I closed my eyes, trying hard not to lose grip of my rage at the thought of Durov and what he had done.

But that was shot to hell when Kisa said, “He never even let me grieve your death. He just swooped in and took me for his own. I was only thirteen. But I was his. My father didn’t complain, he was lost, and then a couple of years later my mama died of a heart attack—the pain of losing my brother was too much for her to bear. Papa’s only child was now with the only heir—it was the perfect outcome from such a horrific situation. And I was so numbed by grief of losing everyone I loved, that I never fought him. In fact, I was glad someone was there for me.”

Kisa lifted her head and pressed three kisses on my rigid jaw. “I had lost you… I didn’t care much about anything after that… until you saved me in the alley and my heart began to beat again.” She sucked in a breath. “I hadn’t even realized it’d stopped.”

Not knowing how to respond, I gripped her tighter.

“Luka?” she asked. I grunted a reply. “Where did you go? What happened?”

I narrowed my eyes and concentrated on my past. “Your father took me to his office, along with Alik’s.” My eyebrows pulled down, my head aching. “Someone begged for my life. Another man was in the room with us, I think, but I can’t make out his face.”

Kisa stiffened in my arms. “You don’t know who that man is? What he looks like?”

The man was older and maybe had light hair, but that was all I could see. I tried to keep going while I still had this memory in my mind. I was afraid if I focused too much on the man trying to spare my life, the whole memory would come tumbling down.

“He pleaded with your father to not kill me, but Durov’s papa wanted me dead. I…” My heart started pumping hard and I could feel my blood rushing through my veins. “I remember feeling fear, but I couldn’t open my mouth. Durov’s father was so angry that he intimidated me… He stole my voice with his glare. Gestured to me that he would kill me if I spoke. I was mute with shock. The man who tried to defend me started arguing with him, and… and guns were pulled.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head, parts of the memory becoming grainy. “The next thing I knew, your father told me there would be no cops involved in my crime, in my murder of Rodion, but that I was going to be sent to the motherland, to Russia to a contact he had there. He told me I would be punished. He told me I would be in a prison for kids, doing manual labor on a farm deep in the Russian countryside… He told me I would never come back to Brooklyn.”

Kisa came closer, almost melding herself into my chest like she wanted to crawl into my skin. “My God, Luka… I remember them taking you away. I was taken home… and all I remember is being numb as I lay in my bed.”

Kisa looked up at me and placed her palm upon my skin. “What happened next? Because… because after you left, and I didn’t know where they had taken you, we were told you were dead.”

The smell of smoke burned my nose. The sounds of screeching tires skidding to a stop. There was a bus…

“I was in a bus. It was cool outside. Night. I remember not being able to see through the glass because the windows were so steamed up. There were four, maybe five of us being taken away somewhere. Nobody talked. We all sat separately. But I could feel that we were all scared. We were all young… teens? Some could’ve been even younger. Some had been sold by their families to work on the farms.”

I stared off at the lights on the pier, almost feeling drained by how much I had remembered tonight. But the lights blurred and I could suddenly see something else in my mind. The lights… the screeching of tires…

“The bus was run off the road,” I blurted, my voice speaking aloud a memory it was currently processing. “Headlights from a van blinded us on a dark road. There was a loud bang and the driver of the bus swerved and we rolled into a ditch.

“We were all screaming, but the driver wasn’t moving. I remember climbing over the seats, hearing the other boys moan from their injuries, and crawled to the driver. But when I got to him, I could see blood. I could see a hole in his head… a hole I knew he didn’t get from the accident.”

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, the pain of such memories coming too strong.

“Luka?” Kisa whispered and began rubbing at my back. “Don’t…. don’t push yourself too much. It’s okay, lyubov moya. It’s okay. Don’t rush yourself. This is all too much for you to go through in such a short space of time.”