by Nicole Fox
“It sounds to me like you’re allowing your emotions to cloud your judgment,” he says. “You care about your slave more than you should, and now you care about her friends, too.”
I stare daggers at Rurik, my jaw ticking, trying to decide how to respond.
I’m not entirely sure there isn’t some truth to his words, but that doesn’t mean he has the right to say any of it to me. In front of my men.
So, I have to act swiftly.
I circle a finger in the air, and my men surround Rurik. He fights them for a second but is quickly overpowered.
“Am I going to be killed?” he asks, looking properly cowed for the first time since he walked into my office.
I don’t address him, instead talking to Pasha on his right. “Take him downstairs and have him beaten. Leave him alive.”
The men drag Rurik from the room as I sit down and attempt to continue my work. As soon as the door is closed and I’m alone, I lean back in my seat and cover my face in my hands, wondering how things have gotten so completely out of control in such a short amount of time.
If I thought things were handled with Tati, I’m cured of that belief the moment I walk into her room.
Rather than her usual hugs and smiles, she’s sullen. She looks up at me as I walk into her room, but she doesn’t wave or ask me about my day or tell me anything about hers.
What is going on? I sign.
When Tati doesn’t look at me, I’m forced to walk to her bed and lift her chin to force her to acknowledge me. Her eyes are hard.
What happened?
You ruined everything, she signs in an angry flurry. Courtney and I used to have fun, but now she just cries all the time. Because of you.
I shake my head, confused. Have you talked to Courtney today?
If there is any sign at all that Courtney has tried to turn Tati against me, I’ll kill her. No one messes with my family.
She won’t come out of her room, Tati pouts. She went in there right when she got home from school and won’t answer the door. She’s crying in her bedroom. She hates me.
Whoa, whoa. She doesn’t hate you. She’s angry with me, I say. Not you.
Tati’s arms are still crossed over her chest, but she looks slightly relieved. Why?
It’s complicated.
She sighs, and I know I have to fix this. Somehow.
Tati lost her parents already. I can’t let her lose another adult she cares about.
I’ll talk to her, I promise her. Don’t worry.
Tati pushes me towards the door, insistent I fix things with Courtney now, and I leave without making any promises. I’m not sure I’m ready to talk to her yet.
However, when I run into Yanka in the hall, I stop her.
“Have you seen Courtney?”
“Seen?” she asks. “Yes. Talked to? No. She won’t talk to anyone.”
“Do you usually talk to her?” I wasn’t under the impression Courtney spoke with anyone else in the house.
“You work an awful lot of hours,” Yanka says cryptically. “That girl is lonely. And based on what I overheard yesterday, she wants to see her friend.”
I frown at her for eavesdropping, but Yanka shrugs her shoulders, unbothered. She knows I trust her, and she knows I couldn’t keep my house running without her.
Courtney already asked to see Sadie, and my answer was no. And it still is.
I can’t relent on that point because I don’t know if Sadie and Courtney are working together to bring me down. If they are, I have to limit contact until I know what I’m going to do about it.
“I need to get back to work. Unless you need anything else?” Yanka asks.
I shake my head and wave her on. As soon as I turn to go into my office, my phone rings.
It’s Lawrence Palillo.
“What do you want?” I snap.
“Dmitry,” he says, sounding happier than I’ve heard him in months. “I hoped I would catch you. I have good news.”
I frown. If Lawrence is in on this deception with his daughter, then he’s a remarkable actor.
“What is that?”
“I have your money with interest,” he says. “For the inconvenience. I will hand it over the moment I know Courtney is free. When do you want to—”
I hang up on him and it’s only with Herculean restraint that I don’t hurl my phone against the hallway wall.
How did Lawrence come up with the money? And how convenient that it happened the day after I began questioning his daughter’s loyalty.
This was a scam from the beginning. A plot to overthrow me from the inside.
Lawrence Palillo pimped his daughter out to me so she could distract me and tear down my Bratva.
Not on my fucking watch.
21
Courtney
The days after learning about Sadie being shot are long and filled with torment.
Was this my fault?
Should I have told her the truth?
Unanswerable questions fill my head, along with worry for my father, myself, and my unborn baby.
What will Dmitry do to me?
He has made it no secret what he does with those who are disloyal to him. If he truly believes I’ve betrayed him, will he kill me?
Would he kill our child?
I try my best to go about my days as normally as I can, in hopes I can prove to him I haven’t done anything wrong, but that proves impossible. On top of the normal nausea, discomfort, and hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy, I’ve been crying nonstop, barely eating, and barely sleeping. It isn’t healthy for me or the baby. Needless to say, it makes going to school pure misery even when I force myself to keep at it. Once I’m kicked out of this house, I have to have something to go back to.
So, finally, after three days, I decide to sneak out of the house to go see Sadie.
Dmitry threatened Dad if I visit her, but I have to. I have to know if Sadie is really okay and what she was doing in that Mafia hangout. I have to know if she was really trying to spy on the Bratva. I also need to know if she’s actually at the hospital.
The officer said she was expected to make a full recovery, but I haven’t heard any information since. Dmitry certainly isn’t going to keep me updated.
What if he already sent someone to take her out as punishment?
Even worse: what if she died, and no one has told me?
The thought sinks in my stomach like a stone, and my resolve hardens. I have to do this.
Where are we going? Tati signs.
I go into her room for the first time in several days, and Tati doesn’t hesitate to follow me. I bundle her in her coat, a scarf, and a matching hat, and she helps me tie my scarf in a bow around my neck. She trusts me, despite my disappearing act. Besides, she’s eager for any excuse to leave the house.
To get those foam rollers your physical therapist mentioned. My sign language has become much better over the last few months. Tati hardly even makes fun of me for it anymore. They’re at the hospital waiting for us.
Tati follows me out of the house without further questions.
I just need to get there and return home before Dmitry finds out we are gone.
Sadie is out of the ICU, but it takes the nurse at the desk several minutes to tell me where Sadie is. She has to call over a few different nurses, and then they have to speak with the head nurse.
As they shuffle around the desk, moving papers and checking the computer, I grow increasingly more agitated, wondering if Sadie is here, if she’s alive … Or maybe the nurses are trying to find someone to break the news to me?
Finally, the nurse smiles and waves me over to the desk. The knot of tension in my chest doesn’t ease until she tells me Sadie is being held in a private room on the third floor.
“Sadie Hatch?” I ask, certain this has to be a mistake. Sadie doesn’t have the funds for something like that. “Are you sure?”
She nods and gives me the room number.
How did Sadie afford a private room?
Last time I talked to her about it, she didn’t even have health insurance. However, when I knock on the door and push it open, Sadie is propped up in bed.
Her blonde hair is pulled up in a messy bun that looks more like a nest than hair, but her cheeks are rosy, and she smiles when she sees me.
“Courtney!” There is relief in her voice, as though she was the one worried about me.
“Are you okay?” I rush towards the bed, tears burning the back of my throat. “I wanted to come sooner, but—”
“I was sleeping for days,” she says, waving me away. “You would have just been sitting here talking to no one. I’m glad you’re here now.”
Tati looks confused, but I have her sit down in the recliner, and she complies, watching me closely.
“This is Tati. Tati, this is Sadie,” I say, introducing them quickly before moving on to more pressing matters. “What is going on?”
Sadie lifts an arm to gesture around the lavish room. It looks more like a hotel room than a hospital, frankly, with the nice furniture, huge TV, and other high-end trappings. There’s even art on the walls. “I’m receiving the royal treatment; that is what is going on.”
“How?”
She shrugs. “I have no fucking idea.” Then she slaps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say that in front of kids.”
“You really shouldn’t. She can’t hear you, but she reads lips really well.”
Sadie frowned. “Reads lips? Is she deaf?”
Tati nods behind me.
“See? She’s good at reading lips.”
Sadie’s eyebrows lift, but I draw the conversation back on track. “Did someone else pay for this for you?”
“Apparently, but no one will say who.”
Dmitry. I know it immediately. Who else could it be?
The Italians are too busy scrambling to recover from their attack to take care of a woman who was likely not even giving them very good information. I mean, what could Sadie have really known about Dmitry or the Bratva? I definitely didn’t tell her anything useful.
“How did you end up here?” I ask.
“I was shot,” she says, brows knit together. “Didn’t they tell you that?”
I sigh. “I mean, how did you end up getting shot?”
The smile she has worn since I arrived falters slightly. “That’s a longer story.”
“I have time.”
She bites her lower lip and then begins. “I guess it all started when you got kidnapped.”
Immediately, I hold up a hand to stop her. “I was not kidnapped, Sadie.”
“So you say.” She stares at me, letting me know she doesn’t buy my story, so I shake my head and motion for her to continue.
“Well, when you got kidnapped, I obviously called the police, but they didn’t seem to think anything was wrong. I, however, know you very well and knew you were acting weird, so I went to that man’s house.”
“Dmitry’s house,” I correct her. “And I remember this part. I was there.”
“Yeah, but what you don’t know is that when I left, a man met me outside.”
I frown. “Like, a guard?”
She shakes her head. “No, someone else. This guy who waved down my car when I was driving away from the house.”
“And you stopped?” I ask, horrified. “Why on earth would you stop for a man waving on the side of the road? Do you have a death wish I don’t know about?”
Her cheeks go pink. “Because he was in running clothes with no shirt on, and I thought there was a chance a porno scene was about to play out in real life.” Her voice goes high-pitched and cartoony as she plays out the scene. “Oh, you’re out for a jog and got lost? Sure, I can give you a ride to the nearest gas station. Though, there’s a storm coming in. We might get trapped on the side of the road with nothing but our bodies for warmth.”
I bite back a laugh and wave her off. “She can read lips, remember?”
Sadie points over my shoulder, and I turn and see that Tati thankfully isn’t paying attention anymore. She’s playing with the remote and flipping through the channels.
“Well, anyway,” she continues. “He didn’t want to rub his body against mine, unfortunately. He wanted to pay me for information.”
“What kind of information?”
“Information on Dmitry,” she says. “I told him I wasn’t interested, but he asked me my price, and I told him I wanted to help you. He agreed.”
“Sadie,” I groan. “I don’t need help. I’m fine.”
“Whatever,” she says, clearly still not believing me. “So, I talked to them a few times, telling them what I knew about your situation, which wasn’t much, thanks to you being so cryptic. They weren’t thrilled with what I had to offer. And then there was a large boom and then shots going off like crazy …”
I can tell by the way her story trails off that she doesn’t really want to talk about it, and I can’t blame her.
“Sadie, listen—” I start to say, hoping to convince her to walk away from this entire situation and forget it all. Before I can, however, there’s another knock on the door.
I turn just as the large, red-haired Devon walks through the door.
He takes me in, but immediately his eyes turn to Sadie. She grins as he approaches, and I step aside just in time to have a clear view of their grotesque make-out session.
Tati’s eyes are wide, and I rush over to block her view of the two love birds.
When they finish, Sadie giggles. “Sorry.”
“I’m not!” Devon brags, puffing his chest. “I was afraid I’d never get to do that again.”
“Again?” I ask. “Here?”
Sadie’s face goes even pinker. “We may have done it … once or twice before.”
I hold up my hands to stop her. “That’s enough. I’m happy for you, but I don’t need to hear more.”
“I just can’t believe she got caught in that mess,” Devon says, shaking his head. “What a freak accident.”
Sadie glances up at me, her eyes serious, and I realize Devon doesn’t know the whole story. He doesn’t know that Sadie was there meeting with the Mafia, and clearly, Sadie would prefer it stay that way.
I respect her wishes.
Tati changes the channel and turns the volume up until we’re all wincing against the sound. I grab the remote and turn it back down.
“Who is she?” Devon asks dumbly, noticing her for the first time.
“My kid,” I say without really thinking about it.
Sadie’s eyes go wide, and I scramble to correct myself. “Well, a kid. My boyfriend’s kid.”
Now I’ve labeled Tati as my child and Dmitry as my boyfriend, and neither of those things is true.
Though, they feel true.
I realize for the first time that I want them to be true.
Except I don’t know if Dmitry feels the same way.
In fact, right now, I have a good reason to believe he doesn’t like me at all. He even threatened my father to keep me from coming to the hospital although by now I’m almost certain he wouldn’t hurt an innocent man. Yes, he punched him, but Dmitry doesn’t kill indiscriminately. Right?
I look down at the small blonde girl beside me and wonder if I’m deluding myself. I wonder I’ll be there if she grows up or if I’ll be just another adult who leaves and never comes back.
Tati and I leave Sadie and Devon alone and head back to the house, but I can’t stop myself from glancing back at her in the back seat and wondering what will happen to her and me and my unborn child.
The questions overwhelm me until I have to count the lines in the road to clear my head. Until I have to shove them out of my mind completely to avoid an emotional meltdown.
22
Courtney
Winter seems to come all at once. Somehow I make it through all my exams, even with the ongoing nausea and worry.
The golden hues of fall turn white and silver overnight, and suddenly, Tati is dragging me to the attic to look for
Christmas decorations.
Yanka said everything would be up here!
It seems to me that Dmitry hired Yanka and the rest of his household help for the express purpose of doing things like decorating his house, but I can’t deny Tati the pleasure of decorating a tree. Not when she has so few other pleasures. Not when this Christmas will be her first one without her parents.
Tati is too small to be of much help, so I end up carrying everything down from the attic in five trips. Then, there are several more trips down to the main floor sitting room where Tati wants to put the tree.
Right in front of the window, she signs, standing back and holding her hands up like a frame. She looks so old. So much more mature than any seven-year-old I’ve ever known before.
Maybe I only feel that way because I love her.
I knew I cared about Tati, but now that she’s the only person in the house who is talking to me, my love for her has cemented in a way that I know will break my heart when I have to leave.
Dmitry didn’t find out about our trip to the hospital. I didn’t tell Tati not to tell him, but being the clever girl she is, I think she knew it was a secret anyway. Besides, we really did pick up the foam rollers her physical therapist mentioned, so it was only a half lie at worst.
Together, we fluff the branches and assemble the ten-foot tree in the front corner of the room. Then, we dig through boxes of bulbs and garland and strings with little red bells on them and with no restraint at all, we put everything we find on the tree.
It looks like Santa Claus and all his reindeer threw up on the thing.
Surely Dmitry won’t mind our handiwork. Especially since Tati is so proud of it.
As soon as we’re finished, he walks through the front door, and Tati runs to grab him.
He hasn’t spoken to me in days, and I can barely even look at him.
It hurts too much. Seeing the way he glowers at me, seeing the anger in his face when I want to see something else entirely.
Considering our arrangement, I half expected him to still come to my room in the night. And though it would kill me to be physically close to him without any of the feelings to match, it would be something. It would be better than existing in the same house without ever really seeing each other.