The Gambit (64 page)

I dried the tears on my face with the cuff of my sleeve.

“Okay.”

“Good,” Grey sighed with relief, scratching the scruff of his chin. “I was worried you might not have ever willed yourself to get out of this bed.”

“Part of me still doesn’t want to,” I admitted, “but that’s not what Owen would have wanted. He made me promise I would write the story.”

Grey took his hand off of my back. His eyes grew wider as if he had just remembered something important.

“Anyway, Viktor needs to talk to you before you call Ian. He said something about an idea he wanted to run by you, but he wouldn’t tell me what it is. I’ve tried to get it out of Natasha, but she swears she doesn’t know.”

“An idea?”

I grabbed the cold metal rung and placed one foot securely on the first step. Vapor trailed from my mouth—the morning was unusually cold for October. I pulled myself up and put my other foot on the second step. My muscles quivered slightly. They were still weak, but they were much better than when Grey and I had our talk. I had been eating at every meal and slowly regaining my energy. I still have cried…a lot. Then again, I would probably cry for the next year, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to change that. Much of what Grey said resonated with me. I knew it was true, but in that kind of despair, it helped to have someone remind me again.

This was what Owen wanted.

I climbed higher and higher until I was almost at the ledge. Viktor wanted to talk to me alone, and this was about the only place that was suitable. The basement was far from private—even the bathroom didn’t have a door. A breeze blew by, and it tousled the ends of my black hair past my face. I was still getting used to the color, and part of me wanted to keep it that way. It reminded me of mine and Owen’s final morning together.

I threw my leg over the ledge and stepped onto the rooftop. Viktor was standing on the far side, facing the Atlanta skyline. It was the exact place I was standing when Owen came to talk to me that last night. I couldn’t believe in two days it would be a week since he had been gone. I knew it was real, but it just didn’t
feel
that way. I approached the ledge and rested my arms against it as I stood next to Viktor silently. To my surprise, when he saw me, he didn’t say anything.

“So you wanted to talk?” I asked meekly.

He snorted and drew in a long inhalation.

“I did,” he replied. I was surprised he was being so short with me. I had waited two days to call Ian for this?

“About?”

He paused, and the muscle along his jaw twitched from clenching his teeth. He had very strong features, and his skin was pale white. It stood out against his hair the same shade as mine.

“You know, my parents came to this country a few months before I was born. My mother got pregnant unexpectedly, and she and my father found a way to get here. They wanted their children to have a better life, a better opportunity to thrive…and we did. We came to New York, and my father worked in a factory. My mother worked as a teller. They had a hard time learning English, and my dad still struggles with it. My sister and I both spoke well because we learned it in school.”

“My parents were immigrants, too,” I added. Hearing myself use
were
instead of
are
made the aching pit in my stomach return.

“From where?”

“Puerto Rico. They came to New York just like yours did. I think it’s something common among immigrants. They see the New York skyline on TV and in films and want to go there. The United States embodies opportunity to them.”

He chuckled. “You’re right. My parents did exactly that. I’m sure our parents had similar difficulties adjusting to life in the States.”

“I suppose,” I said. It hurt too much to talk about them, and I knew he had more to say.

“I always saw life in this country as limitless. As I got older, I started seeing it differently. What they portrayed in movies and on TV, was much more fantasy than it was reality. The media plants the idea in your mind that you can only be happy if you have it all. A big house, a nice car, and a happy family—the American Dream.”

I stayed quiet.

“I wanted to be a director growing up. My Dad would take me and my sister to the movies every Sunday after church. That is still my fondest childhood memory. I had a plan. I was going to move out west to Los Angeles and work in the production world. That was until my mother got sick. She was diagnosed in 2000 with Leukemia. My dad had insurance through his job at the factory, but it wasn’t enough. The cancer bills began to pile up. My mom lost her job at the bank, and the lack of income put a lot of stress on our household. My sister was sixteen, and she worked at a grocery store to help with the bills. I was nineteen at the time, and although I wanted to move out west, I had an obligation to my family. She received treatment off and on for three years, and once she was cured, luckily, it never returned. My dad never told me the exact amount, but I knew he had accumulated at least a hundred thousand dollars of debt from the hospital bills. They would be paying that off for the rest of their lives. Prisoners to their debt.”

“That is half of the reason I support the Convergence Party,” I said.

“Exactly,” he huffed. “I thought this is the land of the
free?
Sure, my life in Russia would have been dismal compared to here, but I never understood that many of these freedoms came with a price tag. Without me knowing it, the cycle began to repeat. I didn’t go to college, and in 2005 I took a job at the Port of New York operating a forklift. I stayed in Brooklyn to help my parents with the bills and so did my sister. That’s another thing I never understood about Americans.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Their lack of family bonds. My parents would come home from work, and we would all eat dinner together every night at the table. My parents told us stories of how some of their work friends talked about their own parents. Saying that they ‘found their mom or dad a nice home’. That is unheard of in Russia, and you would be looked down upon for doing such a thing. Family is everything where my parents come from. As I worked at the Port, I began to see why this was so common in the States. You must sacrifice something. Here, it is either your time or your money. You can’t have both. You must choose one.”

I snorted and nodded my head in agreement. What he was saying was so true. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

“Americans can’t sacrifice their time because it takes time to make money. So, they spend their money to have someone else take care of their parents because it saves them time. It’s all a chain-reaction.”

“The Latino people are the same.
Familia
is everything.”

He turned to me, smiling. “I’m glad you understand.”

“I do,” I nodded.

“Have you ever seen
The Green Mile?
”

My eyebrows furrowed from his question.

“Yes, I have. Why?”

“My dad and I saw it alone when it first came out in 1999. It was around six months before my mom was diagnosed when I still had hopes of moving to LA. It was the first movie I really, truly cried in. I thought about it for weeks after. It moved me emotionally, and I was inspired. I wanted to make films like that, films that touch people. Before I knew it though, I was a slave to my paycheck. I did what I felt was right as a man and that was to take care of my family.”

“It was an honorable decision,” I encouraged him.

“I’d like to think so…” He mumbled. “You know, the irony of my situation is that it’s similar to
The Green Mile
. In the blink of an eye, I was accused of something I didn’t do. My bosses turned on me, my coworkers turned on me, and I hadn’t a clue what to do next. I worked my ass off for ten years, working my way up to the head Radiograph X-Ray Operator, and that was how I was repaid for all my effort? I had just started dating Natasha in the months before I was framed. She had a degree in software design at NYU, and she helped me get out of New York without getting caught.”

I bit my lower lip, and my eyes welled up. The similarities between Viktor’s and Owen’s stories caused me to become emotional. Natasha helped Viktor get out of New York. I helped Owen get out of Raleigh. Viktor took notice and turned to me.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. I—I’m fine,” I assured him.

“I abandoned my family, Rachel. Sometimes, I feel guilty for leaving…but I didn’t have a choice. If I stayed, I would have been caught.”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty,” I said.

“I don’t,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Not anymore. Now, all I feel is
anger
.”

He turned to me, looking deep into my eyes as he emphasized the word.

“I know I told you the other night, but I still remember when she first came into my work, right before the New Year. She slithered around the Port like the snake she is with her clipboard, writing down notes. The clacking of her heels always signaled her entrance, and the sound of them gave me chills. When she shook my hand, it felt like ice. I had never met someone that gave me such a cold feeling inside my body, and her face still haunts me. The face of the woman who ruined my life, who took
Owen’s
life…”

My nostrils flared from him mentioning that. I felt the anger he spoke of. The agony I felt inside was, for a moment—gone. The anger was almost
soothing
. Viktor’s jaw muscles flexed again, and he stared back out at Downtown Atlanta, letting out a long sigh.

“Being on the run for two years wears you down,” he announced. “It makes you exhausted to the point where sleep no longer helps. I’m tired of running, Rachel.”

I turned to him, curious to what he was getting at. My eyebrows quirked.

“There’s nothing to run from anymore,” he began. “The feds left Atlanta days ago. Yes, we are still wanted, but because of what happened to Owen, we are out of the spotlight.”

I trembled just hearing the words
‘what happened to Owen
.
’

“Grey told me you had an idea,” I blurted.

He stared at me blank-faced, and his lips pressed into a hard line.

“I know I just met you, but I am no dummy. I can tell you loved Owen.”

Loved
…

I choked on a cry just from hearing the word. It wasn’t in the past tense in my mind. Not one bit.

“I still do,” I corrected him and wiped the tears from my eyes.

“Like I said, I am tired of running. I am sure you are too. My idea would take us back to where this all began, in Washington. Where the criminals who created this lie are still roaming free. There is one person behind all of this, and she ruined my life and took Owen’s and your mother’s.”

“Veronica…” I shivered from a passing breeze as I said her name.

He nodded.

“I have watched her destroy enough in the past two years, and I am finished with running. I want to bring the battle to her, where she has no way to run, and nowhere to hide.”

“Are you suggesting?”

A fire burned behind his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “We are going to kill her.”

My initial reaction was shocked, but it was only for a fraction of a second. Hearing his idea caused that anger to bubble up within me again, with pain and resentment fanning the flames inside of me.

“You and I both know the importance of family,” he began, “and she stole yours from you.”

My breathing grew heavy, and my pulse began to quicken.

“Rachel, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to see her taken down. I’ve fantasized about it since Black Monday, but in light of what happened, I thought I’d let you do the honors.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Trust me, I would love to do it myself.”

“I am going to kill Veronica Hall.”

Hearing myself say it out loud made it sound that much more appealing.

“Yes. We have nothing to lose. We have all the information we need to take her down, but you know what? I say we take matters into our own hands. If Owen didn’t get a trial, neither does she. They say an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. I’ve tried to live my life by that philosophy, but our situation is different.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Veronica has taken everyone’s eyes, and now they can’t see. If we take hers, perhaps we can restore the country’s vision. People’s memory of Owen will fade, and they will forget about him. We need to make people
remember
why all of this happened, and we will time it perfectly before you write your article.”

A smile slid over my face, and for the first time in days I didn’t feel hopeless.

“Let’s do it.”