Ellie

Maya accepted Roman's bluntness without complaint; as if she felt she deserved it. "Of course. Victor wants you to meet him by the war memorial tomorrow, doesn't he?"

I spoke first, because sensed Roman's leg trembling. He was bristling with distrust, and I wasn't sure I blamed him. "How could you know that?"

"He doesn't change. He used to say he liked that place," Maya said, a hard, joyless smile on her lips. "Quiet. No police. Good field of fire… Believe me, I'd never get in bed with a man like that."

"I wouldn't let her…" Conor chuckled. Just as with his wife, the smile didn't extend to his eyes. I believed them. They weren't trying to pull the wool over my eyes; they weren't working together with Victor. Conor for one looked as though he might physically recoil if he had to speak about the man for much longer.

"Okay, okay," I said, closing my eyes for half a second to take stock. "Let's get back on track. What are we actually going to do? It's no good just sitting around and waiting. The clock's ticking, and every second we wait is another second he's got my son!" I knew I sounded desperate, but I didn't care, not any longer. I felt desperate, and it was hard enough keeping things together without hiding that, too.

Maya's eyes spoke in volumes of sadness. "I'm sorry we can't speed things up. It's going to have to be tomorrow. What time are you supposed to meet him?"

I saw Roman look at me, and I locked eyes with him. We conferred wordlessly, as though we've been married for decades. I nodded, though my head moved barely half an inch. Decision made. "Midday."

Maya chewed her lip. "He's going to kill you, you know that? If you go to that meeting, you're as good as dead."

I had suspected it, but this was Roman's world, not mine. I wasn't used to having to wade through a dozen different shades of gray. No, not gray – dark, blood red. This was a dangerous world, and I felt that I was just a tourist in it, not an expert. I was glad when his voice growled to life.

"Of course. The odds are stacked against us, you might say."

Maya chuckled. "You might," she agreed. "I don't think Victor's evil enough a man to kill the child, too. He's sick, don't get me wrong, but he's a businessman. He knows that his men are fathers, sons, and grandsons. They're more than happy to kill. They'll draw the line somewhere. My worry is what happens to the child after –" she paused.

"After we're dead," Roman said. Those three words set a chill inside the cabin, and a shiver up my spine. After all that I had been through in the past few months, death didn't scare me as much as it might once have. But something scared me more – dying without ever seeing the face of my own child. Dying without a chance to bring my baby up.

"Precisely."

"We can't let that happen," I choked.

"You're right," Maya agreed. "And I don't intend to. But what we need is a plan, and to be honest," she shrugged. "We're all out of ideas."

"I've got an idea for you," Roman grumbled. "I get my rifle, and I put a bullet through his head. How's that?" His shoulders were tense, hunched over, and his thick, powerful neck had almost disappeared beneath them.

Maya and Conor looked at each other, communicating a silent message. I looked at the pair of them with distrust. Conor turned back to face me. "We were hoping to find another –"

"No!" Roman boomed. "That man has my son, honor demands that he doesn't live to take another breath. He's taken enough from me already, more from Ellie," he pointed at me with his elbow, and leaned forward threateningly. "Why the hell would you want to protect him? Because your wife's his niece? Not good enough." He stared daggers at Conor, and the wiry fighter met his gaze without flinching. If the temperature in the cabin had dropped a few moments before, now the mercury in the dial shot right past a hundred.

"Boys!" Maya remonstrated, with a calm, teacher-like smile tickling her lips. I looked at her with renewed respect. I could see how she'd managed to insert herself so nimbly into the top of her late father's organization. She was a very, very impressive woman. "No fighting."

I laid a hand on Roman's shoulder and pulled him back. He relaxed into my touch, but he stayed on a hair trigger, coiled and ready to spring. "Thanks," I muttered to Maya. "I think we're all a little bit tense. Why don't you tell us what you're thinking," I said, in a tone that sounded conciliatory, but demanded real, solid answers.

"Conor and I are trying to build a new city," she said. "Now, I'll be the first to admit that it hasn't all gone as smoothly as we had hoped… But we need to break this cycle of violence once and for all. We need to send a message –"

"We are not sending a fucking message with my baby's life on the line!" Roman barked.

"Roman," I chided. "Let her finish." Whatever she says, it better be good.

Conor took up the baton instead. "Listen, man," he said in his lilting accent. "Don't be a fool. I hate to say it, but your child's life is on the line whatever happens. All the lady's asking is that you don't kill Victor. If he dies, another snake just takes his place at the head of the table. We should know. We are trying to put a stop to it, or at least hold back the tide. The law needs to take Victor down, not us."

"So what are we supposed to do?" I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth. "Just sit on our hands and pray?"

Maya shook her head. "No," she said evasively. "But that's where we hope you come in…"

My hands jumped to my chest. "Me?"

This time, Maya nodded. "Victor doesn't just kill people. It's bad for business. Dead men don't pay protection. Or even ladies. So I asked myself, why was he hunting you down so hard? A reporter at a struggling small-town paper, fighting off the wolves at the door. There must be a reason. So I read a few of your articles, and I began to get a sense of who you are, Ellie. You have something on him, don't you? Tell me I'm right." She looked hopeful, her eyes wide and posture open.

"You want me to write an article," I said disbelievingly. "That's what's dumped me into this mess in the first place."

Maya clenched her fist with elation. "You do have something. Something big."

"Did."

She deflated like a popped balloon. "No he can't have it, it doesn't make sense. Why is he still hunting you?"

"He doesn't." Roman grunted. "The police do. She was carrying every last document when her boyfriend –"

"Ex-boyfriend," I corrected firmly, a flash of hurt burning through my skull.

He shot me an apologetic look, and pressed his thigh against mine. "When her abuser beat ten bells out of her and put her in hospital. If it still exists," he cleared his throat, "and that's a big if, then the police have it in some evidence locker. And unless you've got a man on the inside," he said, looking up hopefully. "Then we're outta options."

Conor's foot kicked out and hit the nearest door. "Bollocks," he swore. "I told you they'd come in useful."

Maya cracked her neck. "Hindsight's twenty twenty," she groaned. "But you go to war with the army you have, not the one you want. What if we could get you into that evidence locker?" She said, looking her gaze with mine. Looking into her eyes was like staring at a huge sheet of pearlescent blue-green sea ice – and just as cold.

"Out of the question," Roman said, leaning forward. "She stays with me."

I picked my words carefully. I knew Roman wanted to protect me, and I wanted nothing more than simply to let him, but I had a more important calling. I had to save my child. "Go on…"

"If I know Victor, he won't have your kid within a mile of himself. Kidnapping a child's serious stuff. The place in this town might be bought off, but the FBI might be a helluva lot more interested in something like that."

"And you know where that would be?" I said, half-standing up in my excitement and passion my head against the roof of the cabin. "Then what the hell are we waiting for?"

"A distraction," Maya replied. Victor's lost a lot of men between Roman's work and the war that's been going on for the past few months. If he wants to take you down, most of his men will have to go to the Memorial. That gives us an opening, if we're clever enough to take it."

"You know where my baby is?" I pressed. It was as much a statement as a question.

"Maybe. Kind of," Maya prevaricated. "Russian neighborhoods are tight. Tight-lipped, close together, and besides, it’s how we got so good at organized crime. You don't get a lot of snitches when you know you can't show your face at home afterwards."

"I know this," Roman rumbled. "Get to the point."

"You've heard of a kormilitsa?" Maya asked, a smile playing on her lips.

Roman shook his head, looking baffled.

"I didn't think so. It means wet-nurse. It's an old tradition, really. There can't be many left, women who nurse other women's children."

The idea was an abomination; it hit me in the stomach like a punch. Roman laid a calming hand on my thigh.

Maya continued. "Like I said, can't be many left. But if I was a betting woman, I'd risk a million bucks on that being where Victor's stashed him."

Ellie

"Talk to me, Roman." I begged. "Don't just hold it in."

He sat on the other side of the bed, still as the dead. I'd almost given up hope that he would say anything when his lips moved, just barely. I had to lean in close just to make out a word of what he was saying. After the meeting with Conor and Maya, it was as though he'd collapsed in upon himself, and I didn't know why.

Out of nowhere, he gripped my arm and squeezed it so tight it was as if he was reliving a nightmare. "I'm a bad man, Ellie. I've done terrible things."

I tried to disagree, but he cut me off.

"No, it's true, you know it is. I've killed more men than I can count on two hands. By rights I should be locked up for the rest of my life for the things I've done, the things I've seen. I said I'd never have kids, you know that?"

My free hand jumped to my belly like it was being scalded, and like my body somehow remembered a time my mind couldn't recall.

"What if…" Roman's voice broke, breaking my heart along with it. "What if I end up like my father?"

Is that what he's been worried about?

I smiled with relief, and said. "Roman –"

He raised his voice worriedly and cut me off, his voice low with emotion. "Don't laugh, I'm being serious. You know the things he did to me and Tim," he said. He stood up abruptly and brushed my arm off him, then pulled his plain white T-shirt off his muscular torso and chucked it onto the floor.

"Roman, what are you doing?" I asked, picking the T-shirt up off the floor and smoothing out the creases. "Put this –."

"Give me your hand," he ordered gruffly. There was a strange buzz, and an energy in the room, and I didn't know what it meant. One thing was clear though, whatever was happening between us, it was momentous – the kind of event that could lay a relationship's foundations, make it unbeatable, unbreakable… Or bring it crashing down.

I gave it to him without protesting. He looked at it like he'd never seen it before, as if he was deliberating whether he was doing the right thing. I held my breath, speechless, desperate not to disrupt the moment. He studied my hand a couple of seconds longer, turning it over in his powerful yet strangely delicate fingers and brought it ever so slowly towards his body. I bit my lip, making sure that my lips wouldn't part to spoil the moment.

His face took on a strange, thousand-yard glaze, like he was reliving a moment he could never forget. I'd seen that look before a hundred times, in the mirror after a beating from Rick, and in others too, across this entire broken city. It was the look of a victim, the look of a broken mind struggling to recover, and also trying to forget. He brought my hands slowly, gently to rest against his warm chest, and held it there for a couple of seconds until I felt the slow, steady pulsating beat of his heart.

He spoke quietly, so quietly I strained to hear. "This one," he said. "I got for not finishing my homework on time." He moved my palm slowly across his rib cage, to an eight inch long, half inch wide scar. It looked like the skin, once broken, had split left and right, and in healing left behind a ragged, pale milky-white gash. "I was seven."

I gasped in shock, but he didn't seem to hear. He was in his own world now, and nothing I said or did would change that.

"This one," he said, moving my palm ever so slowly across his skin to above his shoulder. "This one the doctors did. They had to cut into me to fish out a shard of broken bone."

"Why?" I asked, dreading the answer. "What happened?"

"Tim didn't clean his room," Roman replied, eyes glassy. "So dad pushed me down the stairs."

It was the matter-of-fact tone in which he spoke of the horror that his father had inflicted on him that shocked me most. It was as though it had happened to a different person, as if Roman was simply narrating the actions of a madman, not reliving them. I wanted to reach over, to hug him, to say that I'd make it better, but I didn't know how. I didn't know what to say and even if I said it, what I do afterwards. I realized, right then and there, that I was truly powerless. As powerless as I'd ever been on the wrong end of Rick's fists. Perhaps more so.

He isn't done, I realized with horror. And then, with a terrible sinking feeling in my stomach, I realized where Roman was taking my palm. He lifted it up, over his shoulder, and to a place he'd never let me touch before. I saw him flinch as my palm passed over his collarbone, and grimace, and waver as he considered whether he was taking the right path.

"You don't have to…" I whispered softly.

For a second, just a brief second, his eyes flickered back to life and lost that glossy sheen that had covered them for the past few minutes. "No, I do," he whispered back. "I need you to understand."

My fingers broke over Roman's thick, muscular shoulder and for the first time since he'd plucked me from harm in the bar in which we met, I touched his back. It felt cobbled, like a pebble beach, and not like any skin I never felt before. It was thick, and matted with scars and lumps of thick, fibrous scar tissue. "This," he said, his voice breaking for the first time. "This took a week."

I forced myself to open my eyes, to look at what he was showing me. I didn't want to see it, didn't want to hear about the horrors that he had endured as a child. I wanted to shut my eyes and put my fingers in is and hum a lullaby until it all blew over.

Get a grip, Ellie. I thought. He had to live it. All you have to do is hear it.

Roman's voice was barely audible over the sounds of traffic from two streets over. I had to strain and turn my ears to make sure I caught every word "He tied my hands to a wooden beam in the basement. I still remember the splinters digging into my forearms. He left me there for hours, maybe longer, I don't know. It was dark."

"Roman –." I gasped.

It was as though he hadn't heard me. He was deep in the memory now, reciting it in a monotone. I pressed my palm against the back, and looped my other arm around his neck. I wanted him to know that I was there, even if it was deep down.

"The stairs creaked when he came back. I thought he was going to let me out, or feed me, or something. I thought that was my punishment. I was wrong. He'd been drinking. I could smell the whiskey on his breath. He didn't say a word, but I heard a chain clink. He took it off the garage door opener. I could smell the oil. And then he started whipping me with it."

My palms spasmed uncontrollably against his back as I pictured the pain he must've gone through.

How did you even survive?

"I remember six hits, maybe seven, and then I blacked out. The next time he came down, he brought me a sandwich, stuffed it in my mouth, and poured half a bottle of white spirit down my back while I was struggling not to choke on the bread. It was pastrami." He offered, as though the flavor mattered. I knew why the detail had stuck in his head. The same thing happened to me. I still remembered what cologne Rick was wearing the first time he slapped me.

This, though…

"Why?"

Roman's eyes snapped back to life at the question. "I'm sorry," he croaked. "I've never told anyone this. Not since Tim. Why what?"

"It doesn't matter," I said quickly. "You don't need to –."

"No," he said curtly. "I want you to understand. What was it?"

"Why the white spirit?" I asked sadly. "I don't understand…"

Roman shrugged. "Who the fuck knows?" He said bitterly. "To stop it getting infected? Maybe even just to cause me pain. It was just dad being dad. It happened five more times that week. That I remember, anyway."

"That's not okay!" I cried out. "It's not supposed to be like that…"

Roman grabbed my arm again, this time with a fervent glow in his eyes. "I know!" He agreed. "That's why I'm telling you all this."

"What do you mean?"

"When we get the baby," he paused correcting himself, "our baby back. If I ever raise a hand to you, or him, I want you to leave and never look back. You understand?"

"Roman," I protested. "You wouldn't!"

"I want you to promise me, Ellie," he insisted desperately. "I want you to promise you'll leave me."