by Holly Bargo
Latasha blushed again. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, and what am I thinking?”
“We’re not living in sin.”
“Living in sin? Where in the hell did you get that?”
“You know what I mean, Cece.”
Cecily’s eyes widened. “You’re mooching off Iosif?”
“I am not. I pay rent. And Iosif’s okay with the arrangement.”
“Nyet,” came the baritone response.
“Latasha, that’s not the face of a man who’s content to live like platonic roommates.”
The other woman’s blush deepened. “I told him I wouldn’t go all the way until we were married and I won’t marry him until I’m well established in my career.”
Cecily narrowed her eyes in skepticism. “And until your mama accepts a pale-skinned Russian as a son-in-law.”
“Well, there is that,” Latasha admitted sheepishly. “But he’s working his way into her good graces. Last month he repaired her front porch and built a ramp for Billy.”
“What’s wrong with Billy?”
“Oh, I must not have told you.” Latasha sighed and summarized: “Gang shooting. Billy’s a paraplegic now. He lost the use of his legs and now Mama’s taking care of him.”
Cecily gasped, her hand going to her mouth in horror. “Oh, Latasha, that’s awful!”
Latasha shook her head, sending the curls dancing. “I told him he’d come to no good with that gang.” She sighed. “It sucks being able to say, ‘I told you so.’”
“There’s no hope he’ll walk again?”
“No, his spine was damaged by one bullet. Two more bullets shattered his right leg below the knee. They had to amputate.”
Cecily winced in sympathy and thought: That’s why I left Cleveland. This violent life will kill Pyotr sooner rather than later and I couldn’t endure it.
“So,” Latasha said, eyeing the sparkling diamond on Cecily’s hand, “tell me about the sparkly on your finger.”
“Pyotr and I are engaged,” Cecily said simply.
“When’s the date?”
She shook her head. “I won’t set a date until he leaves the Bratva. I cannot stomach what he does. It’s wrong. It’s violent and it’s wrong.”
Latasha opened her mouth to object, but she caught Iosif’s reproving glance in the rearview mirror and shut her mouth with saying anything. She changed tactics and demanded, “So, tell me about San Antonio.”
Cecily perked up. “I love it there. For one, isn’t not cold. The people are so much friendlier than up here. Strangers smile and wave at you like everyone’s already friends. I’ve got a great apartment on the second floor of this old Victorian house. My landlady is this sweet southern lady who knows how to use ‘bless your heart’ to mean the worst sort of insult or to let you know that she’s been mortally offended. She’s a little absent-minded, so Caroline, her daughter, has power of attorney. She checks in every so often to make sure Mrs. Macdougal is okay, but I look after her as much as I’m able. Caroline’s got a stick up her ass. I don’t like her at all.”
Latasha’s eyes widened and her eyebrows shot upward in surprised at her friend’s coarse language. Gentle, polite Cecily had developed a foul mouth. Cecily understood her friend’s expression and giggled.
“Yeah, working in Jaime’s kitchen has poorly influenced my vocabulary.”
“Jaime?”
“Yeah, he’s my boss. Jaime Tobiano.”
“That name sounds familiar.”
“Remember that cooking show we used to watch, The Tex-Mex Table?”
“Oh, yeah, he’s the good-looking chef. Wow, I used to just melt listening to his sexy accent.”
In the front seat, Iosif frowned. Latasha’s laugh filled the car. She leaned forward to pat his shoulder. “A Russian accent is even sexier.”
Somewhat mollified, Iosif’s expression relaxed.
“He’s so easy to get riled up,” Latasha whispered with naughty glee. “So, your boss is the sexy Hispanic chef Jaime Tobiano. You lucky, lucky girl!”
“I am lucky,” Cecily confirmed. “He’s a really nice guy and a brilliant chef. I’m learning so much working in his kitchen.”
Latasha shook her head at her former roommate’s obliviousness. She’d bet every penny in her bank account that Jaime Tobiano liked having this Botticelli Venus in his kitchen for more than her cooking skills.
The car slowed down and pulled into the drive of a modest ranch style home. Cecily recognized Iosif’s home and felt an odd sense of relief. A yawn suddenly wrenched her mouth open and her jaw cracked.
“God, I’m tired,” she muttered.
Latasha patted her leg. “You look beat. I’ll show you to the guest bedroom and you can catch some zees. Then, we’ll talk about Pyotr.”
Cecily nodded and followed her host and hostess into the house. She fell asleep the second her head hit the pillow.
Chapter 13
A quiet, empty feeling permeated Iosif’s house when Cecily awoke from her nap. Her bleary eyes took a moment to focus on the alarm clock before she realized how long she’d slept. Long nap. Latasha had gone to work and Iosif was out doing whatever it was that Iosif did. Cecily didn’t particularly want to know the details.
She ran her hands through her curls, fingers snagging on tangles.
“I need a haircut,” she muttered as she padded toward the bathroom.
A little later, she made her way to the kitchen and found a handwritten note that Latasha had left for her. She smiled at the request that she make herself free with whatever she found in the kitchen. Iosif would be home sometime later in the evening and Latasha’s shift did not end until 11:00 that night.
Cecily put together a quick sandwich, ate it without tasting anything, and washed it down with a glass of water. She tidied up, then returned to the bathroom to wash her face, brush her teeth, brush her hair, and apply some basic cosmetics in a futile effort to disguise exhaustion and worry. She hoped Maksim hadn’t gotten wind of her presence in Cleveland; he might very well make trouble for her for deserting his restaurant.
She changed clothes, then called for a taxi. She filled the twenty-minute wait with fidgeting and held her silence during the drive to the hospital. A harried looking employee at the information desk gave her directions to Pyotr’s room and a map of the hospital. She only had to stop and ask directions three more times before finally finding her destination.
She paused at the open doorway to Pyotr’s room. The light inside was dim. Machines beeped and buzzed. Tubes and wires ran from the blanketed figure on the narrow bed to the machines. Vitaly sat in a chair next to the bed. Sensing her presence, he looked up. Cecily stifled a gasp. She hadn’t seen him look that drawn and worried since Gia had been shot.
“You came.”
She nodded. Finding her voice, she whispered, “How’s he doing?”
Vitaly shrugged and said, “He’s alive. We don’t really know any more than that.”
“I—I’ve taken some time off work. I’ll sit with him so you can go home and help Gia with the baby.”
Vitaly looked torn, but then answered with a weary nod and mumbled thanks. He rose from the chair and collected his jacket.
“I’m glad you came, Cecily,” he said, his baritone rumbling with unshed tears. A big hand patted her shoulder. She caught sight of the colorful tattoos that extended over the back of his hand and fingers from beneath the long sleeve. “Pyotr will be, too.”
She nodded, thinking that Pyotr had tattoos like that, too. She loved seeing his brightly inked skin stretched over bulging muscle. She took the chair that Vitaly vacated and reached over to wrap Pyotr’s big hand in both of hers. Carefully avoiding the taped-down IV inserted into a vein and some other sensor taped to one of his fingers, she massaged his hand with a light touch and began to talk to him. Perhaps the sound of her voice would help him fight to come back.
“Why haven’t you called me, Pyotr? I’ve missed you so much?” She
leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to his palm. “Our apartment is ready for you to move in. I miss living with you, sleeping with you even if you do snore.”
Tears welled up and trickled down her cheeks. She exhaled a watery chuckle and began to tell him of her landlady’s latest eccentricities. She talked until her voice was hoarse, then simply sat in melancholy silence beside him, rubbing his limp hand and hoping that he felt her touch.
Hours passed. Every so often, medical personnel would enter the room to check the monitors and read over Pyotr’s medical chart. They glanced at her, occasionally offering a quick greeting, then paid her no further attention.
“I’m surprised you came,” a cold voice sneered from the doorway.
Cecily looked up and saw Olivia standing there, her expression pinched and disapproving.
“You deserted him once. Will you abandon him again when he wakes up?”
Cecily turned pale, then flushed with embarrassment.
“I suppose I deserved that,” she mumbled, averting her gaze to look at Pyotr’s ashen face.
“You deserve that and more.”
“Your ultimatums have killed my best enforcer,” another voice, deep and rough like gravel, accused. “Olivia, what is this faithless girl doing here?”
Stung, Cecily glared at the Russian mob boss who stood beside his petite, auburn-haired wife with his arm wrapped around her. “You have damned near killed your best enforcer,” she hissed.
“I did not leave him,” Maksim declared with heavy finality.
“You would not let him leave,” she shot back, knowing that angering Maksim Andrupovich was the height of foolishness. He could make her disappear with little more than a flick of his fingers. She was sure she’d not enjoy it, either.
Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “What does she mean by that, Maksim?”
“Pyotr knows the rules,” Maksim replied.
“Rules or no, Pyotr’s no good to you anymore and you’ll have to release him,” Olivia said, every syllable sharp like broken glass. She glared at Cecily and added, “And you’re no good for him.”
More tears ran down Cecily’s cheeks. “I love him,” she protested through her tears.
“A woman who loves a man stays by his side,” Olivia scoffed. “You left him.”
“And self-respect means nothing?” Cecily shot back. “I wanted him to leave with me.”
“That was no display of self-respect, you faithless little tramp. That was pride.”
“I’ve been faithful to Pyotr!”
Maksim pulled out his cell phone, thick fingers sliding across the small screen. He held up a picture that Cecily recognized. Under the light of street lamps, she saw herself enveloped in her boss’ embrace.
“Really?” Maksim taunted, his voice thick with contempt. “What do you call this?”
“It was just a hug!”
“You allow a man to hold you like this in public, who knows what you allow that man to do to you in private?” he sneered.
“He doesn’t do anything to me in private!” Cecily shouted, jumping to her feet. “He’s my boss. I wouldn’t have an affair with my boss!” She inhaled and asked, “Why are you spying on me anyway?”
Maksim gestured toward the unconscious man lying on the bed and replied, “For him. You broke his heart. I showed him you were faithless and did not deserve him.”
Cecily collapsed into the chair, tears now running freely. “I don’t deserve him, but not because I cheated on him. I would never do that.” She held up her left hand, the diamond catching the dim light in the room. “We’re supposed to get married.”
She buried her face in her hands and wept. Olivia’s expression softened and she eased herself from Maksim’s protective hold. Bending over Cecily, the older woman wrapped her arms around her and murmured soothing nonsense. Maksim looked at them, the woman he practically worshipped and the woman whom his best enforcer loved.
With a flick of his wrist, he muttered, “Fine. You get what you want. Pyotr Idaklyka will be released from the Bratva. He has been ruined anyway.”
With that, he stomped from the room.
Olivia straightened and patted Cecily on the shoulder. Looking at the blonde, she said, “He’ll probably need physical therapy.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Cecily vowed with stout loyalty. “But he’s leaving Cleveland.”
“Why move him away from his family?”
Cecily shook her head. “I understand that you and Maksim and Iosif and Vitaly and the others consider him family, but it’s a dysfunctional family.”
Olivia’s eyes narrowed in offense.
Cecily tried to soften the insult. “It will be too easy for him to lapse into old, familiar ways. He needs a fresh start where he can reinvent himself without old habits dragging him back into crime.”
Olivia sighed and nodded, her expression melancholy. “I understand.” At Cecily’s surprised look, she emphasized, “Truly, I do.”
The younger woman still looked skeptical.
“I was once a sex slave,” Olivia explained.
Cecily gasped in horror.
Olivia continued: “I was brought over with a shipment of girls and sold into slavery. Maksim’s father bought me for his older son. But Maksim wanted me.” She shrugged, looking inward. “We fell in love, though I belonged to his brother. He fought his brother for possession and, when he won, he offered me freedom.”
She looked at Cecily, who gaped in sustained horror at the story.
“There is no true freedom after that,” Olivia said. “I found my freedom in Maksim.” She sighed before continuing. “Maksim is a hard man. He has made tough choices all his life. He grew up the son of a cruel and dangerous man, the younger brother of another cruel and dangerous man. Here in the United States he walks a fine line between what the Bratva would make of him and what I would prefer him to be. Often the Bratva must take precedence or he loses everything. I understand that.”
“I had no idea,” Cecily muttered.
“Of course not. Why would you?” Olivia directed a piercing glare at her. “You see a well-preserved wife of a wealthy man, not a frightened girl who was sold into prostitution.”
Cecily shook her head and murmured an apology, although she wasn’t quite sure why she was apologizing. Olivia patted her again.
“What Vitaly and Gia share is rare and special. What Pyotr feels for you is also rare and special.” The older woman’s expression hardened and sharpened. Looking at her, Cecily saw the steely edge of a mobster’s mate. “If you hurt him again, I’ll kill you myself.”
With those parting words, she left the room to join her husband. Cecily leaned back in the chair and mulled over that unsettling conversation. She wiped her sleeve across her face to dry her tears.
“Dear God, Pyotr, how did you get mixed up with these people?” she muttered under her breath.
With no answer forthcoming, Cecily once again took hold of Pyotr’s hand and gently stroked the skin not otherwise taped, bandaged, punctured, or covered by a medical device. The bruised, swollen state of his knuckles did not escape her notice.
“No more fighting, Pyotr. You can’t go back into the ring after this.”
“Cage, not ring,” a low voice rumbled softly behind her.
Cecily inhaled sharply, dropped Pyotr’s hand, and twisted around in the seat to face whoever spoke to her. Iosif stood in the doorway, his sharp features inscrutable as he focused his dark laser stare upon his unconscious comrade.
“Hello, Iosif,” Cecily greet him with automatic, polite manners. “Maksim released him from the Bratva.”
“Da,” Iosif said with a curt nod and without surprise. “He is no longer useful.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” she protested.
He gave her a one-shouldered shrug that she did not know how to interpret and asked, “You will take him to Texas with you, yes?”
“Yes, if he’ll come.”
Something glinted in Iosif’s eyes an
d his lips curled in a faint smile. “Da, he will come in you.”
“With me,” she corrected.
“Ya znayu, chto ya skazal.”
Cecily blushed and averted her gaze: yes, he did know what he said and he meant it, too. She turned around and again took Pyotr’s hand in hers. Looking at Pyotr, she asked, “Are you going to marry Latasha?”
“That’s between her and me, don’t you think?”
“She’s my best friend,” Cecily replied. “I don’t want her hurt.”
She did not see Iosif’s faintly amused expression. “You want to know if my intentions are honorable.”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“She is mine. She doesn’t realize it yet.”
“But are you hers, Iosif?”
Since he had not forced the pretty, sharp-tongued woman living with him to share his bed, he rather thought that question superfluous. Of course, he was hers. He’d not tolerate such denial from any other woman. Her undisciplined, hoodlum brothers did not frighten him.
Cecily narrowed her eyes as another thought came to her in the absence of a verbal reply from Iosif. “You keep her away from Gennady, you hear? I’ve heard things, nasty things, about him.”
“Gennady would give his life for either Latasha or Gia, but he will not touch them.”
“Good.”
“Protecting my virtue, are you?” Latasha’s light voice quipped as she briskly walked into the room.
“Latasha!” Cecily cried.
Latasha stood back a few steps and gave her friend a critical once-over with her eyes. “You look better rested, but you’ve been crying.” She glared at Iosif. “Did you make Cece cry?”
Iosif turned just a little pale and shook his head, “Nyet.”
“Damn well better not have,” she muttered and picked up Pyotr’s chart. “I can only stay a minute—just wanted to check up on you and the big guy here.”
“What does his chart say?”
Latasha shook her head. “A lot of medical jargon that doctors think nurses won’t understand. Basically, it says that he’s in a coma and they don’t know what else to do besides wait.”