My father stayed silent for such a long time, I thought he was unable to answer. “He’s valuable,” my father finally muttered. As if preempting Luis’ question, he added, “He doesn’t only have state secrets, he was KGB.”

Luis groaned, massaging the bridge of his nose. “You’re not helping your case.”

“Wouldn’t Pierre want to—” My father was cut off by Luis pointing a stern finger in his face.

“Don’t worry about Pierre,” he growled. “He’s certainly stopped worrying about you.” He checked his watch as he settled back in his seat. “What else?”

“He…” my father’s eyes swam around the table as he grasped at anything he thought Luis would want. “He may be able to take down Vasiliy’s network.”

“Why didn’t you say so sooner, Jean?” He said. “What’ll you need to contact him?”

My father pulled out his cellphone. “Everything I need is right here.”

Luis checked his watch once more, and I started to hear the stairs creak as someone else climbed them. “He’s early,” he muttered. He pulled his knife out, let it clatter in its sheath on the table. “Jean, phone away. Weapons on the table. Let’s see if we can fix Matias’ little fuck up.”

Mathias deposited his pistol and a pocketknife on the table in front of him. My father put his phone away, then pulled out his own knife to add to the stockpile. I sat, quite, shivering, waiting for when I could go back somewhere heated. Luis crossed his arms as the door swung open. My father saw the newcomer first, fear, anger, registered on his face. Luis kept his head angled directly at the seat in front of him.

Red hair was the first thing I glimpsed as he rounded the corner. His hair hung loosely around his shoulders, swishing as he stabbed a knife into the wooden table. He sat down in the empty seat. He eyed Luis, both willing the other to make the first move. “What happened to Henri?” He finally asked, rolling the r in his name.

Luis cocked his head, as if to tell Mathias to start speaking. “Fell into my line of sight,” he explained. “Already pulled the trigger.”

The man was silent for a long while, then he burst out laughing. “I tell him never work with French,” he said in broken English through his laughing. “He always go get himself hurt.”

Mathias cleared his throat, his voice the smallest I’d ever heard it. “Through the skull.”

He stopped his laughing, face falling, and I angled my head down to my lap. “Then what was phone calls for?” No one spoke, I imagined Mathias shook his head. “Body?”

“Boston,” Mathias croaked out.

“Vasiliy,” Luis started, “let’s get to what you came for.”

“Fine.” The chair creaked as Vasiliy pushed it back. “Jean-Claude…” He trailed off, only to be replaced by Luis’ voice, “«Matias, take Yves outside. I’ll call for you after he leaves. »”

I tried not to look at anything as Mathias brought me outside. There was a fire escape placed near the back of the room, a modern invention to make the old building seem a little safer. I stumbled out the door, crutch in my shivering hand, Mathias right behind me. The frigid air chilled my already freezing bones and I stopped short on the metal landing, unable to do anything but shake. He closed the door behind him, muffling the raised voices against the night.

He helped me sit at the landing, forcing my cold body to move. He shed his jacket, draping it over me before sitting down next to me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer to him and I couldn’t resist. I didn’t…want to resist. Not when he felt so warm. Hearing their voices trickle through the old wooden boards caused me to flinch, remembering how I hid all those years ago. Each time I flinched, Mathias held me tighter, closer, against him. He rubbed my arm with his hand, told me it was all okay.

It was a nice thought, that everything would be okay. If I…If I stayed with him, everything would be okay. My sisters wouldn’t be hurt. My father would be fine. I would be taken care of. He could protect me from anyone who tried to hurt me now that they knew who I was. I leaned closer into him, convincing myself I only did that to stay warm. Everything I was doing now was to stay alive. To not be the person in the room interrogated by Vasiliy. To not be beaten by him while someone looked on doing nothing, if those meaty sounds were what I thought they were. All I could do was stay with Mathias, to push out those past memories I wanted to forget and be comforted by him.

It was sudden, soft, I wasn’t sure it had fully happened until I felt it was too late to react. He had kissed me, quietly, on the top of my head. As if nothing had happened, as if it wasn’t something that I would push him away for, he went back to rubbing my arm. And I wanted to hit myself, to scream, to cry, because nothing in my body was burning to push him away. Nothing in me could bring me to distance myself from him. I kept convincing myself it was because it was cold, because I wanted to stay warm. I wanted to stay alive, now.

“I never asked you,” he said faintly by my temple, “is your ankle okay?” I balled my hands into fists on my knees, nodded my head against him. “That’s good. Anything else hurt?” I shook my head. “That’s good.” He repeated, kissed at my temple where he had hit me all those days ago. As if that would erase what he had done. “I’m sorry,” he said after a long pause. “I wouldn’t’ve done any of that if I’d’ve known who you were.” I wanted to tell him that that was no excuse, people don’t treat others that way, no matter the circumstances. I closed my eyes instead, choosing to revel in what little comfort I could take these days. “I really do like you,” he said as softly as that first kiss.

I flinched once more hearing my father yell “«Luis, hel—»” loud enough to carry outside, and his voice was cut off by a loud impact. Even though my hatred for him grew over the years, he was still my father. I didn’t want him to die, or at least, I didn’t want him to die by someone else’s hand. If anyone was to kill him it was to be me. I pushed myself away from Mathias, started to pull myself to unsteady feet to help my father.

Mathias grabbed my wrist, forced me to sit back down. “He’s worse than Henri,” he told me. “Everything he does is rational from what Luis tells me.” I nodded in response. It really was the rational ones, the sane ones, that could be the scariest at times. They had real reasons to do the things they did.

We sat in the silent night, his hand still holding firm to my wrist. He leaned closer to me, and in turn, brought me closer to him as the noise from inside fully faded. He kissed me then, sweetly without a hint of malice, forcing his tongue into my mouth. I tried to get away from him, to push him, or kick him. The stairs were too narrow for me to create a comfortable distance, for me to get a good kick in on his stomach. If anything, the fact I was struggling against him fueled his desire. Whatever I was feeling towards him, it certainly wasn’t love.

I tried to claw at his face, only for him to grab my other wrist in his hand and hold them away from him. I moved back as far as I was able hoping he would break himself away from me, but I felt my back hit the safety rail sooner than I wanted, and he didn’t let up. He only pulled back when the door squeaked open, quickly turning his head to look at Luis standing there. My breath came heavy, and my face felt too hot in the freezing night.

“He’s gone. We need to discuss our other problem,” was all Luis said before walking back inside, closing the door as he went.

Mathias stood, pulling me to my feet. He opened the door for me, and I walked in to see what horror Vasiliy left in his wake. My father was struggling to get up from the floor, eventually giving up to lie on his back with his hands over his eyes. Blood dripped from his nose, his jacket thrown on the table and the rest of his clothes disheveled. He kept mumbling, begging, for Luis to help him up. I watched him as Mathias brought me back to our seats.

Luis glanced at him from his chair. He threw him his jacket from the table. “Oh shut up, Jean. Be happy I sent your son outside.”

My father brought his hands away from his face. “I’m too old...” He let out a groan and climbed back into his chair, holding a hand under his nose. “I can…message Onufrin?”

“How long will it take for him to get back to you?” Luis asked.

Mathias put his gun and knife away as my father dug out his phone, the screen now cracked. “Depends. Never more than an hour.” He slowly tapped away at it using one hand, careful not to get any blood on it. “Oh, no,” he muttered after a few minutes. “That’s not good.