Luka
It was peculiar of Anna to insist on leaving like that, and as much as I want to believe that she’s just freaking out about being in a new place, I have a nagging suspicion that something isn’t right.
Anna should’ve developed a good set of coping skills considering the way she grew up, but they don’t appear to be helping her now. Something has gotten into her, and I must know what it is. Seeing her so pale, so afraid… that disturbs me deeply.
Hopefully, the fresh air makes her feel better. In the mean time, I use the isolation to call Pavel and check how things are operating back in the States. It’s been just over twenty-four hours, but I still feel the need to hover a bit.
With the direction things were going before we left, I’ve been steadily getting more and more nervous about the situation with Damien and Dmitri. Alexei was bad enough, but he was the most predictable insubordinate I’ve ever managed. Dmitri is different. With questionable mental stability and a thirst for blood, he could choose to come after anyone just to make a point.
“Hello,” Pavel answers on the phone after a few rings.
“Can you just give me a rundown on how things are working without me there?” I ask him, glancing at the door as though Anna might return any moment. I’m nervous about her eavesdropping again. I don’t want her to be worried.
“I was actually going to call you first. You just beat me to it,” Pavel says, his subsequent chuckle sounding more like nervous laughter than genuine joy. “Vasya just informed me that one of the warehouses on the west side got broken into by Damien’s men, and they’ve taken everything they could get. It’s a fucking mess, but Leo is helping to clean it up. We just weren’t expecting this place to get hit.”
“How much is everything? Realistically. It’s not like they got every brick of coke we had… Right?” I ask, hesitating as I anticipate the worst of the news.
“Well, that’s the thing. We moved most of the stuff from the eastern warehouse over there, just to consolidate it,” he replies, and all the blood drains from my face.
“How much?” I ask.
“Seven hundred kilos,” he replies, his voice shrinking under the weight of the number.
Fuck.
I steady myself along the nearest wall. “Holy fuck,” is all I can say as my head swims. I can’t believe how perfectly Damien timed everything. How is he keeping such close tabs on me?
“Look, I’m not trying to disturb you while you’re on vacation, but that’s a huge loss, Luka,” he continues.
I slide down the wall to the floor, my breaths growing shaky as the weight of the situation fully encompasses me. “I’ll be back as soon as possible,” I say, nearly breathless. “I have to see what’s going on with Anna first, though. She might be sick and won’t be able to fly.”
“Okay, I’ll try to keep shit under control however I can until you get back,” he says, which offers no consolation as that was his job before I left.
He hangs up, and just as I’m about to get back up from off the floor to assess my options, Anna comes back through the door, equally pale if not paler than I am.
“Jesus, what happened to you?” she asks, temporarily forgetting whatever it was that caused her to bolt out the door.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m more concerned about you,” I reply, rising to my feet and taking her into my arms.
She melts into me, nearly trying to osmose herself into me with the intensity of her embrace. “I feel alright,” she says. “I just felt a little queasy.”
“Usually, people lie down when they’re sick, though,” I reply, not buying her vague excuse.
“Oh, I probably just miss Rachel. I’ve never been this far away from her, and we’ve hardly ever spent a night apart from each other,” she says as her voice trails off, her eyes gazing absently out the window at the water.
It’s sweet that she misses her sister. Seeing her care for Rachel so maternally has made her so much more attractive to me than any woman I’ve spent significant time with before her, and there have been so many women that I doubt I could remember all of their names if I was tasked with matching a face to a name. There’s just something about Anna’s integrity with raising her sister that grips me.
“Do you want to go home and be with her?” I suggest, hoping that she’ll take the bait and that I won’t have to explain why we’re leaving Brazil after being here for less than a day.
She hesitates at first. “I don’t want to pull us away from here so quickly. It seems like such a huge waste after we just got here. Nobody’s ever done anything like this for me,” she explains.
I realize it might take just a bit more convincing before she feels comfortable enough to tell me what she needs. Growing up poor has instilled some immense guilt in her when it comes to money and receiving favors from people.
“Hey, please don’t worry about that. If you’re missing her so much that it’s making you sick, you won’t be able to enjoy the rest of the week,” I reply.
She seems to consider it. She pulls me in closer again, gripping my back with the tips of her fingers as she struggles with her deliberation. “Okay, maybe we should go,” she relents, and as relieved as I am that I don’t have to explain the warehouse situation to her right away, I can tell that she’s trying to conceal her disappointment at cutting the vacation short.
Crisis number one averted.
Now, I need to handle the big one back home.
The trip back to the States is uneventful, at least until Anna begins a fifteen- minute circuit of getting up and running to the bathroom to vomit, coming back to sit with me, drinking the rest of my water, mentioning how disappointed she is to be leaving, and then repeating the process.
To her credit, she’s handling this whole situation a lot better than any of my previous girlfriends would have. Even while nauseated and constantly on the cusp of throwing up into her shoes, she still does her best to maintain a somewhat upbeat attitude.
I’ll be honest, though. It’s a little annoying. I feel like she’s putting on a show for me, like she doesn’t trust that I want to take care of her.
Everything about Anna has been so much more organic and genuine than my previous girls. She knew I had money from the start, yet she nearly fell on her face in gratitude every time I offered to buy her a breakfast burrito or a latte. She makes me wonder what it is I’ve been missing in all of these other women for all these years.
Maybe they were just good for my ego.
Anna is something different, and that’s why I don’t like the overly- optimistic show she’s putting on now. It’s fake, and the thing I love the most about her is how real she is.
Something else is going on, but I won’t find out what until I’ve had time to handle the situation with Dmitri and our goddamn warehouses.