Page 64 of Heritage of Fire

“Mom! Mom! Guess what I got on my math test?”

I jog into the kitchen, searching for her. She spent the last two nights quizzing me on math facts, and I can’t wait to watch her face light up over my awesome grade.

Math is my hardest subject, and those little twerps at the private academy laugh at every failing quiz I get back.My father says not to worry. That I’m destined for more important things in life. But my mom always tells me I can learn anything if I work hard enough.

“Mom?” I yell again. Usually she’s waiting at our kitchen table with a snack. Freshly made cookies, or pirozhki while she smiles up at me and asks about my day at school. Not today, though. The kitchen is quiet, and there is no snack waiting.

I shrug, wandering to my father’s office.

“Come in,” he says when I knock, and I ease the door open to find him sitting at his desk on the phone.

“—yes, Pakhan. I understand.”

I toss my backpack on the blue chair in the corner and fiddle with the patch on my sweater. It has a thread loose and I’ve been picking at it all day.

I look out the window at the city.My mother loves it here. She claims it’s because everything is at her fingertips. Shopping, lunch dates with her friends, and the perfect escape when we need to be out of the house for my father’s “meetings”.

The slap of the phone on the base as he hangs up jolts me from my thoughts, and I turn to see my father standing there, studying me. His eyes are wide as he stares at me. I shrug.

“Where’s mom?”

He slips both hands into his pockets and looks down at his desk. Papers cover every inch of the dark-blue wood, pinching out any usable space.

The room is quiet, and I ask again. “Where’s Mom?”

“She left, Nikolai.”

Reaching for the patch now half hanging off my sweater, I freeze.

“W-w-what do you mean? Did she go out to get dinner?”

“No. She left. She will not be returning.” He avoids looking at me, his cold, bitter tone causing me to shiver. “She did, however, leave you a letter.”

He removes his hands from his pockets, reaching for the letter in a beige envelope.

“Not returning?” I don’t understand. She wouldn’t leave me. She knew I had a math test today. A single tear runs down my cheek. Then another. And another. “S-she wouldn’t do that. Where is she?”

My father stiffens, standing straighter than I’ve ever seen him before.

He swallows, then clears his throat. “Gone. I don’t know where. She does not want a life here with the Bratva. With me.”

“Then go get her! Or …” I pause, chewing on my lip. “Or, can I go with her?”

His nostrils flare and he steps around the desk, striding over to me. “You are a Balakin. And Balakins serve the Morozov family. You remain with me.”

Tears are streaming down my cheeks now, and a mix of panic and discomfort crosses over my father’s face.

“We don’t mourn, Nikolai. We process and get over it. The Bratva depends on it.”

But later that night, when I can’t sleep—after trying to gulp down my sobs so my father wouldn’t hear—I stalk to the kitchen for a cup of water. As I fill the glass, whimpers sound from his office.

I creep toward the cracked door. Hovering around the knob, I see my father sitting at his desk, head in his hands, palms covering his eyes. His shoulders shake with each heaving sob. Strangled sounds I’ve never heard him make before. I’veneverseen him cry.

I run back up the stairs, bolting for my room. Blood roars in my ears as I snatch the letter from my mother off the nightstand. It’s unopened. Saved for a time when I need her—but no more. I fly through the house, making my way to the library, where the fireplace always burns. There are no thoughts, only feelings. Feelings that fester deep, turning sadness and loss into anger and resentment.

With the flick of my wrist, I toss the envelope into the flames and watch the edges curl. Withering away my name scrolled across the front in my mother’s handwriting.

Gone. She’s gone.

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