And I’m glad to see it work because, when I get up and go to the fridge, I notice Misha’s eyes following me. He’s curious, and that’s exactly what I was hoping for. I dig out a bottle of whipped cream and blueberry sauce before opening the freezer to take out a basket of vanilla ice cream. It’s been there for a while, but I know how tasty it is in any condition.
“It’s gonna be delicious! Do you wanna try?” I put my precious sweets on the table in front of Misha, and he glances at them over his glasses and bites his lip before turning to Sasha.
She doesn’t look happy with my delivery, and for a moment it looks like she’s gonna reject my offer. But eventually, her frown softens, and she sighs and gives Misha a small, encouraging smile.
“Sure, let’s try it. Looks like it’s gonna be tasty.”
And I can’t help but smile when I see Misha’s eyes open wide in delightful surprise when he takes the first bite of his pancake with ice cream and blueberry sauce on top. I don’t know why he doesn’t like me much, but I kinda like him. He’s a good kid, just a little too quiet, but I’ve spent only a couple of days with him. Maybe it’s all just the stress of changing places.
But as I figure out a few days later, it’s not.
I keep thinking about a way to talk to Sasha that won’t end up with her dagger in my neck, but none of my ideas sound reliable. Catch her after a shower? Sneak into her room at sunrise? No, those options are too creepy. Besides, I don’t think I’ll be able to resist her body, what with the way her presence affects me even on a regular day, so she’d at least attempt to kill me anyway.
But I don’t want our conversation to turn into sex either. I actually want to know what I did that upset her so much, and practice shows that even touching her sends my mind off the road completely.
While I keep musing on those thoughts, days pass by, and the situation doesn’t get better. Sasha just refuses to acknowledge my presence, and I feel like any attempts to get closer to her make the air between us that much more tense. But at least I still have hope that I’ll be able to find my way around Misha.
You see, if I can’t warm up Sasha’s heart toward me, the least I can do is become friends with her son-which, as it turns out, is not so easy.
Usually, I get along with kids of all ages. Max and Romeo-Elena and Matteo’s sons respectively-are always fun to play with, and even though Luna doesn’t know yet what it means to play games with Uncle Louis, she adores me in her own way. But Misha is just…I don’t know, he’s kinda difficult.
He doesn’t talk, doesn’t play games, and whenever I offer to watch some TV shows or movies together, he just sits on the other side of the couch quietly, holding on to his knees with his eyes focused on the screen. He rarely smiles and never laughs, at least not in my presence, and even when I bring him a new set of LEGO, he only stares at it for a moment with wide eyes before thanking me with just a ghost of a smile on his lips.
And do you know what? I blame Sasha for it. I’m sure she told Misha some bullshit about me just to make him dislike me. She obviously doesn’t appreciate my attempts to spend time with him, but at least she rarely takes him away unless Misha himself runs to her at the first hint of her appearance.
It’s plenty suspicious, huh? I mean, of course, Misha is her son, so she has every right to dictate what is right or wrong for him to do…but I’m her husband! She can’t just expect us to spend the rest of our lives on different sides of the same house?
It’s really annoying to think that Sasha manipulated her son into hating me-but my theory starts to crumble when I notice an old scar on his neck. We’re in the middle of building a LEGO tower together after Misha, very reluctantly, allowed me to join him, and whenever he crouches down to fit small pieces together, I see a pink line leading down under his collar.
As bad at keeping my curiosity down as I am, I clear my throat and ask him just a few minutes later, “Hey, Misha, do you, uh, do you have any cool scars? I have a few on my belly, wanna see? For example, this one is from when I got shot while chasing down…probably some of your distant relatives.”
I chuckle while Misha only glances at the constellations of scars and burns on my abdomen and looks away with an even deeper frown than before. “Scars aren’t cool. They hurt.”
“Not if they are very old.”
He purses his lips, rearranging the roof of the tower. “They’re ugly.”
“Not all of them.”
“Mine are.”
Oh. I don’t like how that sounds. I frown a little, looking at him, and lower my voice. “Do you have many of them?”
Misha pauses in his movements and looks at me briefly, as always avoiding my gaze as soon as our eyes meet. “Do you really want to see?”
“Yes, I do.”
After a few seconds of hesitance, Misha places the LEGO block in his hands on the floor and reaches over his shoulders with both arms. He tugs at the fabric of his shirt and as soon as he pulls it out of his pants, I see the first scar, then another one, and another. There’s a whole pattern of pink and red scars covering his back and leading down under his pants.
“See, they’re ugly,” Misha murmurs and lets go of his shirt, hiding everything, and I…I don’t even know what to say.
I sit there for a moment, looking for words, because I feel like I have to say something. I’d hate to let him think that enduring so much pain makes him worse than other kids.
“You know, it…I think it only shows that you are very strong.” I slowly reach to pat his shoulder, and Misha only glances at me but doesn’t move away. It gives me the courage to keep going. “Who did this to you?”
He purses his lips hard, refusing to say anything for a long moment.
I don’t push him and switch back to the tower when Misha finally mutters,
“Grandpa.”
Nikolai? My eyes widen, and I freeze for a moment, but I try to keep my shock from showing so I don’t scare Misha away. Goddamnit. Elena has said before that this man is a psycho, but to do something like this to his own grandson?
“Why…?” I murmur to myself, but Misha catches it all the same.
“Grandpa often loses his patience when I do something wrong. He says I shouldn’t have been born at all because I can only spoil-”
“Misha?” Sasha’s voice makes us both startle, and we turn around simultaneously to see her by the couch with a worried frown on her face.
“Are you alright?”
Her voice is gentle, even though when she looks at me, I see only ice in her eyes. But right now, my mind is too shaken to care about that.
Our conversation doesn’t seem to impress Misha too much, though, because his voice is as quiet and steady as usual. “Yes, Mom.”
Sasha looks at him for a moment before sighing and gesturing at the kitchen. “It’s time for lunch. I’ve made some hot chocolate for you.”
“Thank you.” Misha gets up and turns around to look at me. “We can finish it later, alright?”
He looks so serious I can’t help but chuckle. “Sure.”
Misha nods and walks away to the kitchen, but before Sasha can follow him, I call her. She lingers for a moment before turning around with a silent question.
“Is it true?”
“What?”
“About Nikolai.” I glance at the kitchen and lower my voice.
“About what he did to Misha.”
Sasha’s expression immediately hardens, and she clenches her jaw and looks at me with a glint of steel in her green eyes. “Yes, it’s true, so I hope you have enough brains to never bring it up again.”
She walks away without another word, and all I can do is sit there with my heart cold and my eyes staring into the distance. God, what monster would do something like this to a child? I have to admit, I’ve seen plenty of examples of child abuse on the outskirts of Chicago’s crimeridden neighborhoods, and physical punishment is nothing new in the Mafia world…but still, it shakes me to the core.
Misha is such a smart, quiet, and well-behaved child. How could his own grandfather torture him for the smallest hint of disobedience? And why hasn’t anyone done anything about it? My first instinct is to blame Sasha for it, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that, with her dependence on her father, she couldn’t do much to stop him.
What about her mother, then? Her cousins? The guards in their place? Have they all just been watching it for years? A heated wave of fury rises in my chest at the thought, followed by a strong urge to protect the boy. He may not be my son, but he is a part of my family now, so there’s no way I will ever let him suffer again.
After our conversation in the living room, an urge to make Misha smile and prove that I will never be like his goddamn grandfather follows me everywhere, making me forget even about Sasha. He’s been through enough shit in his life, so why not give him a chance to have some real fun and be happy if only for a day?
It takes me a few days and a quick conversation with Matteo to figure out what to do, so one day when Sasha leaves the house to deal with Misha’s documents for school, I knock on the door of his room. Every little sound immediately goes quiet, and I wait for a while for Misha to acknowledge my presence, but he never does.
“Hey, Misha, it’s Louis,” I say eventually, trying to sound calm and cheerful at the same time. “Can I talk to you?”
Another pause. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no, it’s not that!” I shake my head even though he can’t see me. “I only wanted to offer…um, I’m going somewhere fun, so I thought maybe you wanted to join me?”
Damn, that didn’t sound very good, did it? I grimace, blaming myself for the weird choice of words, when I hear movement behind the door. “With Mom?”
“No, she’s not at home, and…well, I don’t think she would allow you to come with me.”
“I don’t want to make her upset.”
Yeah, I kinda expected that he’d say something like this, and it’s fair. At his age, I wouldn’t want to upset Mom either.
“Sure, I understand, it’s alright. I just-there will be popcorn, amusement rides, real sharks, and, you know, plenty of fun stuff to do. Besides, the weather is nice, so I thought you’d like to join?” I finish it with a half-question, still hoping to wake up some excitement in Misha, but he remains silent and I sigh. “Well, maybe next time.” Ah, damn.
It wasn’t a total failure, though, because at least Misha showed some interest. I have to think about something to do at home, then…or with Sasha, even though I have a hard time imagining her playing games with me. Maybe an inflatable amusement park? I hum, walking down the stairs.
It doesn’t sound like perfect outdoor fun for December, although- “Where is it?”
Suddenly, Misha’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, and I turn around only to see him at the top of the stairs. He looks hesitant, casting his gaze to the floor as soon as I look at him, but it looks like he can’t help his curiosity all the same.
With a warm heart, I can’t help but chuckle. “Navy Pier. Do you know that place?”
“Yes. My English teacher told me about it.”
“Have you ever been there?”
He shakes his head.
“Do you want to go?”