by Bella Rose
“I cannot have Ioann kicked out of school.” The elder Vladimir’s face was set into an expression of cunning thoughtfulness. “If you can convince her to cut him some slack, he won’t get in trouble. Then Tatiyana won’t be cross with me.”
“You want me to romance Ioann’s teacher so that you don’t have to upset your wife?” Vlad asked, feeling disgusted with his father’s behavior and yet also completely unsurprised. There were no scruples in the Sokolov household.
“Exactly! You’ve read the dossier on the teacher. I gave it to you when I told you to prep for this meeting.” Vladimir slapped his eldest son on the shoulder before getting into his limo. “Don’t worry how late you are tonight. Maybe you can convince her to let you take her home. She’ll invite you in, you’ll give her a good fucking and it will all be over.”
There wasn’t even any point in arguing with him. Vlad just let his father get in the limo and go. The vehicle pulled out of sight leaving Vlad standing in front of the school on a dark night in late October all by himself.
His acute hearing picked up the sound of footsteps on the concrete. The parking lot was just across the bus lane in front of the school. It was perhaps another two hundred yards from where Vlad was standing. He could see one solitary compact car parked in the lot.
Miss Mary Reilly suddenly came into view. She was weighted down with several tote bags, a big purse, and struggling to balance it all while trying to find her keys. Vlad knew this wasn’t going to go well. He was likely to scare the wits out of her while trying to offer aid. Not a great combination to instill trust and confidence.
“Excuse me, Miss Reilly?” Vlad said in a low, calm voice. “I don’t mean to scare you but…”
She screamed and flung everything she was carrying straight up into the air. It all landed piecemeal around her. Papers fluttered to the ground only to be caught up in the night breeze and whirled about. Her keys jingled as they landed in the gutter, and her face was pale, pasty white.
Vlad stepped very slowly toward the papers just beginning to fly away. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just here to help.”
“Help?” she squeaked. “Help with what? You just scared me half to death!”
“I’m terribly sorry about that. I didn’t want you to be alone in the parking lot at night. It seemed unsafe,” Vlad told her. That part at least was true.
“Mr. Vladimir,” she said primly. “You are the most unsafe thing out here.”
Vlad had to admit that was also true.
Chapter Two
Mary’s heart was still beating so quickly she thought it might be in danger of exploding. Yes. Vladimir had frightened her. But the real shock had come from the abrupt change in his behavior. He’d been cold and almost dismissive inside the classroom. Now he seemed as if he were actively trying to gain her approval. Why?
“You can call me, Vlad,” he said in what seemed like a deliberately calm tone of voice.
“Excuse me?”
“As opposed to Mr. Vladimir,” he explained. “Sokolov’s first name is also Vladimir. Generally he is referred to by other titles, but I began going by the name Vlad many years ago to try and distinguish between the two of us.”
“Is Mr. Sokolov,” Mary said, beginning to put the pieces together. “Is he your father?”
“What?” His smile was as unexpected as it was attractive. “You couldn’t see the family resemblance?”
“Not particularly.” Mary puzzled over the situation that would leave a man like Sokolov with one son in his midtwenties and another in the second grade.
“My mother passed away not long after I was born,” Vlad told her quietly.
He stood so straight with his hands clasped before him. It was almost as though he were trying to project an aura of harmlessness. It didn’t work, but it did pique her curiosity. Why was he being so forthcoming with his history?
His lips thinned into a tight line. “My father asked me to stay behind and make certain you got to your car without incident.” He gestured to her lonely vehicle sitting in its solitary space in the lot. “But I have to admit that I had another reason for wanting to speak to you without my father present.”
“Oh?” Mary’s palms were sweating. She was in danger of losing her grip on her armload of stuff yet again.
“Yes.” He seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “I know my father’s attitude must have seemed strange to you, but you must realize that his way of raising children is not compatible with what you might call a Western mindset.”
“Meaning he encourages meanness and flaunting the rules,” Mary guessed. “I had surmised as much.”
“I try with Ioann.” Vlad grimaced. “I try to encourage him to see other people’s viewpoints and consider his actions as they apply to a larger world. There was nobody to do that for me.”
Mary’s compassion was instantly engaged as she imagined this hard man as a boy about Ioann’s age, seeing and doing things that no seven-year-old should. “So what are you asking me to do? Look the other way? Give him leeway I wouldn’t to my other students?”
“No.”
“No?” Mary was confused.
“I want you to hold him to the same standard you would anyone else.” Vlad leaned forward, his expression increasing in intensity. “He needs that structure. He won’t get it anywhere else. He also needs to learn compassion for others. I can tell already that you are uniquely qualified to help him begin to understand that.”
“What does that mean?” She didn’t know if that was a compliment or an insult. “So I’m a weak woman with a bleeding heart? Is that it?”
“No.” His smile shifted, but she couldn’t have identified what was different. “I think you are far stronger than you give yourself credit for. You stood up to my father. That takes courage.”
“Your father is a bully.”
“Standing up to a bully with a penchant for violence and a belief that he is above the laws of any mere mortal is nothing to shake a stick at.”
Mary frowned. She held her various bags and papers closer to her chest as though they could protect her from the strange desire to help Vlad. “What are you playing at?”
Vlad moved closer. She could smell him somehow. It was shockingly attractive, like something male and spicy underlying the scent of cedar and sandalwood. A strange heaviness began to build below her navel. Her fingers and toes tingled. She didn’t have all that much experience with arousal, but she’d read enough to realize that was what she was feeling.
“I’m not playing at anything,” Vlad soothed. “I’m asking for your help for my brother.”
“You’re making me uncomfortable,” she replied. “I think you’d better go now.”
He tilted his head to one side. “Why is this uncomfortable?”
“You’re just… You’re standing too close.” She waved her hand to shoo him off. “It’s pretty simple. I don’t know you. And even you have to admit that you look pretty dangerous.”
“I look dangerous?” He sounded both surprised and amused. “And that is a crime of some sort in your opinion?”
“Not a crime,” she amended. “Just a reason to be cautious.”
“Cautious.” A smile played at the corners of his generous mouth. “Because avoiding any hint of danger is how you prefer to live your life?”
Why was she discussing this with him? And why did she feel the need to prove to him that she wasn’t some shrinking violet? “Perhaps. It’s really none of your business though, is it?”
“Do you find me attractive?”
“That’s an arrogant question, don’t you think?” Mary was shocked by his words, and yet fascinated beyond belief. This guy truly had no shame. “What does it matter if I find you attractive?”
“I find you attractive.”
Now she knew he was lying. “I saw the way you looked at me in the classroom. Your gaze slid past me as if I were dead space. If we passed each other on the street you wouldn’t look twice.” Mary thrus
t her chin out belligerently. “I get it. I’m not your type and I don’t particularly care.” She sniffed and prepared to walk to her car without another word to this cretin.
VLAD COULDN’T HELP but wonder what had happened in Mary Reilly’s past to make her think that men didn’t find her attractive. She wasn’t an Amazon with generous breasts and voluptuous hips, but she was hardly some dried up old prune.
“Your words say you don’t care,” Vlad called after her. “But your body language says otherwise.”
It was as if she couldn’t help herself. She stopped her huffy walk to her car and turned to face him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Women are always going on about how they don’t want to be evaluated for just their physical looks.” Vlad waved a hand to indicate her khakis and sweatshirt. “So what if I’m attracted to your mind? The way a person thinks or behaves can be just as attractive as the way they look. Don’t you think? In fact, I might suggest that personality is a far more important ingredient in mutual attraction than looks.”
“So you’re saying I’m ugly, but that you like the way I think?”
He cocked his head, trying to figure her out. “You’re deliberately misunderstanding me, I think. Perhaps it’s easier for you to hate me. Then you don’t have deal with the question of what your attraction to me means.”
“Who says I’m attracted to you?” She looked outraged. “You’re rude, presumptuous, and probably a criminal.”
“And yet you find me fascinating,” Vlad pointed out. “What does that say about you?”
“I do not find you fascinating!” she argued. “I find you disturbing. And I would appreciate it if you would go away.”
Vlad caught a hint of movement from the corner of his eye. He realized that the two of them had been standing there exchanging words for far too long. In this neighborhood one had to keep moving lest one attracted attention from the wrong sorts of people, which they apparently had.
“If you’ll excuse me?” Mary started to walk to her car.
Vlad was about to stop her when a young man wearing a black hoodie saved him the trouble. The guy placed himself between Mary and her car. His body language was aggressive. His face was dark beneath his hood and Vlad could see by the bulge in his pocket that he was packing some sort of weapon.
“Where you think you’re going lady?” the youth asked in a thick Bostonian accent.
“To my car.” Mary seemed to think she could bluster her way out of this predicament. Vlad had to give her points for bravery. He honestly wouldn’t have suspected she had it in her. “So if you’ll just step aside, I’ll be on my way.”
The young man gestured to the bags she held in her arms. “Give me that stuff you’re carrying first.”
“You want my students’ spelling tests?” Mary asked drily. “Why? Are you going to grade them for me?”
“No, bitch!” the young man snarled. “I want your wallet.”
“I’m a teacher in this shit neighborhood,” Mary told him. “Do you really think I have anything in my wallet that would interest you?”
“That’s for me to decide.”
Vlad started forward to offer his help, but another young man materialized out of a dark shadow on his left. “Where you think you going?” The second hoodlum wanted to know. “You give me your wallet and I won’t kill your stupid white ass.”
Vlad sighed, feeling annoyed. Then he turned and pegged this second youth with a hard look. “Do you know who Vladimir Sokolov is?”
The young man scoffed. “Yeah, so?”
“That would be me.” Vlad turned and plucked the gun right out of the young man’s hand. “Now get your scrawny ass out of here before I end your life without even stopping to wipe the blood off my boots.”
“Yo, Charlie!” the youth called out. “Let’s bounce!”
“No way,” Charlie argued with a shake of his head. “I want this bitch to give me her bag. She’s hiding something.”
“Charlie, I mean it.” The young man Vlad had disarmed was slowly backing away from the scene. “I’m leaving you here alone, man.”
“Fuck you!” Charlie snarled.
Vlad had already started toward Charlie when the young man made the epically bad decision to lunge at Mary. He grabbed her purse, but the stubborn woman refused to give it up. She held on tight, her other things dropping to the ground with a clatter as Charlie tried in vain to steal her purse.
“Let go!” Charlie ordered.
Mary tripped, falling to the pavement but refusing to give up. “You let go! It’s mine and I refuse to spend three hours at the DMV trying to get a new license just because some thug stole my purse!”
Vlad almost laughed at that. Instead, he pulled the slide on the weapon he’d stolen from the other man. The noise was loud, even against the backdrop of the fight going on for Mary’s purse. Young Charlie stopped immediately. He turned and gaped at Vlad.
“My name is Vladimir Sokolov,” Vlad said calmly. “Either you leave now on your own two feet or later in a body bag. The choice is yours.”
Charlie didn’t have to be told twice. He bolted from the scene as though his trousers were on fire. His retreat left Mary kneeling on the ground trying to scoop her things back into her tote bags.
“Are you all right?” Vlad asked gently. He squatted down to help her.
She pushed his hands away. “Just go! I think you’ve helped quite enough.”
“Mary, it’s all right. They’ve gone.” He saw her take a swipe at the tears trickling down her cheeks. “You’re safe now.”
“I will be when you’ve gone.”
Vlad chuckled. Then Mary stood up and marched to her car. She fumbled for her keys with hands too shaky to unlock the door. He stood and followed her. Taking the key from her hand, he unlocked the driver’s door and wordlessly took her things and put them in the backseat.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly, as if her manners wouldn’t allow her to be rude.
“I’m sorry this happened, but I’m glad I was here to help out.” Vlad touched her shoulder.
It was as if everything was too much all at once. Mary burst into tears. She wrapped her arms around her midsection and sobbed in loud, heaving gusts. He was generally useless with a crying woman, but somehow Mary was different. There was no over dramatization here. She’s been through something very frightening and she was reacting the way any normal human being would.
Without thinking, Vlad reached out and drew her into his arms. He held her close to his chest and rubbed her back, murmuring soothing phrases in Russian until he felt her begin to calm. She smelled like fresh vanilla. It felt shockingly natural to hold her in his arms.
“Thank you,” Mary whispered. “I appreciate your help, and the insight you’ve given me on your brother. But I think I’d just like to drive home now if you don’t mind.”
Vlad let her go, surprised at how bereft he felt without her warmth against his body. “Drive safely, and I’ll be in touch. I’d like to swing by and check on you later, if you don’t mind. I want to make sure you’re all right after this.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she whispered.
He rubbed her arms. “Well I do.”
She didn’t answer, but Vlad could sense that something strange had happened between them tonight.
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