“So you have become the worker for their dirty deeds. But why? If we are indeed such friends, how could you turn on us?”
The carriage picked up speed as the scent of brine and seaweed dampened the air. They must be near the River Clyde that flowed through the city center. A good ten blocks from Glasgow’s Medical Hall. And Wynn.
“Because if I do not bring you back to Russia they will kill my sister and mother.” A knot bobbed in his throat. “They have already killed my father. I cannot allow the rest of my family to die. I am sorry, Svetka.”
“Do not call me that. You do not have the right anymore. A true friend would never make a deal with the devil at the expense of those he claims to care for.”
The panic of desperation cried in his eyes. “I tried to find other ways to save you! To run away together. To bribe Sheremetev to save my family and get them to Paris. Handing you over was never what I wanted.”
Rage hissed in Svetlana’s blood. Violent and hot, it screamed for release. The gun beckoned from Sergey’s hand, taunting her to give in to the viciousness, but she remained still. Not from fear for herself but for her mother. She would wait until the opportune moment.
“You’re nothing more than a pathetic rat. The honorable Sergey Kravchenko I know would never betray us.”
“One does what one must for their family. Doing things they never dreamed possible for the sake of survival. You should know that yourself. Such as marrying a stranger.” The desolation in his eyes receded to ice, a blackness set to swallow her whole. “But then I saw you with him. You had given your heart to him, and I knew it could never be mine again, that you would never run away with me to save yourself. I knew then that you were not the price for my family’s lives.”
In all his dealings, had Sergey not considered the most likely outcome? “How can you be certain the Bolsheviks will not kill you and your family anyway?”
The blackness in his eyes courted death. “Because if I do not turn you over, we are as good as dead. I have no option but to trust the devil.”
“You low-lying snake! Fork-tongued, weasel, pathetic excuse for a man!” Claws out, Mama lunged across the carriage and raked her nails down Sergey’s face. Ribbons of scarlet tore his cheeks.
Cursing, Sergey smacked her hard, knocking her back against the seat. Blood welled from her split lip. “Sit there and don’t move or you’ll get much worse.” He pointed the gun at her leg. “The firing squad won’t care if you stand or not.”
Mama spit at him. Bloody spittle sprayed his white necktie.
Sergey flashed the gun to Svetlana’s knee. “Last warning.”
Grabbing her mother’s hand, Svetlana fought against the rising tide of panic. Calm resourcefulness was their best chance for survival. As they’d had when escaping the threat of Russia once before.
The carriage wheels clattered over cobblestones, jostling the occupants like marbles in a box until they rumbled to a stop. Train horns whistled in the distance.
The door jerked open and there stood the rat man, his nose and mouth jutted out to a near direct point. His round eyes settled over Svetlana and Ana, but he said nothing as he blocked their escape to the busy sidewalk.
“Do not think to try anything. You will immediately regret it.” Flashing his gun as a cautionary reminder, Sergey handed Ana out first to his accomplice, then Svetlana, keeping a tight hold on her arm. Blotting the blood from his face with a handkerchief, he placed a homburg hat atop his head. Made for a slightly larger crown, the hat slipped over his ears, shadowing the scratches on his cheeks. “Now, come along, ladies. We’ve a train to catch.”
Glasgow Central Train Station. With its skeletal ironworks arching over the platforms, dark wood information desks, flashing indicator boards, and large hanging clocks overseeing the bustling schedule, the station chugged a chaotically precise rhythm familiar to anyone whirling from one place to another. A mere two hours before Svetlana had stepped off platform six with nothing more than Mrs. Roscoe’s letter in her pocket and a winged prayer. By the end of the day she and Wynn should have started a new chapter in their life. A chapter full of promise that would begin with her confession of love.
With a cruel twist of fate, that chapter was ripped from her hands, its pages stained with the forthcoming blood spilled on Russian soil. Her blood.
She had to do something before that awful fate became her own.
People dressed in somber tones of black and gray that matched the outside dreariness bustled by with their eyes fixed on a destination far beyond the walls and steel tracks that had brought them here. Svetlana tried to catch the eye of more than one of the station’s uniformed workers in hopes they would recognize her, but none seemed to take much interest in a lady on the arm of a well-dressed gentleman. They might have cared more if they’d seen the gun hidden inside his coat.
“Don’t think of signaling to one of them,” Sergey whispered in her ear. The tip of his gun pressed into her side.
“Or you’ll shoot me? That would cause a scene I’m certain you’re wishing to avoid.”
They descended to a lower level where the crowds thinned and the air thickened with grease and coal smoke. Belching steel trains screeched along tracks and ground to a stop at the platforms where passengers crawled out like ants to scurry up the stairs or onto another platform. Shoulders and briefcases knocked against her, propelling her farther and farther into the belly of no escape. There, among the sea of unflinching black, a flash of red. Svetlana swallowed a cry of panic as she waited for the hands to grab her and yank her into the thrashing chaos of revolution. Mama cried behind her, Sergey’s hand tight on her arm as they raced for the last train.
The red floated by. A man’s scarf. Time snapped forward and out of the past.
“Brings back that last night in Petrograd.” Sergey remembered too.
“It was the last night I thought you had a heart.”
“Only to have wasted it on you, but unlike that night, I’ll be going with you this time. A touch of sentiment in that, I think.” He stopped to face her, and nothing existed in his expression to remind her of that awful night. Gone was the man who had kissed her cheek and thrown her onto the train to save her. In his place stood an unrecognizable man who chilled her to the core. “When I handed you onto that train in Petrograd, I knew it was the end of our beginning. A romance withered before it could bloom. This, however, truly will be the beginning of our end.”
Her life had come to revolve around train stations as significant markers in time. Traveling on holiday to the Black Sea beaches with her family. Saying goodbye to Father as the army went to battle once more. That night of revolution. Sitting next to Wynn as they discussed his soon-to-be position at the hospital. Sitting next to Wynn in silence after the position had been snatched from his hands. That very morning’s ride when the wheels could not roll fast enough to bring her to him. Now her last ride was to take her away from him. Perhaps there was poignancy to these bookending markers. A tragedy fit for Tolstoy.
At the far end near the very last platform was a bank of waiting rooms built for ladies to escape the ghastly smoke-soaked air. With the more fashionable platforms located upstairs to attract lady passengers, these waiting rooms appeared to be used more for storage. Finding an empty one, Sergey stuffed Svetlana and her mother inside. A single lamp hung from the low ceiling and rattled with each passing train.