Sasha: Book Two

by Tonya Plank

  I turned on the TV to HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.” It was a gangster show set in New Jersey in the twenties that I found to be dramatic, entertaining, escapist fun. I fixed myself a tall glass of Guinness, sank into my favorite leather chair, put my feet up on the ottoman and dug into the pizza. Of course the hours of practice we were missing tonight crossed my mind, but I forced the thought away and laughed at myself for having to struggle to relax.

  After back-to-back episodes of the show, I checked my phone again. There really was no reason to check, of course, since the thing was sitting right next to me and I would have heard if Rory called or texted. But I checked anyway. No word from her. It was almost midnight. I felt a pang of worry, then assured myself she was okay. She wasn’t downtown; her neighborhood and her building were safe. She was simply tired. She’d definitely gone to bed by now. As should I. Tomorrow we would be back to usual, back to the grueling practice schedule.

  I cleaned up in the kitchen, went upstairs, undressed and slipped under the covers. I’d lived alone for some time, but now I was lonely not having Rory next to me. Even if she didn’t stay over at night, it was weird not having her around at all. I resisted the urge to call or text and thereby wake her up. She needed her sleep. I set my phone on the bedside table, feeling like I was close to her anyway that way.

  Suddenly I heard my phone buzz. I woke up, looked at the alarm clock. It was a little past two in the morning. I swiped the phone off the table, looked at the face. It had no name but I recognized the odd area code as a number my uncle and cousin used when they needed to get in touch with me. Had they found Tatiana?

  “What happened?” I said on answering.

  “Sasha,” was all he said. It was Uncle Oleg. The stiffness and worry in his voice were palpable. They’d found her and she either wasn’t alive or was very badly off.

  “Where is she?” I shot up and ran to the closet to get my clothes on.

  He didn’t answer me.

  “Tell me now,” I shouted so loudly my next door neighbors might well have heard, far away as they were.

  Deep breath. Then, “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? Why are you calling me? It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

  Another pause. What the hell is going on?

  “We’re in front of your house. We need you to come downstairs.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it. We’ll talk to you inside.”

  What the major fuck? I hit “end” and threw my phone on the bed, jumped into my jeans, slipped into my sneakers and pulled on the closest shirt in my closet. I ran downstairs, grabbed my keys off the table in the foyer and threw open the door. It was black, except for the light from my porch, and from the moon. I flipped on the bright patio lights. I could barely see him outside the gate. His fingers were wrapped tightly around the black metal.

  “Sasha, we’re out here. Let us in.”

  I walked toward the gate. “What’s going on? What—” Then I saw it. There was a black sedan that looked very much like the one that had been parked in front of Rory’s apartment building several nights ago. The one she’d pointed out to me. And that I’d told her to ignore. “What are you doing? What is this?”

  I unlocked the gate and opened it enough to let him in. But just then the back car door opened. My cousin slowly emerged. Oleg turned and nodded at him. My cousin, Pasha, turned back around toward the car and bent over the seat. He was a large, heavyset man and each movement took considerable time. Oleg placed his hand on the gate and forcibly opened it wider.

  Before I could ask what he was doing, Pasha turned back toward me. He was now holding Rory in his arms. Her body was limp. Her torso lay over one of his big arms, her legs over the other. He was huge, making her look all the tinier and more fragile in comparison.

  I slammed the gate open, knocking Oleg out of my way, and rushed toward Pasha.

  “What the fuck!” I yelled.

  “Shhh,” he said, motioning to the neighbors. I wanted to kill him. “She’ll be okay, but let’s get her inside, not make a scene.”

  She was wearing her dance clothes. Both her jacket and the leotard underneath were ripped open. “Give her to me!” I took her from his arms. “Rory!”

  She was breathing, but seemed to be in a very deep sleep, almost comatose.

  “What the fuck did you do to her?” I yelled.

  “Please, please, inside,” Oleg said, pushing me through the gate and shutting it behind them.

  “Baby, baby,” I called out. I ran her inside, past the foyer into the living room, and carefully laid her on the sofa. I took her wrist and felt for her pulse. It was there but slow. I cupped my hand on her forehead. She felt a little warm but not much. I placed my hand by her nose. She was breathing. Her chest rose and fell with each tiny breath.

  She looked more like Tatiana than ever. I felt tears well. This should be Tatiana, brought back to me. Rory should be upstairs sleeping in my bed. Where she should always be. I wanted to cry for both of my women, as well as beat my uncle to a bloody pulp.

  I could feel him hovering over me from behind. “What did you do to her?” I said without taking my eyes off my love, trying hard to contain my anger and keep my fists from balling. If I turned to look at him I might not be able to keep control.

  “We thought she was Tanya. We’re very sorry. She is okay. Completely unharmed. We only gave her a drug to make her sleep. She will wake up in a few hours.”

  They thought she was Tatiana? So, instead of asking me, they just took her? “What do you mean?” I whipped around toward him, bunched the material of his collar with my fists and pulled hard on his neckline, bringing his face within millimeters of mine.

  “Okay, calm down now,” Pasha said.

  I eyed him. Instead of appearing tough, like he at all meant his words, he had a sad, removed look in his droopy eyes. Fucking loser. Fucking psycho. I hated these people. I let go of Oleg and rushed toward my cousin. I grabbed his arms, and shook him.

  “What the fuck? What did you do?” I shook and shook, hoping I’d shake his pathetic stupidity right out of him.

  “I said calm down and we will tell you everything. If you don’t calm down, we can’t talk. You want to know what happened. You want to calm down, Sasha.” As much as I shook his large body, his words were completely steady.

  “Sasha, she is unharmed. Sit down.” This came from Oleg. He placed a firm hand on my shoulder. “Back off Pasha. This is my fault. He only followed my orders.” I turned back to Oleg. “Sit down, son,” he repeated.

  They told me they’d been following us for some time. They thought Rory was Tatiana, they looked so much alike. They’d found more information than I did, not surprisingly. Information they didn’t bother to share with me, since I’d become their suspect in kidnapping my sister, or harboring her from them, rather. They’d been told through “affiliates of the agency” that she’d met a man in Tokyo who was from the U.S. From California. He was the one who’d paid off her debt to the agency and he’d brought her back to California with him. Of course they inferred that man was me. That I was the one who’d paid off her debts, and had moved her out here.

  They’d told my mother as much, and she’d cried. She wanted her daughter back more than anything. She pleaded with them to go back to L.A. and take Tatiana away from me, bring her back home, where she belonged. They knew they’d have to use force, that I’d never release her into their hands willingly.

  I listened to their story, growing angrier and angrier by the second. So angry I thought I might kill them with my bare hands. When we’d met at Musso & Frank, I’d had such a strong vibe they were they were testing me by asking me to go to Tokyo to look for her. Now I knew at least the last trip had been a ruse, since they thought I already knew where she was. I had to admit though, I understood why they’d thought I would keep her with me without telling them. I’d never make my sister return to Russia against her will. Ever. That’s the last thing I’d
do. And though I hadn’t told anyone, I’d rented the apartment for Rory expressly for that purpose—to keep Tanya safe and sound. They would have been right. Had Rory been Tatiana.

  “We weren’t going to take her back without talking to her first. That’s why we took her to the storage room, to talk to her,” Oleg said.

  “Convince her to come back, willingly. We just wanted to talk,” echoed Pasha.

  “When she spoke, we realized her English was too good for having been here such a short time. Something wasn’t right. When we looked for her scar,” he said, pointing to his breast, “we couldn’t find it. We knew then it wasn’t her.”

  “How could you seriously mistake them?” I said, still inwardly raging, though my voice was now more controlled.

  “We haven’t seen Tanya in years,” my uncle said, shrugging, as if what he’d done was nothing big. “They do look very much alike.”

  They did. Of course they did. A fact that had haunted me since I’d met Rory.

  “And you couldn’t possibly have just asked me if Tatiana had come to me?” But I knew the answer to this. If I thought they’d snatch her up, I would have hidden her; I would have lied to them. No one should ever have to go back there, to that horrible town, to my mother and her emotional abuse, and my father and his physical abuse. I would definitely have protected her from them.

  “I think you know the answer to that,” my uncle said.

  I took several deep breaths, then turned back to the sleeping Rory. She looked unbelievably peaceful now, despite her torn clothing. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through. How scared she must have been of these…these Russian mobsters. My family of thugs. “Get out,” I said to them.

  “Sasha—”

  “Now. Get out.” I stood and turned to them, forcing myself to keep my hands at my sides. “Don’t you ever come near Rory again. Don’t you ever go near Tatiana again. Don’t you ever come near me again.”

  “But of course you want to know when we find her.”

  I closed my eyes. Of course I did. Tatiana was alive. Now I knew she was. And she was apparently somewhere in the U.S., in California. But who was this man she was with? Was he good to her? Had she gone with him willingly or had he used his money to force her to go? Was she a sex slave? God forbid. Why hadn’t she trusted me enough to contact me? He must have been preventing her from doing so.

  All these thoughts flooded my head. I knew my uncle was far better at digging up information than I was. He’d find her. And when he did, I wanted to make sure he didn’t take her back to Russia.

  “Okay, listen to me,” I said, trying to force my anger aside and be rational, trying to come up with a plan to get them to work with me, not against me. “Rory is a lawyer. She’s an upstanding citizen here. She’s completely innocent. You screwed with the wrong person. She’ll want to know what happened to her when she wakes up. What am I going to tell her? She’ll definitely want to turn you in. And I would never stand in her way.”

  “Come now, Sasha. You would never turn a family member in? We’re family. Your mother—”

  “Shut up and let me finish,” I barked. “In exchange for us not turning you in, for me refraining from telling her all about this—for a while, anyway—you must agree to bring Tatiana to me once you find her. You will not take her to Russia. If you take her to Russia, I promise you I will hunt you down. You will pay. I promise you. Rory is a very, very smart girl. She and I will find you, and you will be in a great deal of trouble. You will never be allowed in the U.S. again, and if you are captured, you will rot in prison.”

  Saying my sweet love’s name made me seethe all over again. I was practically foaming at the mouth, like a rabid animal. I’d never been more serious about anything in my life. Not winning Blackpool. Nothing. Nothing meant more to me now than protecting Rory, and preventing my uncle from snatching my sister and carting her back to a place I knew she didn’t want to go.

  “You promise me you will bring her to me. And we’ll all talk it out. You give me your word. And I’ll give you my word that your criminality, the assault, kidnapping and drugging of an American citizen, which can result in thirty years in an American prison, will not be spoken of.” I had no idea what sentence these convictions carried. Oleg would be a very old man in thirty years. It sounded sufficiently threatening.

  My uncle thought, then slowly nodded. “It is a deal,” he said.

  “Give me your word, on my mother.”

  “Sasha…” He took off his sunglasses. A first.

  “Give me your word, Oleg. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m letting you go. I’m making myself into a criminal for you. You give me your word or I’ll come after you, with the American criminal justice system behind me. And I’ll get her back if you take her. Believe me. You’ll never see me or your niece again.”

  “Sasha, Sasha, please stop with these threats. They are unnecessary. We are family. I give you my word I will bring Tatiana to you once we find her.”

  I looked deep into his immense pupils. They appeared purplish, as if they were bruised by life, by all he’d seen. We stared each other down for a few seconds. Then he looked at Rory. He blinked. He knew I meant business. He knew I was being very gracious, after what he’d done to the woman I loved more than anything. He knew he was avoiding very serious trouble. The U.S. was not exactly a Third World country with a weak government. And I think he might even have felt badly about abducting an innocent girl whose only transgression was getting involved with me. But to say he had feelings might have been giving him too much credit. Maybe. I didn’t know this man at all. I didn’t know my family at all.

  With a final nod, he and Pasha left.

  As I heard the sedan pull away, I got mad at myself all over again for not trusting Rory’s instincts. She knew there was something sinister about that car. And I hadn’t listened to her. First and last time that would ever happen.

  I picked her up, carried her upstairs, and laid her down on the bed. I removed all of her clothes. Those fuckers, they’d tied her wrists and ankles together with rope. She had rope burns. I ran into the bathroom and collected a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, and aloe vera cream. After I doctored her up, I placed her under the soft, warm covers, pulling them all the way up to her chin.

  I went back downstairs, grabbed a picnic basket from the pantry, walked outside, into the garden, over to the rose bed in full spring bloom. My rose bed that Sadie had insisted I keep up. Sweet Sadie. It was largely because of her that I had Rory in my life now, after all, since she’d made sure James was the winner of the private lesson package, ultimately leading Rory to the studio.

  I pulled off red petal after petal, placed them in the basket. After I had half a basketful, I walked back inside, upstairs. And I laid the rose petals all around Rory, outlining her beautiful body. I scattered some remaining petals over the top of her, ensconced in the blanket. She looked so beyond beautiful, so angelic, so innocent.

  I got blisteringly angry all over again at my family. My horrible, awful, pathetic family whom I would never be free of.

  ***

  “Mmmmmm,” Rory moaned, hours later. She was coming to.

  I hadn’t slept a wink. I lay next to her, in bed, waiting for her to wake up like her namesake, Aurora, in “Sleeping Beauty.” How absurdist this whole situation was, I thought. I’d been thinking all night what I would say to her, and I still had no idea. I really wanted not to tell her anything until we knew something definitive about Tatiana. Until I knew she was safe. I was so humiliated by my family. I just wanted them to go away. I hailed from a family of brutes, who completely fulfilled the American stereotype of Russian mafia.

  I had to stop thinking about them and focus on the wonderful woman in front of me. They were my past, or would be as soon as I had Tatiana. Rory was my future. Her beautiful, long eyelashes began to flutter, and her lids slowly opened to reveal her beatific, dreamy green irises. She blinked hard. I’d had the velvet curtains parted
slightly to let in some early morning sunlight.

  “Mmmm, hello,” she said, seeing me next to her. “Ooooh,” she moaned, looking down at the covers. “So warm. So cozy. And so, mmmm, what’s that aroma… Oh wow, rose petals!”

  But then she suddenly shot up as if waking from a nightmare. She held the blanket around her chest, but removed an arm from underneath the comforter to touch one of the petals. Feeling it, rubbing it between her fingers, she looked confused. Then, though she’d seen me, she seemed suddenly to realize I was in bed beside her. She turned fully to look at me, a frown now crossing her face. She shook her head as if shaking off a bad thought, and wrapped her arms around her chest, rocking herself under the covers.

  I sat up with her.

  “Oh my God. You won’t believe…I had the most awful—”

  I wrapped my arms around her and pressed my lips deeply into her soft, creamy cheek. Holding her more tightly so that she was completely encompassed in my arms, I transferred my lips to her forehead, then traced kisses all around her face and neck. She moaned and giggled, her body relaxing, but just momentarily. As her muscles tensed again, I knew she realized something wasn’t right.

  She struggled out of my grasp and turned to face me. She opened her mouth but I was the one who spoke first. I had to talk. I had to beg for forgiveness, above all else. “I’m so, so, so sorry, my love. My beautiful, sweet love. It will never happen again. I promise. I promise I will never doubt you again. Never. And I promise you those men are gone. They will never harm you again. No one will harm you again. I swear it. I swear on my life.” I spoke fast but each word was pronounced clearly and weighted.

  Her beatific smile evaporated. Her beautiful hazy jade eyes widened, her pupils growing, piercing mine. “Sasha, what—”

  I brushed my index finger lightly over her lips and caressed her chin with my thumb. “Please, I can’t talk now. I will. I promise. I will tell you everything. Just not now.” I needed to wait until I had word on Tatiana. And I couldn’t tell her about Tatiana now. I just couldn’t. Something told me if I did, everything could go horribly awry. She’d let out to someone what had happened to her and my family of brutes would come back after her, and would break our deal about Tatiana. But more seriously, they could hurt her. And I would never, ever let anything happen to her again. I promised myself that. I promised her.