21. RAVEN

21

RAVEN

Welcome to Ayana’s worst nightmare.

Ayana is in lockdown. You can count the service staff on the fingers of both hands.

Yep, the exclusive resort brimming with luxury has no one to take care of it. Who wants a yacht when you have to clean it yourself but there might be an insurgent passing by on a row boat with a hand-held rocket-launcher that will blow you to pieces?

Ayana residents are like rabbits, hiding in their villas. Despite the weather being perfect, sunny with bright blue skies, the general mood is gloomy. Ayana looks like Eden abandoned by God.

This slice of paradise is getting a taste of what it’s like to be the third world. It learns what can drive mankind to despair. Just like the third world countries have always known. But their loss is a natural one. They are born into it. They adjust to it constantly. That part of the world—yes, that part , that’s what we always called it, not us, them —takes misery as a normal state of being. And that’s what the Change did. It fucked the West not by taking their money and choices but by showing them what life is like outside their gilded walls called democracy. What it feels like to have loss as a permanent state of being. What it’s like to live in a permanent state of war. What it’s like when the government turns oppressive. When the neighbors you’ve been friends with for years turn to savages. When your loved ones make choices that make your skin crawl, and you wonder if you ever truly knew them at all.

Fear is our new reality. At Ayana, it’s almost tangible anywhere but in the Center.

I might be the happiest guy around. Who would’ve thought?

My new reality is Maddy and Sonny, playing house.

Sex, sleep, food, meetings at the Center, movies with Sonny and Maddy, nights with Maddy, mornings with Maddy, everything Maddy, my place, her place. It’s like we are catching up on the days I was missing and getting the happily ever after.

Dinner with Tsariuk, at his villa—yep, that’s happening.

His villa is guarded like the Pentagon, assistants and staff everywhere, an IT team set up in a separate room.

He brought a chef with him, and we are being served steaks and some extravagant mix of vegetables and sauces, Armenian cognac and my favorite special reserve whiskey—Tsariuk is prepared. He, Maddy, and I sit on the back patio by the pool in the glow of lanterns and Italian music.

“Adriano Celentano, my favorite,” he informs me about the name of the performer as we cheer and he downs his shot.

I always wondered what makes ruthless people often have the most sophisticated hobbies—reading, classical music, fine art, ballet. Then I realized that many violent powerful people are worldly, highly intelligent individuals with broad upbringings and tastes. Violence is just another extreme, on a par with their intellect.

I’m not nervous around Tsariuk. He speaks perfect English with a cut-throat accent and only uses Russian to talk to his assistants and personnel. I thought Maddy would give me a lecture before dinner, some sort of guide on what to say and not to say. But she only said, “You’ll like each other.”

She is wearing a strapless blue summer dress with flowers, her hair straightened and slicked back into a high ponytail. She is glowing. And I’m not sure if that’s because I fucked her with care right before we left the house or because she enjoys the three of us at the same table. She can’t stop smiling and looking between her dad and me.

And Tsariuk can’t stop studying me and asking question after question.

“Tell me about yourself,” he says.

“Which part don’t you know yet?” I ask politely.

Maddy sneers.

Tsariuk chuckles, leans back in his chair, drums his fingers on the table as he lets his thoughtful gaze drift over my clothes and pause on the left hand and my missing phalanges. Not sure if his intention is to intimidate me, but I’m pretty sure that after Skiba and Port Mrei, I’m insensitive to threats of any kind.

“Who is Malcolm Wright?” he asks.

I’m sure he did his research and knows, but I play along. “The man who raised me.”

“I thought you grew up in foster care.”

“I’m not talking about childhood.”

“Interesting. How did you get in contact with the South Africans?”

He’s talking, of course, about the contract I gave up for his sake, or Maddy’s, to be exact. And South Africans are not on good terms with him. Also, his rapid change of topics is peculiar. I think it’s a trick to catch people lying or simply slipping and telling the truth. He is good. He seems relaxed, but I know he’s studying my body language like an expert psychologist.

“Jean Artrout, the senator,” I answer.

“And you know him how?”

“He is the father of one of the residents here.”

“Siena Artrout.”

He knows it all, of course. “Right.”

Maddy’s eyes flicker at me.

“You are good at making connections with important people, Raven.”

“Thank you. I try, Mr. Tsariuk.”

“Aleksei,” he insists on me calling him that while everyone else at Ayana addresses him as Mr. Tsariuk and behind his back call him His Majesty or Papa Tsariuk.

Surprisingly, for the next several hours, Aleksei eases on the interrogation and instead tells me about Milena. Not her school years or fancy places they used to travel to abroad, but them spending summer months in Taiga, the northern parts of Russia, at a distant relative’s place in the country, and fishing in the Yenisei River. That Milena used to like mushroom hunting. That she learned how to shoot a rifle at the age of eight. That’s when I ask questions, about her but mostly about Tsariuk’s past. And he sees right through it—that I want to avoid talking about myself but also want to know more about him.

Three hours later, we are still at the table, drinking.

Maddy sips wine. I drink whiskey. Tsariuk’s choice is cognac.

“Drink,” he insists, pouring another shot for me, and I force it in, though I’m pretty roasted already because I drank close to half a bottle. “Eat,” he adds. “You cannot drink much if you do not eat.”

There’s a table full of appetizers, though we finished dinner. But supposedly, Tsariuk explains, this is not food, these are drinking snacks. A table full.

“Why drink so much then?” I ask.

Tsariuk leans on one elbow on the table and snorts at me in amused contempt. “Liquor helps untie a tongue.”

That’s gotta be some Russian expression, but it sounds legit.

“You drink just enough to do business and ease the tension,” he explains. “But if you want someone to tell the truth, you get them drunk.”

I’m getting there. Fast. “Does that work on you?”

“Works on everyone. I am not afraid to tell the truth.”

True that.

Maddy only smiles. She smiles the entire evening, so at ease that it makes me wonder if these two both conspired to get me drunk. Even more so when the conversation somehow brings up my deal with him.

“Do not worry about your Gen-Alpha shares.”

Maddy stiffens, giving him a reproachful stare.

“I don’t,” I say.

“You take care of her”—Tsariuk nods at Maddy while he stares me down—“and you will be taken care of.”

“I have all I need.”

“Poverty is nothing to be proud of.”

Now I smile drunkenly. “I am not poor.”

Tsariuk chuckles. “I know. Everything is in comparison.”

Compared to his billions? Sure, my millions don’t shine so bright, I guess. “Money doesn’t keep one safe,” I blurt.

Oh, wrong words.

He cocks a brow, lighting a cigarette, and tosses the lighter onto the table, then leans back in his chair. “No?”

I probably should keep my mouth shut, but it’s obvious—what happened to his wife, to Maddy, to me.

“That’s why you do business right,” he explains. “Stay loyal. Do not fuck up.”

“It doesn’t help when violence is part of the business. That requires”—I nod to his bodyguards, then mine—“an army.”

“Hmm.” He nods, staring at the tip of his cigarette. “So, you play by the rules. Or you learn to swing fists and make people afraid.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. We are—what is the word”—he snaps his fingers quickly, then stabs the air with his forefinger—“biased, yes? You see, the most honorable and good men would do awful things to protect their children or partners. See what I am getting at? Our morality is biased. Our code of honor is too. Cannot be honest? Learn to protect yourself. Want to have authority? Learn to punish. The higher you get, the more people around think— think ”—Tsariuk taps his temple for emphasis—“that they are left behind. They get envious. See, I build churches, group homes, donate to charities, this and that, you know. Because I can. Those people love me. Why? Because of the gifts. Those people are nobodies. I do not do business with them. They are not afraid.”

He picks up an olive off a plate, shakes the juice off, and plucks it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Those who deal with me in business? Fuck their loved ones. If they fuck up, it is on them. I am not Mother Theresa when it comes to business. I learned to fight. I learned to protect. And I learned to punish.”

We lock eyes for the longest time. I hear Maddy clear her throat. But Aleksei fucking Tsariuk and I are having a staring competition.

I give in first. “Good thing I am not doing business with you. Anymore,” I add.

He narrows his eyes on me. “The arms contracts?”

I raise my palms in the air. “That’s Ayana’s business.”

First Tsariuk chuckles. I smile back. Then he starts laughing in short bursts, looks at Maddy, then turns to his Dracula assistant who stands by the terrace doors. “You heard this guy, Artiom?”

Tsariuk turns back to me and grins like Zeus over his servants. “I like you.” He laughs again. “I do.”

I stare at the cigarette butts in the ashtray, then go for my whiskey glass, but stop midway, because I’m dizzy. Fucking wasted. Whoa.

Tsariuk whistles to one of his servers, says something in Russian, and the guy comes back in a minute with a new bottle of cognac.

“I can’t,” I say, turning to Maddy and silently pleading.

Tsariuk pours himself a shot. “No, you cannot. It’s for me. Cheers!”

He downs the shot, chases it with an olive, then gets up and slaps me on the shoulder. “Go to bed. Talk tomorrow.”

Just like that, I think he got all he wanted to know about me.

But the next day, Aleksei is Mr. Tsariuk again as we gather for a meeting at the Center.

Tsariuk informs us that he is leaving Zion in the afternoon. He’s been a great help. In fact, his IT guys, his hackers, his chemists and assistants and the security guards assigned to Maddy are staying. But the news that Tsariuk is, in fact, departing, even if for a short time, makes the entire Center breathe out in relief.

Don’t get me wrong, the guy is likable. I mean, Margot flirts with him. The cyber operations specialist shakes hands and beams like a teenager when talking to him. I’m still hungover after our dinner yesterday, but Maddy was humming under her breath this morning and said, “Dad freaking loves you.” Her words.

But he is a lot. He filled the main hall of the Center with dozens of desks for his personnel. His presence seems to fill the entire island. That’s Tsariuk.

When he is gone and we have a regular meeting at the Center—Archer, Marlow, Bishop, Ortiz, and several others—it feels peaceful but at the same time deserted.

Ortiz watches me get off the phone with Tsariuk—Tsariuk was calling to recommend the latest book he’s reading—and grins, “How’s Papa Tsariuk?”

Everyone looks at me like I got blessed.

Tsariuk’s container arrives later the same day. In the next several days, its contents are distributed through the bungalows, the hospital, and the Center. Ayana residents get a mass text with instructions and general info. A barge comes to Zion and parks off the shore. A number of boats go back and forth, bringing dry supplies and emergency medication that is stored in the Center’s basement.

It’s a throwback to the Cold War, or what we learned about it from history books. When we gather at Kai and Callie’s for dinner, Kai takes me out to the patio for a smoke.

He leans with his forearms on the railing, puffing on his cigarette as he studies me with a crooked smile.

“What’s up?” I ask him.

He looks away, smiling. “Maddy is a gem,” he says.

Maddy sure is, but no one besides Archer ever commented on my relationship with her. In public, I still feel like an imposter around her, like people think I’m forcing her to be with me.

His words make me smile. “She is. She is amazing.”

Pretty sure Kai hasn’t heard many compliments coming out of my mouth, because he laughs brightly.

“What?” I chuckle.

“Not sure I ever saw you smile.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Maddy can do that.”

“Maddy can do a lot of things.”

Kai’s cheerfulness fades really quickly though.

“I’m not involved in all that’s going on at the Center. But I think Archer is stressed out,” he says. “I think he’s scared for this island. Tell me we are not going to have another nuclear war.”

I’m not an expert in predicting the future. “Not nuclear. But a war? I think so. We need to be prepared. Just in case.”

“Just in case, yeah?” He huffs grimly. “Papa Tsariuk is ready to show off his military power, I guess.”

“Tsariuk is interested in protecting this island. Trust me.”

“And you trust him?”

“Maddy does. And I trust her.”

He nods, smoking in silence before he asks, “What do you think? You think it will all turn out okay?”

I don’t answer. I want to tell him we should all pray for that. But prayers only work when you believe in them. And the Change ruined that for us.