by Raven Scott
I love experiencing it though. I love watching her face light up when she eats something she thought she wouldn’t like. Listening to her blab about a movie she expected to be boring. Trying on a new outfit and asking my opinion…
“I want to experience you, Ophelia. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that there’s so much left of you that I haven’t experienced, and I want to.”
Finally, she glanced over at me—obviously involuntarily.
I managed a small smile at the redness around her eyes. “Don’t be afraid of me or what I might think. I’ve scratched that surface. You won’t be an entirely different person by comparison.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Sascha… I’m afraid for you. There’s a difference.” Flopping her head back, Ophelia sighed heavily through parted lips. “This— this reorganization… it’s not going to be quick or seamless. Aleksander took everyone but me, why? Why make you come? Does he know his sister met with you and if so, what are her intentions? Does this summons only have to do with the assassination attempt, or is there more? Most importantly… what are the odds I walk into that mansion and never walk out?”
“He has more information than you, so that’s what’s been bothering you this whole flight.”
It wasn’t a question, but Ophelia nodded curtly anyway.
Rubbing the back of her palm with my hand, I couldn’t help my smile growing wider. The tension didn’t leave her face, as her cheeks didn’t tinge pink, but her fingers flexed in mine.
“You’re smart, perceptive, and intuitive. You don’t need to be fed information to figure out what’s going on. I have the utmost faith that you’ll have an almost complete picture by the end of your meeting with him, Ophelia. You’ve worked better with less, after all. Your father was a bumbling idiot, but you expected Aleksander to call on you when you handed over that report.”
“I’m sorry about earlier. Did I hurt you?” she asked in concern.
The tip of my nose tingled wildly at her apology, even as I shook my head.
Ophelia sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, shame coloring her cheeks as she slumped deep into the seat. “I don’t know why I did that.”
“I have a feeling you were going to ask me why I couldn’t just fight with you.” Tender amusement flooded my chest as some of her misery and uncertainty panned out. “Why am I so supportive? Why don’t I ever disagree with you? Why am I such a pushover? Why can’t I just give you a reason to take it out on me?”
“Mmm, Probably…”
For a fraction of a second, the world around us calmed as her grumble caressed my ears. This was a first, for sure.
“We don’t really argue… that makes me madder sometimes,” she admitted.
“Cool. I’m going to paint your apartment neon green when we get back.”
Ophelia started to nod, my calm, assured tone lulling her until her eyes widened. In a fraction of a second, all the color returned to her face; if she wasn’t so stressed, she’d be bright red. Taking her hand from mine with a faint gasp, her brows furrowed sharply.
I had to physically stop myself from smiling as I watched her.
“Are you serious? Why?”
Pursing my lips thinly, I shook my head in denial. The answer to this was obvious, but she was in too much strain to realize it.
In a sane world, I wouldn’t want to deliberately make Ophelia angry or upset. I wouldn’t intentionally push her. Clearly, though… I couldn’t just hold her hand and listen when she needed me to. This is going to be an insane few hours.
15
Sascha
Aleksander Makovich’s mansion was proper stately, but to me, it looked like one of those creepy places in horror movies. Everything looked perfect despite the mustiness in the air. Thick clouds hung overhead sending a chill through the atmosphere. Running my free hand through my beard thoughtfully, I glanced over at Ophelia.
The hardness in her features was devastating; it took mere minutes to put in place, but the effects lasted forever. This hard, cautious creature wasn’t who Ophelia was and my heart ached for her. Squeezing her hand lightly, I cracked a reassuring smile when her guarded eyes flickered to mine.
“You can handle this, Oppie.”
My murmur softened her eyes just a smidge and she nodded curtly.
If all I could ever do was to calm her roiling mind, it would be enough for me. Turning back to the wide staircase that led to the door, I pursed my lips thinly to stop them from grimacing. Someone I didn’t know burst through the door, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Beside me, Ophelia tensed before relaxing slightly— so, this wasn’t Aleksander.
“I told you days ago, you were making a fucking mistake and you ignored me like you always do, Aleksander. Jesus— fuck— are you serious right now?” He sounded angry.
Ophelia nudged my arm gently to whisper his name in my ear. Levrenti ‒ the kid directly below Aleksander ‒ was positively fuming, whipping around on the step as his elder brother came sauntering out of the house. Even subconsciously, these people were hierarchal and Levrenti raked both his hands through his hair roughly. “You never let anyone have a say in anything, but you expect me to clean up after you because you don’t want to feel like you were wrong!”
“Levrenti—“ Aleksander might’ve been on top, but Levrenti was upset.
The younger of the two shook his head roughly, continuing to take the stairs backwards. “No, Aleksander. Kill me if you don’t like it. You can replace me in a heartbeat, right? Well, good luck getting someone to replace me. You said that you had this under control, but you don’t. Shoot me right on these steps if you don’t like it.” Levrenti glared up at his brother so fiercely that his shoulders shook. The tension in the air snapped after a hot second before he turned to me. True darkness and stress showed from his eyes and around his mouth. Stalking down the last few steps, Levrenti walked briskly past Ophelia and I without so much as I grunt in acknowledgment.
This could be good. Ophelia had such a lofty, almost godlike view of Aleksander so maybe, knowing he could be in over his head was a good thing. Glancing over as she inhaled deeply, I squeezed her hand again, and this time, she flexed her fingers back. It could be good unless this is a ploy to get Ophelia roped in worse somehow.
“Is that the real reason you called me here? You need a fixer?” All that crackling and uncertainty on the plane was gone, leaving her voice hollow. Ophelia took her hand from mine to take each step in two strides.
Following a few feet behind, I had to force myself not to stop her. This was her territory, her field of expertise. I wouldn’t let her come into my lecture hall and try to teach my students.
“I may have underestimated Erik Avernisk and Aleksi Suvensk.”
Grating my ears, Aleksander’s grumble sent dark shivers into the air that rattled my teeth. He clearly hated admitting he was in trouble; I guess, it should be expected.
“I would still like you to sit in on Erik’s interrogation, but yes, I need a fixer.”
“If you don’t give me accurate information,” Ophelia replied. “The only thing I’m going to do is make the situation worse. I can’t fix something if I don’t attack it right.”
Aleksander jerked his head in a curt nod, his soured expression darkening.
“What’s going on with Aleksi?”
“Come in.” Turning on his heel, Aleksander strode inside with a hard set to his shoulders.
Finally, Ophelia glanced back at me with relief flooding her eyes.
I pressed my palm to her lower back. For once since this began, things didn’t seem so dire. Here we were, in the snake pit, but they weren’t going to strike.
Aleksander’s foyer was the size of my whole apartment in Moscow. I glanced around in awe. Everything looked perfectly buffed and glistening, even the fresco on the ceiling seemed clean and didn’t appear faded in any way. Reaching to scratch the back of my neck in discomfort, I rolled my shoulders.
He spoke up to steal my attention,
“I think we got off on the wrong foot, here.” He led us into a small sitting room.
I sat next to Ophelia on a lounge. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but no maid came rushing over with coffee. In fact, there wasn’t a single sound to be heard beyond my own heartbeat. I grabbed Ophelia’s hand to tangle our fingers absently.
Aleksander perched on the sofa across from us to cross his knees. “I apologize for being an asshole, for lack of a better term, to you the last time we spoke. As you’ve probably already gleaned… I don’t have as good a handle on the situation as I would like. I want to put that to the side for now and focus on the issues concerning the families.”
“Fine. Where’s Rucca Roknevi?”
I think this might be the first time, ever, I actually saw Ophelia in her natural habitat. Honestly, the prospect exciting because I always heard about these clashes after the fact.
“Dead. She killed herself within an hour of the assassination attempt. According to what information you’ve provided me—“
Ophelia held up her hand gently, not wanting to cut Aleksander off harshly but also realizing that whatever he intended to say wasn’t important anymore. “Forget her. If she killed herself, she had something to do with it. Rucca not being mentioned in the plan I found on my dad’s PC, just means they weren’t real. What about Aleksi?”
Aleksander might be all knowing, but it was clear even to me that setbacks weren’t something he was accustomed to dealing with. His organizational skills might be topnotch, but even he overreached sometimes. With all the pieces involved, it wasn’t surprising to me how this situation had gotten out of control.
Even though it was very much infuriating, Ophelia had to go through all this stress for nothing.
“In the basement. I haven’t gotten to him, yet. Demitr is still working on Erik.”
I raised a brow…Increase the haunted house factor. Why was I even listening to any of this, anyway? Surely, Aleksander didn’t want me to be privy to knowledge I wasn’t supposed to know? Wasn’t that the whole point of all this drama? Does this mean Vyachaslav sending Malda after me is something Aleksander doesn’t know?
“Did you look through everyone else’s files?”
Ophelia’s question tore me from my troubling thoughts, drawing my gaze to her furrowed brows and puckered lips.
She looked troubled. “If everyone has different plans for the assassination attempt, which one was actually used? And if they’re all the same, who decided not to use it? Also… which one of them planned what ultimately happened?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “We haven’t been able to get into the computers yet.”
Ah… Okay. I got it now. The problem, here was Aleksander planned everything to a tee, so anything that went wrong, went wrong wildly. He was smart enough, perceptive enough, to figure most things out and maybe, the small percentage he couldn’t predict were easily dealt with. This overhaul was not a localized operation, though.
Ophelia cocked her head curiously, as she frowned deeper. “What? Why not? All their passwords are their favorite kids’ birthday followed by ‘abc123, exclamation point’…” Ophelia trailed off.
Aleksander went red in his face.
I clenched my jaw hard to hold back my chuckle. Amusement made my eyes sting as she flipped her hair over her shoulder, the ends of the strands tickling my shoulder and neck.
“Trust me, I get why you never wanted anything to do with the families, Aleksander, but you should at least know your enemy a little bit. They never crossed your mind until your dad was attacked, so even the simplest things aren’t things you’d consider. Do you have the machines here?”
Aleksander cleared his throat roughly. “How do you know their passwords? You’ve barely had any contact with your own family, let alone the others.”
I could see it in his face ‒ he hated that something so stupid had flew by him ‒ just because it was so stupid.
“Because I was the one who told them it was a good idea and set it all up for them. “You’d know that if you took a moment to realize that pawns are the most important pieces in the beginning of the game….you can’t move anything else until you move them.”
The nonchalance with which Ophelia revealed that tidbit of critical information caused pride to bubble up in my chest like a thick, black tar.
Aleksander’s expression closed like a brick wall and he reached to cover his frown with the back of his hand.
16
Ophelia
We were put into an office, so I could further my investigation into the plot.
Scratching my scalp absently, I slumped back in my chair to frown at all the lunacy spread out before me. Erik and Rucca weren’t dumb enough to put their plans on paper, but I still had a pretty good picture of what was happening. With her dead, it only stood to reason her idea was the one used in the actual attempt on the Patriarch’s life. The second she found out it’d failed, Rucca killed herself rather than let Aleksander do whatever he wanted with her.
But Rucca was a romantic and anything she came up with would have to be tempered down quite a lot. Clearly, her father knew something was going on by his emails, but he wasn’t involved. Which meant…
The only viable option to who had started all of this was Erik Avernisk. He’d also know that I’d snitch without hesitation, so he’d kept me out of it as desperately as he could.
He’d been holding out while being tortured on the assumption that if he reinforced his innocence, it would eventually pay out and he’d be released. Aleksi would break easily, and Erik knew this. The poor kid just turned 18 and was being introduced to the Suvensk business. If he thought he’d unwittingly done something he wasn’t supposed to, he’d cop to everything that ultimately happened.
“Aleksander was right about who, at least generally…” My murmur was loud in this small, grey office as I rubbed my palms up along my face with a sigh.
The door cracked open, revealing a slightly familiar face crested in a small smile.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. I was just coming to talk to you.”
I had to reach far back into my memory— far, far back for just a few days, to figure out her name. Envre. She was Aleksander’s girlfriend, I thought. Sitting up straight, I propped my elbows on the desk to pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Is this a bad time?” she asked.
“… I psyched myself out about Aleksander. That was my first time meeting him in person— the day he killed my parents and my brother. I misjudged him.” My admission was all I felt comfortable revealing.
Envre giggled knowingly. Wandering into the office, she plopped down to rub her legs, her knees clinging together.
I went on, “He hated us, thought we were rodents, and I guess he was right, in a way… I never expected him to need me to fix his mess.”
“I actually didn’t know you guys existed until a week ago, either.” Envre shrugged. “I always thought Aleksander’s socialist bullcrap was it. Finding out all those American movies had truth in them was… well, it was strange. Aleksander doesn’t think some things are important when they really are.”
Arching a brow quizzically, I rolled my bottom lip between my teeth…My mind churning.
Envre sat back, a small frown gracing her lips. “Like with Levrenti, for instance.”
“I honestly thought that was staged. So, what do you think is important that you came to me?”
She laughed a little, tucking her hair back behind her ear with a little shrug. “Have you seen the video, yet? … I think Vyachaslav’s bodyguard slash double was in on it. I like the old man and I know he likes me.””
Shaking my head, my brows drew knitted together. I was saving the video for last, once I had a clear picture to tie into it. “Okay, let’s watch it.” Mousing around the computer screen, I wiggled my lips thoughtfully. “If he was in on it, that’d make sense. Erik can’t get information on Vyachaslav otherwise without being caught. The old man s
tarted shifting the business on Aleksander, making himself scarce in the process. That’s something I wondered about too…why was the shot so bad? If you’re going to try to kill someone like him, you’d need to make sure it’s fatal, even if not immediately. Of course, that guy isn’t the only one I was considering.”
“Who else do you think would do this?” Envre asked.
I ignored her for a moment to open the video file, leaning in close to the screen. Vyachaslav wasn’t within two feet at least, of his bodyguard, which was concerning. Not only were they on the sidewalk, but the bodyguard just… fell. The guy just dropped while Vyachaslav himself ducked behind a car. This forced Vyachaslav to reach to grab his man, but this perfect headshot was a missed opportunity. There wasn’t a second attempt.
Either the sniper rushed out assuming he’d killed Vyachaslav, or just didn’t care because that wasn’t the objective. Because it’s entirely likely that Vyachaslav himself is involved in his own assassination attempt.
“Honestly, I don’t know enough right now to send Aleksander running around like a chicken with his head cut off.” I shrugged. That’s not something I want floating around. After all, why would Vyachaslav send Malda after Sascha and I unless he knew I would suspect him? “What I will say is that Erik’s not capable of shooting not only a moving target, but anything more than 30 feet away. His embarrassment about being such a shit shot is why he fails less miserably at krav maga.What about Aleksi?” I suggested. “If Erik is behind it, I get needing a fall guy, but… According to Aleksander, Erik isn’t trying to implicate Aleksi.” Glancing at Envre over the edge of the screen, I cocked my head at that. Why…?
“Because implicating Aleksi means he’d have a reason to. You’re really new to this, aren’t you?” She flushed faintly.
I frowned under furrowed brows. I hadn’t thought this muck, this clearly, in… well, ever. “Okay, so the last thing you want to do when being tortured is to say ‘hey, go ask that guy— he knows’ because then you imply that you know what he knows. If you’re going to say anything, make sure it’s benign, but even then… you really shouldn’t ever talk. Once you open your mouth, you lose.”