“Is wrong. Yes, I know.” He put the drugstore bag in the back and then climbed in. His language was always so precise. I didn’t expect it would last. He had picked up swearing from me; sloppy speech couldn’t be far behind.
Within seconds we were on the road with no sign anyone had noticed anything out of the ordinary. The hours passed and I filled them telling stories of our younger days. Mostly Michael ignored them, staring out the window or leaning his head back and pretending to nap. But there were a few times I caught the gleam of interest sparking from the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to believe because he was afraid to believe. I understood that implicitly. I’d become afraid to believe too in the past years. I refused to give up. Hell, I was incapable of giving up. Doing that would mean I’d as good as killed Lukas when I’d led him to the beach. I couldn’t give up, no, but neither had I believed . . . not really. Not with any true faith.
Yet, here he was.
I looked over at him to see pale brown lashes resting on his cheeks, but there was an alert air to him that indicated he was still awake. I felt a rush of warmth that damn near embarrassed me. Excepting Natalie and maybe Saul, I couldn’t remember the last time I gave a damn about anyone—and to this extent, never. This was my brother. This was family, true family; it wasn’t that crap people like Konstantin tried to pass off. As for Anatoly . . .
“You talk about your mother all the time.” With unfortunate timing considering my thoughts, his voice broke in quietly to be barely heard over the radio. “What about your father?”
Once again with the training . . . I could all but feel the seat beneath me turn into a psychiatrist’s couch as the kid spoke. I tried to ignore his still saying “my mother” as opposed to “our.” Small steps; it was all about small steps. Instead I concentrated on another discomfort. Good old Dad. What in God’s name could I say about him? I’d always known that the old Lukas, softhearted and innocent, would have been devastated when he eventually found out the truth. This Lukas wouldn’t be. This Lukas very probably wouldn’t give a shit. And he was far from innocent. None of that changed my reluctance to tell him the truth.
Finally, I settled on something that, while true, had nothing to do with Anatoly’s career of choice. “He loved you. Called you his little Cossack. If he had a favorite, it was you.” That had been the case with nearly everyone. Lukas had a quality then that I couldn’t explain. It was like an inner light, the kind you see in people who devote their lives to something beyond them, those who have a calling. He would’ve been someone amazing, my brother, if he hadn’t been stolen away. Now? Fuck amazing. That he was alive was more than good enough for me.
“He loved your brother more than you?” I don’t think he could help the barb he inserted in the question. He was indoctrinated to home in on weakness and vulnerabilities. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“I didn’t say that, Freud,” I said patiently. “You were special to him, but that doesn’t mean he loved me any less.” The fact that I had the love of a man who ordered men killed without a glimmer of remorse was something I’d never truly gotten a handle on. How do you feel about something like that? “You’ll see that yourself when you meet him.” And how exactly that would go I couldn’t begin to guess. As certain as Anatoly was that Lukas was dead, he was bound to demand proof, DNA most likely.
“He’s still alive?”
I wasn’t surprised Michael had gotten the impression that he wasn’t. The stories I told were about him and me, about our mom and grandmother. Our father hadn’t entered into too many of them. That was for two reasons. First, he hadn’t entered our lives any more than he had the stories. He was a busy businessman; he simply wasn’t around often. Second, I wasn’t ready to spill the whole ugly bag of secrets just yet.
“Yeah, he’s alive; just a busy man, that’s all,” I answered evasively. “Hard to reach.”
“Is that who you were talking to last night?” The homey rustle of a Twinkie wrapper didn’t take the bite out of the question.
“You heard?” I made a conscious effort to lighten my suddenly adrenaline-heavy foot on the gas pedal. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I’ve gotten rather good at faking that over the years.” Impassively, he took a bite.