Sergi

by K. J. Dahlen

  “Da, I know. We were both looking for them and it would take many years to catch up with them,” Sergi admitted.

  “What is going on here?” Anita finally broke her silence. “Who is this man and what are the two of you talking about? Who is this Nina?”

  “I apologize, Dragotsennyy.” Sergi pulled her up to meet his guest. “This is Petr Bodana. He is one of my oldest friends and a member of the High Council. Let’s take this in the drawing room for a full explanation.” He grabbed her hand and gently led her back into the drawing room.

  Petr and Misha followed and when they all got there, Levi got to his feet. When he saw the other man, he went to stand beside his mother while Sergi poured some drinks. When he noticed the other man staring at his mother, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder to offer her his protection.

  Petr’s eyes raised to stare at him.

  Levi frowned at him. “What is going on here?”

  Sergi handed out glasses of vodka and came to stand beside Anita. He looked over the top of her head and found Levi staring back at him. “Levi, this is my old friend Petr. Petr, this is my son Levi.”

  Petr’s head snapped up as he stared for a moment at Sergi then slowly turned to Levi. “Your son? How is that possible?”

  “I met Anita twenty four years ago when she was visiting from America. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what happened next but on what would have been our fourth day together, she disappeared on me. I looked for her but I could never find her. We hadn’t gotten around to exchanging personal information yet, so I had no idea where to even look for her. Recently, when I was in New York City, I ran into her grandfather Gavril and her father Nico. I have to admit I didn’t see her when I confronted the pair of them. When she demanded to know what was going on, I realized who she was. That’s when I met Levi and she told me he was my son.”

  Petr snorted but didn’t say anything. He did however look the younger man over carefully. His expression was harsh and unforgiving until he reached the young man’s face. When he saw Levi’s eyes, his face softened and he looked over at Sergi.

  Sergi nodded when he noted the other’s man stunned gaze.

  “He has my eyes doesn’t he? Mine and Nina’s,” Petr said.

  “So does Anita.” Sergi pointed out.

  “Da, she does,” Petr admitted. Taking a deep breath, Petr squared his shoulders and looked at Anita and Levi. “I have a feeling you are my granddaughter young woman and that would make you my great grandson. Nico might be your father, but I feel my Nina was your mother.”

  Anita stumbled back a step and stared at him. Her expression was so lost she couldn’t speak. She turned her head and stared at Sergi. “What is he talking about? My mother abandoned me when I was two days old. She left me.”

  “She did nothing of the kind young lady.” Petr bristled at her accusation.

  Anita turned back to Petr shaking her head. “That is what I was told every day of my life. My father told me she left us. She couldn’t take being a mother, so she walked out on both of us. He wasn’t much of a father either but he was all I had. I didn’t know any better at that time…”

  “He lied to you.” Petr growled. “But why would I be surprised by anything that man said and did? He was known to be a liar.”

  “I still don’t understand what’s going on here,” Anita whispered.

  “Let’s sit down and I will tell you what happened before you were born,” Petr suggested. He led her over to the sofa and sat her down. Settling down beside her he began his tale, “I used to live here in Moscow, but I moved away to St. Petersburg over twenty years ago. I have a wife, Alena and I had three sons and two daughters. One of my daughters was Nina. She was my oldest daughter and she was only seventeen when she met your father. She claimed to be in love and there was nothing I could do to keep them apart. I forbid her to see him and he talked her into meeting him behind my back. I didn’t know they were still seeing each other then the problem with Gavril and Tasha happened. While the entire country was searching for Nico and Gavril, my Nina finally had to tell me she was carrying Nico’s child. I was devastated to say the least. Every day I watched her grow big with her child. She refused to believe he had anything to do with Tasha’s murder. She believed he was innocent but every day he was gone, I could see her belief in him dim just a little bit. She was close to the end of her pregnancy when he finally got in touch with her. Just days before she was to have her child, she disappeared again. We couldn’t find her anywhere. We didn’t know where she went or what was happening to her.”

  Anita stared at him and stole glances over at Levi.

  He shrugged and looked confused.

  “A week went by before we got word of her whereabouts. But it was too late to help her. My Nina was dead. She had had her baby and when she was found, she was already gone and the baby was missing. The doctor told us she died from blood loss. She hemorrhaged giving birth and the man who had been with her allowed her to bleed to death, rather than get her medical help. She had the baby in a dirty hotel room without any help at all.” Petr broke off his story and had to take a deep breath in order to finish.

  Anita placed her hand up over her mouth, as she looked horrified by this.

  “We showed Nico’s picture and the staff admitted he was there. We assumed he showed up, let my Nina give birth to his baby then he left her to die. He took the baby with him so we never knew what the baby was or where it ended up. We’ve wondered those questions every day since she died.” He looked over at her and smiled. “Now I guess we know those answers.”

  Anita felt stunned. She felt someone sit down next to her and when she turned to see who it was, she found Levi sitting there. He was in shock as well. He wrapped his arm around her and they held each other in silence.

  Then Sergi came to stand behind them.

  Laying his hand on their shoulders Anita looked up and saw the surprise on his face as well.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know this before just now,” he assured her. “Petr has never told anyone this.”

  Petr got to his feet and glared at Sergi, “And why should I tell people what that bastard did to my daughter? I put the blame for Nina’s death on his head and I wanted no pity from anyone else. This was my family’s business only. We are the ones who suffered.”

  “I’m so sorry for what my father did to your daughter, but you can’t be sure I am your Nina’s child,” Anita whispered in her defense.

  Petr helped her to her feet and brushed the hair on her right side away from her neck. Behind her right ear he noted a birth mark. It was in the shape of a heart and was brown in color. “You are her child and this mark proves it. To my mind anyway,” Petr told her. “My Nina had the same mark and she got it from her mother. My other daughter has the same mark. It runs in her mother’s family and all the girls in her family have it.”

  Anita sat back down on the sofa hard. This was almost too much for her to comprehend. Her father had allowed the woman who carried her to die. Then he stole her and disappeared. Her father truly was a monster. He raised her with nothing but lies and kept her away from her real family all her life.

  She didn’t know what all this meant. She couldn’t even think about that. At least now, she knew why she didn’t have a birth certificate. She had been born here in Russia. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she thought about the new complications in her life.

  Anita looked back at Sergi with heartbreak in her eyes. She got to her feet and ran from the room. They heard her running up the stairs and then they heard a door slam.

  Sergi winced at the sound but he didn’t move to go after her.

  Chapter Nine

  Sergi looked over at Petr.

  Petr looked a little ragged. He downed the drink Sergi had handed him earlier. He sat back down with a thud. No one said a word for a long moment then Petr asked, “How did you know?”

  Misha stared at him too. “Yes, dad how?”

  “Her eyes,” Sergi admitted
. “It took me three days to connect her to you but once I did, I knew I had to tell you. I know not many people knew what happened but as we’ve been friends forever, I remember when Nina died and all the hoopla about the search for her baby. So when I met her all those years ago. I did know. But before I could do any confirming, she was gone. I am sorry old friend, but I just did not wish to dredge up such bad memories for you while not being able to… well, I could not even present her to you as she disappeared on me.”

  Petr turned to look at his old friend. “I… forgive that. I suppose. But now what? The Tribunal is tomorrow, how do we make Nico pay for what he did to my Nina.?”

  Sergi came around the back of the sofa and poured himself another drink. “Before we left America, I needed to know why Anita had a fake birth certificate. He wanted to make a deal with me. If I didn’t hold him responsible for his part of Tasha’s murder, he would tell me about Anita’s birth. I didn’t trust the man any further then I could throw him but I made the deal.”

  Levi got to his feet and his body shook he was so upset. “My mother never would have agreed to a deal like that and you know it.”

  Sergi nodded. “I do know that and she told me not to make the deal. But that’s not the point. The point is the deal got him here. The deal is one he thinks will allow him to walk away a free man. He doesn’t realize that Nina’s father is part of the Council that will sentence him and his father.” He shrugged. “He may not pay for his part in my wife’s death but he will pay for what he did to Nina. That is what matters the most to me. Nico will pay for at least one of his crimes and I will be there to see it. Nina deserves that much at least and so does your mother.”

  Petr looked over at Sergi and asked, “He is still her father, will she forgive you for this action? You are condemning her father to his death.”

  “She knows he is not a good man,” Levi assured the other man. “She won’t have a problem with him over that.”

  Petr looked over at Levi. “He is still her father.”

  Misha stared at his half-brother as he’d wondered the same thing himself.

  Levi shrugged but didn’t say anything.

  Sergi snorted. “She’s worried about not being accepted by my peers for just that reason.”

  Misha nodded. “I see that too. And we cannot seem to fix this.”

  Petr stood and squared his shoulders. “She will be accepted as my granddaughter and that’s all she needs.”

  Levi shook his head. “Something neither of you realize is the fact that my mother has been struggling to figure out who she is all her life. She knew her father wasn’t telling her the truth about her mother but she could never get out of him who her mother was. She never even knew her mother’s name. She always felt invisible because he never told her anything other than the fact her mother walked out of both of them. When I was growing up, she would often tell me stories about Sergi because she wanted me to know who I was. She wanted me to have value, to be proud of what I was or who I was. That was something Nico never gave her. She wanted me to know I might have someone other than her who cared for me. She blamed herself for not knowing more about the man who gave me life but she was never sorry for having me. She gave me all the love she never got as a child and she gave me a sense of my own identity that she never had. She just wanted to matter to someone.”

  “Well, she has an identity and she’s part of my family. And she does matter to me and my family,” Petr told him.

  “She belongs to me as well.” Sergi growled. “As do you…” He stared at Levi. “And she was right, you are part of me as well and I’m claiming the both of you.”

  “Please give her time to accept what she’s just learned?” Levi asked of them both. “And believe me when I say this is something she’s wanted for a very long time.” He then turned and walked out of the room, leaving all three men behind. He made his way up the stairs and down the hall to the room his mother was in.

  He opened the door and heard her sobbing.

  He walked over to the bed and lifted her into his arms. He held her while she cried and when she was done, she laid his head on his chest. When he picked her up he realized he never thought about just how frail she was before.

  After a moment or so she whispered, “Well, I guess I know who I am now don’t I?”

  “You will never have to hang your head in shame again that’s for sure,” Levi told her. “As Sergi’s woman or Bodana’s granddaughter. You have an identity now.”

  “I’m still Nico Turchaninov’s daughter,” she reminded him. “And that means I’m still Gavril’s granddaughter too. I can’t escape that stain.”

  “Yeah that’s true, but you can’t help that. You never asked to be his child,” Levi told her. “But you’ve always been more than just that. You are the good to their bad. And that you got from your mother and her family.”

  She chuckled. “Well, that’s true. I guess we can’t pick our parents.”

  “You know Petr is going after him for allowing his daughter to die without medical help don’t you? He won’t be walking away from the tribunal a free man.”

  Anita nodded. “He won’t be charged with his part of Sergi’s wife’s murder either. That’s not fair to Sergi or Misha. They deserve closure from Nico too. Not just Gavril.”

  “I don’t think Sergi sees it that way.” Levi shook his head. “I think he knows Nico will get his in the end and he doesn’t want to see you hurt anymore. He’s trying to make this as painless as possible for you. I think he cares about you a great deal and that makes you very lucky. Every time you would talk about him when I was a kid, I could see the stars in your eyes and I could hear the love in your voice. To me, he was a shadow I couldn’t quite believe in but when you told me about him, I hoped and prayed he was a real person. I mean he had to be right? He fathered me after all.”

  Anita smiled faintly. “Yeah, he was real all right as you can see. Now that you know him what do you think?”

  Levi stayed quiet for a long moment then told her, “I think he’s a strong man, he’s obviously got money and power and doesn’t mind showing off. But he’s also a fair man. I’ve watched him around you and he treats you like you deserve him. I also think he could bring down the hammer on someone he thinks has hurt him or his family. He hunted for over forty years for the man who killed his wife. He’s tenacious I’ll give him that much. He’s also not going to let anything come between what he wants either. He let you get away from him twenty four years ago and he’s not about to make that mistake again. I think even if Petr’s daughter hadn’t been your mother he would just announce who you are and let the chips fall where they may.”

  “He is a stubborn man, I’ll give you that.” She looked at her son and smiled as they remembered the laughter over this earlier this evening. “But I want you to know this much, I would never stay if it meant hurting him. He’s worked too hard to get where he is to allow even me to come between him and his Bratva. He believes in what he’s doing, in the way he’s living and I won’t make him chose one of us or the other. The same as I would never stand between him and Misha. I know Misha doesn’t quite trust me and he may never be totally on my side but everything is happening too fast. I want the best for him the same as I want the best for you. You are his son as well as Misha and while your lives are very different, I hope you and he can accept each other.”

  Levi nodded. ‘It’s kind of awesome in many ways. It was lonely and hard growing up the way I did but I never thought about it before. I have a family now. I have a father and a brother that I didn’t know I had before.”

  Anita hung her head. “I’m so sorry for that.”

  Levi tipped her face up to his. “That wasn’t your fault Mom. I was so proud to be your son. You gave me something no one else could. You gave me unconditional love and that’s more than I ever got from your dad or granddad. All either of us got from them was scorn and hate. We were better off without them in our lives.”

  She nodded. “You’re ri
ght about that. When they disappeared right after I got back from Russia the first time, I felt lost. I thought I needed them in my life but then I found I didn’t need them. If I was truly on my own then I was going to be my own person. I changed from the scared little girl they created to a strong woman I always wanted to be. I had you on your way and I was finally free to give you the kind of childhood you deserved. Most of the things I told you about your father were true, but some of them were what I imagined he would be like.”

  Levi chuckled. “I think I always knew that but I appreciated the effort. And I don’t think you were that far from the mark. Sergi is an honorable man.”

  “What do you think tomorrow will bring?” she asked.

  “I think Nico and Gavril will both finally get what they have coming.”

  Anita nodded then got to her feet. “I suppose I should be the grown up and face what’s waiting for me then huh?” She looked over at the closed door.

  “Just remember mom, I’ve got your back and I think Sergi does as well.”

  Anita nodded. “Thank you baby boy. I love you.”

  Levi watched as his mother raised her head and walked out the door. He got to his feet and followed her back downstairs. When he joined the others, he saw her go straight to Sergi.

  Sergi wrapped his arm around her shoulder and brought her into his embrace.

  Petr had waited for her return and smiled slightly at the picture they made. Then he looked over at Sergi, “So what do you want to happen tomorrow?”

  “I want Gavril to be accused for Tasha’s murder first. I have told Nico he will have to testify against his father in order to get the deal and he agreed. Once we have a conviction on Gavril, I want you to bring Nina’s death up. You can show your evidence at that time and the Council can make up their mind on his guilt. We will all have to live with whatever they decide, so I beg you not to leave anything out in your summation.”

  “Will Levi and I be able to be there?” Anita asked.

  “You will need to be.” Sergi nodded. “I want Petr to be able to link you to his family.”