by A. Zavarelli
Leaning his head down, he kisses me. It’s tentative at first, but when I wrap my hands around his shoulders, around the familiar, comforting strength of them, he cups the back of my head, and that kiss turns hungry. Ravenous.
He lifts me up, still kissing me as I wrap my legs around him. Carrying me to the kitchen table, he shoves the chair loudly out of his way and sets me on top of the table, breaking our kiss for the briefest moment to rip the silky nightie I’m wearing to the waist, exposing my breasts.
He groans, eyeing them, then dips his head down and closes his hungry mouth over one, sucking it into his mouth, dragging my nipple out with his teeth as I arch my back and push myself against the hard length of his cock.
I need him. I need him inside me.
“Lev.” I reach for the buckle of his belt and open it.
He shoves my hands away as he pushes me backward to give equal attention to my other breast. His teeth are harder on my nipple than they were a moment ago, and it feels good.
I need to come.
I need him inside me, and I need to come.
“Kat.” He moans against my mouth when he kisses me again. Pushing my nightie up, he rips my panties in his haste to get rid of them.
Then he bends his head to taste me.
“Fuck. I missed this. I missed this so fucking much.”
I pant, wanting his mouth on me, wanting him to suck my clit hard and make me come, but I want him inside me more. I slide my hand into the waistband of his jeans and tug him closer, feeling the rock-hard muscles of his abdomen as I do.
He kisses me, pushing my clumsy hands away, then undoes his jeans, and shoves them and his briefs down.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he starts, and I watch him fist his cock. He wants this. I see it. Feel it. He’s as desperate for this as I am.
“I need you to. I need you to fuck me hard, Lev. I need to know I’m yours again.”
He stops, looks at me like he’s confused, then cups the back of my head with one hand and brings my mouth to his, kissing me as he guides his cock to my entrance.
“When did you think you weren’t mine?” he asks, pushing into me, tentative at first, like the kiss, but I can feel the frenzy just behind that caution.
“Whatever gave you the impression you weren’t mine?” He thrusts hard.
I gasp when his body is flush against mine, his cock buried deep inside me. It hurts. It’s been so long, too long, but this is exactly what I need.
“Show me,” I tell him. “Show me I’m yours.”
“Fuck, Kat.” He groans against my mouth, moving inside me, fucking me, but I know he’s still holding back.
“Hard, Lev. I need it. I need you to be like you were. No more kid gloves.”
He stops, then cups my face. His hair sticks to his forehead, and his eyes burn black. His fingers are rough against my cheeks. He nods once, and one hand slides to the back of my head, and when he tugs my hair, I make a sound, a grunt as he forces my head backward and kisses my throat, then shifts one hand to my shoulder, bracing me as he drives into me with urgent, short breaths, his burning eyes never leaving mine.
When I come, I come hard.
He pulls my hair, and I cry out. He thrusts one final time with an animal sound, and when he stills, I feel him pulsate inside me, and we watch each other like this. Here but not here. Together as we pant and come, and when it’s over, I’m spent. Limp. We both are as we lie against the table, catching our breath, sweat dripping from his forehead onto my cheek.
“Never doubt that you’re mine,” he croaks like they’re all the words he can manage. “You will always be mine.”
When I wake the next morning, it’s to find Lev leaning up on one elbow smiling down at me and pushing hair back from my face.
I’m groggy as I meet his smile with my own.
“How did we get upstairs?”
“You don’t remember?” he asks, raising his eyebrows and sliding his fingertips over the length of my bare shoulder.
But then it comes back to me, and a blush burns my cheeks as I recall what we did when we got upstairs.
“There you go.” He sits up, and I do the same, tucking the blanket over myself.
“What time is it? Why hasn’t Josh come barreling in here?”
“It’s ten, and I think Gleb’s keeping him busy.”
I turn to Lev, my face serious again as I study him. No cuts or bruises. But I remember the question from last night that he never answered.
“What did you do, Lev? Where did you go? I need you to tell me.”
He gets up out of bed and pulls on his jeans.
When he does that, I reach to grab his discarded T-shirt and slip it over my head, sitting up and watching as he picks up his leather jacket.
He used to have one like it before too. That and the white T-shirts he still wears. I remember how I pretty much fell into him the first time we met and smeared magenta lipstick across that pristine white shirt. It feels like an eternity ago. Another lifetime.
“I brought your things,” he starts. “From the apartment you shared with Rachel.”
“What?”
“I collected them the night you took off.”
I remember Rachel telling me that.
“They’re in my car.”
He carries his jacket over and takes two things out of a pocket, then sets the jacket aside and sits down.
“Do you remember what I promised you a long time ago?” he starts, still keeping what he’s holding out of my sight but picking up my arm and turning it over to trace the scarred skin, compliments of Mrs. George after she made me burn the record of abuse Joshua and I had been keeping.
I feel my face drain of blood and my stomach tighten.
“What did you do, Lev?”
“I promised you I’d punish her. And I promise to punish anyone who ever tries to hurt you or our family again.”
“Lev?”
“She doesn’t deserve your tears. She paid. And she’s gone now.”
He opens his hand and lets what he’s holding fall, my gut clenching as I recognize the chain that’s unraveling. The hideous cross that dangles from it.
My hand is at my mouth, and I lean away, my eyes locked on that thing. That cross she’d clutch. I can almost hear her voice, hear her prayers while she stood by as he did what he did to us.
“Hey.” Lev closes his hand around it, eyes urgent on mine when I lift mine to his. “I thought...fuck, I don’t know what I thought. I’ll get rid of it.”
He turns to walk away, but I catch his arm.
“No. It’s not...you didn’t do anything wrong. I just...seeing it again...” I swallow back the lump in my throat and steel my spine. “Give it to me.” I hold out my hand.
“I’ll take care of it. Get rid of it.”
I shake my head. “I need to do that. I need to bury it.”
He studies me for a long time, then finally pockets the thing.
“Lev—”
“We’ll do it together.”
“But—”
“There’s something else. Something much more important, Kat.”
He shows me the other thing, and my heart hammers against my chest in anticipation of what other piece of the past I’ll be confronted with.
“I know you lost your scarf. The one Joshua gave you. I know how important it was to you.”
My face falls a little at the thought. After what happened with Vasily, the hotel had cleared out our room, but when Lev picked up what was there, the scarf wasn’t among our things. I’m not surprised. It was so ragged they probably thought it was trash.
“It’s okay, Lev. I—”
“I found this. It’s not the same thing, but I thought you’d want to have it.”
I’m afraid to look down as he turns it over and holds it out to me, but I do, and this time, it’s like something squeezes my heart. I reach out to take the wrinkled old photograph.
Joshua and me. Cassie took the picture with one of th
ose instant cameras. The photo is faded, but I can still make it out.
“We can see about having it restored,” he says.
I can’t answer him. There’s a lump in my throat I can’t quite breathe around, and I wipe away a tear.
Joshua and me in Halloween costumes. We’re both skeletons. All three of us were. The Georges wanted to show us around town, their charity cases.
“She had it framed beside her bed if you can believe that,” Lev says.
In the photo, I’m smiling, leaning my head on Joshua’s shoulder. He’s taking a bite of a huge Snickers bar and laughing around it. In my hand, I have my jack-o’-lantern to carry our candy.
We’d had fun that night.
“Kat? You okay? Shit, another bad idea?”
I shake my head and look up at him, hugging him, letting myself cry for a moment when he can’t see me. Letting myself mourn once more.
“It’s in the past now. If I could bring him back, I would, but I can’t, and the rest, it’s done. She’s dead. It’s over. Bury it, Kat. Let’s have a future.”
He draws back, digs something out of his pocket. It’s a small box. I recognize that special, happy blue.
I look up at him, and he’s watching me. He takes both my hands in his and just touches his mother’s ring, which I’m still wearing on my right ring finger.
“Time to make it official,” he says.
“What did you do?” I ask, my tone different than the last time I asked the same question.
He opens the box and turns it to me, and I try to imagine Lev in a Tiffany store, and it makes me laugh. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just nervous, but I can’t help it.
“That’s not exactly the reaction I expected.”
I look up from the engagement ring. The platinum band holding a single, perfect diamond at the center. Simple and elegant and…
“I love it.” I throw my arms around his shoulders and hug him hard. He hugs me back, dropping the box on the bed when he does, holding me so tight.
I wonder how I’d survived so long before he found us. How I survived when he wasn’t there to hold me like this.
He draws back, and there’s a warmth in the air, something just for us.
“Will you marry me, Katya?”
Six Months Later
Epilogue 1
Kat
I look at my reflection as the hairdresser pins my veil to the chignon she’d made earlier. She has set my bangs off to the side and has curled a long strand to fall softly over my right temple.
The dress is beautiful. It’s absolutely not something I would have chosen or even looked at simply because the price was insane, but Gleb insisted. I would have argued except that when I turned to look at him and saw the tears in his eyes, I couldn’t.
But the veil. My goodness.
It’s a cathedral length ivory veil of the most intricate lace I’ve ever seen. It was my grandmother’s, apparently, and I love it. I love everything about it.
“Just one more thing,” she says, turning my chair a little and picking up a tube of coral lip stain.
I sit patiently as she dabs the littlest bit on.
“Perfect,” she says, and when I look at myself, I think yes, it’s perfect. I’m ready to marry Lev now.
The thought gives me goose bumps.
“Thank you,” I tell her as a knock comes on the door.
“My pleasure.”
She begins to clean up her things as the door opens, and I see Gleb standing there wearing a very fancy suit. Beside him is Josh, wearing a matching one and holding a piece of paper in his hand. Dima stands behind them, out of the way but always close at hand.
“Wow,” Josh exclaims, drawing the word out when he gets a look at me. He walks toward me slowly, eyes wide.
“You look handsome,” I tell him, adjusting his collar when he’s close enough.
“Mommy, you’re beautiful.” I remember how he used to say booful what seems like just weeks ago. Time is moving too fast.
“Don’t make your mother cry,” Gleb says, but when I look up at him, he’s looking a little emotional too. “Give her the drawing, Josh, and then you’ll need to get ready to go to the church. Your dad won’t want to be late.”
“Here, Mommy, it’s for you.”
“Thank you.” I open it to see his drawing. Crap. I’m definitely going to cry and ruin the makeup.
“It’s you and Daddy and me and Grandpa.”
“I love it,” I say. “It’s perfect.” I hug him to me.
“Dima,” Gleb calls.
Dima is inside the room in an instant.
Gleb gestures for him to take Josh. It’s funny to see Dima, a soldier, in this role with Josh. I’m not sure he likes it. I think he does, but babysitting wasn’t what he was hired to do.
“See you at church, Mommy. Don’t be late.”
I have to smile. “See you at church. You make sure Daddy isn’t late.”
Once they’re gone, Gleb sits down on the edge of the bed and reaches into his inside jacket pocket. From there, he retrieves a velvet box. He opens it and seems to disappear into his own memories for a long moment.
I watch him, this powerful man, this ruthless man. I’ve done some research, and I have no illusions about who he is, but with me, with us, he’s different.
He looks up at me. “I would have forgiven her, you know.”
My mother. I nod because I do know.
“I know better than anyone else not to punish a person for past mistakes. Vasily blackmailed her over something I already knew. My mistake was in not telling her.”
I remember something then. Something Vasily said about what my mom had done. What she was.
“Did she think I was so smitten I wouldn’t look into her past?” Gleb continues. “But that’s innocence. And my Ciara was innocent.”
“Vasily said she was an escort.”
“Did he tell you she was in this country alone? In this world alone? Did he tell you it was safer than the street for her? Did he tell you what it was like to be hungry? No, I don’t think he ever knew that. I’ve known hunger. And I know what you’ll do when you’re desperate. Your mother had no family left, Katerina. She came to America looking for a better life and got mixed up with us. I choose to remember who she really was, not the things she did to survive.”
“How did she meet your sister?”
“At a nightclub. I never liked her going to those places, but my sister was as stubborn as me.” He smiles with the memory. “At least she took soldiers with her. Ciara had some trouble with a man, and Katerina saw it. I think that’s when my sister appreciated having those soldiers. She and your mother became good friends, and I met her through Katerina.” He looks off for a moment. “I was charmed from the first moment I laid eyes on her.” He smiles. “There was her beauty, of course, but it was so much more than that. She was kind. I saw it in her eyes just as I see it in yours. Which brings me to this.”
He looks at the contents of the box, then turns it to me.
I gasp because inside is the most beautiful pair of sapphire earrings I have ever seen. In a silver antique setting, they’re almost too beautiful to touch.
“They were hers. A gift from me. She left them behind when she ran away. I think she didn’t want me to think she was taking anything that didn’t belong to her. As if I would.” He shakes his head. “They’re yours now, Katerina. And you must wear them today. What is this American tradition? Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. This takes care of old and blue. The dress is new. Put them on.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to take—”
“Put them on.” I hear the voice of the Gleb I met that first night. Mob boss Gleb.
I take the earrings and slide each of them on, making sure the back is twisted on tightly. I look in the mirror, and they are perfect with my hair and eyes.
“They’re beautiful. Thank you for giving me something of hers.” I hug him.
He nods but i
s stiff, obviously surprised. I’m surprised by the hug, too.
“As for something borrowed…” He stands, starts to look around. “I didn’t think—”
“It’s covered,” I say, pulling the sleeve of my dress up to show him the bracelet Josh had made for me while I was in the hospital. “Josh took it back and lent it to me for today, but he says I can have it tomorrow for keeps.”
Gleb chuckles. “Smart boy, my grandson. Are you ready?”
I take one last look at myself and stand. “Thank you,” I tell him. “Thank you for everything, Gleb.” I stop, shake my head. “Dad.”
I realize it feels right to call my father Dad now. Not Gleb.
“You make an old man happy, Katerina. You and Josh and even Lev.” He hugs me then, a big, warm hug. The first real hug I’ve had from him. He’s been so afraid to hurt me, thinking I’m too fragile after everything that we haven’t even hugged.
“You make me happy, too, Dad.”
Epilogue 2
Lev
I’ve never been so fucking nervous in my entire life. Standing at the end of the aisle in my penguin suit, tugging at the collar that feels as if it’s going to suffocate me. Josh is right beside me, my best man. He’s dressed up in his own black suit, hair combed to the side, fingers clutching the ring “safe” he was intent on using. It’s actually a toy safe, but when we told him how important this job was, he took it to heart. Just like his father.
He gives me a smile that feels like it’s meant to be reassuring before he returns his attention to the box, intent on protecting it. The beating pulse of my heart feels like it’s echoing off the walls as I look out at the men in the pews. We all look a little uncomfortable being in a church, but I can’t imagine doing this anywhere else. Kat deserves the best, even if that means a room full of Russian mobsters in a place of worship.
We don’t have a lot of friends or family to call our own, but the ones we do have are all gathered here today. Maxim, Gleb, Alexei and his family, Pasha, Dima, and some other trusted Vory who are here as guards. They are probably all about as comfortable as I am right now, dressed up in their nicest clothes, wondering if they will spontaneously ignite in this holy building.