Kingmakers, Graduation

45. Sabrina

45

SAbrINA

W hen I wake in the hospital, there’s a man sitting next to my bed. I startle so badly that I almost tear out my IV line, before realizing it’s my father.

He’s sitting bent over, shoulders hunched, face exhausted. I’ve never seen such dark shadows under his eyes, or the lines on his face so deep.

“Jesus, Dad,” I croak. “You look worse than me.”

“I seriously doubt it.”

He’s probably right. My right arm is bandaged from shoulder to elbow, three of the fingers splinted and taped. The left side of my face throbs with every heartbeat. My words come out mushy through cracked and swollen lips. I reek of blood and smoke and propane.

I only have to look in my dad’s eyes to see that I’m a fucking mess. So destroyed that it hurts him .

I was his baby girl once. I sat on his lap and smooshed his cheeks with my hands and made him laugh.

It was so easy to make him happy then. So easy to be what he wanted me to be.

Now all I do is cause him pain.

Never one to mince words, my father gets right to the point: “The High Table has put a bounty on your head.”

“How much?” I say. “I don’t like to think I come cheap.”

His jaw shifts, anger flashing in his eyes. He’s never appreciated my comedic timing.

“If I can find you, they can find you,” he hisses. “We need to leave. Now .”

“I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t think you’re gonna be able to carry me out of here.”

“ Why?” he cries, his voice anguished.

“I haven’t seen it through to the end. I’m not coming home until I do.”

“The end is your death. You’re never coming home.”

I shrug, even that small motion ripping at my side. I think my ribs are broken.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I really am. But you’re the one person who can understand—it’s not over until I’m satisfied.”

He looks at me, his eyes burning in his face.

It’s my own eyes staring back at me—full of all the same anger and frustration and longing, for all the things you can never quite grasp .

Through time and change and circumstance, he’s still the same Nero, deep down inside.

And I’m the same Sabrina.

He knows there’s no way to make me leave. No way to convince me.

I’m stubborn and reckless, just like my dad. Born of his blood, for better and for worse.

“I brought you something,” he says.

He reaches in his pocket, taking out a handkerchief wrapped around something hard.

He presses it into my palm.

When I open my hand, the silk handkerchief falls away like the petals of a flower, revealing the stone within.

It glitters even under the dull hospital lights, its facets reflecting infinitely like a hall of mirrors, as deeply blue as arctic ice.

The Winter Diamond.

“The Bratva believe it has power,” my father says. “They treasure it over anything. If you go before the High Table and beg for forgiveness … it may save your life.”

My father sold this diamond twenty-five years ago. I can only imagine what it cost him to buy it back.

There’s a lump in my throat as big as the stone. I can’t speak around it.

All I can do is throw my arms around my dad, even though it’s agony to press my swollen cheek against his shoulder .

I inhale his scent: bergamot, lava soap, and gasoline. All my favorite things.

“I love you, Dad. And I know how much you love me.”

“More than anything,” he says, cradling my head with his hand. “More than the whole world.”

It’s because he loves me, because he understands me, that he leaves me there.

He knows that what I want more than anything is the freedom to make my own choice.

When he’s gone, the pain overwhelms me. My face is on fire, my arm even worse. Every breath stabs at my side.

The nurses offer morphine, but I won’t take any more drugs. I can’t dissociate, I need my mind clear.

I watch the sun setting though the tiny window in my curtained room. It fades quickly as storm clouds crowd in.

There’re no walls, no privacy in this underfunded clinic. I can hear the patients on the other side of the curtains, groaning or asking the nurses for water. The beeps of the machines monitoring blood pressure and heart rate are ticking clocks, steadily counting down.

I wanted to rest as long as I could, but I hear a commotion at the end of the hall—two men, burly and broad-shouldered, with the look of athletes gone to seed. I spy them through the gaps in the curtain.

The one in front is Boris Kominsky, I recognize him from Apothecary. He barks something at the nurse, then gestures to his compatriot, who begins wrenching back the curtains, searching the hospital beds .

I don’t know if Boris is here for the bounty or to avenge Cujo. I have no intention of waiting around to find out.

Peeling the tape off the crook of my arm, I grit my teeth and pull out the IV. I slap the tape back over the puncture before it can bleed down my arm, then slip out of the hospital bed.

My clothes are folded on an empty chair, still filthy and stinking of smoke. Tucking the bundle under my arm and carrying my boots, I sneak out the back of the ward.

The exit door has no alarm. I race down the staircase bare-footed, my gown flapping open behind me.

I’m dizzy and reeling, delirious with pain.

I couldn’t tell my father the real reason I stayed:

I need to see Adrik one last time.

He won’t be back from the delivery yet. I could go to the Den and wait for him.

I pull on my clothes in the alleyway and stuff my feet in my boots, shivering with cold now that the sun has gone down. The snow has melted but Moscow is still far from warm.

Even this level of exertion wipes me out. I lean against the cinderblock, waiting for the black spots clear from my vision.

Leaving my hospital gown in a crumpled ball in the alley, I head out to the street so I can hail a cab.

A car stops at the curb, as delightfully ramshackle as all Moscow cabs seem to be.

I’ve barely opened the back door when I hear a shout. Boris Kominsky has stuck his head out the side door and caught sight of me. He comes sprinting down the street, arms pumping, monstrously fast. His fellow kachki is right behind him.

“Ezhay, ezhay! ” I shout at the cab driver.

Russians know better than to hesitate when they’re being chased. The cabbie stomps on the gas, pulling away from the curb.

To my dismay, Boris’ car is parked only a block down. He turns and runs back to it, barely waiting for his friend to climb in the passenger seat before he speeds after me.