by Rob Thurman
The first was necessary, but the second I had my qualms about. It was Michael’s idea and it was a good one, but I didn’t know whether we had the time. I had the instinct to go to ground, dig a hole, and pull it in behind us. And it was getting stronger all the time. The sooner we arrived at the house in North Carolina, the happier I would be. But Michael was right, as much as my gut hated to admit it. The more information we had about Jericho, the better. To that end, we were going to visit a Dr. Bellucci.
My brother had started to tell me about Marcos Bellucci seconds before we’d spotted our pregnant downfall at the side of the road. The man had been mentioned in several of the books we’d purchased. He had worked along the same lines as Jericho had, before Jericho’s theories had split away from the mainstream. He’d even coauthored a few papers with our favorite monster. But as their scientific outlook began to diverge, so had their professional relationship. Dr. Bellucci had spent a considerable amount of time refuting Jericho’s work after that. He kept it up for quite a while, even after his newly ordained rival dropped out of sight. Michael thought if anyone knew something that might help us, it would be Bellucci.
Like I said, he was a smart kid.
The scientist lived in St. Louis, about twenty hours from our first stop, which was Boston. As I had called number after number looking for Anatoly, I’d given serious thought about calling his allies in the business. Uncle Lev, Uncle Maksim, and others had popped in and out of my childhood for birthdays and special occasions. They weren’t related by blood, not my parent’s blood at any rate. Associates of my father, these uncles came and went like the tide. With vagaries of the business and shifts in loyalty, the faces changed, but the birthday presents showed up all the same. It wouldn’t do to show disrespect to Anatoly Korsak.
Calling the uncles about my father wasn’t too risky—not really. Anatoly might be on the run, but he still had a power with the older crew. It was fading the longer he was gone, but it still existed. They would be willing to give me any help they could in finding Anatoly. Unfortunately, the simple fact was they probably had no help to give. If Anatoly hadn’t given me concrete information on his location, he certainly hadn’t given it to them. But while they couldn’t point me in Anatoly’s direction, they could give me another kind of aid.
Money. They could give me money.
Uncle Lev was my father’s oldest friend, one of the few uncles who’d remained steadfastly present and mostly unshot throughout my childhood. He was also the only “uncle” who had felt like genuine family. If I could depend on anyone, it would be him. I didn’t bother to call ahead. His phones had been tapped since before I was born. It wasn’t as if I needed directions anyway. I’d been to his house once or twice for his daughter’s graduation and wedding. Point the car to the richest part of town and you were there. Easy. But deciding what I would tell him about Michael wasn’t so easy. Lev had been at Lukas’s first birthday and every one following until the kidnapping on the beach. He was godfather to both of us, and I knew he’d welcome my brother back with open arms. It might be good for Michael, seeing firsthand that someone besides me accepted him as family. Then again, it would raise a thousand questions, the majority of which I couldn’t answer, not even to Uncle Lev.
I was distracted from my thoughts by the sensation of a cold and wet nose against the skin of my ankle. Looking down, I saw a sinuous body beside my foot. The head was invisible, hidden under the bottom of my jeans. “Michael,” I growled, “your damn rat’s two seconds away from being flatter than that pizza you’re ordering.”
Hanging up the phone, he moved over to scoop up Godzilla. “He isn’t a rodent,” he said with imperious indignation. “Ferrets are actually members of the—”
“Satan’s inner circle would be my guess. Too bad he wasn’t ripped off along with all of our money,” I said, cutting in before he went any farther. I was learning that to let Michael start lecturing on a topic was to lose massive chunks of time. It had been not even a week since I’d pulled him from that place, but the change in him in those short days was nothing short of astounding. He had gone from withdrawn and indifferent to insatiably curious and not a little mouthy.
I loved every minute of it.
But there were limits to human patience, as well as human ears. And I wasn’t precisely in the mood for a biology lesson about my least favorite animal. Living with it was enough benevolence on my part. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I toed off soaking wet socks and wriggled bone-chilled toes. My sneakers weren’t made for this type for weather. “We should be in Boston by late tomorrow night. You stocked up on rat food?”
Deciding my thirst for ferret knowledge was nonexistent, he labeled me as unteachable and gave up on the subject. “And this uncle Lev who’s not really an uncle will be glad to see you?” came his doubtful question.
“Yeah, he will be. He’s a . . .” I stopped, unsure of exactly how to finish that sentence. I’d wanted to say that he was a good guy, but it was hard to say that about a man who made a living off the blood and thievery of others. “He’s loyal to Anatoly. He’s like family. Sort of.” The curve of my lips was apologetic. “Sorry it’s not more of a normal family for you, Misha.”
“Not your fault.” His eyes focused on me long enough for me to catch the flash of automatic rejection before they dropped to the remote he picked up from the table. “And not my family.”
That merry-go-round again—it still showed no signs of stopping, but I hadn’t given up the hope it might at least one day slow down. “You’re a stubborn little bastard.” I sighed as I twisted and flopped back onto the pillows. “Just like me, believe it or not. If that’s not a family trait, then what the hell is it?”
“Annoying?”
I laughed. It was something else how in the middle of this huge mess the kid could make me laugh—really something else. Rubbing the back of my hand across a five o’clock bristle that just wouldn’t quit, I admitted fondly, “You’ve got me there.”
Considering the loss of our money and the tripling of our travel time, I should’ve been in the worst of humors. But I wasn’t. I might be on the run and broke as hell, but I was still ahead of the game. I was still worlds away from the nightmare the last ten years of my life had been. Then I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now I could.
It was enough.
The light chose that moment, not surprising, to wipe the complacent smile off my face with a few seemingly innocent words. “Stefan, I was wondering.” He paused casually. “Have you ever had sex?”
Okay, perhaps his words were not so innocent, depending on how rigid your upbringing or how high your monthly porno budget. Covering my eyes with my hand, I gave a groan straight from the grave. “That’s a big subject change from Uncle Lev,” I pointed out hoarsely. “What brought this on?”
“This and that,” he answered with irritating cheer. “There’s my natural curiosity of course. We talked about that a few days ago.”
Yes, we had. And I’d given him the remote to the TV; free educational rein as it were. You would think that would satisfy him, but no.
“And then Fisher . . . that girl, whatever her name was, was . . . you know. Her eyes . . . her mouth. At me.”
I didn’t have to uncover my eyes. I could feel the heat of the blush fill the room. “Flirting,” I filled in hastily before he stumbled on.
Recovering smoothly, he said, “Flirting. She was flirting with me. That sort of thing isn’t done at the Institute. Flirting. Intercourse. It isn’t allowed.”
Intercourse. Jesus. No, I couldn’t imagine that it was. No horny teenagers were going to splash around in Jericho’s carefully crafted gene pool. Although it wouldn’t have been too long before he arranged something himself, a breeding. . . simply to see what it might produce.
“I know the mechanics of course.” He was relentless, horrifyingly relentless. “That was in the biology books. But I was curious about the specifics. So, if you have had sex . . .”
“Yes,” I spit out somewhat defensively before rolling over and covering my head with the pillow. My voice muffled, I went on. “I’ve had girlfriends, and I’ve had sex.” And please God, I begged internally, conveniently forgetting my semiagnostic ways, let that be the end of it. Naturally, it wasn’t.
“Really?”
At the fascinated tone in his voice, I flinched. Then with resignation I lifted the pillow just enough to gaze at him with one reluctant eye. “Yeah. When I was twenty-one, just like the law says.”
Confused, he tilted his head to one side. “Law?”
“It’s like drinking,” I lied without the slightest compunction. “You can’t drink or have sex until you’re twenty-one. We’ll buy you a book before then. A really explicit book with all the gory details. I promise. The Kama Sutra two point oh.”
“Oh. I see.” Settling onto his own bed, he leaned back against the headboard and gave me a look of overt sympathy. “If you’re a virgin, Stefan, you don’t have to be embarrassed or make up stories. Maybe we could both buy a book—or a movie. There seem to be lots and lots of movies. If we watch enough, we’re bound to learn something.”
I had been neatly wedged into a corner by a psychologically adept, offensively trained brat-on-wheels. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want him to know the big picture beyond simple anatomy. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been involved in my share of locker room exchanges with my high school buddies. Hell, one of my bases of operation for the past three years had been a strip club. I hadn’t had a girlfriend since Natalie, but that didn’t mean I didn’t get laid now and again. The thing was . . . I was Michael’s brother, not his father, and I didn’t want to get this wrong. It was important.
But if he didn’t have me to ask, then who did he have? Retreating completely under the pillow, I surrendered. “Jesus. All right. Ask away.”
“Great.” The thin layers of cotton and foam insulating my ears did nothing to hide the triumph. “Let me get a pen and some paper. I want to take notes.”
Notes—he was going to take notes. This was shaping up to be a long night.
A long, long night.
Chapter 24
The skyline of early-morning Boston was reflected in the rearview mirror along with a pair of seriously bloodshot eyes—my eyes. We’d reached the city at about two a.m. and slept in the car in a parking lot surrounded by a cluster of office buildings. The fifteen dollars we had left to our name wasn’t going to put us up in even the worst fleabag. But the lack of sleep wasn’t caused by the cramped quarters. It was Michael and his questions. They’d lasted most of the previous night and all of the following day. I should’ve actually bought him a book on the subject as I’d threatened, or two or a hundred of them, but I doubted that would’ve saved me. Somehow he had even managed to elicit details about the relationship between Natalie and me, and that was something I had refused to talk about to anyone.
It wasn’t sexual particulars he was after, which was good. I was an open book on all my other exploits, but Natalie had never been that. I’d loved her. At least it was as close to love as I could manage in the midst of my fixation with finding my brother and my obsession for redemption. I couldn’t give her my entire heart, but that wasn’t by choice. I simply didn’t have it to give. I did give her all that I did have. The small slice that was still open for business belonged to her—completely.
I bought her daisies every day. Sometimes it was a bunch tied with a ribbon. Sometimes it was only one. She was a daisy girl. Roses seemed too pretentious for someone as honest and down to earth as she was, and tulips didn’t have her life. They didn’t explode with light and energy. They didn’t throw their arms to the sky and gather in the sun. Nat and daisies were two of a kind in that respect. She was all about color, too, my girl. All our sheets were covered with whimsical patterns—fish, flowers, flying birds, diving dolphins. And every set was so tacky and garish that you were in serious danger of going blind at the sight of them.
I’d never claimed to love Natalie for her subtle taste. I loved her because of her lack of taste and for her freckles that spread like a wildfire in the summer sun. I loved her for her homemade caramel milkshakes, the best in the world, and for her tuna casserole, the absolute worst. And when she dragged that dog from the pound home for my birthday, I groaned and threw up my hands, but that was on the outside. On the inside I kept right on loving her. I’d told her before that I liked Labs, and that’s what she brought home. It had three legs, a tongue too big to fit in its mouth, and produced a gallon of slobber every five minutes. She named it Harry after my long-gone horse and gave it my spot on the couch.
With that, if possible, I loved her then even more. I loved her as much as I was capable. That was the key word, wasn’t it? Capable.
It wasn’t enough. When I finally broke down and told her what I did . . . what I had become since college, it was over. She could’ve handled just that, I think. Make no mistake; she would’ve dragged me by my ear out of that life and across the country if that’s what it took to break away. Innately honest and stubborn as all hell, she would’ve put my career to bed, for good, and before I could have taken another breath.
But it wasn’t just that. Natalie had known all along that she owned only a piece of my soul. Unreservedly, she had given me all of hers and waited patiently for me to come around.
I never had.
I hadn’t put her first. I was good at the daisies, but I’d never put her first. She wouldn’t have minded that. She would’ve understood. But I had never made her equal to my obligations either—never. It hadn’t even been close. It was one strike too many. She could’ve easily reformed me. I hadn’t ever cared about the business other than how the money from it could help me find Lukas. But while getting me on the straight and narrow would’ve been a piece of cake for Crusader Nat, she couldn’t force me to free up the rest of my heart. And she knew it.
I knew it, too. I hadn’t blamed her then, and I still didn’t. She didn’t leave me; I gave her up. I threw her away. I couldn’t make room for her in my life. There was Lukas and only Lukas. All Natalie ever had from me was the leftovers, the table scraps. Lukas came first, last, and always. Finding him was the only thing that had mattered. I’d made that choice before I had ever met Nat. When she was gone, I tried to tell myself that my only mistake had been to lead her on, to give her hope for a relationship I wasn’t equipped for. Yeah, that’s what I told myself.
I was wrong.
Lukas . . . Michael wouldn’t have begrudged me love while I searched. Generous of spirit and with a basic goodness he wasn’t yet aware of, he would’ve been happy for me. The denial wasn’t his; it was mine.
Jericho had stolen more than my brother on that beach. He’d stolen me too. He had hollowed me out, scooped out the important parts, and left a shell of brittle ice masquerading as a human being. When his man had left me for dead on the sand, he hadn’t been far off the mark. Not far at all.
I missed Nat. I missed her every time I saw a scraggly daisy blooming in the weeds, every time I saw a red kite flying high enough to block out the sun. I missed her when I bought boring white sheets and when I bypassed the dog food aisle in the grocery or when I bought thin, overly sweet fast-food milkshakes. I missed her and hoped she was someone else’s daisy girl.
I missed her and knew I’d never see her again.
So when Michael had asked me about love and relationships, things that were much harder than sex to explain, Natalie was the only place I had to go. It was a painful place, but it was a worthwhile one too. She deserved to be talked about, my girl, and Michael deserved to know there was glory in this life if you weren’t too damaged or too afraid to accept it. I talked long enough that my throat was sore. I didn’t want him to make my mistakes. It was a mistake no one should have to live with.
Michael had seemed to sense how painful a topic it was and thanked me before curling up in the backseat to leave me with my memories and my regrets. The sweet and the bittersweet;
that was what life was all about. He slept for nearly six hours. I’d slept for maybe three, but for once my dreams were . . . nice—melancholy, but good.
“I thought your uncle Lev would be happy to see you. I thought you said he would welcome you with open arms and a heated house.” Jarring me from thoughts of kites, daisies, and freckles, a disheveled blond head popped up from the backseat and a sleepily disgruntled face peered at me from a cocoon of blankets. “It’s cold, in case you haven’t noticed, and I have to use the bathroom. This isn’t any better than that tree incident. In fact it’s worse.”
To his confusion, I handed him an empty plastic soft drink bottle I grabbed from the floorboards. “No, kiddo, now it’s worse.”
As comprehension flooded his features, I yawned and turned back around to watch the snow slowly pile on the hood of the car. I ducked automatically as the bottle returned, whizzing by my ear. I’d noticed Michael, like me, wasn’t much of a morning person.
“Absolutely not,” he said evenly. “No way.”
I shrugged and yawned again, rubbing at my eyes. “It’s your bladder. Besides, if you save up, I’ll teach you to write your name in the snow.”
With a glare as chilly as the air inside the car, he leaned over the seat and retrieved the bottle. I kept my back to him to give him some privacy. “And, smart-ass, Uncle Lev will be glad to see me. I just didn’t want to show up in the middle of the night. He’ll know something’s up. If he thinks I’m in trouble, he’ll be all over us, asking questions, and trying to get us to stay. We can’t afford that.”
“Why not?”
I hadn’t gotten very specific with Michael on how exactly I’d left my earlier employment. It had been difficult enough to tell him what little I had about my life in the Mafiya. “I told you how I quit the mob to come after you,” I started slowly, jangling the keychain that hung from the ignition.
“I remember.”
