70

Story
I end up hanging out for another hour with Oleg and his friends in the living area, meeting Ravil’s wife, Lucy, when she comes in from a swim. Apparently this millionaire pad has a heated pool and hot tub on the roof. I’m tempted to ask Oleg if we can go skinny-dipping, but I’m starting to get antsy.
But the longer the day goes on, the more I feel like I need to get back to my place. I have classes to teach tomorrow. Or maybe that’s just my excuse. I also have this underlying, nagging anxiety to leave. It’s the nudge I get when relationships get to a certain stage. This one got here faster than most, but it’s been more intense than most. We packed a couple months into the past week.
“Well, I should be going.” I swivel to slide off the barstool I’ve been perched on since lunch.
Oleg blocks my way, concern written on his face.
I change direction and slide off on the opposite side, nimbly taking a quick-step in the direction of Oleg’s room. “It was so great hanging out with you guys.” I turn and wave at the group. Oleg is right behind me.
I head back down the hallway to his room and slide my feet into my boots again. I pick up my coat and guitar.
Oleg shakes his head.
“Oleg, I can’t stay here forever.”
He doesn’t move, but he’s blocking the door.
“Can you drive me to my place?”
He hesitates then shakes his head.
“That’s cool,” I say, pulling out my phone. “I’ll schedule a Lyft.”
Oleg takes my phone away from me.
“Hey.” I get that he can’t talk, but he’s pushing it.
He cups my face with so much tenderness, I can hardly stay mad.
“I really need to go.”
A half-baked idea forms. Knowing he doesn’t seem to want his friends to know what happened last night, I whirl and dart through the door back to the living room then throw open the door to the elevator hallway from there.
Oleg’s right behind me, but as I’d guessed, he doesn’t catch or stop me.
The elevator door is open, and I step into it. I press the button as Oleg hefts his body between the doors to block them from closing.
He shakes his head at me.
“I can’t stay here forever, Oleg. I’m feeling cooped up, and you haven’t told me what’s going on.” I give him a pointed look.
To his credit, he draws back slightly. Like communicating hadn’t even occurred to him.
“I don’t want to have this fight with you,” I tell him, even though we’re really not having a fight. We’re so much sweeter to each other than most people I know, even when we’re at odds.
He shakes his head again, eyes rounding at the word fight.
But he refuses to move. He holds the door open and tips his head in the direction of his room.
“Uh uh. I really have to leave now. I have lessons to give tomorrow.”
He raps his knuckles against the door and tips his head again. I get the feeling he’s trying to appear non-threatening, which is hard for a guy of his size and stature to do. I saw how imposing he was to my errant student at my apartment, and all he had to do there was fold his arms across his massive chest.
My throat works. “You don’t want me to leave.”
The elevator dings its annoyance.
He beckons to me again. This stand-off is getting really old.
He steps in and takes my guitar, then very gently tips me up over his shoulder. He stops the elevator doors from shutting with my foot. His hand molds over my ass. Not a spank this time, this just feels possessive. I kick my legs. “Dammit, Oleg. This isn’t cool.”
He carries me down the hall toward the door that enters directly to his bedroom.
“You need to talk to me,” I warn, my voice clogged. “I don’t know how, but you have to tell me what the fuck is going on. I’m not up for the guessing game anymore.”
Oleg stops. He stands there in the hallway, unmoving. Holding me captive over his shoulder.
Oleg
Blyad’.
My life is ugly. I’ve never been proud of any of it, but I’ve done what I had to do to stay alive. Still, exposing it to my little swallow is something else. She will run so fast the pavement will light on fire beneath her feet.
And if I’m going to let this darkness out, if I’m going to tell Story about my past, I should come clean with my cell brothers, as well. Own up to my betrayal by omission. I knew this day would come at some point, and every day that went on, I wished it wouldn’t. Because I’ve come to care about this family. I trust them. I rely on them.
And now they will find out they can’t trust me.
But for Story, I’m willing to risk losing everything I have here. She said we were having a fight, which terrified me. I can’t stand the idea of her mad at me. This girl is the heart that beats in my fucking chest. Hurting her or even pissing her off is the last thing I want to do.
I change direction and walk back to the door to the penthouse, carrying Story inside.
“Um… pretty sure if she wants to go you have to let her,” Nikolai says from the breakfast bar where he’s working on his laptop. I lower Story to her feet and go for the notepad of paper and pen on the breakfast bar, pushing it beside Nikolai.
I start to write a note to her-but it’s rudimentary and crude. I don’t speak, and I’m also no writer. Nikolai reads and translates the note over my shoulder. “I can’t let you leave. I’m so sorry, Story.”
“Um, what the fuck, Oleg?” Nikolai says. His twin stands up from his work table to walk over, texting as he does. Probably telling everyone else to come to the living room.
Story holds up her hand, eyes on my paper, even though she can’t read it.
I scribble on the paper. Nikolai reads it. “You’re in danger because of me. You must stay here where I can protect you.”
Story nods. “Okay, that’s what I thought. The people after you know you care about me. That’s why they waited at Rue’s.”
I meet her eye and nod. I’m grateful and shocked by how much Story understood without being told. And she still didn’t run away screaming last night.
Sure enough, Sasha and Maxim emerge from their room, and Ravil comes out, too.
“Which people are after you?” Nikolai asks.
“Am I to understand that the men Maxim dispatched last week weren’t after Sasha?” Ravil’s tone is dangerous.
I nod.
“When were you going to tell me?” Ravil wants to know.
I go blank-faced-my usual default when I don’t want to engage. Being mute normally makes it easy to dodge questions.
“Who waited at Rue’s?” Ravil turns his quiet authority on Story.
“Some guys. Russian. They seemed like they were waiting for me,” Story says. “Out the back door, in the parking lot. Oleg…” -her throat works as she swallows- “um, Oleg took care of them.”
Maxim sends me a grim look. To Story, he says gently, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Ravil pins me with an assessing gaze. After a moment of charged silence, he says, “Story, I need to have a word alone with Oleg.”
“No.” Story steps closer to me. I tuck her into my side. “I’m a part of this now, and I need to know what it is,” Story asserts.
Maxim shakes his head. “No, doll. Everything you hear puts you more in danger. We’ll help you two communicate, but-”
“I’m a part of it.” My shalun’ya lifts her chin in challenge.
“Oleg?” Ravil asks me.
Fuck. Of course, I don’t want her to hear any of it. But as she pointed out, she’s already a part of it. And I’m incapable of denying her much of anything. She said we were in a fight because I hadn’t told her what was going on.
I nod.
“All right.” He waves an arm toward the office. “Max.” Ravil orders Maxim to follow, and the four of us troop into Ravil’s office, where he closes the door and takes a seat behind his desk. Maxim sinks into the chair in the corner. I yank a chair over beside mine for Story, but she drops into my lap instead. My arms band around her, pulling her in close as I adjust my wounded leg away from her weight. It’s a hot, throbbing point of pain at the moment, making it hard to stay focused.
Ravil considers me for a moment. “In the two years since you’ve been with me, you’ve never talked about your past.”
I don’t move.
“I know you spent twelve years in a Siberian prison on a drug charge. I believed you were with the bratva before that, and they had cut out your tongue, but now I’m not so sure. I do know that while on the inside, you acted as enforcer for bratva members. Timofey Gurin wrote your introduction to me.”
I make no movement. There wasn’t a question, and I can’t speak to fill silences. Story toys with my fingers where they lie on her thigh, squeezing my thumb.
“I assumed you were running from something or you wouldn’t have left Russia. I’d thought it was your old cell. The introduction would’ve worked just as easily in Moscow. Or St. Petersburg. Or Kazan. But you came here to a country where you didn’t know the language. To work for me, a pakhan you’d never met.”
Another pause for silence to settle.
“You refused to say who cut out your tongue.”
It’s true. He asked me point-blank at least three times when I first arrived, and I stonewalled him, like I stonewall everyone.
“Either it was cut out as punishment for something you already told, or it was to keep you from talking in the future.”
When I remain passive, he snaps, “Tell me which.”
I scramble to pull out my phone and text him.
He reads the text aloud. “Future. That was my guess. So now someone’s come around to get your secrets out of you, is that it?”
I nod.
“And they figured out that Story is leverage.”
I drop my forehead against her shoulder, the pain of my situation flowing fresh again.
There’s a long pause, then Ravil asks, “Who cut out your tongue, Oleg?”
I don’t move to answer him. I need his help. His protection. If he throws me out, Story and I will be sitting ducks. I may excel at killing, but even the simplest things are difficult for me without being able to communicate. But my answer will also damn me. He may get rid of me anyway.
There’s a huge bounty on Skal’pel’. Clearly on me now, too. People must think I know how to get to Skal’pel’. Or know the new identities of his past clients. Maybe someone is looking for a particular client-who knows why I’m suddenly on the radar.
Story watches me even more closely than Ravil.
“It was an interesting choice, cutting your tongue out. Did they frame you for the drug charge, too?”
I jerk with surprise at the question, giving Ravil the answer he sought.
“You see, to me, it shows a certain affection. Why not simply kill you? Unless this was a person adverse to murder. But considering your training and skill with all manner of weapons, not just your fists, I doubt that was the case. You didn’t learn what you know in prison.”
My heart thuds painfully in my chest. I tighten my hold on Story, who attempts to soothe me by lightly trailing her fingernails across my inked forearm.
“Am I right? There was love between you. He opted to silence you rather than kill you. And so you keep his secrets.”
I let out a shaky breath. Is that true?
Blyad’. I don’t know. Maybe it is. I came from nothing. I was nothing. Skal’pel’ gave me a home and a job when I was still an eager-to-please youth. He made me feel like a man when I was just teetering on the edge of adulthood. He was a father figure when I had none. In return, I was loyal as hell.
I’d thought that loyalty died when he ruined me, but maybe some of it is still there.
No.
I shake my head.
“No, you’re not keeping his secrets?”
I stare at Ravil suddenly feeling sick. I guess I am keeping them. But it wasn’t a conscious choice. I can’t fucking speak! Except I think Ravil might be right. Some part of me might still be protecting Skal’pel’ and, by default, his clients. Loyalty is a character trait I don’t know how to turn off.
Ravil laces his fingers and rests them against his chin. “If I made you choose, Oleg, between me and him, who would it be?”
Story twists to look me in the face. I don’t expect the mountain of grief that pours over me, even though I’m sure of my answer. It’s grief over what Skal’pel’ did to me. The pain of betrayal from a man who was like a father to me.
I point at Ravil.
No contest. He’s the better man, a hundred times over.
“Good.” There’s sympathy in Ravil’s gaze. Like he sees my pain. “Then you have my protection. Story, too, that goes without saying.”
“But?” Story demands.
Ravil raises his brows.
“It sounded like there was going to be a but.”
She’s right, it did.
Ravil shrugs. “But if and when I need you to spill, you’ll spill.”
I’m sweating but cold. I stare at Ravil.
“I don’t give a fuck who you worked for, Oleg,” he tells me, and I can suddenly breathe again. “You’ve never crossed me. Your fierce loyalty is part of who you are. I’m not going to fault you or read more into you still being loyal to someone who fucked you.”
The room seems to spin. I don’t know why I want to cry like a fucking baby.
Story seems to sense it because she nuzzles her face into my neck and nibbles my skin.
Maxim folds his arms across his chest and looks from me to Ravil. “Something tells me you know exactly who he worked for.”
Ravil spreads his hands. “I have a guess.”
“Please,” Maxim prompts. “I can’t fix if I don’t know what the fuck we’re dealing with.”
Ravil looks his way. “Have you gotten a good look at Oleg’s tongue?”
Story tightens her hand on my thumb, turns her face into my neck in solidarity.
Maxim shoots me a look and rubs his nose, knowing it’s a touchy subject for me.
Ravil answers his question, which apparently was rhetorical. “I have. And it looked pretty damn clean. Not a rough cut. No visible scar tissue. Almost like it got cauterized. Or was done by laser.”
Laser. That never occurred to me, but it makes sense. I didn’t wake up with a mouthful of blood. A cut would’ve caused me to choke on my own blood. I woke up with a stub. It was swollen and terribly sore, but it didn’t bleed.
Story swallows, pulling back to eyeball me. I pull her in closer.
I’m all right, I want to tell her.
She seems to understand because she nods.
“So how many doctors do we know who worked on the wrong side of the law? Black market surgeries? Maybe identity changes?”
“Blyad’,” Maxim curses. “Skal’pel’. You worked for Skal’pel’?”
I don’t answer.
Maxim gets up and walks over. He puts his hand on my shoulder. “You can tell me. I don’t give a fuck what you did in the past, either. You’re my brother now.”
I blink at the smarting in my eyes and nod.
“So I’m guessing you can identify at least twenty guys the bratva wants dead.” Maxim says.
I shrug. Maybe. It wasn’t my job to memorize faces or names-not the old ones, nor the new ones. But yeah, maybe.
“And you don’t know where your old boss disappeared to?” Ravil asks.
I shake my head.
“I’m going to find him for you, Oleg,” Maxim promises. “And if you won’t kill him for what he did to you, I will.”
I acknowledge the unease that brings me. I don’t want to kill him. At least, I didn’t before.
Have I been waiting all these years for him to contact me? To take me back?
It seems insane, but I think some part of me was. Like I still belonged to that cruel father figure. I hadn’t forgiven him, but I was waiting.
Story presses the back of her hand to my neck, then her lips to my head. She turns to look at Ravil. “I know this conversation is important, but he needs a doctor. Oleg’s burning up.”