Chapter 46

A sudden warmth prickled the back of Yuri’s hand. He looked down, expecting the familiar rhythm of Cherriot’s thumb stroking his skin, but their fingers remained still. The sheer elegance of the younger man’s words left a physical ache of embarrassment in his chest—Cherriot possessed a rare, effortless gift for spinning beautiful sentiments out of thin air.

“But I’ve talked only about myself.”

Yuri marveled silently at how a mind could harbor such pure thoughts. Before he could dwell on it, Cherriot tightened his grip, the sudden pressure of their entwined palms tethering him back to the present.

“I want to hear about Wolfie too.”

Yuri’s dark brows knitted. There was no poetry in his own history, no redeeming grace to balance the ledger. Born into a squalid den of thieves and murderers, his reality was an indelible stain, incomparably uglier than the pristine world Cherriot inhabited.

But I don’t want to lie.

For a fleeting second, the desperate urge to preserve this fragile, newfound regard tempted him toward deception. Yet a lie would desecrate the absolute trust shining in Cherriot’s eyes.

“As you already know…” Yuri forced the words past his teeth, his jaw rigid with shame. “I’m guilty of serious crimes.”

Dragging the secrets from the dark recesses of his chest felt like flaying his own skin. In Saratov, the detectives and thugs who knew his true nature had pelted him with every vile accusation imaginable, hardening him until he believed himself entirely numb to pain. Yet hearing the confession aloud made the reality inescapable, striking him with a sudden, suffocating longing for extinction.

Death was the ultimate cowardice—not an absolution, but a total abandonment of the ledger. A living sinner was cursed to carry his crimes forever, the memories etched into the marrow of his bones no matter how far he ran. Only the dead were granted oblivion. For years, he had forbidden himself from craving that easy escape, choosing instead a silent, joyless existence as penance.

But the profound happiness of these past few days had fractured his ironclad rules, allowing a dark, forbidden yearning to seep through the cracks.

If you die, it all ends.

The sweet, seductive whisper chimed in the silence of his mind.

“Yuri.”

Cherriot caught Yuri’s hands, anchoring him before he could drift entirely into the abyss. As clarity bled back into Yuri’s fractured blue gaze, he found Cherriot watching him with a profound, aching sorrow. A delicate crease marred the younger man’s brow, taking on Yuri’s torment as he searched for words gentle enough to heal the wound.

“I won’t ask what you did. But I’m sure something happened that led you there.”

The invisible noose strangling Yuri’s throat loosened, allowing a ragged breath to escape.

“The man I’ve seen over the past few days is patient, considerate, and kind. I don’t believe that was an act. Wolfie never demanded anything from me. You pushed me away instead. Even when you could have abandoned me after I said something unforgivable, you came back and protected me.”

Every gentle word was a fresh lash against Yuri’s conscience. He was entirely unworthy of such grace.

Cherriot leaned in closer. “I believe there were circumstances behind what you did.”

The mercy was unendurable; Yuri craved the familiar lash of condemnation instead. Cruelty was a language he understood, a prison that offered a twisted sort of comfort. Unable to bear the weight of this absolution, he shook his head, cutting off the younger man’s protests.

“Whatever circumstances I had were ultimately excuses. I had a choice.”

Die, or kill.

He had stood at that grim crossroads more times than he could count, and every single time, he had chosen survival over oblivion. The blood on his hands belonged to his own choices. His heart, calcified by years of brutal pragmatism, rose like a blade to deflect Cherriot’s mercy.

Cherriot observed him with a quiet, unwavering patience, letting a thick silence blanket the room. In that stillness, the chaotic tempest tearing through Yuri’s chest slowly subsided. Only when the tension left Yuri’s shoulders did Cherriot lean forward again, bridging the distance between them.

“I only want to know you,” Cherriot murmured. “I’m not trying to judge you. But… if it hurts too much to speak of it, I’ll stop asking. Even if I never learn the truth, I know the man you are now.”

Yuri’s lashes fluttered against his cheek. A nervous sweat slicked their conjoined palms, triggering a sudden, frantic impulse to wrench his hand away and retreat into isolation. But he knew the cost of drawing back: the walls would go up, the distance would harden, and he would be cast back into the freezing dark, entirely alone.

He tightened his grip instead, desperate to hoard that warmth for as long as the world allowed. If staying in this light required him to break and rebuild himself, he would welcome the agony.

What do I even say?

A man who had spent a lifetime trying to vanish into the shadows had never learned the art of self-explanation. He possessed none of the standard currency of human interaction—no casual stories of schoolyards, academic triumphs, or honest career paths. Groping through the wreckage of his past, he anchored himself to the only clean thing he possessed: the memory of his parents before the rot set in. They had been decent once, long before America swallowed them whole.

“My parents,” Yuri began, the words dragging like stones across his tongue, “they came from the Soviet Union.”

A phantom chill raced down his spine at the sound of his own voice. The name of the dead empire felt foreign, an artifact from a life he had buried decades ago. He had never spoken of his roots to a living soul; even within the walls of their own home, his family had long since ceased whispering about the country that had vanished from the map.

“They had ordinary lives there,” he continued, staring down at their laced fingers. “My mother was a nurse. My father ran a butcher shop.”

It was a modest lineage compared to the grand legacy of Cherriot’s family, but Yuri felt no shame in it. He carried a bitter resentment for the choices his father eventually made, yet he could not condemn the man’s labor. His father had driven himself to the bone simply to provide for a pregnant wife. He had been naive, desperately foolish, but the true malice belonged to Igor Volkov. Yet shifting the ultimate blame to a monster offered no absolution; it would merely trap Yuri in the pathetic, self-pitying delusion of the perpetual victim.

“When the Union collapsed, they fled to America,” Yuri said, his voice flat with the weight of old history. “They took whatever back-channel routes they could find. That was where the world broke. They arrived from a society that no longer existed, dropped into a capitalistic meat-grinder where they were absolute nobodies. They were drowning, Cherriot. They needed a lifeline.”

The world possessed a boundless capacity for cruelty, routinely crushing those who offered nothing but honest sweat. His father had been a soft touch, a man who mistook Igor Volkov’s predatory grin for the warm embrace of a compatriot. He had bowed in gratitude, shaking the devil’s hand over and over, completely blind to the fact that he was signing away his family’s lives to the furnace.

“My father accepted help from the wrong man,” Yuri whispered, the confession tasting like ash. “He was terribly innocent. Terribly foolish. And when he died… I inherited the ledger.”

While Cherriot’s father had left a legacy of warmth, Yuri’s had bequeathed a dynasty of ruin. Had it not been for his mother, that inheritance might have curdled into hatred. But her fierce, tragic devotion to her husband forced Yuri to see the broken man behind the sins.

“Saratov was ruled by a single man who ran the city like a feudal lord,” Yuri continued, his gaze locked onto their intertwined fingers. “Every shopkeeper, every immigrant eventually fell into his orbit. If you blinked, you were complicit. Volkov found the leverage he needed, coiled a debt around my father’s neck, and tightened it until the man broke. When he died, the debt passed down to me. Along with the work.”

Yet Yuri harbored no real malice toward the dead. No one had suffered more than his father—a man who spent his remaining years desperately hoarding the ghost of his wife. The only true failure belonged to Yuri, who had been too weak to tear down the walls of their cage. He swallowed hard, desperate to salvage some shred of humanity before the man he loved.

“I never laid a hand on women,” he added, his voice cracking with the strain of the boundary. “Or the elderly. Or children.”

The words jammed in his throat. He couldn’t play the saint; he had spent years enforcing Volkov’s will, ensuring the cogs of a brutal enterprise kept turning. His later alliance with Alexei to burn the Volkov empire to the ground wasn’t a redemption—it was merely a necessary bloodletting. This partial truth was the limit of his courage. He couldn’t utter the word mafia. To admit to being an ordinary thug was one thing, but to claim the brand of the syndicate carried a gravity that threatened to tear his heart apart. His chest heaved, his pulse hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs as he stared blindly at their joined hands, terrified to look up.

A cold dread bled the remaining color from his face, leaving him shivering with the expectation that Cherriot would wrench his hand free and flee the room. The ensuing silence stretched like an eternity. Yuri wanted to raise his eyes, to read the verdict on the younger man’s face, but the absolute terror of encountering disgust—the look reserved for a crawling thing—pinned his gaze to the floor. A fine tremor shook his rigid frame.

“Then Yuri Campbell can’t possibly be your real name,” Cherriot said.

Yuri’s breath hitched, his mind scrambling to decode the unexpected question as a sudden numbness seeped into his fingertips. Bracing for the blow, he forced his chin up to meet the younger man’s gaze. There was no horror waiting for him. Cherriot’s eyes held no trace of revulsion, no flicker of fear, and his grip remained tight, an unyielding anchor in the storm.

“You said your parents were Russian,” Cherriot noted, his lips curving into a soft, reassuring smile as he read the confusion etched across Yuri’s face. “Campbell doesn’t fit. You know everything that I am, Wolfie. Let me know who you are.”

A wave of profound relief broke over Yuri, thawing the ice in his veins until blood rushed back into his fingertips with a tingling heat. He parted his lips, letting a name he hadn’t spoken since the day he fled Saratov finally cross his lips.

“…Kiselyov,” he murmured. “Yuri Kiselyov.”

He had always cherished the name. When his parents married, his father had offered to let his mother keep her maiden name, but she had laughed, declaring Kiselyova infinitely more beautiful than Kozlova. Yuri could still picture her as she was then—young, radiant, boasting that she wanted the entire world to know she belonged to Kiselyov. Carrying it was his only connection to that fleeting, unblemished happiness.

“That’s incomparably better than Campbell,” Cherriot breathed.

The genuine warmth in the younger man’s voice dissolved the last traces of Yuri’s terror. Looking at the bright curiosity dancing in Cherriot’s green eyes, a faint, tentative smile touched Yuri’s lips.

Cherriot brightened, trying the syllables on his tongue. “Kiselyov?”

The Russian vowels tripped awkwardly over his English accent. Yuri couldn’t help the small correction. “Kisel-yov.”

“Kiselyo-v,” Cherriot mimicked carefully.

The earnest, clumsy effort was so endearing that the tension entirely broke, a low, genuine laugh escaping Yuri’s chest. Cherriot joined in, a dimple flashing in his cheek as he leaned closer. “Was I really that terrible?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll have to teach me properly,” Cherriot insisted, his eyes sparkling. “Learning Russian has always been a secret dream of mine.”

It was a transparent fiction, a dream invented on the spot to soothe him, but Yuri didn’t care. He nodded slowly, offering another raw vulnerability as an apology for his fractured past.

“I can teach you the name, but my own Russian is rusty. And my English reading and writing… it’s barely at a middle-school level. It might take me a very long time to finish the book you gave me.”

He confessed it out of a lingering fear that his limitations would disappoint the younger man. But Cherriot merely tilted his head, his gaze softening.

“Then let me help you,” Cherriot suggested.

“How?”

“When the text gets difficult, we can parse it together. Or… I could just read it aloud to you.”

For a man who believed his mind was too old for grammar and his soul too stained for self-improvement, the proposal was staggering. He blinked, enchanted by a vision he had never permitted himself to conjure: the two of them, side by side in the quiet, sharing the weight of a story.

“So,” Cherriot murmured, steering them toward a horizon they hadn’t yet named, “once all of this is behind us, we’ll both go back to Vancouver.”

“…Yes,” Yuri breathed. A sudden tightness gripped his chest at the mention of a future that felt dangerously close, yet entirely surreal.

“I could stop by your place after work,” Cherriot continued softly. “We could read together.”

“Or you could bring the book to my apartment on the weekends,” Cherriot added.

Yuri stared, praying his mind wasn’t playing cruel tricks on him. A lifetime of swift, brutal disappointments screamed at him to guard his heart, to assume this was merely the polite overture of a grateful companion or a casual lover. Yet the mere possibility of a shared life flooded him with a sharp, almost painful joy. He squeezed his free hand into a tight fist, averting his gaze to hide the sudden sheen in his eyes.

“If it wouldn’t be a burden… I would like that very much,” Yuri said.

“It could never be a burden,” Cherriot answered instantly.

The absolute certainty in his tone altered the air between them, charging it with a sudden, heavy intimacy. When Yuri looked up, he found a delicate coral flush creeping across Cherriot’s cheeks, warming the tips of his ears. Yuri had seen people blush before him out of fear or transactional desire, but watching this genuine, vulnerable color rise on Cherriot’s skin left him utterly disarmed, an unfamiliar shyness tugging at his own chest.

They lingered in the silence, their eyes meeting and parting in a tentative dance until the sound of their own breathing grew too loud to ignore. Cherriot cleared his throat, breaking the spell. “Are you finished eating?”

“Yes,” Yuri said, secretly grateful for the lifeline.

They hesitated, their conjoined fingers lingering, pulling against the inevitable separation before finally sliding free. The sudden absence of contact left Yuri with a hollow ache.

“I’ll take care of the dishes,” Cherriot announced, springing into motion with a sudden burst of energy. “I’ve put you through far too much these past few days. From now on, you don’t lift a finger. I’ll handle the chores—I’ll even bring you your water.”

“There’s no need,” Yuri said.

“Please, Wolfie.” Cherriot placed a warm hand on his shoulder, his green eyes dark with an intense, serious gravity. “Let me do this for you.”

The lingering guilt in his gaze made Yuri wonder if his earlier, careless comment about their lack of precautions had cut deeper than intended. It had been reckless, yes, but neither of them had been in a state to exercise logic. He harbored no resentment; it had been an attempt at humor. But it seemed Cherriot was the type to carry every minor lapse like a mortal sin. Searching for a way to lift the heavy mood, Yuri remembered the younger man’s craving from their very first evening—a promise of cold beer that had been swept away by the chaos of the subsequent days.

“While you handle the kitchen,” Yuri said, “I’ll drive down to the store and get the beer you wanted. I can pick up the neutralizer while I’m out.”

“Absolutely not,” Cherriot countered immediately. “I’ll handle the errands. You need to lie down and rest.”

The domestic coddling was novel and surprisingly sweet, but Yuri was hardly an invalid. A bit of movement would do more for his aching muscles than hiding under the covers.

“It’s safer if you stay put,” Yuri argued gently. “A man of your height and build stands out, even with a coat and hat. You’re easily remembered. Let me go—I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

The practical logic hit Cherriot like a rare compliment. He flushed with pleasure, running a hand through his hair with a shy, ducked smile before conceding with a nod.

“Alright,” Cherriot agreed. “Look for something from a local Vancouver Island brewery. A pale ale would be perfect—watermelon or grapefruit flavor if they have it. If the selection is thin, just grab a pack of Coors Light.”

Yuri filed the specific choices away. He had always found a quiet fascination in people who knew exactly what they liked; it was what made characters like Alexei and T-Mac so compelling to watch. But Cherriot’s preferences belonged to an entirely different social orbit, rendering them endlessly intriguing.

“And buy whatever you usually drink, too,” Cherriot added, leaning against the counter. “I want to know what you like.”

The request caught Yuri off guard, stalling his mental checklist. It had never occurred to him that anyone would care about his preferences. Truthfully, he had none; he drank whatever sat on the bottom shelf with the lowest price tag. In his world, developing a palate was a luxury he couldn’t afford—taste was an extravagance reserved for those who didn’t have to worry about survival. Still, rather than dismantle the younger man’s romantic curiosity with a grim truth, he simply nodded.

“Understood,” Yuri said.

“Thank you, Wolfie,” Cherriot beamed.

The radiance of his smile could have warmed a frozen room. Before Yuri could process the expression, Cherriot lunged forward, wrapping his arms tightly around Yuri’s waist. Yuri froze, his eyes widening at the sudden, unprompted burst of affection in the middle of a mundane afternoon. Fumbling for the correct response, he slowly brought his large hand up to pat the younger man’s back. He attempted a soothing, steady caress, but his stiff muscles turned the gesture clumsy. Cherriot didn’t seem to care; he squeezed Yuri tighter, burying his face in his chest for one long beat before reluctantly stepping away.

“Come back safely, Yuri,” Cherriot said, his smile soft.

A profound ache settled into Yuri’s chest as the ghost of an old, forgotten sensation resurfaced—the simple, staggering reality of having someone waiting for him to return. So this is what it feels like, he thought. To harbor a quiet anxiety for the home you are leaving before you’ve even crossed the threshold, to count the minutes until your return before the car has even left the driveway.

“I will,” Yuri murmured, adjusting his jacket. “It won’t take long.”

“Then I’d better get to work,” Cherriot declared, his voice buzzing with domestic enthusiasm. “I want this place spotless before you get back. We’ve neglected it for three days, and it looks like a bomb went off.”

He swept up the remaining plates, balancing them along his arms with the practiced dexterity of a seasoned server, and disappeared toward the sink. Inspired by the sudden flurry of motion, Yuri turned and made his way out to the entryway.

He retrieved his keys and wallet from the bedroom dresser, his hand pausing over the heavy military blade tucked discreetly beneath the edge of his pillow. He stared at the steel, calculating the logistics. The liquor store was a brief run—forty minutes round trip, an hour at the absolute most. Today, the familiar weight of weapons felt suffocating, an ugly intrusion into the domestic peace they were trying to build. He let the pillow fall back into place, leaving the blade behind. Walking out, he chose to lean into Cherriot’s stubbornly optimistic logic: if they were going to find us, they would have done it by now. Cherriot offered a cheerful wave from the kitchen window as Yuri stepped out onto the porch.

Watching that radiant smile, a desperate plea formed in his chest: Just let today be peaceful. Let the quiet hold until the new security detail arrived, and perhaps, by some miracle, long after.

Twilight was settling over Big Fox, bleeding cool, amber light across the landscape. Yuri paused to look out at the lake, its surface shimmering like liquid copper under the dying sun, before climbing into the driver’s seat. He plugged his dead phone into the dash console, fired up the engine, and traced the route back to the main road in his mind. He had only lived in this lakeside pocket for a week, yet the curves of the road felt as natural as a childhood memory.

As the gravel crunched beneath the tires and the cottage shrank in his rearview mirror, a small, stubborn prickle of unease made him question the abandoned blade. He shook it off. There was a pistol stowed in the trunk wheel well; if things went sideways, a knife wouldn’t save him anyway.

But Yuri had broken his own cardinal rule, forgetting the lesson carved into the very architecture of his life: tragedy gives no warning. It strikes like a freak accident on a clear day, sudden and total. He had bought that wisdom with blood and ruin years ago, yet a man starved of joy had allowed himself to be blinded by a beautiful midsummer dream.

For a single, fatal hour, he forgot.

🜼 🜼 🜼

[END of VOLUME 2]