The Czar: A Standalone Hockey Billionaire Novel

by Selena Laurence

  She lifts the lids off of the pots one by one putting the contents into serving dishes. When she’s done she shoos me toward the table.

  “Are you going to let us help, Baba?” Mick asks, although I think he already knows the answer to his question and is just asking out of formality.

  “No. I do not like others in my kitchen business. You only get in my way. I cook these things for sixty years—since I was a girl much younger than you are now—I don’t need anyone’s help.”

  He laughs again and nods, then looks at me as if to say, “See? I knew she wouldn’t want help.”

  Before either of us can say anything else Baba is shuffling around with dishes and utensils. She puts bowls, plates and the array of food on the table before us, and then follows it with a glass full of wine for me and one full of water for Mick.

  “Now,” she says, “you eat and then after we do the cards.”

  “Thank you, Baba,” Mick answers, reaching for a covered tureen of soup.

  “Wait, aren’t you going to eat with us?” I ask Baba, confused and feeling like a very rude guest.

  She shakes her head briskly. “No, no. You young couple, enjoy yourselves. Old ladies like me, we hardly eat anyway.” She flaps her hand in the air as if food is a passing consideration. “But, Mishka—” she pins him with her best scowl, “—you thank God for your food as you thank me, yes?”

  Mick looks sheepish and I nearly laugh. “Yes, Baba.”

  She glows and pats his cheek before bustling out of the kitchen.

  Mick clears his throat awkwardly. “You, uh, mind if we say grace?” he asks, not making eye contact with me.

  I struggle to keep from laughing. The big, bad, hockey player backed into a corner by his tiny grandmother.

  “Of course not,” I answer.

  He sighs and I feel his hand reach for mine. He clasps mine gently, and his big warm fingers wrap around mine as his voice gets low and rough. He recites a few words in Russian, his head bowed and his eyes closed. I watch him, the sweep of his lashes on those spectacular cheekbones, the strong line of his nose, the dark scruff that has already populated his cheeks and jaw. He’s an exceptionally beautiful man, and a complex one—flirty one minute, crude the next, and now dutiful and charming. You could spend years with him and still be peeling back layers of who he is.

  “Amen,” he ends, and I jerk my gaze back to the table as he slowly releases my hand and reaches for the serving platter again.

  “You have a little Russian grandmother,” I say as he puts a full bowl of soup on my plate.

  A smile tips the corners of his lips. “I do. And she cooks better than most of the five-star chefs I know.”

  I put my napkin on my lap and lift a spoon “She’s also the boss of you.”

  He laughs. “She is. Baba came over from Russia after my mother died. She raised us for all intents and purposes.”

  I nod, not sure how to respond to something that is both tragic and beautiful. Tragic that it was necessary. Beautiful that she sacrificed so much for her grandsons.

  “My mother is Spanish,” I tell him. “She and her sister moved here together when they were eighteen. They had jobs teaching Spanish for an aide organization and eventually they both married Americans and stayed.”

  “Do you speak Spanish?” he asks.

  “I do. Not often, but I only spoke Spanish until I was five and started school.”

  “Your dad speaks it too then?”

  I look him in the eyes, because I learned a long time ago that how I convey it is what tells others how to view it. “He was gone before I was four,” I say, my voice flat. “Neither one of us has seen him since. So, we spoke Spanish, we cooked Spanish, and the only thing either of us has from him is an American last name.”

  He nods. “And your mom is here in Chicago?”

  Now I find it hard to look him in the eyes, because no matter how I try, this part hurts. “No. She moved to Florida and got remarried as soon as I graduated from high school. My aunt and uncle retired there a couple of years later so it’s just my cousin Marissa and me here now.”

  He nods quietly. “But you miss her.”

  “I do,” I answer, so much poured into those two tiny words it feels as if I’ve given a fifteen-minute-long speech. Luckily, he seems to sense that I can’t talk about it anymore.

  “This is schi,” he tells me, pointing to the soup. “It’s a cabbage soup that’s always served at the beginning of the meal.”

  I nod and tuck in, it’s delicious, and warm, much like Baba’s kitchen.

  “I’ll bet you didn’t get much by her, did you?” I say after few bites.

  “Baba? You’d guess right. Between Vanya and her there wasn’t much we could get away with.”

  “And did you live here? In this house?” Somehow I have a hard time picturing Mr. Petrovich living in this ordinary house with his mother and two children.

  “No.” His voice is cold now, hard. “My father has an estate in St. Charles that’s suited to his position. Baba stayed there with us until my brother graduated from high school then my father bought this house for her. She wanted to be closer to us here in the city, and to other people in the Russian community. Contrary to what she’d have you believe, both my brother, Dmitri, and I visit her at least once a week. She knows we wouldn’t be around as much if we had to go all the way out to the estate to see her.”

  I bite into a tender meat dumpling and moan at how delicious it is. I see Mick’s eyes glitter in the soft light from the simple chandelier that hangs over the kitchen table.

  “It’s called pelmeni,” he says. “But you’d better not make too many of those noises, Solnishka,” he warns. “I have no problem clearing this table off so I can lay you on it and have you for dinner.”

  My cheeks heat and I swallow, my throat suddenly dry and thick. “You wouldn’t dare with Baba in the other room.”

  “Try me,” he whispers, leaning in closer. Oh. My. God.

  Then he pulls back, a soft chuckle rising from his throat as he puts his water glass to his lips and takes a healthy swig.

  I breathe deeply, struggle to regain my composure, and pick my fork back up, opting for the vegetables instead of the pelmeni in the hopes that it might not be quite as delicious. I’m thwarted of course—it’s all fabulous.

  When I think I can’t eat one more bite, Mick leans back in his chair. He sips his water and watches me intently.

  “What was that about cards that Baba said?” I ask, pushing my plate away.

  “She tells fortunes, looks at the future, things like that.”

  He’s so matter of fact about it that I’m not sure how to respond. A fortune-teller? Such a thing really exists?

  “Um, wow. I don’t think I’ve ever met a fortune-teller before.”

  “I’d imagine not,” he answers. “Real fortune-tellers are Rom descendants. Baba’s grandparents were full-blooded Rom—you’ve probably heard the term gypsies, but that’s derogatory, and the actual ethnicity is Roma. She used to spend the summers with them traveling from town to town, telling fortunes and performing in shows. Her parents decided to modernize and got regular jobs, settled in St Petersburg, but her grandparents lived the traditional Rom lifestyle until they died.”

  “And you believe in it? The fortune-telling?”

  He looks at the big picture of St. Vladimir on the wall opposite our seats, thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t know that I’ve ever considered whether I believe in it or not, it just…is. I mean, we all have things in our lives that we’ve never questioned, right? The way our parents feel about us, or that we’re taller than most people we’ll meet. Things that have always been that way.”

  I nod, thinking that religious people—which I’m not—would probably describe this as faith.

  “That’s how it is with Baba’s fortunes,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “It just is. Always has been. Always will be. So I guess my answer is that while I don’t really believe in fortune telling, I
believe in Baba.”

  He pushes back from the table and stands, wincing a little when his braced leg gets caught on the edge of the table.

  “Let me get this all cleaned up and I’ll show you what I’m talking about,” he says.

  “No, no, no.” I stand and pick up my plate. “You brought me here, your grandmother cooked, the least I can do is clean up.”

  He takes the plate from me with one hand and caresses my cheek briefly with the other, his eyes warm, making me get that hot wax feeling in my center again. “We’ll do it together,” he says softly. “I know we’ll make a great team.”

  And it feels like he’s talking about so much more than just kitchen cleanup, and it also feels like this might be one of those things—the things that just are. No questions, no doubt, just the way it is. Mick and Solana—the perfect team.

  Thirty minutes later we sit in the front room of Baba’s old house as she lays Tarot cards out on a table by the window. The room is lit by small table lamps, and the corners are buried in velvety darkness as the sun has set outside and the moon is yet to rise.

  Baba is involved in a long series of laying down cards then picking them back up, reconfiguring them, laying them down again. Mick sits comfortably on the sofa watching patiently. He’s insisted I sit at the table with Baba, so I’m nervously observing, wondering if there’s any truth to this ability of hers, and if so, what horrible things she might predict for my future.

  Her ancient fingers finally slow down and she lays one last card on the table before looking up at me with her sharp, knowing gaze.

  “You have seen the cards before?” she asks.

  “Only on TV,” I tell her with a smile.

  “Bah!” she scoffs. “They are always wrong on the television.” She hands the deck to me. “First, you shuffle.” I do as she says. “Now, you think of a question you want answered. Not to tell me, just in your mind.” Again I comply, then she tells me to cut the deck and takes the cards back from me.

  She busies herself laying the cards out on the table in a pattern, examining each one carefully as she lays it down. When she’s done she sets the remainder of the deck aside.

  “So, these cards—” she points to those in the center of the pattern, “they tell me things like what is the nature of the question you have asked. Some say what is your present, others what is your past. Things that have not yet been resolved. This other column—it tells me how you see yourself, what others think of you, and this last one is the future.”

  “So what does it all tell you about me?” I ask, fascinated against my will now.

  She looks at the cards thoughtfully, then back up at me. “You are hard worker.”

  I nod. That part’s true. And also not a big secret.

  “But you do not understand that what you seek is not what you really need.”

  I see Mick lean closer from the corner of my eye.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Mm, just that the thing you work so hard for is not what you really need. You think you live to reach this place—this dream you have for so long—that then you are complete. But that is not the case. You don’t know what you are actually seeking. And it is here with you now. First, you must learn more about yourself, then you will see the truth about what you seek.”

  I nod. But I don’t understand what she’s saying. And really, if this is Rom fortune-telling, no wonder it’s so easy to accept. She could be talking about anything or anyone it’s so vague. Maybe that’s the real Rom talent—vaguebooking people’s futures.

  Then she leans toward me, her voice dropping lower. “But you must figure these things out more quickly,” she tells me. “Because your lies will come to light soon and then it will be too late.” She makes a slicing motion through the air and I feel my heart leap into my throat. Does she know? Did she somehow Google me and discover that I’m working for her son’s company behind Mick’s back?

  “Baba,” Mick’s voice is full of warning. “No scaring Solnishka now.”

  He stands and steps over to us. “Sometimes Baba’s predictions come with warnings, but they sound a lot more ominous than they are.” He gives Baba’s shoulder a squeeze.

  She waves her hand in the air again and huffs. “I simply tell what the cards say. It is not warning nor scaring. Just what will be and why.”

  I swallow and try to paste on a smile. “It’s fine.” I stand because I kind of want to get away from scary grandma now. “Thank you for reading my cards.”

  She stands too and grabs my face, kissing me on both cheeks. “You are lovely girl. You spend much time with my Mishka so he is happy, yes?”

  I glance at Mick, who has a look of triumph on his face. “Of course,” I answer.

  “Good. Now, you go to car and wait with Vanya. I speak to Mick for just a moment.”

  Mick walks me to the door, leaning in to whisper in my ear, “She likes you. I knew she would.” Then he gives me a soft kiss on the cheek and opens the door. He waves at Vanya, who is leaning against the SUV reading a Russian newspaper. Mick gives him some sort of instructions in Russian as I walk to the car, and then he goes back inside the house where his fortune-telling grandma is probably ready to blow my secret out of the water.

  13

  Mick

  Baba is in fine form tonight, and I knew bringing Solana over would make her happy. I haven’t had a girl to the house in years. She finally gave up harping on me about getting married when I turned twenty-five, but I know she still thinks about it all the time. She would love nothing more than to see Dmitri and I settled.

  When I get back to the living room Baba gestures to the table and has me reshuffle the cards before she begins laying them down again.

  “You tell me you want to know what is it about this woman?” she asks.

  I scratch my head. “Yeah. She seems special. Maybe it’s because I don’t have enough to do, but I’m sort of fixated on her,” I admit reluctantly.

  “I tell you what cards say. Then you do what you want anyway.” She gives me the look. The one that kept Dmitri and I in line for the first eighteen years of our lives, and sometimes still causes my heart to skip a beat.

  I shrug. Maybe she’s right, I don’t know. My life is such a jumble right now, I don’t know much of anything. But when I’m around Solana I feel a lightness that’s so hard to find any other time. I like that feeling, but I don’t fully trust it, which is why I decided to get Baba’s opinion tonight.

  She stops arranging the cards and looks at them carefully. “She is not everything she seems,” she tells me. Warning bells go off. “But she is good girl. She is only confused. And you are confused as well.” I sigh in solidarity with her assessment.

  “Both of you cling to things that are not meant for you anymore. Both of you need to find what is the truth.”

  I’m pretty sure I know what I’m clinging to. The thing that drove my life for the last twenty-some odd years and has now been ripped away like a band aid, leaving the wound underneath exposed to the hot and the cold, and the sharp objects in life. Bitterness coats my tongue, and I shift in my seat, the twinge in my hip a reminder of everything I’ve lost.

  Baba’s eyes tell me that she sees through my thoughts—as usual. She reaches out and grasps my hand. “It is the way it’s meant to be, Mishka. You had that life, but it was not supposed to be forever. Now you must move on to next life. It is waiting for you as soon as you will accept it.”

  I shake my head. “It’s not like I have a choice, is it?”

  “You young people in this country,” she mutters. “You think you should have so many choices. Cards tell us that nothing is choice. Things happen as they are meant to, choice is an illusion you cling to like the life you can no longer lead.”

  “Anything else?”

  She’s not saying anything I haven’t heard before, but I’m not ready to listen, so it’s time to leave.

  “Yes. Remember what I tell you now. There will come a day when you will need
to know it. Solnishka—she has not yet lived the life she dreams. You have, and now you only need to embrace next life. She has not. She is young—only starting the life she thinks should be hers. She will make mistakes because of this. She will do things that seem unforgiveable because she holds so tight to life in her head. She needs to see for herself that life in her head is not the right one. Be careful with her, Mishka. She does not understand what mistakes she makes. She can not see the true path yet.”

  I look at Baba for a moment, trying to process what she’s told me. “But she will?”

  Baba shakes her head gently. “This you know I can not tell you. The cards can only give me so much. The rest you must wait to see.”

  I stand and then lean down to kiss my grandmother’s cheek. “Thank you, Baba. Dinner was delicious.”

  “You come again sooner. Bring Solnishka.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I grin, and Baba swats me on the arm as we move to the door.

  When I enter the SUV and scoot in next to Solana, I can’t help but feel that Baba only confused things more. She liked Solana, but she also said Solana might do unforgiveable things. How can I move forward with someone like that? Because I’ve realized this evening that what I’m really feeling is the desire to be more to this woman than simply a fling. I haven’t felt that in so many years I didn’t recognize it. But it’s there, and it’s real.

  We’re both quiet as the car moves through the narrow streets of Ukraine Village where Baba lives. The spires of the Orthodox church loom over the old treetops and my mind wanders back to all the hours Dmitri and I spent there as children. Learning our catechism, going to children’s mass, serving as altar boys when we were older.

  “Is everything okay?” Solana asks in a small voice, interrupting my walk down memory lane.

  I smile at her beautiful eyes, so soft and bright. “It’s better than okay. How about you? Did you enjoy Baba or have you realized that we’re a bunch of Russian lunatics and you’re ready to call the cavalry for a rescue?”