Chapter 61

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Yekaterina Kiselyova died in late June, at the beginning of the summer Yuri turned nineteen. Her crime was informing.

As the wife of Vasily Kiselyov, she had been expected to serve his master, Igor Volkov. Instead, she dared to provide the police with evidence of his drug trade, attempting to dismantle his organization.

One of Volkov’s underlings, a man she had treated many times, witnessed Yekaterina speaking with the police. Despite everything she had done for him, he returned to the emissary of hell who fed him drugs and exploited him, reporting every detail of her betrayal.

Yekaterina’s execution came last, only after the police officers had been slaughtered. By then, a storm of blood had swept through Saratov, leaving the town silent as death. Even the residents of the wealthy district, ordinarily so carefree, remained shuttered within their homes. It was the coldest summer in Saratov’s history.

No one smiled, except for Igor Volkov. Even after ordering the dismembered bodies of the officers delivered to public squares and their families’ homes, his fury remained unslaked. He had saved Yekaterina for last.

He bound her beneath the blazing sun in the town square. When dragged outside, her hair tangled and wild, she already looked like a corpse. The rest of her family had been brought to this horrific coliseum as well.

Countless men had invaded Yuri’s home, pulled a sack over his head, and abducted him. Vasily, who had been carrying out one of Igor’s orders and remained unaware of the unfolding catastrophe, had been struck with a club and dragged there as well.

While Yuri was unconscious, his father’s fingers were severed. His mother screamed and fought at the sight until they beat her into silence. In consideration of the many years Vasily had served him, Igor granted him one mercy: no one was permitted to violate Yekaterina, Vasily’s woman.

Afterward, the three members of the family were imprisoned in separate warehouses. Today, Yuri and Yekaterina had been brought out first.

With his hands and feet bound in chains, Yuri forced open eyes swollen almost shut from the beating and called to his mother. Mother. When she did not answer, he screamed, Mama!

Igor laughed at his weakness. “You’re not five years old. Mama? I didn’t realize Vasya had raised you to be this pathetic. I should have seen it sooner. If I’d realized what a worthless bastard Vasily was, I would’ve noticed this bitch scurrying around like a rat, trying to sell me out. ” Igor shouted and seized Yekaterina by the hair.

At the humiliating sight, the young Yuri screamed, his eyes widening as he hurled every curse he knew at him.

I’ll kill you. Somehow, I’ll get out of here and kill you!

While Yuri screamed until his throat ruptured, Igor drew a pistol and pressed it against his mother’s temple.

Only then did Yekaterina slowly raise her head.

She had kept her eyes closed, but perhaps she had heard Yuri struggling. The moment she opened them, she immediately searched for him. Even then, her mother remained unbroken. Blood streamed from her ears, mouth, and nose, yet a flicker of life persisted within her hazel-green eyes.

Amidst the terror no one should have endured, she slowly lowered one knee and rose unsteadily to her feet. For a brief moment, the expression of the man gripping her hair wavered. The devil had believed she would beg for her life, that her spirit must have shattered by now. For a moment, her courage seemed to crush him.

Enraged that she had made him feel such a thing, he abandoned his plan to simply execute her. “Very well, you self-righteous woman. Then choose.”

Perhaps Igor refrained from revealing his vulgarity by swearing in front of her. Instead, he adopted a refined tone to rebuke her and then signaled to the men behind Yuri. They released one of the chains binding Yuri’s wrists and seized his left hand, forcing a pistol into it. One by one, they crushed his trembling fingers around the grip and trigger until Yuri was compelled to hold the weapon against his own head.

For the first time, his mother’s eyes wavered. “Yuri! No, my little jewel!” Her scream finally brought a smile to Igor’s face. He seemed delighted to witness signs of collapse in the woman who had remained so composed in the face of horror.

“Katya, I’ve heard you’re such a devout Orthodox believer. As a fellow Orthodox Christian, I know one thing very well: suicide is among the gravest of sins, isn’t it?”

Yekaterina closed her mouth and began forcing her breath under control. She stared at Yuri with the face of someone who had already comprehended the choice before her. Yuri still couldn’t fully grasp what was happening. His mother looked at him with such profound sorrow. A faint tear, visible only to Yuri, slipped from her eyes—filled with apology and love—and fell to the ground.

“Then choose with your own hand,” the devil whispered. The monster wearing human skin proclaimed himself merciful. “In consideration of everything Vasily has done for me, I’ll grant you the privilege of deciding. No one else would show such generosity to a bitch who bit her master. End your life with your own hand and commit your sin. Or watch your son die. Choose. If little Vasya dies, you live. If you die, little Vasya lives. I keep my word. Whichever of you survives will be permitted to continue living as before.”

Watching the man spew words too monstrous to be called mercy, Yuri wept through eyes where every vessel had burst. Blood ran from his bitten lips and down his sharp chin.

Please, Mother. Don’t.

Yuri knew what choice she would make. He sobbed and squeezed his eyes shut. His mouth trembled uncontrollably before a horror for which he had never prepared. His teeth struck together, the sound clattering violently inside his skull.

Then I’ll die first. Before Mother can make the wrong choice, I’ll kill myself. I only need to die quickly.

His trembling finger began to pull the trigger. —Yuri! His mother’s voice struck like lightning.

Yuri’s eyes flew open in shock. He couldn’t understand how such a powerful cry had come from a body emaciated by starvation. Igor and the others stared at her as well.

“Do not dare die so easily! Life is precious. Especially for someone as young as you. There are still too many beautiful things you haven’t seen. You haven’t met the person you’ll love. You’ve never enjoyed a true summer. You’ve never eaten until you were completely full. I’ve done all of that. I met your father, and through him, I experienced everything. That is why I was happy. No. I am still happy.”

Igor’s face twisted with an indefinable sense of defeat as he looked down at her recounting her happiness. Before he could change his mind again, Yekaterina gave Yuri her final words.

“Survive, Yuri. You must live.”

When she finished, she lifted her head and looked directly up at Igor. Then she smiled at the man towering over her. As though she felt no fear at all, Yekaterina spoke to him gently.

“I’ll see you in hell, you pathetic bastard.”

The moment defeat and rage flooded Igor’s face, her pale, slender hand shot upward. Yekaterina gripped the pistol pressed to her temple and placed her hand over Igor’s on the trigger. Her white fingers closed around him like a curse. Then she pulled the trigger for him, without a moment’s hesitation, without fearing her own death.

GUNSHOT

A grotesque blast tore through the square. The bullet ripped through air, flesh, and bone. Inside Yuri’s wide blue eyes, his mother’s slender body collapsed slowly.

So slowly.

The woman who had done what was right until the very end committed the sin of taking her own life for one reason alone: to keep her son alive. Yet there was no regret on Yekaterina’s face as death claimed her.

She was smiling.

Igor watched that smiling face burst apart before him. A man who had committed atrocities all his life went deathly pale and froze.

Yuri also watched his mother’s beautiful face vanish beyond recognition. That was when he first learned how horrifying a headless corpse could be. The form that had once been so full of life scattered in every direction. Brain matter and fragments of skull struck the ground.

The instant his mother’s headless body landed with a soft thud, Yuri lost himself too. His mind separated from his body while the men continued holding him in place. His eyes remained open, but everything within him was torn apart and scattered.

The last thing Yuri heard before consciousness vanished was Igor’s furious scream. The cowardly, vicious criminal shrieked at Yekaterina’s corpse. “That fucking bitch kept pretending she was better than me until the end!” Igor could not bear to admit that a mere woman—an Omega—had frightened him. His eyes rolled wildly as he searched for somewhere to pour his overflowing rage.

They settled on Yuri.

The young man sat with his mouth open, weeping tears mixed with blood.

Igor pointed at him. “Take the pistol away from that bastard. Bring me a machete.”

The men approached and struck Yuri’s hand. Only moments earlier, his fingers had fought desperately not to hold the weapon. Now they had gone rigid around it and would not release it. Yuri finally dropped the pistol only after the back of his left hand split open.

And then… What happened after that?

It hurts.

Pain spread across his back so violently that death would have been kinder.

Bare skin split open, revealing red flesh beneath. Then the machete struck that exposed flesh again. He was carved apart until muscle and blood vessels showed. He lost consciousness, only to be awakened with cold water before the cutting began again.

It lasted an unbearably long time.

So long that he could never forget it.

Yuri did not remember everything that happened in his life. But he could never forget that summer. To continue living, he should have erased it.

He could not.

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