Chapter 5 - THE FIRST WOMAN HE CHOSE TO COME BACK TO
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The attack lasted four minutes.
Aliyah remembered every second.
Gunfire below.
Men shouting.
The emergency lights painting the hallway red.
And Victor disappearing through the door after touching her face.
She hated him for that.
Mostly because she was terrified.
When silence finally returned, Aliyah remained behind the desk until Nikolai appeared.
“Safe.”
“Victor?”
Nikolai hesitated.
That hesitation nearly stopped her heart.
“Where is he?”
“Kitchen.”
Aliyah ran.
Victor sat on the floor beside the marble island.
Blood covered his shirt.
She dropped beside him.
“What happened?”
“It isn’t mine.”
“That is somehow not comforting.”
“It should be.”
She grabbed his face.
“Are you hurt?”
Victor stared at her hands against his skin.
Aliyah realized what she had done.
For years, no one touched him.
Now she was holding his face like it belonged between her palms.
She slowly began to pull away.
Victor caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
One word.
Barely audible.
Aliyah stopped.
His eyes closed.
For three seconds, Victor simply leaned into her hand.
Nikolai quietly left the room.
“You came back,” she whispered.
Victor opened his eyes.
“You told me to.”
She laughed shakily.
“I didn’t realize the great Victor Malenkov followed orders.”
“Only one person seems reckless enough to give them.”
Aliyah looked at the blood.
“Who attacked?”
“Three men.”
“Petrov?”
“Yes.”
“Anton?”
“We don’t know.”
Victor stood.
Aliyah noticed a tear in his shirt near his ribs.
“You are hurt.”
“It’s a scratch.”
“Take it off.”
Victor raised one eyebrow.
“Your shirt.”
“I understood.”
“Then stop looking pleased with yourself.”
“I am discovering one of your other qualities.”
“Victor.”
He removed the shirt.
The bullet had grazed his side.
Aliyah cleaned the wound at the kitchen counter.
The room felt strangely intimate.
Victor watched her concentration.
“You should quit nursing.”
Aliyah looked up.
“Excuse me?”
“You are too aggressive.”
“You got shot at in your own kitchen.”
“Grazed.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You have said that fourteen times.”
“You counted?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head.
Victor watched her tape gauze over the wound.
“Why nursing?”
“My mother.”
“That answer was too quick.”
Aliyah sighed.
“Because when she died, I hated hospitals.”
Victor waited.
“For years, I blamed everyone there. Doctors. Nurses. EMTs. I thought somebody should’ve saved her.”
She smoothed the tape.
“Then I got older and realized sometimes saving people doesn’t mean keeping them alive.”
Victor’s expression changed.
“What does it mean?”
“Sitting beside them.”
Her voice softened.
“Making them less afraid.”
Victor looked away.
Like Denise had done for Elena.
Aliyah understood he had made the same connection.
The following days changed something between them.
Victor still attended meetings.
Aliyah still went to class.
But every night, they ate together.
Sometimes neither spoke for twenty minutes.
Somehow, the silence became comfortable.
Victor learned Aliyah hated olives.
Aliyah learned Victor secretly watched old baseball games at two in the morning.
He learned she sang badly when cooking.
She learned he spoke five languages and could barely operate the coffee machine.
Then, one Thursday night, Victor disappeared.
Aliyah knew where he had gone.
The Red Lion.
She found him in the same booth where everything started.
One vodka.
One bowl of onion soup.
The chair beside him empty.
Aliyah sat.
“You’re supposed to have security.”
“So are you.”
“Nikolai is outside.”
“He is supposed to remain beside you.”
“I threatened to sing.”
Victor almost smiled.
Aliyah noticed the old handkerchief inside her coat pocket.
She had washed it carefully.
The stain never fully came out.
“I brought this.”
Victor looked at the blue E.
“I told you to keep it.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you returning it?”
“I’m not.”
She placed it between them.
“I think you should tell me about Elena.”
Victor’s fingers tightened around his glass.
“Why?”
“Because everyone treats her like saying her name will break you.”
“And you don’t?”
“I think pretending people never existed is another kind of death.”
Victor stared at her for a long time.
Then he began.
Elena had loved lemon candy.
She hated expensive jewelry.
She cheated at cards.
She had once driven Victor’s Mercedes into a snowbank because she refused to admit she needed winter tires.
She called him Vitya when she was angry.
“She sounds exhausting,” Aliyah said.
“She was.”
“You loved her.”
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Aliyah felt something painful she had no right to feel.
Jealousy of a dead woman was ridiculous.
Victor noticed anyway.
“You think loving her means there is nothing left.”
Aliyah looked down.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did not need to.”
He leaned forward.
“Elena is not a room someone else can enter after she leaves.”
Aliyah’s heartbeat changed.
“She is part of me.”
Victor’s gray eyes held hers.
“But she is not all of me.”
The pub seemed suddenly too warm.
Aliyah whispered, “Victor.”
He reached across the table.
Slowly.
Giving her time to refuse.
His fingertips touched hers.
Nothing dramatic happened.
No panic.
No flashback.
No terror.
Victor simply touched another person willingly for the first time in twelve years.
Aliyah turned her hand beneath his.
Their palms met.
Victor inhaled sharply.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Aliyah started pulling back.
His fingers closed around hers.
“I did not say stop.”
Her heart hammered.
Victor looked at their joined hands as though he were watching something impossible.
Then he lifted his eyes.
“I spent twelve years believing grief was loyalty.”
Aliyah swallowed.
“And now?”
“Now I think perhaps I was punishing myself.”
“For what?”
“Leaving Elena at the hospital.”
Aliyah squeezed his hand.
“You can regret something without serving a life sentence for it.”
Victor’s eyes darkened.
“You sound like your mother.”
“Good.”
Then a man entered the pub.
Victor’s expression changed instantly.
He released Aliyah and stood.
The man stopped ten feet away.
Older.
Thin.
A scar crossed his cheek.
Victor looked like he had seen a ghost.
Aliyah knew before anyone said the name.
“Anton.”
The man smiled.
“Hello, brother.”
Victor’s hand moved toward his gun.
Anton raised both palms.
“If you kill me, you’ll never learn why Elena really died.”
Victor froze.
Anton looked past him.
His eyes settled on Aliyah.
“Denise Brooks’s daughter.”
Aliyah’s blood went cold.
Anton smiled again.
“You look like your mother.”
Victor stepped between them.
“If you say her name again, you will leave here without your tongue.”
Anton laughed softly.
“That’s the Victor I remember.”
He placed an envelope on the nearest table.
Inside was a photograph.
Elena Malenkov.
May you like
Alive.
Taken eight months after the date on her grave.
