Authors: Shannon McKenna
His head jerked, affirmatively. “I remember.”
“I see it now, Sasha. I will be that star now. You go out, look in the sky, say hello to me, ey?” She put her hand on his cheek. “I did not want you to come, risk you getting snarled in Oleg’s web.
But now . . .” Her gaze flicked to Nina. A smile creased her face.
“With her, you are strong enough to face even Oleg.” She petted his hair. “I am so happy.”
Her eyes fluttered shut. Her hand went limp.
After a few moments of listening to her labored breathing, Nina realized two things. Tonya was fast asleep, and Aaro was not going to move one inch on his own initiative. His shoulders shook.
“Aaro,” she said. No reaction. Not even a twitch.
It was up to her. She grabbed his arm, pulled until he was on his feet, stumbling as if half asleep. Nina peered into the hall and hustled him out, her arm around his waist. She got him down the stairs, and onto the street. Aaro showed no signs of resuming his usual executive control of the universe, so she linked her arm through his, and towed him in the direction that she vaguely remembered him parking the car.
“I shouldn’t have left her there alone,” he said starkly.
“How old were you when you left home?” she asked.
His brow furrowed, as if the question were too difficult to process. “Sixteen,” he said finally. “Almost seventeen.”
“For God’s sake,” she muttered. “Sixteen is a child. You should not have been responsible for yourself at that age. Let alone for an adult.”
“I should have come back for her,” he repeated.
Nina stared around the deserted street. There was a bench on the sidewalk, a bus stop. She steered him there, poised him over it, and shoved until he thudded down. He stared at the passing cars, blankly.
She hated to see him like that. It was like a fist, squeezing her heart. She wanted to pick him up, cuddle him as if he were a small child. As if. But the impulse was too strong to resist, so she did the next best thing. She sat on his lap. Wrapped her arms around his neck.
His arms clamped around her. His arms were very strong, and they held her very tightly. It gave her a dizzy thrill, which she squelched, sternly. This was about comfort. He’d comforted her, in his own rough way. Now it was her turn to comfort him.
He vibrated, as if a tremendous voltage was running through his body. He pressed his hot face to her shoulder, and hung on.
They must have been there for twenty minutes, but time warped and stretched, bloomed into something new and strange.
She felt him, so intensely. His body and hers, every point of contact thrumming. The throb of his heart, reverberated through her body. The pulse of his breath against her collarbone. Every ticklish swish of the breeze moving her skirt against her legs. Her bottom, perched on those hard, powerful thighs. The warm, earthy smell of his hair filled her nose.
A car drove by, stereo bass thumping loudly. A guy hung out of the window, and howled, “Get a room, asshole!”
Aaro lifted his head, without meeting her eyes. “Good idea,”
he said gruffly. “You need rest. And we need to listen to that recording.”
They stared at each other. He looked nervous. And flushed.
She realized that she was petting him. Stroking his hair. Her hand was actually sliding down to touch the jut of his high cheekbone.
She jerked back, horrified at herself, and scrambled off his lap, smoothing down her skirt. She was sending crazy mixed messages to this guy, and that was totally unfair. And dangerous.
“Uh . . . sorry,” he muttered.
“I don’t need your goddamned apologies,” she snapped.
His mouth twitched. “Uh, yeah. Thanks for getting me into the—”
“I don’t want your thanks,” she said coolly. “I owed you a favor. Don’t take it personally, OK? It’s not about you. It’s just payback.”
He blinked, and a quick, appreciative grin flashed over his face. “Ah. OK. I see. Tough bitch.”
“I’m learning,” she said. “I’m learning fast.”
“My aunt said you were strong,” he said.
“I know. I was there. Right next to you. In case you didn’t notice.”
An odd look flashed over his face. “Huh? Come again?”
“I heard what your aunt said,” she snapped. “That you’d squish me like a grape if I weren’t strong. And I don’t appreciate being called a scold. It’s unfair, considering the day we’ve just had. And what on earth possessed you to let her think that we were a couple?”
His jaw sagged. “But I . . . but we . . . but I didn’t say—”
“You said nothing to make her think otherwise.” She hadn’t intended to lecture him right off the bat, but she hadn’t expected to embarrass herself by petting him, either, so what the hell. “It was inappropriate, to deceive her like that. No matter the circumstances.”
“Nina,” he said slowly. “Explain something to me.”
“I’m not the one who should be explaining myself. What was all that stuff about gifts?” Freed from the spell of their timeless embrace, she had to cover her discomfort with brittle chatter.
“Nina, do you speak Ukrainian?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “Would I have been calling you to translate for me if I did? What are you talking about?”
He seized her shoulders, gave them a hard squeeze. “Aunt Tonya was speaking Ukrainian, Nina,” he said. “The whole time.”
She stared at him. “No, that’s not even remotely possible,”
she said. “I don’t speak a word of Ukrainian, or Russian, and I understood every word your aunt said. I get by in Spanish, and I studied some French in college, but Slavic languages are a complete blank to me. She was speaking English, Aaro, and you just didn’t notice.”
Aaro was shaking his head. “Tonya never learned English very well. She didn’t want to come to this country in the first place.
She was in love with someone back in the old country. My father forced her to come. Not speaking English was one of the things that kept her so trapped. She wasn’t speaking it tonight. I remember what she said, and how she said it. It wasn’t English.
And I wasn’t speaking it, either.”
“But I . . . but she . . .” Her voice trailed off. “How could I . . .”
“The mind-reading thing, maybe?” he said.
She shook her head. “It didn’t feel like that,” she faltered.
“I . . . I it was the words. I heard them. With my ears. I swear, I did.”
They stared at each other. Aaro wrapped his arm around her shoulder, sweeping her into a trot. “Fuck it,” he said. “It’s one more weird thing, in a long list of weird things, and it’s not even the weirdest of the lot. We’ll process this later. Forget about it.”
That would be a neat trick. But Nina put her arm around his waist and let herself be borne along anyway.
The weight of his arm around her shoulders felt very, very good.
Fay Siebring picked up the telephone, and put it down again.
Get it over with.
When Tonya Arbatov had been admitted to the hospice, Oleg Arbatov had requested a meeting with her.
Oleg was a tall, thick-bodied man, once powerfully handsome, now riddled with disease. A cancer survivor, she’d heard, but it had not affected the force of his personality one bit. His face was pitted, yellowish, his eyes sunken, but deep in their pits, they burned with an unabated fire. His voice was a rasping growl that made her flesh crawl. His charisma was enormous.
Oleg had explained, in correct but heavily accented English, that Tonya Arbatov was to have absolutely no visitors except for the immediate family, and if anyone else requested to see her, that person was to be denied entrance, and Oleg was to be immediately notified. Not that such a thing was likely, he assured her, but Tonya had suffered from mental illness for most of her life, and was very fragile. He wanted to ensure that her final days were tranquil and secure.
Fay had explained that though his care for his sister was noted, their patient-based care policy dictated that Tonya’s personal wishes regarding visitors would be considered above any other—
“That is your son? And your daughter?” he’d interrupted, pointing at the picture on her desk of Cass and Wills. His long, misshapen yellow fingernail looked like a devil’s horn. Fay was startled by the impulse to knock the picture facedown to stop him from looking at it. “Ah. Er . . .”
“Cassandra,” he murmured. “Pretty. And William. Fine-looking young man. So tall. Basketball, no? I see why.”
She froze. Their names. How in God’s name had he known . . . ?
“I heard that Cassandra has applied for the Seaver scholarship.
Should help paying for Northeastern. Congratulations on her getting in, by the way. Great accomplishment. Good school. Expensive, though, hmm? For a single mother, working in health care administration.”
“How do you know . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Oleg smiled. His teeth looked sharp. “I can make sure Cassandra gets the Seaver. A word, with people I know, and the thing is done.”
Fay’s vertebrae stacked up in a burst of maternal pride. “I appreciate the thought, but Cassandra is by far the best candidate, and I don’t think she needs any help at all to—”
“Oh, Ms. Siebring. No. We all need help. You, William, Cassandra. Me, too. It would be a shame, if the scholarship board learned of that unpleasant business . . . the shoplifting incident?
That Target store?”
Her mouth sagged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sixty-five dollars worth of stolen makeup.” He shook his head. “And your William, too. I hear he likes high stakes poker, and him only twenty-four.” He clucked his tongue. “No job yet, I hear. I heard you’re refinancing your house to try and cover his debts. That’s how our economy got in trouble in the first place, you know.”
“But I . . . but he—”
“It would be an honor to help,” he said. “So sad, if a promising young man’s future was compromised because of a youthful mistake.” He smiled, his sunken eyes twinkling. “I will buy his debt. Thirty thousand, wasn’t it? It is nothing to me, Ms.
Siebring.”
Fay could not even speak. Arbatov patted her hand. His hand was heavy. Cold.
Iron hand in a velvet glove.
The phrase popped into her mind, but Oleg wore no glove. It was just a cold, naked, iron hand.
“All I ask is a little help, Ms. Siebring,” he said. “A little cooperation. Can I call you Fay? I feel as if I know you.”
“Ah . . . of course.” Her throat was dry. “Ah, thank you. But that won’t be necessary. About Cass, and Wills, I mean. Ah.” She could have kicked herself, for revealing their nicknames.
He smiled, pleased. “Wills, and Cass. Charming. Well, Fay.
You know who to call.” He pulled out a checkbook, and a heavy golden pen.
“Oh, no. I cannot accept that. If you give it to me, I will rip it up.”
He glanced up, bushy eyebrows steepled into a wounded frown. “Don’t hurt my feelings, Fay.”
When she did not reach out to take the check, he laid it on her desk. It was for fifteen thousand dollars. “Cash it,” he urged. “A graduation gift. A token of my esteem. Clothes, books, sorority fees. Heaven knows we wouldn’t want her forced to shoplift again.” He chuckled at his own wit. “She’ll be able to use it even if she does get the scholarship. Because, of course . . .” He winked. “She will get it.”
Fay clutched the edge of her desk. Oleg laid a card next to the check. “My cell,” he said. “If anyone but the people on my list attempts to visit Tonya, contact me. Do we understand each other?”
Fay nodded mutely.
Oleg rose heavily to his feet. “Good, then. Good luck, for your beautiful children. And good health.”
The whole episode played through Fay’s mind as she stared at the phone. She hadn’t heard from Oleg since. No one had come to see Tonya. She’d begun to hope that the situation would pass without incident, that the woman would just die. And if she just didn’t cash the check . . . it was like it hadn’t happened. A hor-rific story to tell friends at a dinner party, years from now. But she’d been lingering every day until midnight, in terror of missing a possible visitor. Or worse, of letting anyone else on the staff know how shit scared she was.
Do we understand each other?
Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Arbatov, sir. Don’t hurt my babies.
She dialed the number, her belly spasming.
“Yes?” That grating rasp again. She heard it in her dreams.
“Mr. Arbatov. It’s, ah, Fay Siebring, from the hospice.”
He grunted impatiently. “Well?”
No question about his sister, who was one of the most solitary patients their staff had ever seen. “Your sister, ah . . . she had a visitor.”
“Who?” His voice sharpened.
“A man, in his late thirties,” she blurted. “Very tall, big, dark-haired. He said he was her nephew. That his name was Sasha.”
“I thought I told you to let no one see her!”
“I didn’t let him in, of course! I told him there was a short list, and that he was not on it, just as you said! And he left!”
“Go to Tonya’s room,” Arbatov barked. “Do not let him see you.”
“Mr. Arbatov, he’s not here! I told him to go, and he—”
“Shut up. If Sasha wanted in, he is in. How long ago?”
“Ah . . . er . . . maybe about a half an hour ago?”
“Half an hour? Why did you wait so long to call? You idiot!”
She floundered. “I, ah . . . I had business to attend to, and I—”
“Take your cell phone. See if he is there! If so, hide in an adjoining room until he leaves. Then follow him. Do not let yourself be seen! Call me when you know where he is. Understand?”
“Ah . . . ah . . .”
“Move, bitch!’
She leaped to her feet, knocking files off her desk, and bolted, racing past Jolene’s desk without responding to the receptionist’s questioning tone. She sprinted down the hall to the elevator.
Do not let him see you.
And how was she to accomplish that? She peered out of the elevator. Hurried, panting, down the hall. Outside Tonya Arbatov’s room, she clutched the doorknob with a sweaty hand, turned the knob, and held her ear to the crack.
Voices. One was deep, male. Her heart banged against her rib cage. Tonya’s voice was too soft to make out, but the man responded, loud enough to hear that he was speaking Russian. She pressed the door shut, and slid into the next room. Fortunately, the occupant was deeply sedated. She punched the “redial.”