Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

Later Maggie told me what happened with Nikolai, Caroline, and the boys.

They went to Nikolai’s house outside the city, which Maggie said was a very nice house with a big fence around it and floodlights that illuminated everything outside like daylight. Caroline knew the gate code to enter the property, and the soldiers outside all knew her, so there was no trouble to get in. It was the middle of the night, but the boys were sitting up with Nikolai playing video games and eating ice cream. The boys were delighted to see Caroline and Maggie and immediately began telling them all the fun they’d been having, sailing on a sugar high.

Nikolai also seemed delighted to see them, told Maggie she could have a job in one of his clubs any time, told Caroline he’d missed her and was glad she’d come back.

“I’m not back, Niki,” she said. “I’m taking Sully to his mother, and taking Van home. You’ve put everyone through hell with this little prank.”

“Carolinitzchca,” he said. “There’s nothing to go back to in the city for you and Van now. I’m putting an end to all that green coat madness tonight.”

Maggie said it sent a shiver down her spine — all that green coat madness?

“Niki, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Caroline said. “It’s not madness.”

“It’s madness if it makes you think you can take my boy and leave me,” he said. “It’s madness when my collections men quit and start giving instead of taking. It’s a cancer growing in Patriot’s Park, and it’s making my whole empire sick. I’ve had enough of it. I won’t let it destroy my business, or my son.”

Maggie said she could see Caroline was scared now, for the first time. Not for herself, and not for her son, but for Torstein. And that scared Maggie. Clearly Caroline knew Nikolai well enough to understand how serious his words were.

“Niki, it’s nothing to do with you,” she said. “Why do you care what’s happening in Patriot’s Park?”

“I care because that green-coated jack-ass has stolen you away from me, Carolinitzchca,” Nikolai said. “I care because what he’s asking people to do — this loving and forgiving and caring, it’s ruining my investment. I won’t have it.”

“Oh, Niki,” Caroline said, softly, almost a sigh. “Don’t do anything to Torstein. You don’t understand what he is. Don’t lay a hand on him. Do you have him here? Let us see him.”

“Have him here?” Nikolai laughed. “Of course I don’t have him here. Mateo has him in the city.”

“Niki, don’t do anything to him!” she said, quick and urgent not yelling for the sake of the boys, but obviously scared. “For your own sake, Nik, don’t do it. You don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t know what he is.”

“I do know what he is. He’s a bastard cousin of that bastard Dunker. Did you know that? Madness must run in their family.”

“If it’s madness it’s no threat to you,” Caroline said. “Torstein’s a good man. Let him be.”

The police arrived then. Maggie said they seemed embarrassed to be there in Nikolai’s plush home, and ask him to return the children he’d kidnapped, as if they were an imposition to him. But Nikolai turned the kids over to them without the slightest resistance. He told them he’d merely wanted to have the boys over to watch movies and play games, and he was sorry it had all gotten so fouled up.

“I haven’t seen my son in two or three months,” he told the relieved policemen. “I just wanted him and his friend to have some fun this afternoon. We lost track of the time. Isn’t that right boys?”

The boys affirmed that they’d been having fun and had no idea what time it was.

As for sending thugs to kidnap them from school, Nikolai assured the officers that this had been a terrible mistake. He’d only meant to sign Van out from school for the day, as any father might do. Of course if Caroline wanted to take him home with her, that was fine, that was what he’d intended all along. Maggie said it was obvious to everyone (except the boys) that Nikolai was telling one ingratiating lie after another, but by this time she and Caroline didn’t care. All they wanted to do was get away from him and get the officers hunting for Torstein.

Sully and Van both hugged Nikolai when they said goodbye, and everyone was walking down the beautifully paved curving driveway to their cars when Nikolai called out, “Caroline, if you want Torstein back, I imagine they’re dropping him off in the park about now!”

Maggie said it ought to have sounded like good news — but to her and Caroline, it had an instantly chilling effect.

“Oh, God,” Caroline shuddered.

She pushed Van toward Maggie, and turned back to Nikolai.

“Niki, my God,” she said. “I hope you haven’t, you haven’t...” For the first time, Maggie said, Nikolai’s jovial mask seemed to slip.

“What, Carolinitzcha?” he asked. “You know what I am. You know what I do.”

“But Niki, this man, this innocent man ...”

Maggie said she could hear in Caroline’s voice that she loved Nikolai, loved him as a wife and the mother of his child. And if her heart were breaking for Torstein, it was breaking for Nikolai, too. “Tell me you didn’t do this, Niki.”

Then Nikolai reached out for her, took her hand, said softly, “I wanted you and Van back, Carolinitzchca. How could I get you back?”

“You could have come and joined us ... You don’t know what you’re doing, Niki. Tell me you can stop it, save him ...”

“What’s done is done,” he said, suddenly granite-faced. “It’s my business, Caroline, and you know that. Just my business.”

And Maggie said she knew, at that moment, even if she didn’t have the strength to face it.

They trundled the boys into her car and she sped off toward the Park.

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