I stood wedged between my parents, both of them stiff and silent.
My father stared straight ahead, impassive, like a statue chiseled in ambition. My stepmother, Lillian, snuffled softly, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. The gesture was faker than the love she supposedly had for me and Yulia.
Yulia.
The thought and sound of her name felt like a stab to my chest. I couldn’t believe this was it; her chapter was closed, and I would never see my sister again.
They said she’d fallen and died of a heart attack, but I didn’t believe it. It made no sense; I’d spoken to her only an hour before, so how could I believe their bullshit?
I couldn’t believe it. I refused to believe it.
Not for a damn second.
Yulia was thirty-two. Healthy. Beautiful. Stronger than most people ever gave her credit for. She didn’t just die; she was broken. Slowly. Quietly. Brutally.
I felt it in my bones. I saw it on her face each time I visited, and she had that sad smile.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her casket. My heart was racing in my chest like it was trying to scratch its way out. I should’ve done something. I should’ve said something. I should’ve known better.
I was furious. With her. With them. With myself.
And then I felt it—that strange tingle down the back of my neck as if I was being watched.
I shifted my head a little, not far enough to turn and look back without being noticed, and there he was.
Matvey Yezhov.
Standing a few feet away from the rest of his family, hands in his pockets, casual posture, but somehow more threatening than all of them combined. His suit was immaculate, black-on-black, as if he’d been sliced from shadow. His jaw wasset, lips tight in a grim line, and those dark, soulless eyes were pinned on me.
Not the coffin.
Not the priest.
Me.
He did not look away when I caught him. Scratch that, he didn’t even blink. He just stared at me like he was entitled to it. Like he was attempting to look beneath my skin.
My breath hitched for a second, and then I looked away. I shouldn’t have felt anything. Not warmth, not anxiety, not the insane, furious twist in my stomach.
But I did.
Matvey was the cold one. The quiet one. The dangerous one who never spoke unless it was to decide something that would be final.
I’d seen him before, of course, at events, from across tables, across rooms, always just far enough away to forget.
Yet here he was today, looking at me as though I were the only thing that didn’t fit into his world.
And for the first time since Yulia passed away, I felt something different from sadness.
I felt like I was being watched by a predator.
***
I wandered from the crowd after the service
No one noticed. They were all too occupied making empty condolences, drinking glasses of whatever champagne the Yezhovs thought was suitable for a funeral, and acting like this was another ordinary day or party.
They all acted like the woman who’d just been laid into the earth didn’t matter and was now a forgotten figure in history.
