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He killed my father because someone handed him a name and pointed him at it. He was used as cleanly as my father was.

I’m not forgiving him tonight. Forgiveness is a different conversation for a different version of this situation, one where I have more information, more sleep, and my father is less recently dead. What I’m doing is simpler than forgiveness, and it surprised me when I found it, sitting here at three in the morning with my father’s last two words on the screen.

I want to tell him the truth about what I found. Not because the clock is running, not because it’s the best next move, and not because I need his resources. I want to tell him because I want to, full stop.

I put the drive on the nightstand on his side of the bed where he’ll see it when he wakes up. Then I get back into bed, pull the blanket up, and lie in the dark.

Two letters and a number. My father found his blackmailer but died before he could do anything about it. I’m going to find it.

I close my eyes, and my father’s margin annotation is still there behind them, smaller text than everything else, sorry he didn’t tell me sooner.

He tried. That’s what I’m taking from tonight. He tried.

25

Volkov

She’s still asleep when I come back upstairs with the tray.

At five in the morning, I found the drive on my nightstand. I took it to the office and put it in my computer. I've been reading for two hours and already had two cups of coffee.

Then I cooked.

Soft scrambled eggs. I’ve watched her eat them twice, never once ordered them, just took what was put in front of her but went straight for them first. Toast, crusts off, because she cuts them herself anyway and I’d rather just do it. Sliced tomatoes, the jam she keeps moving to the front of the shelf, and black coffee. I found berries in the back of the crisper, good ones, and put them in a small bowl on the side.

I carry the tray upstairs and set it on the dresser. She’s still asleep, on her side, her hair across the pillow, one hand curled under her cheek. I sit on the edge of the bed and brush the hair back from her face. She stirs, her eyes opening slowly.

“I made breakfast,” I say, quiet.

She looks at me for a moment, still half-asleep, then pushes herself up against the headboard. I bring the tray over and set it across her lap.

She looks at it and raises her brows.

“This looks like something from an actual restaurant,” she says.

“It’s too early for lies,” I tease, and pull the desk chair over and sit.

She picks up the fork and eats while I watch her. I put my elbows on my knees and look at my hands.

I read everything. A man building a case in the last weeks of his life, trying to do the right thing too late. I pulled the trigger too fast. That’s it. That’s the whole mistake.

I was fast, I was furious, and I didn’t dig far enough.

“You know,” she says.

“Da,” I confirm. “All of it.”

She wraps both hands around the coffee cup.

“He was two days from exposing the whole thing, but I got there first,” I say. “He is still responsible for a lot of fucked up shit that happened, including Lavro. But he did it because he tried to protect you. And at the end he tried to burn it down anyway.” I run my fingers through my hair. “I shot the wrong man, Zayka. Not an innocent one. But the wrong one.”

Her face gives me nothing, but she’s not looking away either. She’s taking all of it straight, every ugly word of it.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “For what I took from you.”

She puts the cup down and reaches across the tray and takes my hand in both of hers. Doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t offer me anything clean. Just holds on, her hands warm around mine, her eyes on my face.

I’ve had men beg me for mercy and felt nothing. This is different. I don’t know what to do with it, so I just sit there and let her hold my hand.