Dear Mother
Dear Father
Hidden in your world you've made for me
I'm seething
I'm bleeding
Ripping wounds in me that never heal
Undying spite I feel for you
Living out this hell you always knew

-Metallica, Dyers Eve

"Papa! Papa, I swear, I –"

"Shut up!" his father thunders, cutting him off. "I've had enough of your lies and whining! You can't even answer a simple question!"

Kirill hastens after him as he climbs the stairs. "Papa, I –"

His father suddenly turns around to face him on the first landing, his eyes hard as steel, and Kirill automatically backs off a little before he catches himself. "First you have one of my men killed right under my nose, and then you can't even come up with a proper excuse! Are you a vor or not?"

"I am!" Kirill replies, furious. His right hand clenches around the rail along the wall, his nails digging into the wood. "And he was a traitor! A fucking informant!"

"And yet," his father says coldly, and Kirill sees how his fingers curl into fists and still are shaking with badly controlled rage, "you did not tell me you knew about this, and never asked my opinion. Not a word from you. My own son. Look at Luzhin, at least he has some sense."

"He said I was right!" Kirill shouts. "You heard him!" The sleeve of his sweater, only half rolled up, is slowly slipping down along his left forearm, but he ignores it. "He was a traitor! Why the bloody fucking hell didn't anyone dispose of him before?"

"You watch your language!" his father snaps. "And don't you dare question my judgement!" He suddenly descends a few steps, but Kirill forces himself not to move, to keep his ground. Fight him, you pathetic little louse, he inwardly yells at himself, fight him! Clenching his teeth, he lets his father approach until he stands just two steps above him. "How does he know about it, anyway? Can't you even keep your big mouth shut in my own backyard, you half-wit?"

He speaks to me as if I were scum, not his son, Kirill thinks. As if I were some filthy little servant of his. The thought pierces his awareness like a knife. "I know fucking well what to say and what not! He told you, you heard him! He has contact with the fucking Chechen clan who do the export, that's how he knows!" And I will fucking talk as I fucking like, he mentally adds. I've heard the same from you, you goddamn hypocrite.

His father's hand shoots out to grab the front of his sweater, and all he can do is try not to recoil, but to stand upright and face his father's rage. If this could just be over... "And what were those lies you claim Soyka was spreading about you?" his father asks in a dangerous low snarl.

Fresh fury boils up in him, making his muscles tense as he glares up into his father's eyes, bitterly aware that they are the same colour as his own, the very same, and yet his father thinks he is nothing like him. "That was between Soyka and me," he answers firmly. "Now they're as dead as him." He does not like his own wording, and he fears he just sounded like a defiant child, but at least he has not given in. He does not want to give in, not anymore. Be a grown man, he commands himself, be strong now. And for the blessing of hell, don't cry. Just don't cry! But he can feel it already, that stinging sensation in his eyes that announces tears forming, tears of hurt and humiliation, tears of helpless rage. And once again he is disgusted at himself, loathes himself for his own weakness.

Why did you have to tell him, Nikolai? Why?

Yet at the same time he knows that it probably was the wisest thing to do.

But still… You betrayed me, Nikolai. You stabbed me in the back.

"You will tell me," his father demands icily, his eyes as cold as his voice.

"No." Never, never will he repeat those filthy lies! Especially not in front of his father!

"You will tell me!" His father has taken him by the front of his sweater with both hands now and is shaking him violently.

It takes all his courage. "No!" Better defy his father and suffer for it than admit something as shameful as this.

Very suddenly his father pushes him backwards, and he stumbles down three steps, his elbow colliding with the wall painfully. Before he has time to recover, his father has followed and grabbed him once again, pinning him to the wall. "You be glad I don't have the time to take this shit from you!" he bellows. "One more act of disobedience from you, boy, and you will rue the day you were born, you mark my words! Now send in your driver, and get out of my eyes!"

His vision blurring as he cannot fight back the tears anymore, he yanks himself loose and storms out, the blood pounding madly in his ears. Behind him, he believes to hear his father shouting after him, but he slams the door to the kitchen and rushes through, glad not to have encountered anyone. Just out, away from his father, away from shame and humiliation. Back to Nikolai, who would never treat him this way.

Nikolai, who has just told his father everything.

Kirill stops in the doorway, angrily wiping his eyes with his sleeve.

Well, Nikolai was right.

He sighs. At least he has managed not to cry in front of his father, though it was close.

Steeling himself, he pushes himself away from the wall and determinedly walks out into the yard. Just as he steps out, Nikolai comes towards him with a crate, but he deposits it on the ground when he sees him, right by the kitchen entrance. "Alright, Kirill?" he asks softly, his features gentle with what might be called compassion.

Kirill manages a laugh, one that sounds bitter to his own ears. "Do I fucking look alright?" He tugs his sweater down, but it changes nothing. His elbow still hurts, and so do his nose and cheek, where his father has punched him earlier on. And there is a greater pain within, inside his chest, abuse of trust, loss of belief in a dream.

Get over that illusion, he tells himself. He will never be like he used to, back then when you were a boy, when he tousled your hair and called you Kiryusha, when he told you stories and taught you to play the violin, when he let you sit on his lap and held you tight… Never again. This time is past and will not come back.

And don't you dare pity me, Nikolai. Don't you dare.

Once again he feels tears forming in his eyes, tears for a childhood that was over all too soon, for a mother he has never truly been able to bid goodbye to, for a father who has forgotten him.

"Try not to mind him," Nikolai says gently, briefly touching his shoulder. "He's just trying to sow discord between us. He's trying to make you jealous, and to humiliate you at the same time."

A solitary tear drips onto Kirill's cheek, and he wipes it off violently. "I don't need you to tell me that!" he snarls. "Why are you all treating me like an imbecile?" The next moment he wants to take it back, but it is too late already, the words are there, solid and tangible in the air between them like a wall. But Nikolai just looks at him and says nothing, nothing at all. "He wants to see you, by the way," Kirill adds brusquely. "So you don't even have to get off your fucking high horse for now. Go and prove to him you'd make a better son." And with this he brushes past him resolutely and marches off, leaving Nikolai to stand where he is. "Fuck you," he mutters, but it comes out as a half-choked squeak as tears begin to flow freely down over his face.

He heads for the storeroom, gladly entering its gloom. At least he will be alone here. Alone at last. Oh, how he wishes to be all alone in the world! Not to ever see anyone again would be such a blessing.

From the twilight a low growl greets him, and a pair of eyes weakly glow in the darkness.

"Piss off," he tells the dog, his voice shaking disgustingly, then sits down at the foot of a pillar with his arms wrapped around his knees and lets his forehead drop onto his right elbow, nuzzling his face into his own arm, into the woolly fabric of his sweater. He cannot keep himself from crying, even if he bites his lip hard.

It is not sadness that makes him cry. Usually it is helpless fury, and shame and frustration at himself. He does not cry often, but when it happens, it is very hard to fight it. And it is hard to get over it, too. It is so hard to stop.

A moist, cold nose touches his ear, nudging him gently. "Piss off," he repeats. "Piss off, damn you!" But the dog will not go away. Instead, he starts licking what he can reach of his cheek.

At first Kirill wants to hit him and chase him away, but then again…

At least someone who likes me.

The dog's fur is very soft under his fingers. Short, but still very soft. Kirill often marvels at how soft an animal's fur can be. He likes animals, altogether. He likes them more than humans. Humans are hypocrites and liars and conceited bastards and always complicated. Animals are simple and honest.

As he starts stroking him, the dog sits down closely beside him, and Kirill can hear his tail whipping the floor as he wags. Yes, the dog likes him, for some reason.

"What am I to you?" he asks softly, barely registering that he has been quarrelling with the others in Russian but is speaking English with the dog, for some reason. The flow of his tears is less strong now, and his voice is much firmer. "You're my father's. You're not supposed to like me. You're not supposed to like anyone, except him." He sighs, starting to scratch the dog's ears. "But you don't like him either, right? He beats you too, doesn't he? He doesn't like anyone, my father, except the children, and my sisters perhaps. Maybe he liked you when you were a puppy. He used to like me when I was a little boy, you know. I think he really did. He made me bow and arrows once, when I was small, and a kind of headband with feathers in it. That took him a lot of time, actually. And when we came here, he bought me all kinds of things I didn't have back home." He sighs. "I'm calling it home, but I don't really know… This is home, really. I've spent most of my life here. The last time I've seen Moscow was almost ten years ago. Ten fucking years, just imagine. You weren't even born then. And when I was there, I didn't recognise it. I mean, yes, I did, but it was different. The pictures in my head were different, see? That's pretty tough, you come back after a long time, and then you see your memories aren't real at all, and you've just been dreaming. Home's not real. Nothing is." He pauses, thinking about those last two words, and even the movement of his fingers slows for a moment. "Yes, sometimes it really seems nothing is. You know, if you were asleep and having a dream, how could you tell it's a dream when you're not waking up? Just like in The Matrix, heh. That one was sort of cool, only the sequels got weirder and weirder. Anyway, my point is, you wouldn't know, would you? Sometimes I wish I'd wake up. Not that I know what that would be like, but sometimes I think anything is better than this, anything. So I'm just waiting for someone to wake me, God or whoever… Hold my breath as I wish for death, oh please, God, wake me… That's Metallica, you know. Song's called One, the album's And Justice For All, from 1988. That one's about a dying soldier in a military hospital. Took me long to figure that out, though it's fairly obvious really. Well, maybe I was a bit of a dunce with that. Not that it matters to you, you're just a dog. Not that anything I say matters to you. You just listen to my voice because it soothes you, like a purring cat is soothing, and you want me to keep talking no matter what I say, don't you? Yes, you want me to. You keep wagging, I keep talking and scratching your ears. Deal. Not that I get much from it, mind you, but there's something like immaterial values and stuff. Don't ask me – well, you won't, anyway."

He stretches out his legs, trying to find a more comfortable position on the hard floor, and immediately the dog lies down beside him with his front paws over them. Kirill laughs softly. His tears have subsided by now. "Ah, you. You're called Ivan, aren't you? What a dumb name for a dog. I think I'll call you… I dunno. Nikolai is better at this sort of thing. I'd name you after the werewolf captain from The Silmarillion, from the tale of Beren and Lúthien, but I've forgotten his name. It's something like Glaurung, I think, only Glaurung is the dragon, and he's in the Túrin story… I'll have to ask Nikolai, he knows all that. He's a real fucking hardcore fan. He even has an Elvish tattoo." Kirill smiles into the gloom. Yes, he is still angry with Nikolai, but even that is melting away as he thinks of this very original touch of individuality. "I think I'll call you Vulturus. I don't really know who that is, but it's from the new Metallica album, the title of a song or something. Can't be sure, since it's not out yet, and there's no release date either, as far as I know. Yes, I think I'll call you Vulturus. Like it?" He chuckles as the dog stretches up his head to let him scratch him under the chin. "Fine, you'll be Vulturus to me from now on."

"Kirill?" It is Nikolai's voice, out in the yard. "Kirill?"

Should he answer? He hesitates, but already he feels the dog's muscles tense as there are footsteps at the entrance to the storeroom, behind his back. The dog growls, but he pats his back and the dog falls silent once more, resting head and front paws across Kirill's lap while Kirill tugs at his ears thoughtlessly. At least the dog seems to have learned not to bark at Nikolai anymore. This is definitely something.

Does he really want to see Nikolai now? Can he bear to look him in the eyes? He is not sure.

"There you are." Nikolai squats down beside him. He must have heard him before, for he is addressing him in English now, and he usually does not do this unless Kirill speaks English first. "It's okay. I think he's gotten over his tantrum. Are you alright?"

"Fine," Kirill says, already grinning at his friend's choice of words, though some anger remains, anger at Nikolai being the one to settle this affair with his father, not him. "Really fine. Meet my friend. I've just named him Vulturus."

"Like Scary Guy Vulturus? Nice choice." Nikolai laughs, and Kirill smiles, though he still will not look at him. This is another thing he likes about Nikolai: that he is interested in anything that interests Kirill. Sergei and Misha like movies, and so did Soyka, but they don't precisely share Kirill's taste, and neither of them knows much about metal music. But Nikolai does. Nikolai cares. And in turn, Kirill cares about what Nikolai likes.

This is a sign of friendship, isn't it? Of real friendship.

Kirill takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry." It is said much easier than he expected.

"For what?"

"For being such an arsehole just now." Doesn't Nikolai realise, or does he just want to hear him say it? Suspicion arises in him, but he smothers it. No, Nikolai would not torment him, and Nikolai would not gloat.

"Ah, that." Nikolai briefly touches his shoulder. "Forget about it. It's okay."

"Just like that?" Surely he will bear a grudge because of it. Anyone would.

"You're my captain," Nikolai reminds him.

"But I still was a complete arsehole." Now he has apologised, it is so much easier. It does not hurt him to admit it, it does not hurt him at all. It actually feels good in a way, relieving perhaps, to be able to say it.

Moreover, that Nikolai asserts him that he is in charge also helps. This way, he is not looking up to him, begging for his forgiveness. He can just tell him face to face. Except that he still will not look at him, silly as it is.

"And you're my partner. My friend," Nikolai adds, in a tone as plain and natural as if he were discussing the weather.

That makes it worse, Kirill thinks. It's not the kind of thing one should say to a friend, especially not when all he is trying to do is to be nice. "Yes," he murmurs, feeling awkward and foolish. "You're my friend, too." Somehow a hug would be appropriate now, but he cannot quite get himself to do it, even though he would like to. He has hugged Nikolai before, many times, but it always was playful, never in a serious manner. He distractedly tugs at the dog's ears, pretending he could not get up to do anything anyway, but in truth he could, and Nikolai knows that he could.

Yes, but Nikolai has no idea what he is thinking, or does he?

He pats the dog's head. "Good doggy," he says, just to say anything. Why does this feel so awkward? It should not. Why can he take girls to bed without the slightest hint of a blush, and then he feels so embarrassed when talking to a friend? It should be a lot less emotional, shouldn't it?

No, it isn't. It should, perhaps, but it isn't, because the girls mean nothing to him, whereas Nikolai does.

"What did my father want with you?" he changes the topic, changing the language at the same time. "Question you? He's been asking stuff about you before."

"I know. You told me." The dog raises his head suspiciously as Nikolai moves closer, but Kirill soothingly strokes his muzzle. "Yes, he wanted to take a closer look, I think. I managed to impress him by not being scared of Soyka's brothers."

"Soyka's fucking brothers!" Kirill laughs derisively. "I have you, and you're better than any fucking Chechen." And he means it, he truly means it. Nikolai is the best man he ever worked with, no doubt of it. "Hey, Vulturus, get off me. I have to deal with a couple of boxes."

"I'll handle it," Nikolai offers, but Kirill has already gotten back to his feet. "Might look better, in case your father comes to check."

"He can go fuck himself," Kirill says roughly, speaking English once again. "Let's stack up this shit where it belongs. No, Vulturus, you stay here. You have something to guard, remember? Yes, until Misha arrives with the van. Stay here, do you hear? There's a good boy." The dog obliges, but it is obvious that he would have preferred to plod after Kirill. "That's some of the import stuff," Kirill reveals, automatically lowering his voice a fraction. "We had a problem with the transportation, it didn't go according to schedule. Misha'll get it to the distribution point now."

"And where is that?" Nikolai asks as they step out into the grey light of the day.

"Don't ask too many questions. You're not a vor yet, pal."

Nikolai shrugs. He accepts such answers, but it does not mean that he gives up. He just tries to figure it out later on, and he is very patient. Sometimes Kirill finds this extremely amusing.

"There was something else," Nikolai says as they reach the van. "Your father wants me to do a small job for him."

"Really?" Kirill is not surprised at all. He has had an employee before, until the man was shot, and his father has used him for some business of his own as well, without asking. "What would that be?"

Nikolai glances around the open back door of the van before answering. "It's about that pregnant girl who bolted."

"Tatiana, you mean? Forgot her last name. Papa told me she's dead."

"She is. But apparently she left a diary."

"Oh, shit."

"Yes, exactly. I'm to go and retrieve it."

"Do you think it says something about me?" Kirill remembers the girl only too well, a sandy-haired, quite pretty thing, probably one of the youngest among their girls, and he particularly remembers one incident connected with her…

Sergei and Boris are dragging the struggling girl off, pushing her down the stairs to the cellar, and Kirill turns away from the dark door from where muffled screams come. He knows what is going to happen now, and it gives him a constricting, sickening feeling. Instead, he downs another shot of vodka. He might call Charlie now, his old mate from his school days, and they might go to the cinema or something. Or perhaps he could drag his new driver along to the pubs and see what kind of man he is, that might be an interesting idea…

"Kirill," his father says, suddenly coming up behind him, and he expects a reproach for touching his father's bottle – damn it, he hasn't had a drop of alcohol all day, so just a shot really isn't so much to ask, or two, to be exact, whatever, no matter from which bottle! – but nothing of the like happens. Instead his father says, "Go down and break her in."

"W… what?" Kirill stammers. "Me? But… I'm totally not in the mood."

"Break her in," his father repeats. "And don't pretend I'm asking anything difficult of you."

"Papa, please," he tries. "I doubt if I could right now, I really –"

"Are you a man," his father interrupts harshly, "or are you not?"

Kirill swallows. He has no choice. If at least he could drain the bottle first… but no chance of that, not with his father watching. He will have to do it, and he will have to do it sober.

As he climbs down the stairs, he curses to himself in a mixture of English and Russian, his usual mixture. Why? Why just him? Disgust and anger are fighting for the upper hand inside his chest. That one's just a little girl, for whichever deity's sake!

The light in the cellar is scarce, but his eyes adapt to the twilight very quickly, too quickly for his own taste. The girl is lying on a pile of potato sacks, struggling with Boris, who is trying to rip her clothes off, while Sergei is watching with one hand playing around at his crotch, grinning to himself. What a sick voyeur, Kirill thinks. He approaches slowly and quietly, hoping that by the time they spot him, they will have gotten her out of her clothes and she will have given up her resistance. Or maybe he can leave this all to Boris? Maybe he can just stand around with Sergei while Boris rapes her?

Her dress comes off practically in rags, revealing her white underwear. The girl is kicking around and half screaming, half sobbing, but it is of no use. Boris is so much stronger, a tall man with broad shoulders and the neck of an ox – and probably the intellect of an ox, too, Kirill thinks. Sergei is shorter and slimmer, and he definitely is the more intelligent of those two. Kirill likes him more, but he does not like him much, either. Now Boris tears her bra off – why does she wear a bra anyway, Kirill wonders briefly, she hardly needs one, but that's girls to you – and Sergei guffaws like a drunken buffoon.

And then Sergei spots Kirill. "Hey, there's someone else to do the job. Someone higher-ranking."

Boris looks up, grunts and steps aside obediently, bowing his head. What a servile coward. But he does not turn to leave, and neither does Sergei. Do they think he will actually rape that thing with them watching? "Get out of sight," he tells them harshly. "Both of you."

They leave without a word of protest, and soon he hears the door upstairs close behind them. The only sound that remains is the sobbing of the girl in front of him.

This is so sick. So goddamn sick. She's just a child.

And only now she notices that he has arrived, and that she now is alone with him. She has retreated to the farthest corner as soon as Boris has let go of her, and now she cowers there and watches him out of large, scared eyes, like a trapped animal. "You're Kirill, aren't you?" she asks tentatively, her voice thin and shaking. "You're Oleg's cousin."

"Yes." He starts unbuckling his belt, and her eyes widen. If there were just the familiar feeling of his erection straining against his trousers… but this situation does not stimulate him, not at all.

"Please. Please don't do this." Tears are running down her cheeks, and she is trembling. "Please."

Oh God. I wish I didn't have to… "It will be over soon if you just keep still, okay? Just relax. It won't take long."

"Please, Kirill. Please. Oleg said you were a nice guy."

"Oleg's an arsehole." He unzips his fly, but still he feels no arousal. "Come here."

"Please don't do this to me."

"Just shut up, will you?" he snarls. I can't do this, I just can't do this. "Come here and keep still." He tries to imagine someone else in her place, a grown woman, an attractive dark-haired brauty with full breasts and voluptuous lips, which are slightly parted in expectation of him kissing her… He pulls his T-shirt over his head and throws it onto a crate nearby, imagining the woman's hands running all over his torso, caressing his chest and stomach… It helps a little, but not much.

"Kirill…" Her voice is choked by her own tears.

"Do as you're told," he orders harshly. "Now." The air is chilly in the cellar, but he does not put his T-shirt back on. If she chooses to fight, it might end up torn, and it is a Star Wars T-shirt, with a picture of Darth Vader printed on it. He likes it. Moreover, it was a present from Maria, bought with her own pocket money.

"No. Please, Kirill. Please."

Damn it, do you think I'm having fun here, you stupid brat? He grabs her by the arm and violently pulls her towards him, ignoring her shriek. "Just do it!" he bellows. She tries to bite his hand, and he hits her in the face hard. With a howl she recoils, and immediately he is over her, forcing her down on her back. She is attempting to push him away, scratching him with her fingernails, but he slaps her hands away and hits her again, once, twice, three times. His knuckles hurt from connecting with her cheekbone hard, and the last time they meet the side of her jaw instead because she manages to half block the blow. But he hardly feels any pain. He only sees the blood oozing from her nose and split lip, and it makes him feel nauseous.

Now she merely sobs, trying to cover her face with her hands, and he uses the opportunity to quickly remove her panties. He should do it now, force himself into her and be done with it, but he cannot. The idea repulses him too much, and no image of a beautiful woman in his mind can help him.

But he has to. Because if he fails, his father is bound to beat him to within an inch of his life.

Determinedly he fidgets with the fly of his boxers, doing his best to block out the girl's sobs from his awareness. How is he to achieve anything when she's crying under him? He tries stroking himself, but what usually results in a desire growing instantly now leaves him as limp as he was. It just will not work this time.

"Just shut up!" he hisses at the girl in helpless fury. "Stop crying, damn you!" And when she keeps sobbing, he hits her again. There is nothing else he could do that comes to his mind. If she would just be quiet, maybe he would manage to do it. "Look, if you're quiet, we'll be done with it a lot sooner," he tries to reason with her, but it is of no use. "So shut it, will you?" He will just enter her for a moment and then tell his father he's finished, there is no need for more, but he cannot bring himself to do even that.

And she must realise by now what is troubling him. She must realise he is utterly unable to get an erection.

The shame, the humiliation of it… Cursing, he slaps her with the back of his hand, again and again. Why does she have to put him through this? Why? "Shut up!" he bellows, but she will not, she cannot, and he cannot stop either, he has to do this, has to do this or face his father's wrath, and if she would only stop sobbing like this, if she only –

"Kirill!" It is his father's voice, and he winces at it. He has not heard him coming. "What's the matter? Still not done with her?" he demands, impatience very obvious in his tone.

"I'm doing it," he protests. "Can't you see I'm doing it?" Maybe he could produce the same effect by forcing a finger into her, or rather two or three, it occurs to him. The prospect sickens him as well, but then it would be over and done with very quickly. If it works, that is.

His father takes him by the shoulder roughly. "Get away," he commands. "Leave her to me."

He obeys, hastily doing up his trousers, and his father brushes him aside violently, contempt clearly written on his features. As he sees his father starting to undo his own trousers, Kirill quickly turns to go, snatching up his T-shirt and hurrying up the stairs, and he hears his father shouting after him, "If you don't break a horse, it will never be tame, Kirill!"

He practically stumbles out through the door, slamming it behind him. His hands shake as he pulls his T-shirt back on. He feels disgusted, and humiliated at the same time, because in the eyes of his father he has failed, failed utterly and terribly.

He punches the doorframe hard, and almost howls with the sudden pain shooting through his hand. Storming out, he hopes for anyone to run afoul of him so he can channel his desperate wrath into something, rage and be rid of it, but he does not meet anybody until he reaches the main room of the restaurant, deserted except for two of his father's men sitting in a corner and talking quietly. And his driver is there, the unreadable man with a criminal career that would make a leading vor proud written onto his body, and he is reading a book peacefully, as if nothing were out of the ordinary at all, as if that foul scene at the cellar had never taken place. As Kirill approaches, he gazes up questioningly.

"What's this shit?" he snaps, snatching the book out of the man's tattooed hands.

Luzhin merely looks at him, his greyish-blue eyes as devoid of emotion as always.

Only then he realises that this is the second volume of The Lord of the Rings. "Hey!" he exclaims, genuinely surprised. "I hope you didn't nick that from my room."

Luzhin shakes his head. "My own copy. I had only read it in Russian until now, and I thought it was about time I tackled the original."

"Funny," Kirill states, letting himself slump into a chair opposite him. "I only ever read it in English. What are you giving me that look for?" he adds, faintly irritated. "Did you think I can't read or what?"

Luzhin shrugs. "I didn't expect you to know it."

"You're in England, man. Everybody does." Kirill hands him the book back. After all, he really has his own copy.

"How about The Silmarillion?"

Kirill frowns. "Hang on… the background mythology thing? Nah, not yet."

"You should."

"If you say so." Anything, as long as the man keeps him distracted. "You seem to be quite the fan, eh?"

It is the first time he sees Luzhin genuinely laugh. "Didn't you spot my Elvish tattoo, then?"

Kirill smiles faintly at the memory of this conversation, though it cannot quite drown out the nauseating sensation in the pit of his stomach that the memory of Tatiana causes.

Nikolai shrugs. "Does it matter? I'll take care of it."

"You do that." Kirill briefly places a hand on his arm. He is glad Nikolai is there to take care of everything. When Nikolai agrees to handle an affair, there is no reason to worry. "Come on, back to work."

And still the unease remains, an unease that makes him go cold inside.