by A. Zavarelli
We walk back out into the bedroom where Lev switches on a cartoon for Josh.
“Pasha’s really okay?” I ask.
“Yes. He wanted to make sure you knew, and he also apologized.”
“Apologized? For what? He almost died for us.”
“He wanted you to know he felt bad about leaving you and Josh to go to the hardware store.”
“I hope you told him not to be silly.”
“I did. But he’s right. He shouldn’t have left you.”
“Lev—”
“We need to discuss other things, though.” His expression darkens. “Where’s your new phone?”
“In my purse,” I tell him, getting it out of my bag. I hadn’t even looked at it. This is the one Alexei had given to Lev. “Here.” I hand it to him.
Lev takes it, fingers quick as he types something in, then holds it out to me. “I just programmed Alexei’s private number.” He holds up the contact under AX. “If anything happens to me—”
“What?”
“If anything happens to me, or we get separated, or you can’t get in touch with me for any reason, you call him. He’s the only one you call. Do you understand?”
“We’re not going to get separated. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“Shh.” He glances at Josh. “I don’t want Josh getting upset.”
“But—”
“Just a precaution. That’s all. Nothing is going to happen to me, Kat.”
I take the phone and push it into my back pocket.
“Is everything okay? Did something happen on your call? Is there something new and that’s why—”
“We need to get on the road. I want to put more distance between us and Vasily. I’m going to run to the store and buy some things we need.” He gestures to my hair. “You’ll need to color your hair. It’s too recognizable.”
I touch my hair. “Josh is used to me like this. I don’t think we should change—”
“The important thing is to keep Josh safe, and that means to keep out of sight. We’ll find a way to explain it.”
“He wants to go home.”
“Yeah, well, he can’t do that right now, and neither can you, so stay focused, Katerina.” This is a different side to Lev from the tender one of last night and the fatherly one of this morning. This is the sharper, edgier side. And I realize something. Something I’ve known all along but never consciously acknowledged.
He’s a trained killer.
He watches me as I think this, and I know he knows what’s going on in my head. I see it on his face. But he doesn’t try to soothe me or fill my head with pretty, meaningless words. This is reality. He and I both know it.
“Did you only talk to Pasha?” I know he didn’t. I heard him say Alexei’s name, and I get the feeling he heard something he didn’t like.
“No, I spoke with my cousin too.”
“Did something else happen? You seem more anxious.”
“Of course, I’m anxious, Kat. How do you expect me to be?” he snaps but catches himself, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”
“What did he tell you?”
“What do you need me to pick up for Josh at the store?” he asks instead of answering my question, and something in his expression tells me I’m on to something.
“Um…he has some clothes from Talia but probably needs some more things, jeans and sweaters, underwear, socks. And maybe some toys? Just some trucks or toy cars. Do you remember the cereal he likes?”
Lev nods. “What about you? What do you need?”
“Nothing I can think of. Well, maybe…Can’t we come with you?”
“It’s better if you stay here. They’ll be looking for the three of us.”
Shit. I knew this, didn’t I?
“What do you need me to pick up?”
“Tampons.”
He nods, and if he’s uncomfortable, he doesn’t let on. Instead, he walks me into the bathroom and closes the door. From the back of the waistband of his jeans and under his shirt, he pulls out a small pistol and holds it in the palm of his hand.
I back up a step and shake my head.
“It’s not exactly the same model you pulled on me but similar enough.”
“I don’t want that.”
He steps closer, puts the pistol on the counter behind me and pulls me to him, rubbing my arms.
“You won’t need it,” he says, “but I’d feel better if you had it while I’m not here.”
My heart is racing. “I don’t like this.”
“I like it even less, but if you have to use it, use it. Do not hesitate. Do you understand me?”
“I—”
“You hesitated with me. It takes a split second for a man to overpower you. You know that. Do not hesitate. Do you understand?”
I nod.
He takes the pistol, giving me a quick tutorial, but it’s almost exactly the same as the one I had. He then tucks it into the back of my jeans and pulls my sweater over it to keep it out of sight.
“I’ll be as fast as I can. There’s a store two blocks away. You lock the door behind me. No one knows we’re here. As soon as I’m back, you’ll color your hair, and then we’re gone.”
“Where are we going to go?”
“New York City.”
“New York City? But isn’t that closer to Vasily with him being in Philadelphia? Wouldn’t we be in more danger there?”
He sighs. “I’ll explain later. Let me get to the store. The sooner we leave here, the better.”
5
Kat
I lock the door after Lev leaves and watch him through the window of the second-floor hotel room as he looks around the almost empty parking lot, then gets into the SUV. Before he closes the door, he looks up at me. We stay like that for a long minute before he drives off.
In the bedroom, Josh is sitting against the pillows with Wally in his hands, rubbing the little stuffed animal’s well-worn ear, his attention wholly absorbed by the cartoon.
I’m about to go sit beside him when I see Lev’s duffel bag tucked behind the chair by the small table.
Glancing once more at Josh, I go to it, pick it up, and carry it into the other room. I set it on the couch, and as I unzip it, I tell myself I’m just going to look through what we have packed for Josh.
What I see first is a set of neatly folded clothes for Lev and me, and several more sets for Josh. I smile when I find the coloring book and crayons. That was thoughtful.
Pushing those aside, I find a small box. It’s older and decidedly ornate. Not like Lev’s taste at all. I pick it out of the bag and look at the intricate wood carving and realize it’s old. An antique trinket box.
Curious, I open it and gasp.
Glancing through the open door of the bedroom, I’m relieved Josh hasn’t heard me, and return my attention to the box of jewelry. Rings and bracelets and emeralds and diamonds all set in gold like the kind you’d find in high-end antique shops. They’re beautiful. And I wonder what Lev is doing with them when I pick up the locket.
The closure is stuck, so I have to set the box down to try to open it. It’s very delicate, and it takes me a few tries, but when I get it open, my heart stops.
I peer closer at the little photos inside. There are two.
One is of a family—a man, a woman and a baby. I can see the woman’s warm smile even in the tiny photograph, and it makes me smile to see it. The man’s face is more blurred, and the baby I really can’t see more than the bundle of blankets.
But it’s not that one that has my heart skip a beat. It’s the other one.
The little boy. It could be Josh.
Was this Lev’s mother? Are these her jewels?
“Mommy,” comes Josh’s sleepy voice from inside.
I startle, feeling like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t be doing. I get up, setting the box on the sofa. I go to him. “Yes, baby?”
“Blue’s Clues is next.” He smiles and lays his head down, putting his
thumb in his mouth.
“You love Blue’s Clues.” I tuck him in under the blankets as his eyes droop. I kiss his forehead. “I love you.”
He doesn’t answer as the theme song to the cartoon comes on, and he focuses back on the TV.
I return to the outer room, pulling the bedroom door almost all the way closed behind me. I don’t want to close it fully in case Josh calls to me.
Sitting down on the couch, I mean to put the locket away, but when I do, I see something else. The folder Lev was looking at. The one he closed when I got close to him.
My heartbeat accelerates as I take hold of it. I shouldn’t look. I should ask him to show me. But my hands are moving to lift it out, and I set it on my lap and don’t hesitate to open it.
And when I do, when I see what’s inside, I feel a sudden chill. My hands get clammy and blood pounds against my ears, and I don’t even hear the lock click. I don’t hear him as he walks in because I’m staring down at the photo in the folder. The photo of the woman with red hair and light green eyes and the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.
My mother.
She must have been eighteen or nineteen when this was taken. She was so beautiful. I had a smaller one just like it a long time ago, but after I was taken in by the Georges, it disappeared. They denied having taken it, of course, and I lost that last piece of my mother.
Seeing it now, bigger, not wrinkled or worn, seeing her smiling like this, well, it makes my heart hurt.
“What are you doing, Katerina?”
I jump with an audible yelp, and the folder slips off my lap, pages scattering to the floor.
Lev stands there, leather jacket zipped up, two plastic bags in one hand and keys in the other. He looks at the papers on the floor, then at the trinket box, then at me.
Without a word, he walks to the bedroom, peeks inside, then closes the door.
That clicking makes me sit up a little taller as I turn to face him.
Lev walks back toward me, setting the bags on a chair and the keys on the table. His eyes move over the trinket box as he unzips his jacket and takes it off, then sets his gun on the table.
His is bigger than the one he gave me. It’s the one he used to kill Andrei, and he’s very well equipped to handle it.
“Where’s the pistol I gave you?” he asks, stepping closer.
I reach behind me to take it out of the waistband of my jeans and hand it to him.
He puts it beside his on the table, and all I can think is we’re quite the couple. Bonnie and Clyde.
“We should hide those. What if Josh—”
“Josh is asleep. I asked you a question.”
I look at the papers on the floor. “I have a right to know what’s going on.” I stand, then step to him to face-off. “I have a right to know what you’re doing with a file on my mother.”
He studies me, cocks his head to the side, and steps toward me, closing those last few feet of space.
“It’s my responsibility to keep you and our son safe. I will make the call on what you see when. I decide what information you need, when you need it.”
“I’m not the little woman you keep barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, Lev. I won’t ever be that. What are you doing with this? Why do you have it? And what does my mother have to do with any of this?”
“We’ll discuss it later. When you’re ready.”
“You don’t get to decide when I’m ready. My mother—”
“We will discuss it later when we can talk.” He rubs my arms, his touch not quite as gentle as he can be. “Our son is sleeping in the next room.”
“Our son that I’ve been raising on my own for three years. That I’ve kept safe for three years.”
“What are you saying?” He drops his arms.
“Nothing.” I shift my gaze.
“You think you were safe?” he asks.
“Well…” I falter.
When he takes another step, I match his, going backward. But I should know better because one more, and my back is to the wall. It’s exactly where he wants me because in the next instant, he has my arms stretched over my head and my wrists pinned to the wall.
“Lev—”
“You weren’t safe, Katerina. You were never safe. You hid well, I’ll give you that, but I found you and Vasily’s men followed the day we left. I’ve told you more than once that I will keep you safe. I’ve asked you to trust me, and I think my actions have proven that I have yours and Josh’s best interests at heart.”
“But—”
“You need to trust that I will tell you what I can when I can.”
“My mother—”
“You want me to tell you about your mother?”
Something in his eyes tells me I don’t want to know, but the thing is, I need to know. No matter how terrible it is, and it is terrible because there’s no other reason he’d have a file on my mother. I need to know.
“That accident that killed her, Kat, it doesn’t appear to have been an accident at all.”
“What?”
“Not what you expected or hoped to hear?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone wanted her dead, and the fact that she was on Vasily’s list tells me it was him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Fuck.”
He lets go of my wrists and walks away, running a hand through his hair.
“What does my mother have to do with Vasily or any of this?”
He turns back to me, looking me over. He comes toward me, and he’s so close I have to crane my neck to look up at him.
“I care about you, Kat. Do you know that?”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t have anything to tell you that won’t upset you. That’s why I haven’t said anything.”
“You can’t decide that for me.”
He steps backward and sits on the sofa, hands on his knees. “This is a goddamn shitshow.”
I move toward him, kneel between his legs, and put my hands on his thighs. I make him look at me.
“You said your mother was killed. Who killed her?” I suspect, but I guess a part of me can’t believe blood would do that to blood. But that’s stupid, isn’t it? I mean, I saw what Lev did to Andrei. What Andrei was willing to do to Lev.
He sits back, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. He won’t look at me.
“Lev?”
He turns to me, and there’s such a deep sadness in his eyes that I feel it inside me. He scrubs his face, shaking his head.
“I don’t know, Kat. It’s just...it’s fucked up. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. She was a good woman. You would have liked her. And she would have liked you.”
I lean up, take his face into my hands, and I kiss him. He doesn’t respond at first, but he doesn’t pull back either.
“I care about you too, you know?” I say.
He looks at me for a long minute, then pulls me to him and kisses me back. I slide my hands to the buckle of his belt and undo it. I unzip his jeans and slide my hand inside to grip his cock, stroking it, feeling it grow rigid in my hand as I watch his pupils dilate and his eyes darken.
His breathing becomes shorter, and I feel my own need. But then he closes his hand over mine to pull me off. “Katya, now isn’t the time.”
“Now is the time. We need this. Both of us.”
He loosens his hold on me.
Leaning forward, I first lick my lips then the glistening head of his cock before taking him into my mouth. I keep my eyes on him, and he watches me as I take him.
He closes his hand over the back of my head and pulls me to him.
“Fuck, Katya.” He draws me closer, fisting my hair as he drags me over him, pushing deeper until I can’t take anymore, then easing back, drawing me far enough back to look at me, then repeating, going deeper.
Abruptly, he pulls me off him and reaches to undo my jeans. Pushing them and my panties roughly off, he draws me onto his lap.
I str
addle him, closing my eyes as I take his length inside me. He kisses me, and with his hands on my hips, he moves me over him. One hand cups the back of my head, fingers digging into my scalp as the other closes over my shoulder, gripping hard as he pushes deeper. He kisses me all the while, mouth to my mouth, tongue on my tongue as we make love like this, him bare inside me, him thickening inside me as his thrusts grow more hurried. He lifts me, flipping us over so I’m on the couch and he’s between my legs, buried inside me.
I cry out when I come, and he closes his mouth over mine, swallowing my cry as he moans with his final thrust. When he stills, I feel him come, feel the pulsing throbbing of his cock as he empties inside me, and when he’s finished, when we’re spent, he drops his head to my neck, forehead sweaty with the effort as I cling to him and listen to our matching breaths as they slowly return to normal.
He turns his face to watch me and brushes the hair that’s sticking to my forehead back.
I told him I care about him. He told me the same. But it’s so much more than that. God. So much more.
“We’ll talk, okay? I’ll tell you what I can, but just trust me to do it on my own time.”
The TV goes off inside, and we’re both up in an instant. Lev tucks himself back into his jeans and I pull on my underwear and jeans. He sweeps both guns off the table to tuck mine into the duffel and his into the waistband of his jeans.
“Mommy?” comes Josh’s voice as the door opens. He stands there, rubbing his eyes.
“Hey kiddo, look what I got you.” Lev opens one of the bags and pulls out a copy of Good Night, Gorilla.
Josh runs toward him, arms out to take the book. “Mine?”
“Yours.”
He hugs Josh, and Josh lays his head on Lev’s shoulder as he clutches the book and smiles. I smile too, watching our little family.
Lev turns to me then, opening the bag to take out the box of hair dye. Black.
Although reluctant, I take it from him. I know he’s right. I have to do this.
He draws me to him so he’s hugging us both and kisses my forehead. “I’m going to miss the red,” he says.
6
Lev