“That is what I thought. I paid the doctor not to tell her. You are all your dad has, you know.”
“Yeah. I know.” Who would clean up for the mean old fool?
“He doesn’t mean to hurt you. When I think about the way he used to be, before he went in there… Dmitri, he was a rising star in the militsya. He would have been a great man. It’s why I can never forgive Makar.”
Dmitri was beginning to feel the same way.
“What do you say we go for a hot chocolate? And later, we’ll have dinner in front of the television so we can watch the football game.” He held out his hand. If Dmitri had been anywhere near his own neighborhood or where boys from school could have seen him, he’d never have slipped his palm into Gregor’s. He was too old for little boy crap. Except on that day.
Chapter 16
Dmitri jerked awake, confused.
He probed his face for bruises. Goddamn dream—always so real.
Maybe if he could take care of Makar, he wouldn’t have to face off with his larger-than-life father anymore. Yeah. It was way past time to find the traitor and finish this business.
He rubbed sleep from his eyes and blearily attempted to locate his jeans in the dim room. Reaching for the lamp, he noticed an indentation in the pillow. The lamp illuminated the bed sheets where an old-fashioned nightgown lay empty like a snakeskin next to him.
Where was Sonya?
And how the hell had she turned into a living flesh-and-blood woman, warm and soft? Her tentative touch had grown so brazen on his skin. He couldn’t help but imagine yanking up that flimsy nightgown and teasing her open, slowly sliding into her. Her big eyes would grow even wider at the feel of him. And her pink mouth would open in a satisfying gasp.
His cock swelled beyond its normal morning need.
He searched the room for a clue to where his ghost had gone.
All he saw were the old photographs staring down at him—six generations of dignified Liskos. They’d been a great aristocratic family once, scions of Kiev. His uncle did his best to live up the role, but corrupt oligarch just wasn’t quite the same as prince.
Where the hell was Sonya?
She’d been real and alive right next to him, and now she was gone. Had she found a way to move on without his help? Tightness gripped his chest, unexpected grief over the lost opportunity to play hero.
Hero. Yeah, right.
The important question was why on earth had his touch brought her to life when she’d passed right through Elena? It surely wasn’t a coincidence.
His aunt chattered away to someone in the front room. Could she be yammering at Sonya in some kind of bizarre monologue?
His phone vibrated with a message from Gregor.
“Any news on Makar?”
He glanced up at the images—stern faced, blue-eyed Liskos—their legacy destroyed by Makar. That’s right. That traitor was his priority. Then he could help Sonya. But if he saw her right now, she’d use that freaky rusalka voice and distract him again. He couldn’t afford to be deterred.
He replied to the text.
“Going now.”
He took a piss, yanked on his clothes, and trotted toward the front room, steeling himself against whatever sexy vibes she might throw at him.
Yet he wasn’t prepared for the sight of her, back to her ghostly form, her nightgown clinging again, her hair limp and heavy with water. His stomach flipped over. She wasn’t a real woman, but still dead, still a sad drowned ghost. The urge to go to her, to bring her back to the flesh, nearly overpowered him. But it had to wait.
Elena lifted a stainless steel carafe. “Good morning, Dmitri. Coffee?”
“No. I have something to take care of.”
Sonya’s lovely face turned with eerie slowness. “You’re leaving?” Her siren voice wavered, making it a potent mixture of sex and vulnerability.
Fuck. Any more of that and he’d never leave, just take her back to bed and be certain never to break contact with her sweet body ever again.
“Yeah. Business. Back as soon as I can. Then we’ll focus on your problem, see what we can turn up about your family.”
Elena clucked in disapproval. He gave the laces on his boots his full attention. Finish off Makar, and maybe he could be the man they wanted him to be, could put everything his father had made him away. One more gunshot, one more blood stain, one more empty set of eyes staring up at him, and then this life would be over and he could start clean.
Just one more.
Determined, he leaped from the chair, patted his holstered weapon, and strode to the door.
The moment his hand came to rest on the handle, the whole house shook. It wasn’t one of Sonya’s tremors, but a full-blown spectral earthquake.
A picture frame fell off the wall with a crash.
Elena shouted. “Sonya, control it. I know you can do it.”
“I’m trying,” Sonya replied, whimpering even though Elena couldn’t hear. She pulsed and her whole form vibrated, the pearly sheen of her skin taking on a gray-greenish hue.
The house rattled and creaked. He cupped his hands around his mouth to be heard. “What’s happening?”
“Voices…blood…loosey-goosey. I’m going to break. I am going to…” Sonya covered her face with her hands, silencing herself. The house shook in time with the sobs wracking her.
Without deciding, he found himself next to her. She hovered above him so that his face was even with the slight mound of her belly. He wrapped one arm around her thighs and pressed the other into the small of her back, preparing to support her weight.
Then she was there, in his arms, coughing and crying, as wet as she’d been last night.
“Oh my God.” Elena backed away from the strange sight. “Dmitri, she’s…”
“I know, Auntie, we—it happened last night—”
Sonya flicked his ear. “Shh.”
Swallowing a chuckle, he clasped her to his chest and slid her damp form down the length of his body. “Feeling better?”
She tucked her chin and patted her sides and her ass, nodding. “Yes. Not so loosey-goosey.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I think she means—”
“It’s okay, Elena, I can tell him.”
His aunt nodded, mouth agape at the suddenly visible ghost. Dmitri studied the two women, who clearly shared some knowledge he was not party to. “Have you two been talking?”
“Oh, yes. Our resourceful Sonya devised a way of communicating with me via the kitchen cupboard.”
The look on Elena’s face reflected the inexplicable pride inside Dmitri.
Yeah. His ghost was smart.
“Elena researched rusalki last night and found out the reason I’m going crazy is that soon I’ll go really crazy. I’m running out of time, and if we don’t find my killer, I will become a bloodthirsty poltergeist.”
“Instead of a bloodthirsty rusalka?”
She grimaced. “Now I only want the blood of the killer. Then I will want everyone’s blood.”
He glanced at Elena for corroboration.
She pressed her lips so tightly that they opened with a kiss-like sound.
“Our Sonya is running out of time.”
It seemed nearly impossible that the vibrant warm-blooded woman in his arms might soon become a vicious poltergeist, but he’d killed a woman just as alive as Sonya last month. It had taken a split second.
Without meeting his gaze, she smoothed the lapel of his shirt, the firm set of her jaw betraying her tension.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Keeping one arm wrapped around her, he slid it out to read a message from Gregor.
“Need you back ASAP. Update?”
Fuck. Everybody needed a piece of him.
“Sonya, I’ve gotta take care of my business now, and when it’s through, you’ll have my complete attention.”
She stiffened, and her eyes flashed emerald green. “No.
Take me with you if you have to go.”
“That’s impossible. It’s—”
She wrapped her hand around his in an incredibly tight death grip.
Elena jumped in to help. “Well, for one thing, dear, you’re wearing a wet night gown. And I’m afraid my clothes will not fit you at all. Perhaps you better wait for Dmitri to come back with something suitable to wear.”
“Yeah, Sonya, you wait here and try to remember some more. Anything that might help us—”
She pouted. “But I did remember something. My surname is Truss, and my father owned a jewelry shop in Kiev.”
That was the first promising lead. “Good. Anything else?”
She lifted her chin. “Maybe if I just tried harder to—”
“Sweetheart. I think it will work better if you come at it sideways. Don’t try so hard.”
She caught her lower lip in her teeth and nodded. “All right.”
Still, a last name was a start. “I’ll phone my guy in the militsya, see what he can turn up—”
“Wait. I have an idea.” Elena sidled up to them where they stood locked in an awkward embrace. “It’s a beautiful morning. Why don’t you walk in my garden and see if anything inspires your memory? Surely you can wait that long, Dmitri.”
God, his aunt was ruthless when it came to getting what she wanted.
“Outside?” Unmistakable excitement colored Sonya’s voice. She shivered, and her firm nipples protruded through the drying nightgown. Then the sneaky thing switched on her rusalka powers, speaking a not-to-be-disobeyed command. “Take me outside, Dmitri.”
He licked his lips. “Blanket?”
“Yes, please.”
Elena scooped up a soft and fuzzy-looking thing from the couch and draped it over Sonya’s shoulders. He caught his aunt’s attention and glared. Maybe Sonya had him wrapped around her transparent little finger, but his pushy aunt did not.
“The entrance to the garden is through my room.” She waved, indicating they should follow her down the hall. A pair of French doors opened onto a deck from the master bedroom.
Terraces climbed up the hill, forming the layers of a Japanese tea garden crowded with oddly stooping evergreens, a bright red-leafed maple, a small tree with huge lavender blossoms that looked like tulips. The landscaping was as exquisite as any public garden in Kiev. Gregor would say his sister’s regal garden suited a Lisko.
“I’m going to make a pot of tea. Sonya, do you care for some?”
With her hand snugly tucked in his, she twisted to face Elena, surprise arching her brows. “Do you think I can drink?”
Elena turned her palm out to Sonya. “Are you hungry?” Apparently, none of her folktales had explained what former ghosts ate.
Sonya smoothed her hand down the cotton of her nightgown onto her belly. “Very.”
“I’ll make you both some breakfast. Coffee or tea, Dmitri?”
“Coffee.” He always had a cup with his morning cigarette. Patting his breast pocket, he realized they were in his coat. If he asked Elena to retrieve them, she’d probably flush them down her toilet.
The blanket slipped around Sonya and she tried to catch it with her free hand. Since they couldn’t let go of one another, it took both of them to secure it around her shoulders again.
She gripped it tightly at her neck and tugged him. “Come on.”
The morning was cool and he worried that Sonya’s feet were bare, but when they passed into a patch of sun, his skin heated instantly. She would be plenty warm.
“I hear water.”
He did too, the trickle of a fountain somewhere higher. They climbed up the tiered deck to where a stream gurgled from rocks. Sonya knelt, dipping her fingers into the water. It must be freezing, but she didn’t flinch, only rubbed her fingers and thumb together.
A dove cooed somewhere, unseen.
Sonya kept turning her head, taking in all the new sights. “It smells like rosemary and the air is so fresh.”
It did and it was, but he hadn’t noticed until she said so.
She swung around with a stunning smile and caught his attention. “Dmitri, I like being alive. Thank you.”
How did she manage to see these moments as a gift when all he could see was that they would end sooner than later, and this beautiful young woman would join her family in death? Or worse, she’d stick around to terrorize the living for who knew how long.
“What’s wrong?” She placed her palm on his chest.
He recoiled—the intimacy was too much. Last night, she’d touched him with curious desire, close enough to the lust he was used to from women. But under this tender concern, he grew claustrophobic. Suddenly, she was too close. And yet he couldn’t let go.
He raised his face to the bright sky and sucked in a cooling breath. “Sonya, we can’t get distracted by all this…”
“Living?” Her sweet rosebud lips pulled into a sad smile. “You’re right. But the sun feels so good. Let me lie here on this warm stretch of the deck and listen to the water. It’s making my memories jitter.”
He took both her hands and helped her sit down. With his legs dangling off the deck, he tucked the blanket around her and supervised her settling in. She smoothed hair off her forehead and closed her eyes. Her features relaxed, her smooth face rosy with life.
Somehow, she seemed old-fashioned even when she was still and silent. She was clever and innocent, but not at all naïve. The fashion shows had absorbed her, not like a woman who wanted him to buy her expensive things—he’d known plenty of those types—but like an artist. And so he wanted to spoil her, to lavish her with the things she’d never had and never experienced. To give her body the pleasure she was curious about—but only if she wanted—
Hell. What was he thinking? Makar was probably packing up to leave town right this moment, and taking Dmitri’s chance to avenge his father with him.
Vengeance. Strange that hers and his would converge in this way, one need keeping him from the other. But what had Elena said—there was logic in it, that his quest for redemption had led Sonya to him, another soul hungering for revenge.
In the brilliant morning light, scented with herbs and accompanied by dove song, Dmitri’s world shrunk to this moment and the beautiful woman lying next to him. His duty to Gregor, his anger over every indignity of his past—it all fell away. Maybe avenging his family would not change anything. It probably wouldn’t save him from himself in the end. But maybe, just maybe, helping Sonya could.
Like a whispered word, the gentle rise and fall of her chest assured him everything would be all right.
Then the sunlight caught a single tear trickling from her eye, and she sniffed.
His breath hitched. “Hey, ghost, are you remembering?”
“Yes.”
Chapter 17
Buoyed on the sound of trickling water, Sonya’s memories floated, carrying her with them.
“Sonya.” Her mother’s whisper was urgent, and on its heels came a harsh jostle. “Wake up. Anya. Girls. We must go.”
“What’s happened?” Anya asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Get your coats and put on your boots. We’re going out the back door. Hurry!”
Sonya shoved her bare foot into a cold shoe and reached for the next one, not bothering to lace them. “How did they find us here?”
“Not now, Sonya. No, leave the satchel. We must run to the row boat out back and—”
A knock sounded, making Sonya jump and nearly causing her to drop the bag of her family’s most precious heirlooms. Papa appeared in the hallway. “They are rousing the neighbors. Quickly, outside.”
He pulled Anya’s arm and Sonya followed. At the door, he shoved his daughters ahead of him.
Mama disappeared down the hall. “I’m just going to get the—”
The next knock was louder.
“Run.” Papa closed the door, locking Sonya and Anya outside.
Sonya yanked uselessly at
the handle, a scream building in her heart.
“Come on.” Anya gripped Sonya by the arm and dragged her toward the boat.
Inside the house, a man shouted. “Where is the necklace?”
“We don’t have it. Your friend, he took it from me. Ask him.”
A shot exploded into the quiet night. A second one cut off her mother’s scream. Sonya cried out and Anya tried to drag her toward the short dock where the rowboat was tied. But it was a long way off and the path through the field offered no hiding place.
“Christ. You killed them both,” a man shouted.
No! The scream tore through her mind. They couldn’t be dead. She had to go back in.
Anya yanked at her, whispering. “They sacrificed themselves so we could run. Go.”
Sonya stared into her sister’s eyes for too long before dashing toward the muddy riverbank. They could shelter behind the small drop off at the water’s edge. Only Anya ran in the other direction. The door flew open so loudly it slammed into the wall of the house with a crack.
“Slow down. Let’s think this out. The neighbors can identify us.”
“First, we have to take care of all of them. Then we find the diamonds.”
“The girls never saw—”
“Follow that one into the trees. I’ll take this one.”
The bullet tore into Sonya’s shoulder before she even realized he meant her. She tumbled down the embankment into the mud, pain exploding through her chest. Her satchel spilled, the family bible and her beloved teapot splattered with mud. When she looked up, he was a dark shadow, looming over her, his face shadowed by the visor of his militsya hat. He raised the gun.
She scrambled up and tried to raise her hands in surrender, but her left arm wouldn’t budge. “Please. I—”
“You sound just like your mother.” He squeezed off the shot.
Sonya had swum in the river many times as a child. Without thinking, she dove into the freezing water, grazing the muddy shelf of the shore and sliding deeper into the icy current. She held her breath, kicked, and tried to swim. Her arm still wouldn’t move. Heat poured from her wound. Her boots dragged her down, so she kicked them off. The lazy summer river was now a roaring torrent, frigid with recent rain.
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