Instead, she starts talking loudly. “I remember the first time I watched this with my mom, I thought Harrison Ford was so hot. I was younger than Pepper.”

  “He was hot.” I clear the thickness from my throat, needing to sniff.

  I’m still trying to hide my sadness. Carmen and Pepper have been working so hard to cheer me up. I feel ungrateful when all I want to do is hide in my bed and cry.

  “He’s a total skeez! He cheated on all of his wives, and I think he was a dick to Carrie Fisher.”

  I have no idea what Han Solo did with his personal life, but I know my friend is trying to distract me. “Didn’t he marry somebody really young?”

  “Yeah, I guess he’s mended his ways.” Carmen stuffs popcorn in her mouth. “She probably does butt stuff. Still, after a while it’s just the same old butt you’ve been fucking for ten years.”

  A tear falls onto my cheek as I start to laugh at her disappointed tone. “It’s true, but wasn’t he like seventy when he married her?”

  The movie continues with crazy Sigourney Weaver waving her crutches around. “What difference does that make?”

  “Maybe he’s less of a horndog now that he’s old?”

  “I don’t think it makes a difference. Charlie Chaplin was having babies at ninety.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It was in When Harry Met Sally… We should watch that one.” Carmen shouts at the screen. “Hit him with your crutch, Siggy! I hate how they pit women against each other in old movies.”

  “Thanks for this.” I lean my head on her shoulder. “You really are my bestie.”

  “I can’t wait to be in the city for your show. It’s going to be so great.”

  “Yeah.” My voice is quiet, and I try not to be sad thinking how it won’t be the same if Scar isn’t there. “Can’t wait.”

  Switching off the movie, she rests her head on my shoulder. “I know it’s not the same. I wish there was something I could do.”

  “Maybe if I weren’t such a fuck up, he’d be here now.” It’s a question I wrestle with nightly, as silent tears exhaust me to sleep.

  “I think everything in our lives has to happen for us to get where we are.” Carmen sees my confused expression and continues. “If you hadn’t been mixed up in the stuff that was happening in New York, your uncle never would have sent the letter to Blake to get you here in which case you never would have–”

  “Stumbled into Scar’s arms?” She momentarily silences my inner guilt and presses her lips into a smug smile.

  I concede. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I’m right.” She scoots closer. “And I overheard Dirk talking about some guy they were bringing in to help. They have a plan.”

  Hope twists so hard in my chest, I almost can’t breathe. “What is it?”

  “Dirk found some guy in Chicago–I think he said he’s a lawyer. That’s as much as I know.”

  Chewing my thumb, I think about what she’s saying. If Hutch has a lawyer could this mean he’s found a way to bring Scar home? “But they’re in Russia.”

  “That’s something you haven’t done in a while.”

  I look at my thumb and put my hands in my lap embarrassed. “One step forward, two steps back?”

  She puts an arm around my shoulders. “One step forward, two steps forward. You should stop by the office tomorrow and see what’s new.”

  Nodding, I tuck my thumb in my fist. I plan to do just that.

  “It’s not the worst prison in Russia.” Dirk has his back to the door when I arrive at Hutch’s office the next day. “The most brutal prisoners are at Black Dolphin. Lefortovo is bad, but it’s not that bad.”

  Cold filters through my bloodstream as I stand inside the entrance listening to his words. Hutch looks up from his desk to see me and immediately cuts off his brother.

  “Interesting. Good research. Hey, Hana.”

  Dirk spins around to face me, and his expression is unmistakable. They’ve been keeping this from me.

  “Scar’s in prison?” It’s a cracked whisper. “How long have you known this?”

  Hutch crosses the room to where I stand at the door. “I asked our contact in Minsk to monitor his arrival, to help us know where they were going.”

  “So you’ve known from the beginning?” My heart drums pain through my chest into my back.

  Dirk tries to recover. “I know it sounds bad, but from what we’ve learned, it’s actually a good thing.”

  “How can Scar in a Russian prison possibly be good?” I’m actually shouting at him, something I never do.

  “Hey,” Hutch touches my arm. “It means we have a better chance of actually getting him back. If Simon dumped him in a prison, he’s not using him to do anything illegal.”

  My eyes squeeze shut, and I want to scream. I’m so fucking helpless, and my Scar is in a fucking prison for me. Rage and misery and heartbreak and longing writhe in my chest.

  I feel my insides spiraling, but Dirk throws me a lifeline. “It means we can get him home.”

  A sharp inhale hiccups in my chest, and I meet his eyes. “How?”

  “Another PI I know, a Marine, was briefly imprisoned for killing a rapist.” Hutch turns his phone to me, and it’s a photo of a handsome man with light brown hair and hazel eyes in a designer suit. “This is the lawyer that got him out, Marcus Merritt. He had a unique argument that pitted the defendant’s record against the victim’s. I don’t have all the details, but he got him off with time served and a small fine.”

  “You think he can do that in Russia?”

  Hutch exhales heavily, and his face drops. “I doubt it. I don’t even know who we could contact to try and make it happen, but I’ve been working on it nonstop.” His green eyes meet mine, and the only thing as powerful as the pain in my body is the ferocity in them. “I won’t let my friend die in a Russian prison for killing a child-molesting worm.”

  Blinking quickly, I hold back the tears. I don’t want to appear weak in front of these strong men, especially after all Hutch has said about me in the past–all of which is true, sadly.

  “How can I help?”

  Dirk puts an arm around me, giving me a squeeze. “You can be strong a little while longer.”

  It doesn’t feel like enough. “He killed Victor for me. I love him.”

  “I know.”

  Hutch’s fierce expression softens. “He loves you. I’m going to get him out of there, and back home to you. I promise.”

  30

  Scar

  I’m behind a layer of bars blocking a solid, metal door inside a four-foot-square cell.

  A concrete slab serves as a bed, and beside it is a toilet containing rust-colored water. A small window high above my head lets me know if it’s day or night. Otherwise, I’m completely alone.

  As a child, I heard stories of men sent to this prison. They were accused of being political dissidents or spies. Often, they were shop owners who’d pissed off a customer who in turn reported them to the FSB, the new and improved KGB, for speaking out against the government or trying to stir up political protests–something no one was stupid enough to do unless they had a death wish or some foolhardy belief they could make a difference. No one makes a difference without violence, and no one has the stomach for violence.

  Such is life in an autocracy, where neighbor spies on neighbor, and a petty grudge can turn into a life sentence.

  When I got here, I was stripped and hosed down like I’d been exposed to radiation. The force of the water left visible bruises where my body is not covered in ink. I’m pretty sure I’m bruised all over, plus a few cracked ribs.

  A painful body-cavity search, and I was given scrubs so stiff, they could stand on their own. The guards made me bend at the waist and walk to my cell with my handcuffed arms extended up behind my back–supposedly so I wouldn’t see who I was passing or how I arrived at my cell.

  I’m pretty sure it was for degradation as well.

  One guard pressed my forehead to the wall and his gun to my temple as the other uncuffed my wrists to prevent me from attacking them. I had no intention of attacking them. I made this deal, and I'm here until I’m set free, which according to Simon will never happen.

  Finally, I was alone in the silent darkness, in a room with no blankets or food. Only cold, brown water and a patch of fading daylight from a small rectangle near the ceiling.

  My body aches, and I find no comfort anywhere. Still, nothing hurts as much as losing her picture. They took everything from me, and I can only hope one day, when I’m an old man, I might get it back. For now I’m alone in this cell with nothing but my memories–so many memories.

  Closing my eyes, I see her soft blonde curls falling around her shoulders. I see the light in her eyes, shining when she would look up at me, and I even smile when I remember her sassy little self choking on a sunflower seed.

  Rolling onto my side on the concrete slab, I brace my injured ribs as the pain of loss squeezes my heart. I’ll never see her again. I’ll never touch her soft cheek, hear her sweet laugh, place my lips at the base of her neck as I inhale the scent of her skin. It’s a worse torture than anything they could do to me here.

  When I made my deal with Simon, it was on impulse. I didn’t imagine how I would manage being without her, but as the reality settled over me, I expected to distract my mind by working. Here, in this empty place, I have nothing. Here I’ve found an even worse torture than death.

  Silence, space, time.

  I’ve been thrown into an ocean alone. I’ve gone from constant contact to isolation and nothingness. How long will I live in this void?

  Echoing in my ears is the pressing question that has always haunted me… Why?

  With her, I found the answer. Now I have none.

  A week has passed in this cell alone. The first night, I found a rock in the corner where the wall meets the floor, and I used it to scratch a line in the wall. I made one for every time the tiny window turned from dark to light. It gave me something to track.

  I’ve never practiced meditation or any form of mental exercise, and I’m sorry for that. In its place, I’ve worked out a routine of exercise each day, counting the number of repetitions I would do, seeing if I can go one more round.

  The pain of my injuries remind me I’m alive. Four times a day, a small pot of soup and a rock-hard piece of bread slides through my door.

  When I dream, I hear her soft moans, a treasure lost to me now. When I wake with a hard-on, I handle it with my back to the door, standing close to the small, metal toilet. I’m sure they’re watching me, a cold eye, tracking all my moves.

  In the place of meditation, I have my own practice of spirituality. I don’t believe I’m worthy of salvation, so it’s nothing like that. I don’t believe God would waste time on someone like me, so I take myself inward. I focus on breathing and observing the thoughts that pass through my mind. Some of them are tragic. Some are beautiful. I watch them like slides on a movie screen.

  I remember being a small boy alone in the cold barn behind my foster parents’ home. My bed was a cot, but I had a blanket. I loved the animals, especially the draft horse they used for farming. Kabarda was my first friend.

  I remember leaving that house, saying goodbye to my friend, and moving to a large, childcare facility, where I slept in a bunk bed in a room with many other boys. I remember fighting because I was so skinny. Then after eating well and regularly, I grew tall. I started working out, and no one tried to fight me anymore. From there I moved to a hostel, then finally I joined the military.

  I remember the first day I met Hutch, and how we became friends. He had an optimism I’d never seen before, a fierce belief in his view of the world. We were the same age, but he seemed younger in his aggressive optimism. Still, after the life I’d lived, I wanted to be a part of what he had.

  Many times, I return to the day of the fire and how it changed my life forever. My military career was ending, Hutch was leaving, and I was afraid of going back to what I’d been before I met him, hopeless, pessimistic. Then the fire brought something out of me I didn't know I possessed–was it heroism as Hutch said or a pointless act as Simon characterized it?

  It was an impulse I didn’t find again until I saw the horrible things Victor did. I wasn’t like him, and I wanted out of that world. I was a prisoner, and I escaped. I ran to the one person who I wanted to be, and in joining Hutch’s world, I found my destiny.

  I found Hana.

  “Let’s go.” I startle at the sound of a voice.

  After seven tick marks and nothing but the hum of machinery, silence, or the sound of myself, it’s like an alien invasion. It's a welcome noise, even if it’s an uncaring prison guard.

  The double doors open, and I step into the empty hall, looking side to side, startled to see other men are standing outside similar confines. All this time, we’ve been so close to each other, human rats in cages.

  A voice shouts, and we start to move, walking in a line down the corridor and out into an open yard with tall fencing topped by swirls of barbed wire. I squint against the bright sunlight, looking around at the hundred or so men doing the same.

  I’m not the biggest thug in this gulag. I’m not even the most damaged.

  Across the concrete courtyard from me is a man at least one inch taller who is missing an eye. Beside him is a bald man, same height as me, with the side of his face marred by some accident involving fire or acid.

  I’m gazing at him in wonder when a voice barks at me from the left in Russian. “You’re new here.”

  Glancing at the speaker, he’s two inches wider than I am, but not as tall. I don’t know how to answer his statement, so I don’t. Returning my gaze to the yard, I continue inspecting my fellow inmates.

  “Why are you here?” The man continues speaking in Russian.

  Deciding I have no choice, I answer him. “Murder.”

  It’s not the full story, but it’ll do. I’m here because of Hana, but I’m in prison for killing Victor–if you believe Simon.

  The man juts out his chin as if he’s satisfied with that response. “Who did you kill?”

  “A pedophile.”

  He sniffs. “Did he rape you?”

  “No. He hurt the woman I love when she was a child, so I killed him.”

  He nods, and apparently this is acceptable. He holds out a hand to me. “I’m Ghost. Say you’re with me, and they’ll leave you alone.”

  I don’t know who they are–the guards or other inmates–but I nod clasping his hand and thanking him. Then I go to the bleachers lining the yard and sit by myself. I don’t need to communicate with these men. I only need to be around other humans.

  Knowing they’re here, we’re all in this together is enough for me. I’m not alone.

  “Lourde!” My name is shouted across the yard, and I look up to see a scowling guard standing at the fence.

  I go to where he’s waiting, and he pushes my shoulder with a black baton, speaking in Russian. “Shower.”

  Looking around, I see another guard standing at a door that leads into a room similar to a gym locker. Stepping inside, I see a wall of showers, and men standing under them quickly washing themselves with beige soap.

  “Two minutes.”

  I glance at the man, and he turns his back to me. I guess the clock has started, so I quickly remove my scrubs and go to a vacant spot under a shower head. Beside me is a startlingly big guy with a bald head and prison tattoos on his face.

  He slowly inspects my body, but I don’t look at him. I quickly shower, thinking I can get this done in two minutes, even if this bar of soap doesn’t lather. Rubbing it against my head, I quickly shove it under the spray, doing my best to get the week’s worth of sweat and grime off me.

  I’m startled when a hand touches my stomach, and I immediately slap it away. “I’m with Ghost.”

  The words come out fast, and the big guy turns, leaving me alone to finish. Every muscle in my body is tense, and I don't know what I’ve just said or what it means. I am certain if an assault were to happen here, the guards wouldn't care.

  When I get back to my cell, I’m revived from the contact with other humans and the shower, but I’m shaken by my experience there.

  A blank notebook and a pen are on my concrete slab-bed. I look at them for a long time, wondering what I might do with them. As the lights go down on my seventh day inside, I begin to write.

  Our second trip to the yard comes exactly seven days later, and I strain my eyes for Ghost. He’s there, same size, same abrupt line of questioning.

  “What was her name?” He looks up at me.

  “Hana.” Saying it relaxes the pain in my chest, like soothing music.

  In my notebook, I’ve written every thought I had from the first day I saw her in her uncle’s pea-gravel driveway to the night I held her in my arms for the last time. I’ve documented the way she fills the cracks in my soul. I’ve drawn primitive doodles of her face, her long curly hair, her eyes. I would close my eyes and hear her cracked moans of ecstasy when I was deep inside her.

  “Do you wish you could forget?” He’s staring at the yard, like he’s miles from here.

  The lack of specificity in the question sends my mind down a rabbit hole that makes me worry I’m losing my grip. Forget what?

  If I forget Hana, I would forget my pain. I’d never have to experience the agony of losing her, but I’d exist in this space of nothingness. Would I want to forget her? Would I do it if it meant I would lose the tiny daggers that never stop stabbing my insides.

  “No.” I answer flatly. “I want to remember everything.”

  I would suffer again and again, all the fiery levels of hell to remember the time I had with Hana. My memories of her are the jewels I have now replacing everything I’ve lost.

  He lifts his chin and nods. “You’re still sane.”

  This day in the shower, a different group of men are there. None of us look at each other. None of us speak. We’re herded out of the facility, and again, our time is over.