Say It Again (First Wives)

by Catherine Bybee

  She’d flown to Italy on a whim . . . a restless impulse that had turned into two weeks and three different hotels. She should probably move on. The evening receptionist had smiled and waved at her when she had walked by earlier that night. It wasn’t in Sasha’s nature to let people recognize her.

  She asked herself why . . . Why move on? It wasn’t like anyone was looking for her. She wasn’t searching for anyone. Wasn’t protecting a single soul.

  She closed her eyes and attempted to still her mind. She’d been tired an hour ago.

  Her fingers tapped against the bed.

  She concentrated on the noise of the fan blowing cool air around the room. White noise.

  Sleep.

  If only she had something to wake early for.

  Knowing that she had nothing to occupy her time the following day, or week . . . or even year, kept her from being able to rest.

  Nothing.

  It was nearly four in the afternoon on the West Coast of the United States, dinnertime in Texas, where Trina and Wade resided with their infant daughter, Lilliana.

  Sasha opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.

  The quiet was killing her.

  She reached for her cell phone, charging on the nightstand, and dialed Reed.

  “What did I do to deserve a call from you today?”

  Reed never answered a call from her with hello.

  Sasha tried not to smile. “Nothing, I’m certain.”

  “Yet here you are. Where are you?”

  He always asked.

  She never told.

  “Nowhere close. Are you a father yet?” Reed’s wife, Lori, was expecting twins sometime in the next month, and with his world preoccupied, perhaps the security firm he worked with could use an extra hand. She wouldn’t ask if Reed needed help, she never did. She simply checked in with him on occasion, and he would volunteer a need if there were one. On rare occasions, he would search her out. She could count on three fingers the times that had happened.

  “Not yet. I’m not afraid to say that just the thought of the next year scares the crap out of me.”

  Now Sasha did smile. Reed didn’t scare easy, and he most certainly didn’t admit to it. “Sounds like you have everything under control.”

  Reed paused. “How are you? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  She dropped her smile, lifted her chin. “I’m making sure you haven’t screwed something up since I saw you last.”

  “And when was that?” he asked. “I never can tell if you’re watching me from behind a pair of binoculars.”

  “Binoculars . . . how very adolescent.” Obviously, everything was fine.

  No need for her.

  “You know how to contact me,” she said and pulled the phone away from her ear to disconnect the call.

  “Wait!”

  A spark of hope flared in her chest.

  “Yes?”

  “We want you to come after the babies are born. Visit. Trina and Wade will be here with Lilly. The holidays are just around the corner.”

  Sasha didn’t do social visits. “Perhaps, if I’m available.” She’d be available, but she wouldn’t go.

  Reed’s voice told her he knew she wouldn’t. “The invitation is always open.”

  Sasha hung up without saying goodbye.

  She walked to the window of her room, uncaring if anyone could see her nudity through the glass.

  Things needed to change.

  Memories of her younger years surfaced. She was only a short distance away from where she spent all of her formative years. A place that had molded her into the restless woman she had become. Perhaps some time there would help her find focus.

  Germany . . .

  With her mind made up, she lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.

  The invitation is always open.

  On the outside, Richter appeared like any other boarding school dotting the landscapes of Europe. The name alone should have shed light on the kind of education one would expect inside the fortress-thick walls of the main buildings and twelve-foot-tall fence that surrounded the fifty-acre grounds. But instead of the German word for judge making people scratch their heads and ask questions, most believed that a judge had at one time sent their child to the school and offered a large donation for the right to the name.

  Richter only took in troubled kids.

  Troubled rich kids.

  At least that’s what the brochure implied.

  Sasha drove her motorcycle up to the locked and guarded gates of Richter and stopped when the stern-faced uniformed “greeter” stepped out of his box.

  She lifted the visor of her helmet and met his unsmiling eyes. “Headmistress Lodovica.”

  “And you are?”

  “Sasha Budanov.”

  Placing her visor back over her eyes, she turned toward the gates, expecting them to open. When they did, she gunned her bike and sped through the familiar tree-lined drive to the main entrance of the school.

  A splattering of children followed her path with turns of their heads, but they never stopped moving to stare.

  Always in motion.

  One of the many things Richter had taught her.

  She left her helmet dangling off the handlebars and swung one long, leather-clad leg off the back. Her neck stretched as she looked up at the five stories of the main hall. It hadn’t changed. Even the shrubs surrounding the stone building didn’t appear to have grown.

  Some people had told her that when they returned to their childhood homes after extended periods away, the houses looked smaller.

  So why was it that Richter looked just as imposing now as it did then?

  Cutting off her thoughts, Sasha climbed the vast steps to the ten-foot ornately carved wooden doors.

  They opened before she could grasp the handle.

  Her lips lifted into a rare grin. “Charlie. I can’t believe you’re still here.” Her heart swelled with warm memories of the man standing in front of her.

  “That’s Checkpoint Charlie to you, Miss Budanov.”

  The irony always made her grin. The man in charge of assuring that anyone entering the doors of Richter belonged had been dubbed Checkpoint Charlie long before Sasha attended the school. The fact that he was German and not American, but spoke with a perfect American accent, had all the students wondering if he was an international spy. Truth was, none of them knew if Charlie was even his real name.

  She approached with her hands at her sides. They didn’t hug . . . it wasn’t allowed.

  “You look well, Sasha.”

  “As do you. Keeping everything protected here, I see.”

  “No one comes in, or out, without me knowing.”

  Sasha tilted her head to the side.

  Charlie’s playful smile slid. “Not since you rappelled off the north wall, crossed the grounds without hitting one sensor, and scaled the fence before calling Headmistress Lodovica from twenty miles away to tell her she needed to tighten her security.”

  Sasha forced down the pride she felt with the memory.

  “I couldn’t let that French twit . . . what was his name?”

  “Mr. Dufort.”

  “Right . . . Pierre Dufort.” Her male antagonist in her final year at Richter. “I couldn’t let him challenge me and not deliver.”

  Charlie shook his head and lowered his voice. “The senior class has attempted every year since, and has yet to repeat your actions.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  He scowled. “How so?”

  “That either means your students are unworthy or your teachers are slipping.” Sasha felt the smile in her eye as she turned.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” he said.

  She paused. Was she back?

  Shaking the question from her head, Sasha walked down the overgrown hall to the administration offices.

  The quiet space of the teachers’ area at the school did seem as if it had shrunk. A receptionist she didn’t recognize greeted her. “Miss
Budanov?”

  “Yes.”

  “The headmistress is ready for you.”

  She tried not to show surprise. The headmistress didn’t drop everything for anyone. Since Sasha came unannounced, she expected to wait at least a short time.

  Her eyes glanced toward the office of the woman in charge. “Thank you.”

  Sasha hesitated at the door. Should she knock?

  The buzz of the door being unlocked by the receptionist answered her question.

  Sasha lifted her chin and turned the knob.

  An unfamiliar chill of the unexpected washed down her spine and brought gooseflesh to her arms. Usually those sensations would be met with Sasha watching her back and pulling a weapon from wherever it was hiding. Only that wasn’t necessary here.

  Passing through the threshold flooded her with memories.

  The poised and elegant woman behind the desk was exactly how Sasha remembered.

  “Sasha. What an unexpected pleasure.” Headmistress Lodovica stood. In black dress pants and a long-sleeve button-up blouse, her clothing choices hadn’t changed. Behind her desk was a coat stand; on it was a hanger where she draped her robe. Sasha had seen the woman without her robe, but it was a very rare occasion.

  “Thank you for seeing me.”

  She rounded the desk. For one brief, frightening moment, Sasha thought the woman was going to hug her.

  Instead the headmistress indicated a sofa on the far end of her office. “I’m anxious to hear what has brought you back to our halls.”

  They both sat, and the headmistress crossed her slim legs at her ankles and rested her hands in her lap. The woman had to be in her midforties, maybe even older, but she didn’t look a day over thirty.

  “I’m anxious to discover what has me here as well, Headmistress.”

  “I think we can do away with the formalities, Sasha. You are no longer a student, and I am no longer your headmistress. My name is Linette. Please feel free to use it.” Those perfect lips and high cheekbones spread into a smile, something Sasha had seen less than five times.

  Sasha took a deep breath.

  “I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

  “Coming from the woman who handed down punishment for addressing her as anything but Headmistress . . .”

  “You, of all my students, know that control is easily lost when respect is absent.”

  It was Sasha’s turn to return a slight grin. “Yes, I remember well. I wasn’t punished for escaping the grounds, but for addressing you simply as Lodovica when I called you from the pub.”

  “One of my proudest moments.”

  Sasha narrowed her eyes. “You put me in solitary for five days.” Solitary sounded as bad as it was. Like any prison, the room was dark and soundproof. It was meant to intimidate and break a person. It often did.

  “For your lack of respect, not for the act. Besides, I’m aware that Charlie offered some relief.”

  He had. For an hour every night she was able to breathe fresh air and eat a real meal.

  “Is Charlie his real name?”

  “Is that why you’re here? To answer the questions of Richter that don’t need to be asked?”

  Sasha shook her head. “I learned who my benefactor was two years ago.”

  Linette raised her eyebrows. “I was sworn to secrecy.”

  “I know. My father is dead.”

  “I’m aware.”

  That surprised her. “You knew who he was the whole time?”

  Linette nodded. “Of course. I am in charge of the safety of the students here. Not an easy task with a parent that would just as soon see you dead. Why do you think we pushed you so hard?”

  “Because I was difficult.”

  “Willful, not difficult. I knew that the day would come when you’d learn the truth of your parentage and need to protect yourself.”

  Memories surfaced of the one and only time she addressed her father, on the day he attempted to kill her. He nearly succeeded.

  Sasha’s hand moved to her neck. The pain of her recovery from his hands attempting to snap her windpipe turned her cold.

  Silence filled the room.

  When she looked up, Linette’s practiced stoic expression replaced whatever smile had been there before.

  “Students return to Richter for one of three reasons. Answers, refuge, or direction. Which are you?”

  An unfamiliar knot caught in the back of her throat.

  “All three.”

  Chapter Two

  Linette picked up her private phone once Sasha left her office. Her contact answered the call in German and quickly switched to English when she identified herself.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” his smooth voice asked.

  “You will not believe who just walked back through my door.”

  “You know I hate guessing games.”

  Linette grinned as she looked out her office window toward the public courtyard. “Budanov.”

  She heard him sigh. “The untouchable one who got away?”

  “Yes, well, the ties that kept her back are no longer there.”

  “But is she still worthy? Eight years makes most soft.”

  “She appears harder, if that’s possible. I, too, am anxious to find out what she has lost and what she’s gained. I’ll be in touch.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  Linette lifted her chin as she hung up the phone.

  “Very anxious.”

  The duffel Sasha carried on her bike sat on the end of the bed in the room she’d been given. It was the same two hundred and twenty square feet as the university students shared. The difference was there was only one bed instead of two. That beat the high school dorms, which offered a lofty four hundred square feet but had double bunk beds crammed into the larger space. The headmistress had offered refuge for as long as she needed it. All the privacy rules of Richter were still in effect, and Sasha was expected to follow them. Basically, everything that went on inside the walls of the school, from the classes that had nothing to do with math, science, and literature to the disciplinary actions, was sworn to secrecy. Like the faculty, she could keep her cell phone and use the Internet. Although she wasn’t sure either would be a hundred percent secure.

  She’d been given a faculty bracelet that allowed her access to nearly every room on campus. Considering she’d been in most already, she wasn’t sure if there was more to learn from the place she’d called home since she was nine. Some things change, but Richter didn’t invite that concept.

  She slipped out of the thick leather pants she wore when riding and into something easier to move around in.

  In front of the mirror, she brushed her long hair back into a sleek ponytail. Her naturally olive complexion set off her dark eyes, made a little more striking with the eyeliner she liked to use. She applied a nude color over her full lips and tilted her head to the side.

  This was as close to her personal choice in appearance as she came. Well, when she was relaxing, in any event.

  She left the small bathroom, shuffled past her bedroom space, and out the door.

  Sasha told herself she wasn’t being nostalgic, yet she couldn’t stop her feet from moving the rest of her down memory lane.

  How many of her instructors would still be there? It had only been eight years. In fact, there might even be students who would recognize her, although she doubted she’d remember any of them. She’d hardly known her own class, let alone one eight years her junior.

  The academic building held no interest. She moved deeper into the campus and over to the dining complex. Long rows of tables like something out of Harry Potter, minus the floating candles, lined the room. Meals were a choreographed and orderly deal. The front of the room was for the youngest students. As the tables moved back to the doors of the hall, the age progressed. Faculty sat in front of everyone. Food was fuel, nothing more, nothing less. There were few indulgences at Richter when it came to meals. Birthdays were celebrated with a pat on the back or a prac
tical joke from one student to another, not with cake.

  She’d hated that when she was young. As an adult, she applauded the fact that she never struggled with food cravings. It helped that she was naturally thin. If not for her dedication to pushing her body past its comfort zone in her workouts to keep her muscles conditioned, she’d probably appear anorexic. The figure gods didn’t hand her any significant curves, and she wasn’t interested in buying them. The men she slept with didn’t complain. Then again, they’d probably concluded that a complaint would be met with a broken bone. Or a broken ego, at the very least.

  Through the empty dining hall, Sasha walked past the entry to the kitchens, where she could smell the staff working on the next meal, and to the locked double doors leading to the lower levels.

  She had to scan her bracelet to unlock the doors and ignored the heavy click as they secured behind her. The stairway was wide enough to funnel three students across going up and down.

  One level below, she went through another set of locked doors and into the sparring gym.

  Here, class was in session.

  The instructors—one woman, who had her back to Sasha, and one man—were dressed in white. The students were completely in black.

  She slid in quietly and tucked behind the students to observe. From the ages of the students around her, she assumed it was a college level class. Their attention was on the woman speaking. Ms. Denenberg had joined Richter in Sasha’s sophomore college year. The woman could kick any man’s ass in at least three different forms of martial arts. She used all the disciplines she had studied, along with some good old-fashioned street fighting, with a splash of krav maga, and developed her own training. She was on the mat with the male instructor, demonstrating takedowns.

  The students at Richter were never taught self-defense, they were instructed in offense only. If someone was after you, you met them head-on and made them regret they challenged you.

  “The neck guides the head and forces the body to go with it.” Ms. Denenberg motioned for her male counterpart to approach while she demonstrated to her students how to gain control of her opponent’s neck and used her legs to take him down to the mat. She demonstrated the same takedown three times and then switched to a similar hold from a different angle. Sasha could think of at least six different neck takedowns that she’d been taught during this very class.