by Kaye Blue
It gave me a sense of masculine pride to know that I had that effect on her, though I chose not to say anything.
Wise choice if the way she glared at me when I sat down was any indication.
She gave me one more pointed look but then was all business.
She pulled on latex gloves with practiced ease, poured antiseptic on gauze, and then began gently wiping at my wound.
Her gentleness was a surprise, a welcome one, though it shouldn’t have been. There was an innate kindness in her, a gentleness of spirit that had attracted me all those years ago and held me now.
And even though she was angry, something I could clearly see, that kindness still shone through.
“Looks like it was just a graze. I’ll bandage it up, but you don’t need stitches.”
I nodded, then stilled as I watched her complete the task. Chose not to tell her that I certainly could have handled it myself.
To have Tru touching me was something I wouldn’t trade, nor would I trade the opportunity to study her up close.
She still had the youthful face that I remembered, matured, but still her.
In fact, she had grown into the beautiful woman I had always known she would be, one she didn’t believe in when I told her what I saw.
I figured she wouldn’t appreciate me telling her now, so I kept that appreciation to myself.
“So, you became a doctor, huh?” I asked.
She froze, her hands hanging in midair as she prepared to snip a piece of medical tape.
She swallowed but recovered quickly and finished applying the bandage.
“Yeah. Eventually,” she said grudgingly, pulling off the latex gloves.
She didn’t say anything else but instead gathered up the first aid kit and used supplies and went back into the bathroom.
I stayed where I was, listening to her moving in the other room, the sound of the faucet running, and then watched as she reemerged.
“What does that mean?”
“What does what mean?” she snapped, not meeting my eyes.
She knew exactly what I was talking about, and I wouldn’t be deterred by her attempts at deflection.
“Eventually. You graduated high school two years early and were only a year away from medical school. What was the delay?” I asked, like I had the right to ask her questions.
I didn’t, but when had that ever stopped me?
“You,” she said, half grudgingly, half triumphantly.
“Me?”
“Yeah. You told me I’d be a great doctor. But everything you ever told me was a lie. It took me a while to get over that.”
The words hung there, the anger, the accusation, the truth in them undeniable.
“Not everything,” I finally whispered.
My voice had deepened, revealed emotion that I had kept under tight rein for a decade.
Tru wasn’t unaffected by that.
Her eyes, which had been dark, sparkling with anger softened ever so slightly. But then they quickly hardened again.
“I’m supposed to take your word for it?”
“I guess that would be a lot to ask.”
“You think?” she said, her head tilted.
“Yeah.”
“But you’re asking anyway?”
“I am.”
She scoffed then turned to walk to the opposite side of the living room toward the galley kitchen.
She came back with two bottles of water, extending her hand to offer me one, which I took.
She opened hers and took a few dainty sips, all the while staring at me.
It wasn’t the glare that had been so prominent, nor the glazed look of passion that I wanted to see again.
No, this was thoughtful Tru, the one who was trying to figure something out, to solve a puzzle.
She would.
Even if I hadn’t known how intelligent she was, I knew that she held the key to me. Knew me better than anyone ever had or ever would.
“I was nice enough to tend your wound, so don’t you think it’s time you started talking?”
“What would you like to talk about, Tru?”
“Don’t be an asshole, Peter—Ivan,” she said, gingerly shaking her head, perhaps to correct herself again.
I stayed quiet, trying to gauge my reaction. Hearing her call me that—Peter—reminded me of that past that we had shared, the life that had been so brief but was something I so treasured.
But hearing my name, my real name, fall from her lips was indescribable.
I tried to give shape to how it made me feel and realized in an instant what it was.
Tru might not have known my real name back then, but she knew me.
She had stirred feelings in me that no one else ever had, had been the only person I had ever shown my true self to.
And when she said my name, I felt that connection again. I could, for the first time in a very long time, just be Ivan, not Yuri’s son, not the boss.
Just Ivan.
“Well?” she asked, somewhat impatiently.
“What do you want to know?”
“You really are going to make this difficult, aren’t you?”
“Would you expect anything else?” I said, smiling.
She scoffed, but then smiled ever so slightly, the expression quick but not one that I missed.
“I guess not. So, since you’re going to be so obstinate, I’ll just have to tell you what I think.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I can tell you one thing I definitely know, something that you obviously know too.”
“What’s that?”
“Peter Anderson doesn’t exist and never did. There are thousands of Peter Andersons in this country, but you were never one of them.”
“No.”
“You know I went to the police?”
She said it suddenly, like it was a thought that had just occurred to her, and when I met her eyes, it was impossible to miss her annoyance and her embarrassment.
“You made me look like a fool. I told them my boyfriend was missing, and they just laughed me off. Said there was no record of you.”
“I worked very hard to make that happen.”
I had intended it as a confession. It was something that had been necessary, but something I knew would cause her pain. Because even then, I had known Tru wouldn’t just give up.
She wouldn’t wake up one day, find me gone, and move on. I’d hoped for it but had known the person she was wouldn’t do that.
But rather than a confession, she only took my words as confirmation.
“I’ll bet you did. Bet you did the same thing at the registrar too.”
I nodded. “I wiped all trace of myself from the school’s records.”
“And did a damn thorough job. Same thing with the house. Some corporation owned it, and I took that paper trail as far as it would go and ended up with nowhere.”
“How long did you look?”
“A year. At first, I was worried sick, thought you were dead in some ditch somewhere. And then I got pissed and needed to find you to tell you how much I hated you.”
“I figured something like that had happened.”
“But that didn’t make you leave me some clue, right? Something to at least tell me that you were alive. That you hadn’t made a fool out of me.”
Her voice trembled ever so slightly, but the significance of that wasn’t lost on me.
“Tru, I did what was best. I had to act quickly. There was no time—”
“No time to scribble a note, send an email, a carrier pigeon?”
“No. And it would have been dangerous.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re not lying about that given what happened tonight.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to protect you, so leaving was the best thing.”
“And I didn’t get a say in that?” she said, her eyes accusing, her posture, the slight tension in her shoulders, telling me that she was hurt.
“No.”
“
Dick,” she muttered.
The insult was just her way of blowing off steam, but I could see the hurt she was trying so valiantly to hide.
“So, what happened after?”
I didn’t have the right to ask her any questions, but I couldn’t help but be curious. I had so often wondered what had become of her, had only kept myself from finding out due to the desire to protect her.
“I went back to school, graduated, got a job, moved to the city. But you’re not asking questions here, I am.”
“So ask.”
“You know I used to love those terrible TV movies, so I had a story concocted in my head. That one of your parents, who you had absolutely refused to talk about, had been in witness protection. That they had somehow been discovered, so you had to abandon your identity and start over fresh somewhere,” she said.
She paused a moment, looking away, but then met my eyes again. She took another sip of water, and then said, “Yeah. That was the story, the one that I could live with. You didn’t just abandon me out of spite but because your life was in danger. I was plenty pissed, but I could swallow that. Because as angry as I was at you, I always wanted you to be okay, even if it meant I had to carry that hurt. Seemed like a fair trade.”
“And now?”
“And now I figure I had the story all wrong.”
“How so?”
“You’re the bad guy.”
A simple statement, one that I thought was slightly more complicated, but one that I still couldn’t refute.
“Yeah. I am.”
“So, Ivan. Tell me the truth. You owe me that.”
Her eyes were dark, flat, but not emotionless.
I could see her determination, see that she would not be deterred.
I was torn.
I wanted to tell her, for selfish reasons, but also because she was right, she deserved at least this much. But I was also conflicted, thinking of the old ways, the old rules.
And the fact that every piece of information she had could be a danger to her.
“I can hear you thinking. Stop thinking and start talking. You’re not going to change my mind. You will give me this.”
She was determined, and before I could consider it more, I started.
“You can’t tell anyone—no one—about this, about me.”
“I don’t know why you’re arrogant enough to think you would be a topic of conversation,” she said.
“I’m serious, Tru. No one.”
I held her gaze with my own, glaring at her, hoping that she understood how serious I was.
She nodded, but I didn’t start immediately, instead studying her until I was finally certain that she understood.
“Even telling you this is putting you at risk.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I can take care of myself. Now start talking.”
She sat in the dining chair and tucked one leg under her.
I glanced at the expanse of thigh she had revealed but quickly looked up, not wanting to get distracted.
“My name is Ivan Ivanovich, son of Yuri Ivanovich.”
She gave no visible reaction, the starkest reminder yet that however I felt about her, she was not of my world.
“I’m the head of crime family,” I said.
“A crime family? Like the mob or something?”
“Yeah. Exactly like that.”
She smiled, shook her head, but when I didn’t move, didn’t react, that smile dropped.
She went quiet, and I could see her thoughts spinning.
“My inclination is to say that you’re bullshitting, but I guess you’re not, huh?”
“No.”
“It makes a certain kind of sense. I mean you did just kill five guys, and you’ve got an air about you.”
“What air?”
“The ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibe. You had it back then too. But it’s a little more…intense now.”
I wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret that, but from the flash in her eyes, I could see that it wasn’t all bad.
“So, you going away to college, that was the mob equivalent of sowing your wild oats?”
“More or less. My father was opposed, but I insisted.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to be normal.”
“You were never normal.”
Whether that was a good thing or not wasn’t clear, but I shrugged.
“Maybe not, but I wanted to not be Yuri’s son, at least for a while.”
“So, what happened?”
“My father was killed. I eventually would have been too if I didn’t take his place as the head of the family.”
“So that night, when you left, your father had died?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shrugged, not sure what to do with the display of condolences or the fact that she was sincere.
“Tru, I had to act quickly, and after that, things were turbulent. It was a dangerous time. I couldn’t have anything to do with you.”
“After?”
“What about it?”
“I assume that you are of some means. My phone number hasn’t changed.”
She spoke like it was so simple, like I hadn’t picked up the phone to call her a thousand times, a million. The ache in my chest intensified, but I ignored it, tried to keep a tight rein on my emotions.
“Okay, so what was I going do? Call you and say, ‘Hey, Tru I know I ditched you, but I had to take over my father’s crime family and kill a whole bunch of people before they killed me first. But I’ve taken care that now. Want to go to a baseball game?’”
I stared at her, incredulous, hoping the ridiculousness of that was apparent.
But Tru, always one to subvert my expectations, shrugged.
“You’re here now.”
Her statement, one that was true, was so much more complicated than she was giving credit.
“This is different. These are circumstances that I can’t control.”
She smiled. “Ivan, you underestimate yourself.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, annoyed because I felt like I was losing the thread of the conversation, falling prey to the emotion that only she stirred.
“Never, not once, have you been out of control. You ditched me. Own up to it.”
“Did you not hear anything I said?”
“I heard excuses.”
“Tru, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Maybe. But if you had wanted to find me, wanted to make sure that I wasn’t hurt or suffering, you could have. You didn’t.”
She seemed to have reached some decision, and I could see the finality in her eyes.
I didn’t actually understand what was happening, but I felt like I was on a precipice, like I was going to leave something I didn’t even know that I had.
I refused to let that happen.
I stood, reached her in two steps, and pulled her out of the chair.
“You can’t think that?”
There was a desperation in my voice that was unfamiliar but also something I couldn’t hide, not if she believed I didn’t care.
“Can’t think what?”
“Whatever you’re thinking right now.”
I held her shoulders tight, her gaze locked with mine.
“I think you told yourself a story, but you’re leaving out the most important fact.”
“And what’s that?”
“That if you cared about me, you wouldn’t left. But you did, and I guess that has to be okay.”
There was no sadness in her voice, no anger, only acceptance, and that was the most heartbreaking thing I had ever heard.
I studied her eyes, searching for some hint of something that told me she didn’t think that was true. Didn’t see anything but that acceptance that I hated.
“Tru, you know that’s not true. I lov—”
Much as I had done to her earlier, she cut my words off with a kiss.
Six
Tru
&nb
sp; I’d known what he had been about to say.
Just as I’d known I couldn’t hear it.
No, those words from him were something I could never hear again. I wanted them too badly, wanted to believe in our love.
Wanted to believe him.
And I couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow myself to be vulnerable to him again.
Not that his declaration should have mattered.
What should have mattered were the five dead men in the alley behind the club, the truth of who he was, the pain he had caused me.
Not even the horror of all that, the fear that I should have felt, could sway me.
But if I’d allowed him to say those words, I would have been lost. And I refused to give Ivan that kind of control again.
I kissed him harder, swiped my tongue against his. I was frantic but didn’t care that he could see that, could feel it in my wild kisses. To reveal one truth as a way of protecting myself was something I would happily do.
And besides, what was the point in denying myself?
There wasn’t one.
After the way I’d let him kiss me earlier, he knew that I wasn’t immune to him, at least not physically.
And as crazy as it might have been, I wouldn’t deny myself this.
How many long, lonely nights had I spent dreaming of this, dreaming of him holding me again?
More than I cared to acknowledge, even to myself.
But now, at least for these few moments, I wouldn’t have to.
Because he was here.
Despite the circumstances, the truths he had revealed, he was here, now, and as shameful as it was, I was his for the taking.
My kiss was enough to tell him that, but Ivan pulled away and stared down at me with passion-darkened eyes.
Almost instantly, my mind was transported to the past, a night so different from this and yet the same. I’d kissed him that night too, had known in that moment he would be my first lover.
But then, as he had now, Ivan had stared down at me, the question in his eyes.
And the demand.
He was leaving it up to me, telling me without words that I could end this, that he would go.
Telling me that if I didn’t, I would be his completely.
I shivered, though not from cold. In fact, I was burning up, an inferno of desire and emotion that only he could spark and only he could put out.
