by Nic Saint
“I’m sorry,” muttered Laura. “I really shouldn’t have—”
Anna suddenly turned on her. “Don’t apologize, honey. Please! This is not your fault. At all! All right?”
Laura smiled at the older woman. Was it possible that this ordeal had brought a glimmer of happiness in the midst of all the gloom? Meeting Anna was like meeting a friend, she now felt, and she felt grateful.
“What about your folks?” asked Anna. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll worry?”
“My parents died a long time ago. My mother died when I was born, then my father raised me until I was about ten, when he died in a car crash. I was raised by my aunt and uncle. I just called them. They’re fine.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. About your parents, I mean.”
She waved a hand. “It’s fine. It was a long time ago. And my aunt and uncle did a fine job raising me.” She smiled. Then her mind drifted back to Alex, and she wondered how Darlene would feel about her boyfriend murdering her boss. Though everyone had hated Boris with a vengeance, Darlene had seemed to genuinely like the brutal man. Then she put the thoughts of Darlene from her mind. It was none of her business what Alex decided to do with his life. If he wanted to spend it with Darlene, that was fine with her, and she wished him all the happiness in the world.
She let her eyes wander about the table, and proudly declared, “All done.”
Anna touched her cheek. “Thanks, honey. You’ve been a big help.”
Valery entered the kitchen, drawn by the smell, and pressed a loving kiss to his wife’s brow. “Smells great, hon.”
He was a big man, like his son, and though his hair had turned gray, he still had a full head of it, and looked younger than his age. Lines ran along a handsome face, and it was obvious he was prone to smiling. But when his eyes touched Laura’s, they didn’t smile at all. They were dark and brooding, and she felt the chill pass through her like a cold breeze.
He blames me for what happened, she instantly thought, and her smile evaporated like breath on a razor blade.
He gave her a curt nod, then waltzed out again, leaving Laura to wonder about her future with this family. She was stuck here, that much was obvious, and if the man of the house was going to hate her guts, she was in for a very hard time indeed.
CHAPTER 11
It hadn’t taken Darlene long to realize something was amiss. First Alex didn’t return her calls, then, when she arrived at work, looking for him everywhere, Gennady told her he’d left with that geeky redhead and his brother.
Wanting to know how Laura’s audition had gone, she went in search of Boris, only to find he’d apparently vanished from the face of the earth.
Alerting Gennady, the big guy had frowned and shrugged. If Boris wasn’t anywhere to be found, it was probably because he didn’t want to be found. The man had a mind of his own, didn’t she know that already?
Well, after working for the man for over three years, and being his manager for three months, she did know a little about Boris Sarnovsky. The man did things his way, sure, but when he wasn’t coming in, at least he let her know. She was his manager, after all, taking care that things ran smoothly.
Boris would never leave her hanging like this.
Pacing his office, the tall blonde decided to try his cell, tapping her yellow gel nails against her bright pink Samsung Galaxy. And that’s when she heard it. The sound of his ringing cell, coming from somewhere inside the office.
Frowning, she went in search of the gizmo and found it on the floor, wedged beneath the desk. Puzzled, she picked up the smartphone. Boris was addicted to his iPhone. The expensive trinket was like his entire office tucked inside his pocket. He would never leave it lying around like this.
Then she noticed how one of the carpets had been removed. The one next to the stage, and things began to become even odder.
Once again, she called in Gennady. This time, he listened carefully when she told him about the phone and the carpet.
She could see his mind working as she pointed to the bare patch of floor.
Before she could tell him more, he strode from the room, and she followed him into the corridor.
Oddly enough, he headed straight for the cleaning room. Did he think Boris was hiding in there?
She watched in confusion as he knelt down next to the bucket, sloshed the liquid, then picked up the mop and studied it carefully.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, flabbergasted.
Pacing the length of the corridor, his eyes on the floor, he ignored her.
Had the guy lost his mind? Was he inspecting the cleaning lady’s work now?
Suddenly, he cursed under his breath, his face turning scarlet, his eyes widening. She felt a chill descending upon her as he yanked out his phone and started spitting some vehement words in Russian into the small apparatus.
Suddenly, he turned on her, and she jumped back in surprise, her heels clacking on the tile.
“When was the last time you saw your boyfriend?” he bit.
“Alex? Why, he called me just now.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That he had to postpone the meet. Something about a family emergency?”
Before she could finish, Gennady had turned his back, babbling into his phone. Darlene sighed. No one ever told her anything!
She stalked after the big brute, adamant to get to the bottom of this. She was the Blue Moon’s manager, for Pete’s sake. She was supposed to be in charge when Boris wasn’t here, and yet this big brute acted as if she was just a nobody he could shove aside. He worked for her, not the other way around!
Setting her teeth, she caught up with the man in the parking lot, where he still stood furiously spewing gibberish into his phone. She knew it was Russian, of course, a language she despised. Ever since starting work for the Russians, she’d come to detest the breed. They were loud, rude, brutish, and never gave her the time of day. Even her own boyfriend had deserted her. Served her right for wanting to hook up with a Russian. The joke was on her.
She tapped Gennady on the shoulder. The guy didn’t respond at first, merely flinging his hand about, as if she were a pesky fly he could merely shrug off. But Darlene wasn’t the woman to be shrugged off. She tapped his shoulder again, making sure this time he felt it. He simply turned away, yapping into his phone.
With an exaggerated sigh, she gave the man a prod in the ribs, resolved to get him back in line if it was the last thing she did as club manager.
“Hey!” she added for good measure. “What am I? Road kill? Talk to me, buddy. I’m the fucking manager of this place! I’m your boss!”
Suddenly, the big guy turned on her, eyes shooting fire, his hand balled into a fist, and for a moment she feared he might simply swat her. Not giving an inch, she stood her ground.
In the management courses she’d been taking, they’d had role-play to prepare future corporate leaders for exactly this type of situation. Don’t back down, had been the mantra, and she wasn’t about to do so now. Even though the guy towered over her with his six foot five frame, and probably held two hundred pounds on her, she planted her feet in the gravel, her hands on her narrow hips, and jutted out her pointy chin for good measure, staring him down like she’d been taught.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
Finally, after giving her the evil eye for what seemed like minutes, Gennady placed a hand on the phone’s microphone, and growled, “Your boyfriend is in big trouble.”
She frowned, not comprehending. “Alex? What’s he done this time?”
Then she remembered Alex had the infernal habit of taking his drinks from the fridge without marking it down on his account, which was required of all personnel.
She smiled. “Look, how many? I’ll take care of it, all right?”
“One,” the man said dangerously.
She laughed, throwing her head back and tossing her blond mane. “One! Don’t be ridiculous! You’re making all this fuss over a single drink? Is
Boris turning into a miser all of a sudden?”
Gennady brought his face level with hers. “One dead body, Darlene. Your lover killed Boris, and if you think that’s funny, perhaps you should be next on his hit list.”
She gulped at this, and even as Gennady turned away to resume his heated conversation, she blurted out, “But that’s impossible! Alex would never do such a thing!”
Suddenly the strange phone call came back to mind, and Alex’s unexplained disappearance. And the missing carpet. And… hadn’t she seen traces of red on the floor?
“The floor,” she muttered, blanching. “The red spots! God, don’t tell me! Is that…blood?”
She felt her legs buckle, and suddenly found herself sitting on the gravel, her legs unable to carry her weight. Then a strong hand lifted her easily. Her hands closed around Gennady’s bulging bicep, and then he was half carrying, half walking her back inside.
“I need a fucking drink,” was all she could mutter when he dumped her on a barstool and resumed his phone call.
She reached behind the bar, snatched up a bottle of Smirnoff, poured herself a stiff one, and gulped it down in one go.
If Alex had really killed Boris Sarnovsky, there would be hell to pay. Not just for him, but for her as well.
Tainted by association. She didn’t know where she’d read the term, but it was a real thing. Soon people would start looking at her askance, thinking she had something to do with this. With a gulp she realized she must disassociate herself from Alex. She wanted nothing to do with the cold-blooded killer. At all.
She reached for the Smirnoff and this time took a swig from the bottle.
Only when a firm hand removed the vodka from her lips, did she stop.
“Don’t drink,” intoned Gennady as he put the liquor to his own lips instead.
Darlene raised a single eyebrow but refrained from commenting. When your boyfriend has just been revealed as a murderer, it’s best to keep quiet.
Gennady wiped his lips, and eyed her curiously. “You didn’t know,” he stated, then pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her lips. She squeezed her face into a prune face, the scent of the alcohol stronger on Gennady’s breath than on her own. “You stay close to me, Darlene. I’ll save your pretty ass.”
“I don’t need you to save my ass!” she cried, suddenly indignant. Who did this bozo think he was?
“Oh, but you do. Your boyfriend is a killer. We hunt him down. We hunt you down. Very simple and easy.” He gestured to himself. “You’re with me? We let you live.” He gestured to the door. “You’re with Alex? You die. Understand?”
She stared up at the man mountain with a newfound respect. He had a way of putting things that made them very plain. Very plain, indeed. “So you’re my protector now, huh?”
“I am,” he announced proudly. “I protect you. You help me.”
“Help you do what, exactly?”
He grinned, showing a perfect row of pearly whites. He was actually quite handsome, in a Neanderthal sort of way. The vodka had taken the edge off, and she was feeling mellower now. She shrugged. “All right. I’ll be your girl, if that’s what you want.”
He folded his strong fingers around the back of her neck and pulled her in for a devastating kiss, bruising her lips under his. She found there was a lot more soul in that kiss than she’d anticipated. A lot more passion than she’d bargained for, and soon found herself swooning in the man’s arms, succumbing to the heat of the moment.
When he finally released her, her head was swimming, and not just from the vodka she’d imbibed.
His wolfish grin disappeared when his phone chimed once again, and he picked it up from the counter. He cocked an eyebrow at her and barked, “Don’t go anywhere, Darlene. Some people will want to talk to you.”
“People?” she breathed, pushing her hair back from her brow. “What people?”
“My people.”
“Your people as in… the Russian Mob?”
He merely grinned at that one, then started gabbing a mile a minute into his mobile again.
She sighed, the events of the day catching up with her. She eyed the closest booth, and decided that if she was gonna stay put and talk to Gennady’s ‘people’, she might as well make herself comfortable. Moments later, she lay curled up on the bench, snoring lightly, and dreaming of burly Russians carrying heavy Kalashnikovs and dispensing devastating kisses.
CHAPTER 12
Darlene wasn’t the only one having trouble adapting to the new situation. On the other side of Brooklyn, Laura wasn’t feeling too well, either. She found the intense scrutiny of Valery Petrov extremely disconcerting.
The man had been staring at her for the last five minutes with those dark eyes of his, his mustache drooping beneath a hawk like nose; his narrow face sharply cut and projecting more menace than even Boris had been capable of.
They were seated around the kitchen table, waiting for the Petrov siblings to arrive. Anna had been fussing with her pot roast, and as long as it had just been her and the older woman, she’d felt at ease, but now that the Petrov patriarch had joined them, silence that was hard to endure had fallen over the kitchen.
She gazed around the small space, wondering how it would ever fit a family of a dozen, yet apparently, it had. The flowery wallpaper was cheerful, and one wall had been decorated with a fantasy window through which angels and fairy tale creatures hovered in a clear blue sky. Next to the fake window, plenty more pictures of the Petrovs at work and play had been placed, and she saw one of Alex as a boy, holding a giant fish in his hands, proud as a peacock. There was a big, goofy smile on his lips, and a bigger boy standing next to him, a hand on his brother’s shoulder. In this teenager she recognized a young Robert.
Around the table, benches had been placed, like a restaurant booth. The kitchen itself was serviceable, the cupboards rather baroque in design, the sink large and utilitarian. From the looks of it, everything in this place had been handmade and hand installed. She figured the Petrovs never shopped at IKEA.
The door to the garden offered an enticing view of a swath of vivid green that looked positively appealing right now, if only to get away from Valery Petrov. She couldn’t very well dart out now, though. That would be plain rude, not to mention she didn’t dare budge as long as Valery’s eyes held her prisoner.
Finally, the big man spoke. “You are student, yes?”
“Yes, that’s right,” she acknowledged after swallowing away the lump that had formed in the back of her throat.
“What you study?”
“Mathematics.”
He frowned at that, and promptly asked the inevitable question. “Why?”
In spite of herself, she had to smile. No one she ever told what she studied accepted mathematics as a perfectly natural field of study. They all seemed to question her sanity at her chosen vocation.
She resisted the temptation to offer her usual flippant response that she wanted to be a rocket scientist at NASA, and instead went with the more truthful, “I’ve always loved math, and I’m good at it, so I figured I might just as well turn my hobby into a career.”
He seemed unperturbed and unconvinced. “Why?”
She held up her hands in an ineffectual gesture. “I don’t know why, exactly. I just love math, you know.”
He stared at her, unblinking. It was clear he wasn’t a math lover himself. “You like solving riddles?”
“Sure. That’s part of it, I guess.” He suddenly pushed his newspaper in her direction and tapped a folded out section. The crossword puzzle. She smiled. “You want me to solve this for you?”
“Da. Yes.”
She shrugged, and accepted the held out pencil from the dour man. Frowning at the first question, she thought only for a few brief moments about what could possibly constitute ‘a large African mammal with a long neck’ and jotted down G-I-R-A-F-F-E in the designated squares. Then, as her concentration deepened, she set to work on the remaining part of the puzzle, figuring it was as go
od a way as any to while away the time.
Before long, she’d finished, and sighed with disappointment. It had been a particularly easy one. Too easy for a mind that was used to solving complex mathematical dilemmas. She replaced the pencil on the table and sat back with a wistful smile. Before she could mention the facility of the crossword, he’d pushed another one under her nose, still that same frown on his hardened face.
Arching an eyebrow, she saw that this one was larger and presented more of a challenge. He offered her the pencil once again, with a curt nod at the puzzle, and she smiled and resumed work on her unusual task. Mere moments later, she’d scratched the last letter into place and pursed her lips to search for blanks. Finding none, she looked up, and found her host still studying her intently.
Then, quite abruptly, his face broke into a smile, and he started shaking with laughter that was both unexpected and quite infectious. Before long, he was holding his belly, laughing like a crazy person, and she was laughing right along, expending some of the tension that had been building up since that morning.
He suddenly stabbed a finger at her. “Genius!” he exclaimed.
“I wouldn’t go so far,” she protested.
He nodded ten times in quick succession, and then planted both hands on the table. “Now we drink!”
“Sure,” she agreed. All this sitting around had made her thirsty. She watched as the head of the Petrov family opened the bench next to her, and saw that it actually concealed quite a large storage space. He retrieved a bottle of a clear liquid. Reading the label, she frowned and held up her hand. “Oh, I don’t, actually, drink, you know. Not alcohol, anyway.”
His smile froze into place. “You don’t drink?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“Well, I don’t tolerate it all that well, you know. Makes my head spin.”
He dismissed her protestations with a curt, “That’s the idea,” and plunked two shot glasses on the table, then sloshed the liquid into them and placed one in front of her. He picked up his own glass and held it out, gesturing for her to take the other. “Now we drink,” he repeated.