Kingmakers, Year Four

Chapter 23

23

Ivan Petrov

Present Day

I push up from the floor of my cell, the grit of the bare rock digging into my palms. Those palms are harder than iron by now. They’ve endured one thousand push-ups per day for three and a half long years.

When I want to do pull-ups, I flip my bed on its end and use the steel crossbar of the headboard.

One thousand push-ups. Five hundred pull-ups. One thousand air squats. Five hundred sit-ups. Broken into intervals like the hours of an invisible clock. That is how I divide my day .

The rest of the time, I read.

Marko provides me with books because he doesn’t want me to go mad.

Then I wouldn’t be able to provide the monthly check-ins that keep the ransom money flowing. Also, it would spoil his fun.

He’s due for a visit any day now. I keep track of how many days have passed, scoring the stone walls with an old nail. Marko’s visits aren’t regular enough to predict accurately. He does that intentionally. Routine is dangerous, he knows that.

I always knew he was intelligent.

It was the qualities I failed to see that came back to bite me.

I hear Borys and Ihor rotating positions out in the corridor. Borys shined his boots this morning—a sure sign that Marko is indeed about to visit. I know the Malina’s routines better than they do, though my cell has no windows, and only a small slit in the door through which my meals pass.

I haven’t seen the sky or felt wind on my face since I came to this place.

But I would pass the rest of my days in darkness if I could see my wife one last time.

I’ve been torn in half. The other part of me is wandering, searching . . . longing for me as I’m longing for her.

I know she’s looking for me. I know it as well as I know my own thoughts .

Sloane will never give up on me.

And I will never stop trying to come home to her.

I made a promise to her. And I always keep my promises.

I miss my children almost as badly. My only comfort is that they have their mother with them and Dominik to help protect them.

It’s Sloane I worry about. She’ll drive herself to death looking for me. She’ll take any risk. I worry about her survival more than my own.

I can’t bear being locked up in here when she might need me out there.

I’ve never met anyone more capable than my wife. But no one is invincible, no matter what she and I might have believed about ourselves in the hubris of youth. She needs me, and I need her.

We draw life from each other. In the time we’ve been apart, we’ve both been slowly dying.

I listen for the sounds of Marko’s approach.

I’m buried deep in the earth, in a vast stone tomb, like a pharaoh interred before his time.

I don’t know if I’m in a castle or prison, or even in which country we reside. I was shot four times by the Malina, covering my wife and children so they could escape. I woke in this cell, with tubes running in and out of me, with IV bags and monitors, and a doctor called Lyaksandro who tended to me while always ensuring that I was shackled hand and foot to the cot .

The Malina are careful with their most valuable prisoner.

After all, I’m worth $6 million a month, not to mention the priceless satisfaction I provide to Marko Moroz.

He’s bleeding my family dry, raking in over $252 million so far. Still, I think he would trade every penny for the pleasure of rubbing his revenge in my face.

That’s why he comes for these monthly ransom calls. So he can witness my pain.

I know when his convoy arrives, because I hear the crackle of the radio out in the hallway, and the shifting sound as Borys stands at attention. I don’t know if Marko comes by boat, helicopter, or car. I don’t know if we’re on an island or in the middle of the wilderness.

But I do pick up clues—small, significant clues. And I pass them along in the only way I can.

I’m sitting on my cot, back against the wall, reading The Devil In The White City for the third time.

I hear the clanking of electronic locks and the groan of heavy doors creaking open. Then the tramping tread of Marko and his men approaching.

“ Dobroho ranku, ser,” Borys greets him with an audible salute. Good morning, sir.

I already knew some Ukrainian, similar as it is to Russian. Now I know more from listening to Borys and Ihor shoot the shit outside my cell. I know far more than I ever cared to learn about Borys ’ rotten luck with the ponies, and Ihor’s persistent foot rash.

Marko’s men are not permitted to marry or even maintain long-term relationships. They have no children, and he deliberately recruits those without close family. He is a jealous god who tolerates no other loyalties.

It does create a cult-like bond between him and his men. They depend on him entirely. But they also squabble bitterly amongst themselves, vying for his approval in petty, backstabbing ways.

Marko thrives on this. He loves to pit them against each other, doling out compliments and mockery in arbitrary and capricious ways.

I can feel Marko’s bulk standing outside the door to my cell. I hear the grit of gravel as he leans forward, pressing his eye against the retinal scanner.

Only Marko and his lieutenant Kuzmo can enter my cell. Marko doesn’t trust his other soldiers, not with his favorite prisoner. They might be vulnerable to threats or bribes.

The door swings open, Marko’s vast bulk filling the frame.

I mark my place in the book before setting it down next to me.

“Another call already?” I say. “How time flies.”

It never flies. I count every second, every minute, every hour .

But this is part of the game Marko and I play, where I refuse to let him see the overwhelming hatred that wells up inside of me at the sight of his face. He wants me to rage and howl and beg.

I will never fucking do it.

Marko steps into the cell, looking around as if he’s never seen it before.

It’s a plain space, blank walls, stone floor. A capsule carved out of the rock, windowless and lit by a single electric panel set in the ceiling. The only furniture is the metal-framed bed and a single folding chair, currently collapsed and leaning up against the wall. My books sit in a stack on the floor.

“Are you done with those?” Marko says, nodding toward the tower of books.

“Yes,” I say.

He snaps his fingers, ordering one of his soldiers to exchange the books for a new supply.

My own personal library.

“Any requests for the next month?” Marko says, unsuccessfully trying to hide his smile.

“Yes. Wolf Hall ,” I say.

“I thought you didn’t care for fictionalized biographies.”

“A man can always learn to appreciate something new. ”

“I brought this one for you,” Marko says, tossing a paperback down on the bed.

The Count of Monte Cristo .

His teeth glint as he grins.

This is a tired joke: he already brought Little Dorrit, Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption, The Man in the Iron Mask , and The Green Mile .

“Really, Marko,” I say quietly. “I almost think you’re trying to give me ideas.”

“I think you come up with plenty of ideas on your own,” Marko growls, giving one last glance around my empty cell.

I’ve never tried to escape—that he knows of. I’m sure that only makes him more paranoid. He knows me too well to believe that I’m patiently biding my time.

“Chair,” Marko barks at his lieutenant.

Kuzmo lifts the chair from the wall and sets it in the center of the room. I take my place upon it, crossing my arms behind my back so Kuzmo can handcuff them behind me.

These security measures are, perhaps, overblown—after all, Marko has four soldiers with him and two more out in the hall. I’m alone and unarmed.

On the other hand, he knows me well.

I’m sure he tells himself the handcuffs are to humiliate me further. The stare that passes between us tells another story .

“Are you looking forward to going home, my friend?” Marko says, his eyes fixed on mine, his pupils dark and dilated in the dim space. ”Excited to see your wife again? How lucky that she still lives for you to see her.”

I don’t like when he mentions Sloane. It takes effort for me to hide my anger.

It’s nothing but effort, controlling the almost irresistible impulse to snap the chain on these cuffs and tear his throat out with my fingers.

If I had no wife and no children, I would do it. I’d rather die riddled with bullets from his soldiers’ guns than suffer another minute of his taunts or another month in this sunless torture chamber.

Imprisonment is torture, make no mistake about it. Marko may not burn my flesh or break my bones, but he is making deep cuts to my soul, every day that passes. He is trying to twist and break me on the rack of boredom, rage, and loneliness.

“Yes,” I say quietly. “I look forward to going home.”

Marko is too clever to ever let an enemy as dangerous as me free in the world to seek my revenge. He will never let me go.

My family pays the ransom to buy time, not because they believe him.

His amusement draws out the game .

We play into his enjoyment to drag it on. But eventually he will reach the end of his diversion. When that happens, either he will die, or me.

He’s too angry that I have Sloane while Daryah is dead.

In his fury, he has decided that I took his wife from him, not Taras Holodryga.

Taras is a ghost. He’s no fitting target for Marko’s anger—he can’t be punished anymore.

I’m the one alive. The only person left to rage upon.

That’s why he comes here every month, to drive the knife in deeper. To satiate himself on the sight of me: filthy, pale, and trapped in here like an animal in a cage.

He takes a sick satisfaction in my phone call to my family.

He listens in every time, wanting to hear the desperation in their voices, and the bitterness in mine.

He’s never caught what I actually say to them.

“Bring the phone,” he says to Kuzmo.

Kuzmo is the only person Marko trusts, at least to some degree. Kuzmo is tall and well-built—Marko wouldn’t respect anyone who wasn’t. He has a stern, unsmiling face, a narrow, lipless mouth, and the same close-shaved haircut imposed upon him during his days in Stark prison. The dark stubble on his cheeks and scalp has a bluish tinge, repeated in the steel blue of his eyes. His military clothing has an old-fashioned look, like the Black Brunswickers. On the wool sleeve of his jacket, I see a single perfect crystalline flake, not yet melted.

Kuzmo rarely speaks, except to bark orders at his subordinates on Marko’s behalf. He certainly doesn’t engage in any of Borys or Ihor’s idle chatter.

He brings the cellphone to me, already dialing my brother Dominik’s number.

Dom answers at once, expecting the call.

“Ivan,” he says.

“Still here,” I reply. “Still alive.”

Kuzmo is holding the phone to my ear. I’m not allowed to touch it, even under the scrutiny of all these men.

“Are you well, brother?” Dom says.

“Of course. And you?”

“Very well. Business runs smooth. The deposit will be sent as usual.”

“Good, thank you. I keep busy here, too. Reading in the morning. Then,” a short pause, “I spend evenings exercising so no opportunity wastes.”

“Good, brother. Keep it up,” Dom says.

Kuzmo pulls the phone away before I can say anything else.

No matter. I told Dominik what I needed to say .

Marko is watching me as always, meaty arms folded across his chest.

He was always a big man, and he’s grown softer with age—a layer of fat over what was once hard muscle. Still, he could break the back of any man here, save for one.

“Until next month, my friend,” Marko says.

“I look forward to it,” I reply.

Kuzmo unlocks the cuffs.

I return to my place on the bed, picking up my paperback once more.

Marko is the last to depart my cell, closing the door himself with an echoing clang.

The sound is dismal and cold.

But there’s a fire in my chest that had burned down to an ember, now stoked anew.

I managed to pass a message to Dom, with a piece of information that might be useful to Sloane in her search.

I do this every month, if I’ve observed anything about the prison or the guards that might help her to find me.

It’s a simple code, the first letter of each word forming its own sentence:

I

S pend

E venings

E xercising

S o

N o

O pportunity

W astes