His eyes are wild, feral, like a predator cornering its prey and I stumble backwards, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I-I don't know what you're talking about," I stammer, my voice barely above a whisper. I really don’t.
Niko's laugh is cold, humorless. He reaches over to his printer, and snags a document off of it, waving it in front of my face. "Then explain this."
I squint at the paper, trying to make sense of the official-looking text. My blood runs cold as I catch sight of two names - mine and another I don't recognize. A date. Signatures. It can't be what I think it is.
"A marriage certificate?" I breathe, confusion and panic swirling inside me. "But I've never…"
"Don't lie to me!" Niko roars, slamming his fist against the wall beside my head. I flinch, pressing myself flat against the cool surface. "You were there. You had to be. This is genuine. It’s signed by a fucking judge."
Despite the trembling, which makes it as hard to read as the tears building behind my eyes, I do my best to scan the details. It’s the date that hits me.
Eighteen years ago. The courtroom. The gunshots. My mother's hand gripping mine as we ran. And... a boy. Dark hair. A little older, but not much. Still a child, just like me. Is he the one Niko’s asking about? Zack Kincaid? I was never introduced; never even spoke to him.
“I-I don’t understand. Where did this come from? How did you get it? It must be a scam, a diversion to take you away from…”
“It came from your sister,” Niko bellows, causing me to flinch. “She was sending it to you, not me. I just intercepted it. Fortunately.” The way he says that last word, quiet and full of menace, makes me shudder.
“But this… this is d-dated eighteen years ago, Niko,” I stammer, holding it out for him to see, like maybe that will appease him. “I was only a child!”
It surely can’t be real, no matter what Niko thinks.
His eyes narrow as he scans the certificate with more care. “Lenka!” He spits out my mother’s name like a curse as he crumples the document in his fist.
"It was her, wasn’t it,” Niko growls, his voice low and dangerous. It’s not a question. “She set this up. But why?"
I shake my head, desperately trying to make sense of it all, myself. "I don't know, Niko. I swear I don't remember any of this. I remember going to a courthouse. There was a shooting that day, chaos everywhere. My mom just grabbed me, and we ran. We were always running."
His eyes bore into mine, searching for any hint of deception. I hold his gaze, willing him to see the truth. But the wrath doesn't fade from his expression as he grabs his phone and dials a number.
I can only hear his half of the conversation with my mother, but whatever she says, it doesn’t pacify him at all. In fact, he just looks more furious.
“Don’t play coy, Lenka. I have the certificate.” Those four words sizzle in the air like a live wire. I feel my breath catch, suspended like a bead of water about to fall.
There is a brief pause. I can almost hear her calculating what excuse to choose.
“Nothing! You think this is nothing?” His tone is one of disbelief, but I know to my mother, it’s not a lie. It was… is nothing... to her. To him, it’s the world.
He ends the call before she can say any more, clearly done with her, and the silence that follows is so complete I can hear the pounding of my own blood. Niko turns away, his breathing harsh, one hand braced on the edge of his desk.
He spins to face me with the empty, haunted look of a man crawling through the wreckage of hope. But I already know there is no hope. I know it just as surely as I can see his pulse thrumming at the base of his throat or the tremor in his jaw as he grinds his molars together.
“Everything about you is fake,” he spits, harshly. “Even your age. You’re not twenty-eight at all. You’re thirty! Even you must have known such a simple thing, you’re not that dumb.”
I am? My mother changed my age so often when I was a child, I truly lost count. But when she sent me to boarding school… Oh god! I was taller than all my friends. Taller, but not as well developed… because I’ve always been skinny.
I know it right then. She lied about my age. It makes a horrifying sense. I’d been behind in my previous schools because of all the moving around we did, but suddenly I was at the same level as my peers. Mother said it was because it was a better school, and I was more settled. It made sense at the time.
"We're done," he says, his voice cold and final. "Get out."
The words hit me like a physical blow. What? He can’t mean that. "Niko, please…”
"Out!" he roars, and I flinch at the raw anger in his voice. He throws the crumpled marriage certificate at me and I catch it reflexively, balling it in my fist. Such a tiny thing to have ruined my entire life.
“But…”
“No!” His hand cuts through the air, so close I can feel the air displace in a rush over my skin. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you even care that you’ve made my son an illegitimate bastard? An insignificant svolota who will never be acknowledged by those who still believe in the old traditions? It will cause my men to think twice before they choose whether to lay down their life for him.”
“No. Niko, surely not!” Would that really happen? He’s just a defenseless baby.
