Dmitry flew past his mother and the bodyguards to escape the suffocation. He couldn’t get out of the hospital fast enough and plowed through the first exit he saw. He found himself outside in a bright courtyard and the penetrating sunrays stung his eyes.
He braced himself against the void, holding his arms out in front of his torso, and stumbled onward, tears streaming down his face.
His father’s death had broken the flukes of hatred and fear that had anchored his existence for so long, and far below the surface of the everyday, the pain he’d suppressed was cut loose.
For most of his life, he’d been riding the hook along the surface of a wide sea of emotions, not dredging the depths of his being. Now, the tension holding his life together had gone slack, and without his father, he was u
