by Alta Hensley
20
Clara
As I hit the button on my phone, I smiled. With this last paycheck, I’d finally had more funds than necessary to just keep the lights on. I’d paid off the balance on my American Express card. While I still owed a few hundred dollars to those nice folks over at Visa, I decided they could wait another few weeks. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the extra cash in my account. I knew she would resist, not wishing me to spend any money on her, but I wasn’t going to give her a choice. It was way past time I took my grandmother out for dinner.
Dropping the phone into my bag, I drove home with a smile on my face while I planned the rest of my day. Yuri had let us off early, which was a gift in itself, and gave me an idea. My babushka had yet to see where I spent every hour of the day I wasn’t with her.
I blushed as I corrected myself. Okay, where I spent every hour I wasn’t with her or Alek. Since that night at his home, we’d managed to get together a few more times. Each one had been incredible. Every time had been both exquisitely enchanting and delightfully dirty. I was still smiling like a loon when I turned the corner to head down my street.
What the fuck is this? I thought as I pulled up at home and saw a car parked there.
Since I joined Volkov Ballet, I hadn’t had many visitors at my house. Even my students had been given referrals to another teacher as I knew every ounce of my energy needed to be reserved for my own dancing if I had a chance in hell of regaining my career. Which had me wondering who had extended themselves an invitation to visit, as no one was left who knew where I lived. So, it was rather a shock to see a strange car in my driveway.
To make it worse, it wasn’t just a flashy sports car, it was a Lamborghini, which meant it belonged to someone who either had an ego that constantly needed stroking or a whole hell of a lot of money to burn. But I had no idea who it could be. Was it a recruiter from another theater trying to steal me away?
Yeah, right, Clara, because you are such a hot commodity, the devil on my shoulder sneered.
I wanted to tell him to go the fuck away, but he was right. Maybe in the olden days that could have happened, but not anymore. Even with a few well-received performances under my belt, I knew no one was going to want to take on the PR nightmare that I was other than Alek.
So, who, then?
It wasn’t until I stepped out of the car, and I spotted the very unwelcome, very familiar license plate, that it hit me. CzarNikolail1. Only one bastard was both narcissistic and considered himself untouchable enough to own a car like the sleek silver beast in my drive.
It belonged to Nikolai Kosloff, the man who had gotten me in this fucking mess in the first place. Basically no male attention for years and then, within a matter of a few weeks, another car, another Russian, and yet I knew whatever this man wanted had nothing to do with anything good.
If Nikolai was back in my life, he must want something. Even though I didn’t have a damn fucking thing left for him. He’d already taken absolutely everything of mine, and I never intended to ever give him another single piece of me.
I clenched my fists angrily at my sides as I looked around for his bodyguards. He never went anywhere alone. Not seeing anyone, my heart rate kicked up to a whole new level as I looked toward the house. I was about to panic when I realized I also didn’t see the little red SUV that belonged to Judy, the caregiver I’d hired to take care of my grandmother when I couldn’t. I let out my held breath when I remembered my babushka wasn’t inside. She had a doctor’s appointment. I had no idea how long I had, but it was absolutely vital I found Nikolai and sent him away before they returned.
My blood raced as I marched toward the front door, noticing he’d already let himself in regardless of whether the house had been properly locked up. Something he always used to do. Of course, back then, he was letting himself into my penthouse overlooking Central Park, wandering among the halls, helping himself to top-shelf booze on my mahogany bar that cost more than most people made in a year. Whereas now, he’d broken into a place that would fit into the penthouse several times over. And that enraged me even more. This small saltbox wasn’t just a house… it was a home… my home.
I shoved the door open violently, smacking it against the wall with a loud bang, and I stalked inside preparing myself to see that damn fucking face of his again. That fucking smug bastard smirk. His horrible squint. The arrogant aura around him. How the hell had I ever thought he was the love of my life? Sure, he’d come into my life at a very vulnerable point. Just when I found out my grandmother’s health was failing. Nikolai had been surprisingly good to me, despite all of the shit I was going through.
I was a fucking naïve idiot back then. I’d thought he was truly concerned about me. I couldn’t seem to see he was grooming me, drawing me to him like a bear to honey. He used my concern for my grandmother to get to me. He took me to parties where anyone who was anyone in New York milled about just to give me a chance to let off a bit of steam. He showed me how a few drinks would do nothing more than calm me down then assured me one little pill magically took the edge off and wouldn’t possibly hurt me. I’d swallowed it all… both figuratively and literally.
Well not again.
I would never, ever be fooled by that man again, and I intended to let him know that the second I saw him. It enraged me to no end he was even here, anywhere near my life, and it terrified me too. The influence this man once had on my life, and the things I knew he’d done just because he felt like it, fucked with my head. Nikolai was a big part of the reason why I’d wanted nothing more than to lock myself away from the rest of the world. Until Alek entered my world that was.
Thoughts of Alek filled me with a fear on an entirely different level. If either man found out about the other… I couldn’t bear to think what would happen. I had to make sure not only that Nikolai got out of my house before my babushka got home, I had to make damn sure Alek never found out about his visit.
I found Nikolai standing in my front room with his arms outstretched to hug me, as if we were old friends. “Hey there, Clara. It’s wonderful to see you again!” he said smarmily, with that familiar smirk I hated playing on his lips. “How have you been?”
I had no intention of having any fake small talk with this guy. Especially as I didn’t know what fucked up game he was playing. “What do you want?” I snapped back. “And how did you find out where I live?”
“Have you forgotten so quickly that when I want something, it’s easy enough to get it… including an address,” he said, making his meaning very clear.
Suddenly I realized the only reason I’d been allowed to walk away from him without him dragging me back if for no other reason than to teach me another lesson was because he’d not cared. My absence and silence had effectively sealed my fate as being guilty of everything being printed about me. Nikolai wasn’t the type of man who wanted to be seen with someone who’d stepped off the pedestal he set them upon, a woman who’d fallen from grace even when he was the cause of that stumble.
I had been useless to him without fame.
Now that I was beginning to make my comeback, all of a sudden he wanted to know me again. He had to be absolutely crazy to even think I would consider going back to him. Knowing what this man was like, he probably knew about my grandmother, too. He was probably aware of how ill she was, and I feared he intended to use that to his advantage.
Well, not this time! I was stronger now. More capable. I’d done just fine looking after my babushka all by myself. I didn’t need his so-called support. I didn’t need a fucking thing from this man.
“I thought I made it perfectly clear when I walked out of your apartment four years ago that I never wanted to see your face again,” I said.
“No one walks away from me.”
“I do,” I countered, proving the point by walking to the window and pointing toward the driveway. “Get in your car, drive back to New York, and don’t ever fucking come back.”
“Careful, Clara,”
he said, dropping any pretense of friendliness. “You also seem to have forgotten I don’t take kindly to hearing demands coming from your lips. Not when I can think of far more pleasant things to occupy that dirty little mouth of yours.”
My stomach clenched at the memory his words evoked, and yet I didn’t even let that stop me. “Get out, or I’ll stop being silent. I’ll tell everyone the truth about what you ordered done to Lara. What you have done to others. How you’re the—”
“Clara?”
Oh shit. My grandmother was home.
“Wait a minute, Miss Olga. Let me get your coat off first,” Judy’s voice gently scolded, and I could so easily imagine the pair standing at the back door, the younger woman gently pulling the coat off the frail body of a woman she’d grown quite fond of and hanging it across the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table.
I knew I looked desperate as my eyes flicked from Nikolai to the door and back again.
“Who’s car is that outside, Clara? You didn’t tell me we were expecting guests or Judy could have stopped at the bakery on the way home to pick up some of that fancy dessert you and your young man brought me the other night.”
My heart almost stopped beating as the words grew louder, my grandmother coming closer until she and Judy were framed on the threshold.
“You…”
It was a single word and yet spoke volumes. Even from across the room I could see the color drain from my grandmother’s face and see her beginning to shake.
“He’s leaving,” I said, quickly crossing to her and slipping my arm around her waist. Only when I had her safe in my arms did I look to Nikolai.
His lips curled in the same exact smirk they had that night so long ago. I felt a cold unlike anything I’d ever experienced flooding through me. I was in trouble… deep trouble.
“Please… just go,” I begged softly.
“Of course,” he said, bowing toward us. “I’ll call you later, Clara.”
I didn’t bother to even ask how he knew my number or declare I’d not answer the phone. I knew I owed him for not simply doing whatever he wanted to me, regardless of the presence of witnesses. That had never stopped him before. All I could do was nod and gently guide my grandmother away from the door, Judy silently assisting me.
Hell was supposed to be hot, but it wasn’t.
I could attest that it was bone chillingly cold as the man I hated with every ounce of my being paused beside me on his way into the foyer. He bent toward me, the coldness in his eyes rivaling the icy fingers dragging me back into the depths of hell as he whispered, “Get rid of your young man, or I will,” before he straightened and walked through the front door.
My heart constricted as I saw two men appear outside the doorway to follow in his shadow. He hadn’t left his henchmen behind after all.
21
Clara
“Let me make us some tea,” Judy said.
The old Clara would have snapped that tea was just about the last fucking thing I wanted, but the new me understood she was simply using inane conversation to lower the tension in the room and to help her client relax. Baba was now seated, but trembling, the skin white around the corners of her mouth. I looked up and smiled. “That would be great, thanks, Judy.”
Once the nurse had moved into the kitchen, I pulled up an old wooden footstool I’d upholstered in a toile fabric. The design of the linen was in the Delft Blue that Holland had made famous and depicted a scene from the castle made famous by Walt Disney. I’d loved it as a child, pretending it was my carriage that was going to take me to the ball. Of course, my fairy godmother was not going to show up and whisk us away from the shitstorm I could feel brewing. That little chore was totally in my hands. Sinking to sit, I then took both of my babushka’s hands in mine. God, they were so cold and so very frail. I gently stroked my fingers over hers, not yet speaking, waiting as we both fought against the pull of a past neither of us had ever wanted to revisit.
“I’m so sorry, Baba,” I finally said softly.
“So am I,” she returned.
She hadn’t assured me I had nothing to be sorry for. Nor had she raised her voice and damned me for bringing crap down on her head yet again. Instead, she’d been honest and, for that, I was both extremely grateful and infinitely sad.
Instead of returning with a mug or two of tea, Judy returned carrying a tray with the full tea service I’d actually forgotten we even owned. It was my grandmother’s and normally resided in that hard-to-reach cabinet tucked above the refrigerator. She set it down on the coffee table and carefully removed the round teapot that sat on top of the tall samovar and set it under the spout. It was as if we were all watching some fascinating production as the tea streamed into the pot, wafts of steam rising to settle on the silver sides of the samovar before disappearing as if they’d never been there only to reappear a moment later until, finally, Judy reached over to lower the lever, shutting off the stream.
I’d been stupid enough to think the flow of my life was just as easily curtailed. I’d left New York and the theater and traveled downstream to Chicago. I’d settled on the bank, perhaps not completely happy, but content to spend the rest of my days out of the whorls and ebbing of a tide that had threatened to pull me under. Then Alek had come and offered me a place in his theater, and I’d accepted it.
These last few months had been the happiest of my life. And then, as if nature had a way of reminding humanity that they were nothing more than flotsam, the current had stirred again bringing Nikolai Kosloff back not only into my life… but into my babushka’s home.
“Clara?”
Looking up, I saw Judy was holding out a teacup for me. The floral-handled filigree holders were intricately woven and made of silver. The glass that sat inside was etched with famous landmarks of Russia. The one I was being offered had my hand trembling as I took it. I couldn’t help but wonder about fate when I was drinking tea out of a glass that bore the image of the Marilinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg. Was it cruel or humorous? An assurance that all would be well and I’d dance again, or a foreboding sign that this treasured cup from the motherland was as close as I’d ever come to a stage again.
“Shall I go?” Judy asked after making sure my grandmother had a glass of tea and was sipping it slowly.
It would be wonderful to say yes, thank her for her service, and watch her walk out the door. But that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
“No, please stay,” I said with a sigh. “I know you didn’t sign up for this, and I assure you neither my grandmother nor I will blame you one bit if after you hear what I need to say, you decide not to return. In fact, that would probably be best.”
“Are you involved in something illegal?” Judy asked.
“No, nothing like that… at least not directly,” I said wondering how many degrees of separation were needed to remain untouched by another’s crimes.
Judy poured a third glass of tea and settled onto a chair next to my grandmother. “Then how about we cross that bridge when we come to it.”
I told an abbreviated, cleaned-up version of the story I’d told Alek a few nights ago. As I spoke, my babushka began to reach out and stroke my arm, or my hair, gentle touches as if to either reassure me I was all right or assure herself I was still with her and not back in the hell where I’d once resided.
“I thought it was turning around, that it was all over. Even though it was four years ago these last few months have been the first time I truly believed we were starting fresh, that we had a new beginning that really might go somewhere,” I said, finishing up the tale. “I am dancing again and—”
“I’ve been accepted into the drug trial,” my grandmother cut in. When I gasped and looked up, she was giving me the best smile she could at the moment, her silver curls bobbing as she nodded a bit too vigorously as if determined to convince me all was well in her world. “So, the only question is what are we going to do to make damn sure that bastard never sets foot into your life aga
in.”
“Can’t you call the police. Get a restraining order or something?” Judy asked.
“It wouldn’t do any good,” I said, shaking my head. “Those are all things law-abiding citizens care about. Things that make it easier to lay one’s head down to sleep at night. The world of the bratva… the mafia… isn’t like that. They live by one set of rules, and they are the ones making them.” I paused, snippets of conversations I’d overheard while I’d been with Nikolai played in my head, and I shuddered. “And they are the ones enforcing them.”
Setting my glass down on the tray before I dropped it, I stood and wrapped my arms around my torso as I began to pace around the room.
“There has to be something you can do. No one deserves to live in fear. This is America for God’s sake, not…”
“Russia?” my babushka offered when Judy abruptly stopped talking. When the caregiver nodded, looking a bit chagrinned, she continued, “There have been evil men among us from the beginning of time. It doesn’t matter where they live or what they call their nasty little clubs. It doesn’t matter if they wear uniforms with insignia that sets fear in people’s hearts or walk around in thousand-dollar bespoke suits. Strip them naked as the day they came screaming into this world and they are still evil.”
“You seriously think he is going to come back?” Judy asked.
“I don’t think it, I know it,” I said from where I was standing, looking out the window as if I expected to see his silver car roaring down the street.
“Then I think you both should come stay with me,” Judy said, and I turned to smile at her.
“That is very kind of you, but no,” I said, lifting my hand when she began to protest. “I don’t mean to be rude. It’s an extremely kind, very generous offer, but, Judy, this isn’t like trying to hide from a pissed-off ex. The moment I walked in and found Nikolai standing in my house, I knew there is no place on earth he won’t find me.” Walking back to where my grandmother sat, I knelt by her chair and took her hand again. “Baba, you should—”