by Lauren Dane
Rachel rolled her eyes and pretended to be bored.
“I’m not sure what I did to get not just one mother-in-law but two,” Maybe grumbled.
“Something to tell me?”
“No. Not yet. I was just bitching. But not really because Irena is adorable and scary and I love her. I’m sure Polina has her pluses. She did get Cristian and Alexsei here, after all.”
“Well there you go. Something to be thankful for and we can just acknowledge the fact that she’s got her flaws and move on. If she moves her ass over here we can have a whole different conversation.”
“At least she’s too fancy schmancy to want to move in.”
“Ever the little optimist.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“AT LEAST MOST of the attention is on Polina or Cris and Seth,” Maybe said under her breath.
Vic snorted in agreement.
Right at that moment Polina was trying to get Seth to submit and let her be in control. Seth wasn’t giving in though. So, Cris was upset and Alexsei was attempting to soothe their mother and change the subject.
Vic didn’t get anywhere near that mess. He had his own shit to shovel in his own ways, but he wasn’t sorry it was Alexsei’s job to deal with it.
“By the way, I saw the stuff you and Rachel got my mom. Nicely done.”
“Your mom has been good to us since the first day we moved in. She and Rachel have become especially close, don’t you think?” Maybe asked before taking a shot of ice-cold vodka.
“Does that bother you?” he asked.
“That Rachel and your mom are tight? No, I love it. It makes me happy. I have our aunt and now that our parents are no longer in our lives, she needs that maternal connection. And your mom and I have our own thing too. I adore her and she thinks I’m good for Alexsei. I have a lot of love in my life right now. I’m very fortunate.”
Vic smiled at the woman Alexsei had fallen for. In honor of Polina’s visit, Maybe had tuned her blue hair down into a mahogany and the jewelry in her facial piercing was very minimalist. She was still totally herself, but she’d softened the edges for Alexsei’s sake.
Polina demanded a tour of Maybe and Rachel’s house so they all walked over next door. But at the porch, Rachel stopped and told him she’d be inside in a moment.
As hard as it was, he went in and let her do her thing because that’s what she needed to do. Sometimes she just had to walk the perimeter to assure herself all was well and once she’d done that everything would be fine.
“Where did your friend go?” Polina asked Vic as he joined them all in the living room she’d just been complaining about the size of.
“She’ll be back shortly.” Polina was his aunt and still deserved respect, but she wasn’t his mother and he wasn’t really ready to tolerate any of her bullshit so he hoped she’d move on.
Which she did. “Why do you want to live here?” Polina asked Alexsei. “This place is as awful as your aunt and uncle’s house. No offense,” she added, not meaning it at all.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would take offense to that,” Alexsei said in Russian.
“You were raised better,” she replied, also in Russian.
“I certainly was raised better than to be having this talk. What is wrong with this house? It’s big. At least twice the size of my old place. Which you never saw anyway, so. It’s in a safe neighborhood. Believe me when I tell you this house is probably one of the best defended in the damned state. And Maybe is here. And I love Maybe. So that’s why I live here.”
“This is a cop’s house,” she said back.
Maybe had been learning Russian, but Vic was pretty sure the speed of the discussion would keep her from figuring out exactly what was being said. But the tenor of the discussion made it clear it was a fight. Given her expression she most certainly had figured it out.
In fact, she appeared to be having a very stern discussion in her head. Probably convincing herself not to punch Polina in the face. That was Vic’s thought most often when she was around too so he understood.
Rachel came in the front door, locking up after herself.
“If this is such a safe neighborhood why are there so many locks on the door?” Polina asked.
“Because that’s how they want it,” Vic said.
“What’s going on?” Rachel asked.
“Just giving the tour,” Maybe said brightly, not taking the bait like a champ.
Vic smiled, winking when Polina turned her back.
“I’m sure Polina would like it better if we backed off and let Alexsei be her tour guide,” Rachel said, eyeing Polina, daring her to make a deal of that too.
Alexsei took his mother’s arm and steered her to the side of the house he and Maybe shared.
“You’re a professional assassin,” Vic told her, approval clear in his voice.
Rachel glared in the direction they’d disappeared. “I don’t like that woman at all. She should fall to her knees, grateful for Maybe. The way she pokes at your mother has given me a tic in my eye tonight. What the fresh hell? Can we lock her in the pantry for a while?”
Maybe just threw her arms around her sister and made loud kissing sounds. “The best big sister ever in the world.”
“I’m passable.” Rachel blushed a little, endearing her to him even more. “I didn’t yank her hair and slap her face, so there’s that herculean control all for you.”
“At least she lives across the world,” Vic said. “You won’t see her very often.”
“There is that. You’re an optimist, Vic.” Maybe bumped her hip to his before she went into the kitchen to make tea Polina wasn’t going to drink.
“We’re done with our duty,” he said into Rachel’s ear. “It’s totally okay for us to escape to my house or your room.” He’d noted the lines around her mouth. Something was bothering her and he didn’t know if it was Polina or something had happened outside.
He did know she wasn’t going to show it in front of Maybe so he had to be patient and get her alone before he demanded she tell him what was up.
“When she comes back out with Alexsei. I don’t want to leave her without backup with that woman.”
Soon enough, Alexsei and his mother returned. He and Maybe escorted her back next door where Seth and Cristian were going to take her to her hotel for the night.
“What’s got you upset? I mean, other than the basics of having to deal with Polina,” he asked as they settled into her bed a few minutes later.
“I think someone was watching the house tonight.”
Her tone was so flat he turned to look at her better. “Did you talk to the cops? What do you think it might be?”
“I don’t know what it might be. Let’s be real here, Polina comes with her own set of troubles. Having her here could have attracted the attention of a wide host of candidates.”
Vic couldn’t argue against that. His father hated Polina’s husband, who was without a doubt associated with the oligarchs and various connected Russian crime lords back in Russia.
“Or it could be about me somehow. The last three weeks or so I’ve felt like I was being watched. Not all the time. But enough that after tonight I’m more inclined to think it’s about me than Polina.”
“If it’s about you, who is it? Some monster you helped put in prison? Your dad? What?”
Vic wasn’t sure how it hadn’t really occurred to him that just because she’d killed Price and left the FBI that didn’t mean the remnants of her old life weren’t still around. Like all the psychos she was responsible for tossing behind bars.
“If any of the people I’ve helped imprison were out I’d know. And, if any of them were following me, I wouldn’t know it until it was too late. I think it’s my father. Which totally pisses me off.”
“Better him than some dude who eats human livers with
fava beans and a nice Chianti,” Vic said, meaning it to his toes.
“Certainly.”
* * *
SHE HAD TO open herself back up to that part of her skill set, that way of viewing the world that she had as an agent, but that’s what it took to overcome whatever her father had in store.
“I don’t think he’s been on our property. He’s all too aware of the rules and how to skirt them. But he’s sniffing around which means he wants to make trouble. I just need to figure it out so I can be ready when he makes his move.”
“Jesus Christ. I’m going to hell for how sexy I find it when you’re tough and threatening someone,” Vic said.
That humor helped her let go of some of her anger.
She kissed him quickly.
“I imagine if he was watching tonight he got a whole lot of fuel for his foreigners-are-messing-with-my-daughter fantasy.”
“Should we ignore it? Report it? What? You tell me what we should do here and I’ll make it happen.”
So sweet.
She cupped his cheek a moment. “Right now I’m gathering information. Trying to figure out what he might do next. Then I’ll know better what to do. I’m not interested in getting into some sort of lengthy legal entanglement. And it’s my suspicion that he’d do whatever it took to keep me on the hook somehow.”
Vic turned his beautiful mouth into a brief frown. “Okay. Okay. But if he comes back to the bakery I’m going to kick him out immediately. And if he gives me an opening I will defend myself and my business.”
“He wants to goad you into a response. That’s his MO. Then you’re responding and he’s making all the moves. Once you see it that way it’ll be easier not to let him yank you into something,” she told him.
“Yeah, like how you feel guilty that you didn’t protect your sister from a situation you didn’t even know about until a few months ago?” he challenged.
“I will always feel guilty that Maybe suffered.” It didn’t matter that she’d been young and away from home. What had mattered was that her little sister had been hurt and her father was still around trying to hurt Maybe to get Rachel to react.
She’d react all right. But in her way. On her terms.
“I get it now. My therapist said something to me last month after my dad came at me outside Wren’s friend’s building and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then. His sense of self has been closely tied to me. Like maybe since I was a really little girl. The more I achieved, the better it made him feel. The more it convinced him that he was a great father and his problems with everyone else were theirs and not his fault. But here I am now. I give tattoos. I live with my sister who has always made him feel like a failure. I’m everything he believes is a failure which in turn makes him one.”
She’d had to really delve back into her old self to parse that out and go through it. More in the last few months than she had in years, some of those old Rachel skills had been needed.
And they were right where she’d set them aside as she’d had to work so hard to recover. She wouldn’t go back to law enforcement. It was part of her past but not her future. But neither did she feel the need to excise what she’d learned and honed on the job either.
“Right now my approach is to just give him some more rope and see what he does with it. I’m not going to let him lead me or Maybe around anymore.”
“All right. I’ll do my best not to react. But honestly, Rachel, your father is a prick.”
She laughed. “He is. I’m trying to think of him like a suspect. If I keep him at that distance it’s not as hard. Can you imagine him and Polina at a wedding together?”
“It’s enough to decide to elope.”
“Is it terrible that I hope she stays married so she also stays in Moscow? I feel bad about that, but she’s not nice and I feel like if she were around she’d spend her time making trouble.”
Vic snorted. “If she came to the United States she wouldn’t settle here in Seattle. She’d need to be in Los Angeles or New York City. She considers Seattle to be a backwater far beneath her status.”
“Whatever keeps her away.”
In a totally weird way, she was relieved that his family had its own problems. Not Danil’s death, which was a terrible tragedy. But potential mother-in-law trouble? Infighting between Irena and her sister? That was delightfully normally dysfunctional.
“We’ll see her more than usual in the next year or so. She’ll come for Cristian’s wedding and then, eventually when Alexsei and Maybe get married she’ll be back,” Vic said.
Rachel planned to tell her sister to do all the big things before they let Polina know they were engaged. She bet Alexsei’s mother would be a total pain in the ass if she was allowed to get in the middle of any wedding planning.
“I know you’ve got to get up extra early tomorrow to get to the bakery first thing while everyone else entertains Polina and gets ready for the dinner. Go home and get some sleep,” she told him.
“I’m fine here.”
“Bull. At your place you can make as much noise as you want in order to get up and out.” He was such an adorable little hedgehog in the mornings but he bumbled around and grumped as he got dressed and out the door. He couldn’t do that at her house.
“Then you come and sleep over at my house.”
Since he’d set about making his house everything she’d want—new locks and bird feeders included—she’d found herself at his place more often. She was comfortable there. Slept more soundly with him than she did on her own.
“I want to be here.” Maybe might need to talk. Or her dad might pop by. Whatever happened, if it happened she wanted to be there to handle it.
He nodded and then snuggled down into the bed with her fully. “Then I’ll be sleeping here.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Tomorrow when you knock on my door to pick me up to drive me to dinner I’ll answer. And I’ll look good. I’m not running.”
“What if you have a bad dream and I’m not here to cuddle you back to sleep? What if you wake up at four feeling frisky and there’s no one here to help you out?” he countered, not moving a single inch.
“I have my own hand if I wake up feeling frisky. And I haven’t had a bad dream in a while. But if I do, I’ll do what I did before you came along. I’ll be okay.”
He frowned. “But there’s no need for that. Because I have come along and here I am trying to sleep but you’re talking and talking. If you want to keep talking, might I suggest you give me some details about what you do with your hand when I’m not around.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
VIC HAD BEEN so quiet when he’d gotten up she probably wouldn’t normally have even awoken. But it was the loss of his warmth, the solid, reassuring weight of him suddenly gone that had her surfacing enough to say his name.
He moved to her, already dressed, bending to kiss her. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you later tonight.”
She listened until he’d gone. Waited for the sound of the keypad being engaged as the alarm was turned off and reset when he left the house. Then the snap of each lock being reengaged.
She let sleep drag her back under and when her alarm went off a few hours later, she woke up glad he’d stayed the night.
Alexsei and Maybe had already left for Whiskey Sharp so she was blessedly alone as she got ready, made herself breakfast, packed a lunch and then headed out to work.
It was raining. It felt like this last winter and early spring had been nothing but rain. But that day she got to avoid the miserable weather because she was going to be so busy she’d drive instead of take the bus.
And it also enabled her to escape if she wanted to as well.
Just after she’d parked, her phone buzzed with a call that turned out to be from one of her friends back from her Bureau days.
After a slightly awkward h
ello, Melissa got right down to it. “Your dad has been calling a lot lately. A few people have had to change their personal numbers because of it.”
Rachel blew out a long breath. “What is he saying?”
“He’s trying to get people to call you and convince you to come back. I’d love to see you back here, but he’s pissing people off.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea. We’re not...on speaking terms right now,” Rachel said, wishing the ground could swallow her up.
“I had a feeling it was something like that. He seemed a little manic to me. If it makes you feel any better, we all know you have nothing to do with this. We’ve all blocked him and at the office, his calls go into the kook file. He’s also been trying to report some Russian nationals.”
They were all citizens, for god’s sake! With the exception of Polina, and she was only visiting for four days.
Rachel told her that.
“No one is taking him seriously. But he’s annoying folks. Making a nuisance of himself. I thought you should know.”
Rachel thanked her and headed in to work.
* * *
“I OBVIOUSLY NEED to tell Maybe,” Rachel said to Cora some hours later. “I don’t want her to think I’m hiding things. At the same time, she’s stressed out about Alexsei’s mom being here and this can wait. Don’t you think?”
“You’re doing this adulting thing hard lately,” Cora said, approval in her tone. “I agree that this is a bad time but I also worry Maybe will feel like you’re hiding something from her. It’s already a sore point between you and she’s feeling especially exposed right now. As are you.”
“I’m not feeling exposed.”
Cora just looked at her.
“I’m just letting someone close. That’s not the same as feeling exposed,” Rachel said.
“What a bunch of word salad. Anyway. You and Maybe would be better off being totally honest. Even if she is stressed out over this Polina chick. It’ll let her focus on something else. And it’ll make her feel like you believe she’s capable of handling stuff.”