The Killer’s Vow by Aria R. Blue
Vera
“So, let me get this straight,” Luna says. “You thought your grandmother was dead for all these years, and you found out just yesterday that she’s alive?”
“Not yesterday,” I say. “I found out two days ago. It was written in the Black Book.”
“And you knew this the whole time?” Luna asks, looking at Ivy.
“Certain things are better left to fate,” Ivy says carefully. “If I started telling every crime family what to do with their lives, I’d have no allies left.”
“And you believe that your uncle is the killer?” Luna asks, turning back to me.
They’d have to know some family dynamics to understand this.
“As the eldest son, the Reznikov throne was rightfully his. But my babushka didn’t want to give him all the power, so she split it between her two sons. He seemed okay with it at first, but bitterness had apparently been brewing inside him the whole time.”
Sometimes, my brain erases memories of certain events and time periods.
That fateful day at the dacha was one of those times.
All these years, I had a gnawing feeling about it, but I never explored it any further. It was too painful.
But yesterday, I forced myself to remember everything. The man and the memory came into focus.
It solidified when I saw the family portrait.
The only question now is how much my father knows.
“And where is your grandmother now?” Luna asks.
I glance at Ivy and give her a nod.
She hands Luna her phone. In it, there’s a photo open to the Reznikov section of the Black Book.
Joy and sadness constantly keep tugging at my heart.
My babushka was alive this whole time, and I’ll be meeting her today.
I’m thrilled about what the day will bring.
But I also mourn all the time that had passed by.
“Vera, can you pass the butter?” Ivy asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
I hand her the butter.
We checked into a small family-owned inn last evening. Jet lag and exhaustion claimed us, making us crash for fourteen hours straight.
We even skipped dinner.
And now, the three of us are huddled around a sticky breakfast table heartily eating buckwheat porridge and tea with cookies for breakfast.
The accommodation is clean and decently maintained. Most importantly, it’s obscure from the public eye.
We’re safe here.
Luna hands the phone back to Ivy. “Why are all of our families such a pain in the ass?”
“I got used to it.” I shrug.
“I’m still getting used to it.” Ivy sighs.
After we finish eating, we head back to our room.
I show them the map of the psychiatric facility. And I tell them exactly what I need them to do.
Two hours later, our plan is in motion.
We take two different cars to the highly guarded psychiatric facility that’s been Babushka’s home for the past fifteen years.
I would let myself be heartbroken about this, but I don’t have the time to mourn and feel.
Everything that doesn’t serve my family or me right now is shoved into the back of my mind.
Electric barbed-wire fence rises twenty feet tall.
Everything is a shade of gray—the compound, the sky, the uniforms. Women link their fingers through the fence to stare at me as I pass by in the car.
This isn’t just any psychiatric facility.
This is for the people who have murdered and done despicable things. Hence, the prison-like environment.
And if Ivy’s guess is correct…my babushka has been faking her insanity.
We don’t know anything for sure.
All we have are the facts from the Black Book and the pieces of my memory.
When I opened the pages of the Black Book, I expected to find Babushka’s birth date and her day of death too. But there was only the day of her birth.
And underneath her list of crimes and ex-lovers was the information on her whereabouts.
I knew right then that I had to risk everything.
Despite my family’s warnings, I had to go to Russia.
But before I visited my grandmother, I had to remember the details of the crime. That’s why we stopped at the dacha in Rublevka.
Now that we’ve done that, I’m ready to have a family reunion.
The cold air is a whip to my face as soon as I step out of the car.
I’m going solo now.
In my fitted cream blouse, tailored black skirt, and Louboutin heels, I look every inch the lawyer I’m pretending to be.
I’m flanked by security before I can take another step. They lead me toward the building.
I try not to stare at the inpatients gathering to look at me. A barbed-wire fence separates us, but their hisses and remarks reach me.
They want my attention.
“We don’t get many visitors,” one of the security guys explains in Russian.
I know.
Maybe it has to do something with the fact that all visitors need to file paperwork six weeks in advance.
That’s one of the reasons I’m pretending to be her lawyer instead of her granddaughter.
The chaotic beat of my heart is relentless as I’m led to a private waiting room.
This is where I’ll be reunited with my grandmother.
“She will be brought in shortly,” they say.
I nod and pull some bogus files out of my briefcase. I shuffle legal papers printed from the internet as I wait.
There are footsteps down the hallway.
I sit up straighter in my seat.
As the footsteps grow louder, my lungs refuse to accept oxygen. I try my best not to fidget.
Despite my best efforts, my eyes still well up when I see her.
I stand with wobbly knees.
My babushka is a statuesque woman. But the second her eyes find mine, she crumples. It’s only for a fraction of a second, but I see it.
But her shoulders are square again, and her head is high as she sits down in front of me.
My nostrils flood with her scent—like soil after the first summer rain.
“Mrs. Reznikova,” I say in English, adding a slight Russian accent to it.
“And who the hell are you?” Babushka replies, her tone indifferent. But her eyes, facing me and only me, tell a different story.
I glance at the guard stationed behind her.
“I need to speak with my client alone,” I order brusquely.
The guard, a muscular blonde, doesn’t look like she’s the type to take orders.
“Nevozmozhno,” she replies casually. Not possible.
Shit, shit, shit.
This is not good.
Of course, I hadn’t forgotten that this facility is for those who would otherwise have lifelong prison sentences.
I had already planned for this possibility, but I’ll have to kill the guard in this room for that version of the plan to work.
Along with the papers in my briefcase, I have plant extracts that can kill a human from the inside out. Oleander bud, monkshood flower, manchineel tree sap. And they’re all sitting pretty next to a sandwich, in case anybody wanted to check my briefcase before letting me inside.
But I don’t want to kill unless I absolutely have to.
So I try again.
“Attorney-client privilege gives my client the right to a safe space to divulge information.” I’m just pulling stuff out of my ass now.
I curl my toes as I wait for her to respond.
My babushka is looking straight ahead.
“Some of our patients are volatile, ma’am,” the guard says, looking at me like she can see right through my disguise.
“I had a word with Mrs. Reznikova’s doctor,” I say. “I know that it’s safe for me to talk to her alone.”
The guard looks unconvinced.
So I pull out the big guns. “My client’s family specifically requested that I be the one to oversee this.”
At the mention of "family," the guard’s entire demeanor shifts.
There’s a flicker of fear in her eyes.
So Russia still remembers what a Reznikov is capable of.
“Twenty minutes,” the guard says, turning on her heel and leaving us alone.
I reach for my babushka’s hands as soon as the door closes. I bring her soft hands to my lips and kiss them.
“I knew you’d come for me, Verochka,” she says quietly.
Not a thing about her has changed.
She’s still as graceful as ever.
“I didn’t know, Babushka,” I say. “I would have come sooner if I had known. What…what are you doing here?”
“I told them a voice from the sky made me kill my oldest son,” she says, smiling at me sadly.
“So it’s true,” I gasp. “It was dyadya?”
She nods. “Your uncle forgot the most important rule of all—never turn your back on family. He got too hungry for power and decided to seize it when it wasn’t handed to him on a silver platter. He joined the dark side—the Originals. And then he orchestrated a mutiny against his flesh and blood, killing your grandfather and his men.”
“And Papa just left you behind?”
“Your father doesn’t know that I’m alive, Verochka,” she says, affectionately grazing my cheek with her thumb. “Not until now.”
I swallow. “Actually…”
“What?”
“I came alone.”
She’s quiet for a moment. And then her Reznikov colors bleed through.
“Are you out of your mind?” she hisses.
“I had to,” I say. “Inessa ran away from home.”
“You’re really going to drive me insane now, malyshka.”
“Papa kept me in a cage for fifteen years, Babushka,” I say, frustrated that even my grandmother doesn’t think that I’m capable of keeping myself alive. “I wasn’t allowed to step foot outside the compound, except to go to parties where he would hunt for a husband to marry me off to.”
“What did I just tell you, Vera?” Babushka says, closing her eyes.
“What?”
“What’s the most important rule of all?”
I feel like a little kid refusing to drink mushroom tea again.
“Never turn your back on family,” I reiterate.
“Yes. And did you stop for a second to think about why your father is so protective of you?”
It went beyond protectiveness.
What’s the point of being alive if you have to struggle for fresh air?
But I remain quiet as my babushka speaks. “Your evil uncle was trying to kill the entire bloodline. He wanted it all. Your father fled to America, but the Originals are a mighty group. They were going to follow you there and hunt you down. I had to do the only thing I could to keep you safe.”
She had to kill her firstborn.
I figured as much.
“Without the protection of family, this is what became of my life,” she says. “I kept in the shadows to keep you safe. Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. Your father knows that better than anybody else.”
“He changed, Babushka,” I say. “They all have. It wasn’t the way it was back in Russia. Everything changed, and I didn’t like it one bit.”
“But my dear,” she says, squeezing my hands. “You’ve changed too.”
I swallow every emotion that threatens to leak out of me.
I’m confused and hurt and happy.
“I didn’t come here to visit you, Babushka,” I say.
“I know,” she replies. “What’s the plan?”
I take a deep breath as déjà vu seizes me.
Simon once held out his hand for me. Before we both jumped, he asked me if I trusted him to catch my fall.
I ask my babushka the same thing now. “Do you trust me?”
She smiles. “You already know the answer to that.”
I nod and speak into my earpiece. “We’re ready.”
On my spoken command, an armored truck barrels through the weak spot of the twenty-foot fence.
There’s time for tact.
And there’s time to run.
Right now, it’s go, go, go.
Ivy revealed to me yesterday that the normally careful and practical Luna is a bit of a speed demon.
She gets a kick out of fast things.
Luna’s behind the truck’s steering wheel now, destroying all metal and brick in her path.
Ivy sits next to her, grinning like a kid who just heard the ice cream truck jingle.
“Are those your friends?” Babushka asks.
“Yeah,” I say fondly.
“They look like they’re crazy.”
“Yeah.” I sigh.
They barrel straight into our room, sending brick and dust flying everywhere. I take Babushka’s hand to help her, but she’s the one who ends up leading me.
Babushkaand I climb in.
Luna’s reversing out before I can even close the door, doing a one-eighty turn that leaves tire marks and the smell of burning rubber.
The tires are still smoking as Luna starts shifting gears like a savage. “Now. Let’s see how fast this thing can go.”
I breathe in the scent of anarchy.
It’s deliciously addictive.
“Nice ride,” Babushka says to the girls.
“Hi, Babushka,” Ivy says, turning around to grin at her. “I’m Ivy, and this crazy girl here is Luna.”
“I promise it’s usually the other way around,” Luna says, keeping her eyes on the road.
“This is one of her family’s creations,” Ivy says. “A prototype designed for World War II. It was never used, so her family bought the design and made their own modifications.”
The guards don’t try to get in front of the vehicle.
Doing so would be a suicide mission. But some still try to peer into the truck to see what the hell is going on.
“Ooh, do that thing you said you would do,” Ivy says, switching the controls to make the back windows less opaque.
“Sorry, Babushka,” I apologize in advance before holding a gun to her head and grabbing her neck in a chokehold.
It’s for show.
When the dust settles, I want people to know one story and one story only.
An inpatient from an important family was kidnapped by her lawyer and held for ransom.
That’s the only conclusion I want them to come to.
Babushkaputs on quite the show too, pretending to struggle against my hold. She even kicks her feet in the air for effect.
“Seat belts, everybody,” Luna orders. “Now.”
My grandmother puts her feet back down. Ivy uses technology that makes the windows opaque again.
Luna floors the gas pedal.
We’re on the main roads now, but Luna shows no intention of slowing down.
Her mouth is set in a grim line as she weaves between cars like our truck is the size of a bicycle.
There aren’t any police sirens.
Yet.
The truck came in like a hurricane without a warning. It turned everything to dust before leaving just as quickly.
The first part of my plan was a success.
All that’s left to do now is to rewrite history.