached for my phone to call him. Then reality crashed back down and the grief hit me all over again, fresh and sharp as broken glass.
I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling as dawn light started creeping through the curtains. My whole body ached with exhaustion but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep again. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Luka's face, heard his voice, felt the weight of everything I'd lost.
Elena needed me. She was getting stronger each day but she was still so fragile, still healing from years of captivity and drugs. Without Luka, she was the only family I had left. I had to keep going for her. Had to build us a safe life where we could both heal from everything Viktor and Nikolai had done to us.
I got out of bed slowly, my body stiff and sore. In the mirror I looked like a ghost, my face pale and my eyes red and swollen. But I was alive. I'd survived when so many people had tried to break me.
And I would keep surviving. For Elena. For Luka's memory. For the future we deserved.
I would testify against Nikolai. I would help put him in prison for his crimes. And then Elena and I would disappear somewhere he could never find us and we would build a life worth living.
It wouldn't bring Luka back. Nothing would. But it was all I had left to hold onto.
I went downstairs and found Elena already awake, making tea in the small kitchen. She looked up when she heard me and smiled sadly.
"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked.
"No." I moved to help her, taking cups from the cabinet. "But that's okay. We'll be okay."
"Yes," Elena agreed, squeezing my hand. "We will be. Together."
The tea was hot and sweet and we drank it by the window while watching the sun come up over the mountains. It was a new day. The first day of the rest of
our lives without Luka. But we had each other and that would have to be enough.