60. April

60

APRIL

This is a nightmare.

It has to be. There's no way this can be happening. There's no way that Matvey…

He's going to die.

He's going to sacrifice himself for us.

I watch the man I love walk past me, hands twisted behind his back, and something inside me just snaps. My reason, my logic—it all goes flying out the window.

Because I can't lose him.

"Matvey…" I whisper brokenly. "Matvey! MATVEY!"

Carmine's men hold me back. I barely even feel them—like a banshee, I keep throwing myself forward and screaming. Wailing with a kind of pain they cannot possibly understand.

Until two seconds ago, I didn't think I could, either.

"Will someone keep that bitch quiet?" Vlad spits from his podium of traitors.

"April," Petra murmurs, "you need to calm down. There's nothing we can do. He made his choice."

But her words fall on deaf ears. "No," I keep chanting over and over. "No, no, Matvey, you can't—YOU CAN'T!"

With one last push, I free myself from the guards. I run like a woman possessed. Yuri looks at me like I've gone crazy, but it's not me who's done that. It's him . "How could you do this?!" I yell. "He's your brother! You're killing him! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?!"

I can hear the symphony of guns clicking all around me, bullets waiting in their chambers, ready to strike me down. But for once, I don't care. I keep yelling, clawing at Yuri like he's the only thing standing between me and Matvey, even though I know it's not that simple. Even though he isn't lifting a single finger to defend himself.

Even though?—

He's the one who just saved your life.

But what good is my life if Matvey can't be a part of it?

"Traitor!" I scream, oblivious to Carmine's hand slowly rising to signal his men. Nothing can snap me out of my frenzy—nothing, nothing. "Traitor, traitor, TRAITOR?—"

"Let me."

Except that voice.

The guns go still. Carmine's palm, too, one move shy from spelling my doom. "Fine. But make it quick."

Then he motions for Yuri to step aside.

"April." Matvey kneels down with me. His hands are free now, but he isn't making a single move to run. Why? "Thank you. But you need to stand down now."

"No," I croak.

"Yes," he insists, though gently. Without a single trace of force in his voice. It's like, for the first time, I'm speaking to a version of Matvey who's at peace.

Problem is, I'm not. I'm at war with the world. I am hatred and fury and a single selfish wish: Take me with you.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. You will."

"I won't?—"

"For our daughter."

Our daughter. That's right. I have a daughter. I…

I lift up my gaze. The bundle in Carmine's arms is stirring, trying to fight whatever potion he's given her. Trying to reach me.

Finally, the fog clears. "For our daughter," I murmur back.

"Yes. She'll need you," Matvey continues to speak into my ear, low and gentle. "More than ever now."

"It's not fair," I sob.

"Nothing's fair," he rasps, catching a falling tear with his thumb, "in love and war."

Then he stands up again. "Yuri."

Like old times, Yuri obeys the unspoken command in an instant. He secures Matvey's hands behind his back one more time and curses, low enough that only he and I can hear, in a Russian dialect I can't understand.

"You should've just killed me," he whispers to Matvey in English. "Why didn't you kill me?"

Matvey doesn't reply in English. When his words come, they come in his native idiom. " Potomu chto ty moy brat. "

And this time, I don't need to speak the language to know what they mean.

Because you're my brother.

Then Carmine forces him down to his knees. "You played a valiant game," he commends. "But in the end, you just can't beat the house."

Then he points a gun at Matvey's head.

Matvey sets his jaw. In the crook of Carmine's spare arm, our daughter is still sleeping. Is he going to do it like this? Kill his own son and let his blood cover his daughter?

"Monster."

He glances towards me. "Sorry, what was that?"

"I said you're a monster," I growl. "You don't deserve your family."

"Let me tell you a secret." He smiles cruelly. "There's no such thing as ‘family.' And we're all monsters in the end."

"Like fuck we are," Yuri snarls.

"Huh?"

It happens in a heartbeat. One second, Carmine's giving his evil villain speech, and the next?—

The next, Yuri's kicking the legs out from under him.

Matvey reacts instantly. The second Carmine's down, he uses both hands to block the gun while Yuri lunges to break May's fall.

"I got you," he exhales as he catches my baby girl. Then he rushes to my side and gives her back to me.

"Thank you," I whisper.

"Take cover," Yuri ushers me towards the exit. "We'll talk later."

"What about Matvey? Wait, what about Pet?—"

" IDI NA HUI, PERHOT' PODZALUPNAYA !"

Petra's battle cry cuts me off. I twist my head around as we run, and there she is, a stolen gun in each hand, shooting and roundhouse-kicking her way to freedom.

No need to worry about her, I guess. "What, uhh—what does that mean?"

Yuri winces. "‘Fuck you, peehole dandruff.' More or less."

"Sorry, pee- what ?"

"GET THEM!" Carmine yells over the chaos. "THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!"

"But boss, you didn't give the signal?—"

"I HAVE NO HANDS, IN CASE YOU DIDN'T FUCKING NOTICE!"

True to his word, Carmine's still locked in a struggle against Matvey. His men are trying to reach him, but Petra's like a one-woman army: the second one of them raises his gun, they lose the gun and the hand holding it.

Like I said: never fuck with the pregnant ones.

"Go to her," I urge, sensing Yuri's conflict. "I'll be okay. I can?—"

"Not so fast, suka. "

My blood freezes. "Vlad."

"I'm not going to monologue," he spits. "Die, bitch."

BANG!

I squeeze my eyes shut. It's all I have the time for—that and wrapping my arms tight around my baby. I brace for pain, but it doesn't come.

When I open them again, I see why.

Yuri's standing in front of me. He's dressed all in black, so I don't see it immediately: the reason I'm still breathing.

But then he stumbles.

"Yuri!" I catch him with my free arm and lay him on the floor, then put a hand to his chest.

It comes away soaked in red.

Petra hears my scream and twists around. "NO!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her fly past the crowd of enemies, gunning down everyone who's stupid enough to stand between her and her new target.

Her father.

"You're dead, Otets . "

Vlad sneers. "You stupid girl. Your mother didn't know her place, either. I should've put you down the same way I did with her."

Petra allows herself exactly one second of shock before her rage comes back tenfold. "You can fucking try, old man."

Then she pulls out her knives and charges.

I can't spare any attention for their fight. I wish I could: she's pregnant and surrounded and fighting against her father —who, unless I heard wrong, just admitted to murdering her mother. The same mother Petra grew up believing she'd killed.

But there's only one way I can be there for her now.

"Yuri. Look at me."

Yuri's gaze is hazy, unfocused. "I'm sorry," he rasps.

"None of that now. Here, just—" I shrug off my jacket. "Press this to the wound. Don't let up, okay?"

"I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for. You did the right thing in the end. You—you saved my life, you—" I try to find something else to plug the wound, but there's just so much blood… "Yuri. Stay with me."

"C-Call?—"

BANG!

For a second, I think it's Vlad again, trying to take another shot at me. But when I glance back, I see Petra standing over his body, one bloody knife in each hand. And her eyes, wide and terrified, are staring somewhere else entirely.

No…

It can't be…

"MATVEY!"

I watch the man I love fall backwards, pushed by the tip of Carmine's gun, still smoking with the bullet that got him.

A bullet straight through the heart.