The Russian

by Isabella Laase

  There was only one night that defined his childhood, changing him forever into a cold, dark man with no heart, but he’d forgotten Pavel was part of that memory. “You were there, weren’t you?”

  “Not when it happened. You and your father were the only ones with her. Back then, I was just the man he called to clean up all of his messes, the job you have today, but you remember that night as though it were yesterday.”

  He remembered. The gunshot that pierced her body standing under the big leaded glass windows in his grandfather’s library, covering a row of his antique books with her blood. The noise woke his siblings, but by the time they’d arrived, the blood had started to pool from her chest like a spidery cloud. There was so much screaming. His screaming. His terror had kept him from speaking, and his father had locked him in his bedroom until she’d been taken away.

  “He told me to convince you that she took her own life,” Pavel continued, staring straight ahead. “When I came to your bedroom, you were frantic after what you’d seen and so many hours locked in that room alone, but you were a brave boy, Luka. You told me the truth, over and over. It wasn’t her. It was him. Damir.”

  Pavel took another shot of vodka, his hand trembling. “The night of your mother’s death, I beat you until you stopped saying that he’d killed her. I told you to forget that truth, but you never did. I can see it in your eyes every time you think of your past. I did that to you, but you survived. He would have found another way to silence you. You know this to be true, yes?”

  Luka gave a simple nod, struggling with the weight of his memories. His beautiful mother with a smile that lit her eyes and her kindness when she snuggled him onto her lap and sang to him beautiful Russian lullabies. He’d woken to the sounds of his parents arguing and entered the library to witness him strike her. Luka ran to her side, but his father shoved him to the floor and knocked the wind from Luka’s lungs with his heavy boots. Nina defended her child, grabbing the long metal poker used to move logs in the fireplace.

  “Papa shot my mother, djadja,” he said, his eyes filled with tears. “He killed her.”

  “I know, Luka, and I am sorry.”

  “He is the monster of my blood, just like my brother who beats his wife until she cries, I am a monster. I can buy my koshka pretty jewels and take her on expensive trips, but I have nothing else to offer her.”

  “They are monsters who share your blood,” corrected Pavel. “You were always Nina’s boy and look at my parents, your grandparents, who loved you with all of their hearts. And you are my nephew. I have been blessed with God’s great fortune of loving two wonderful women. The boys’ mother was my childhood playmate, yet when I lost her to cancer, I thought I’d never be whole again, and He gave me Zoya.”

  “But the dungeon,” he dismissed. “Like my father, I live to bring pain and suffering to innocent people.”

  “That is my dungeon, not your father’s world. Do you inflict pain on an unwilling participant, or did she join you to explore another level of sexuality that some people only dream of? There is a balance to be found in a relationship like this, so which did you offer her?”

  The hazy windows to her emotions left him with no clear answer. They’d both enjoyed the times when he’d crooked his finger and taken her over his knee, spanking her bottom until she’d purred happily or restraining her to a piece of equipment where she trusted him to manipulate her arousal and deliver a powerful orgasm. But the two times he’d truly punished her, he’d taken something from her, shutting down any conversation and making it impossible for her to explain her sadness and her fears.

  Pavel had saved his life in St. Petersburg as surely as if he’d pulled that tiny, scared boy from a burning building, and Luka’s respect for his djadja grew. “Do you know the real reason why my father sent me to America?” he asked, forcing himself to meet Pavel’s gaze.

  “I’m no fool,” said Pavel with a wry smile. “I did not tell my sons, but there is only one reason why Damir would have sent me his son. It was to understand my businesses, cut out the middleman, his brother. Maybe even turn the entire operation over to you?”

  Luka nodded, embracing some small sense of satisfaction that he’d never deceived this man, and Pavel continued. “My father left me with enough resources to be a rich man until the day I die, but only one son could take the role of pakhan. I’ve known since Damir and I were little boys that, one day, he would turn on me. None of this is worth losing my sons over, and I have plans to be an old married man in my rocking chair with Zoya by my side.”

  “I’m sorry, djadja. I’ve already sent him enough information that he should have control of most of the St. Petersburg trade routes within the year. I knew I’d be back in Russia long before he moved on any of it, and koshka would remain safe.”

  “If he didn’t send you, he would have sent somebody else. Do not worry about me, I can take care of my brother and don’t underestimate the loyalty of my men.”

  Pavel drank his vodka shot before refilling both of their glasses. “I can ease your pain in some small way, but to do that, I need to trust you with the life of somebody I love. Can you accept this trust and keep my love safe, the way I promise to keep your koshka free from harm?”

  “Of course,” said Luka without hesitation. “No matter what happens between you and my father, you have my loyalty, djadja, and my word as a man.”

  “Zoya bonded with Ana before she and Anton left Russia. Ana was just a tiny girl then, seven or eight. Zoya never forgot her, so years later, she encouraged me to help Ana when she was old enough to make her own decision.”

  “I don’t understand, Pavel. What are you saying?”

  “Ana’s not dead, Luka. I smuggled her into America just after her sixteenth birthday.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  With his extended family in full attendance for the rest of the afternoon, they’d had no opportunity to speak privately about either of their conversations, but Luka needed time to process Pavel’s revelations before sharing with her. He’d pleaded a pounding headache and stayed behind when the boys took her to the movies after dinner, but he trusted them to keep her safe. As a child, Luka had spent a great deal of time with his uncle and cousins, but when Pavel left Russia, they’d grown apart until Luka finished secondary school and could travel on his own. After that, he’d visited them in America every year or so, often under the guise of business, but in their home, he’d felt like he was part of a normal family doing normal things.

  But even at the time of his first visit to Brighton Beach, Ana had been alive, eventually settling into a quintessential life in some western state with her American rancher and their large family. As children, his little sister had been all giggles and sunshine with dark eyes and black hair that mirrored Luka’s, but the death of their mother had destroyed that happy little girl. After Damir had separated the children, it was almost a full year before he’d seen her again, a changed child who refused to speak to him. Even as adults, she’d told Pavel she didn’t want to see or hear from Luka.

  “Give her time,” Pavel had said gently. “She’s a mother now, protecting her children from her past. She will come back to you, I assure you.”

  After staring at the ceiling for hours, he was still awake when koshka came into the dark room. She slipped out of her clothes and joined him under the sheets, curling around his back. Her softness pulled at him until he rolled over to take her in his arms, and she snuggled close to his chest. Too soon, her steady breathing showed sleep had taken over, and he held her while the sounds of nighttime traffic and roaring ocean waves mingled together through the open window.

  He didn’t think he slept at all, but he roused the next morning to find the orange streaks of sunshine barely reaching over the horizon, and her side of the bed was empty. After her hectic childhood, she often struggled to find a place to be alone, and he wasn’t surprised she’d gotten up early. When she didn’t return, Luka dressed in the clothes he’d worn the day before, hesitating f
or a second before strapping his gun to his calf. Both Zoya and Mia hated it, but the weapon had become such a natural part of his life that he couldn’t imagine not having it on him.

  The rest of the bedroom doors remained shut, giving the normally bustling house a rare veil of quiet serenity. He spotted her on the back deck in her bare feet and wearing a pair of yoga pants with a pink cotton camisole top. She looked unhappy, almost frightened, facing the house and not the view.

  “Koshka,” he said softly, as he walked out the back door. “Are you—”

  “Luka,” she said in a warning tone, pointing toward the corner of the house. “He says he’s your father. He arrived in New York on an early morning plane, and he’s come to visit Pavel.”

  In one move, Luka instinctively twirled, pulling his gun from his calf and taking the ten steps to her side. Damir’s gray hair was cut shorter than when he’d last seen him. A middle-aged paunch showed the results of too many beers and not enough exercise, but his dark eyes internalized every sight and sound in the backyard, including his koshka. Confronted with the single biggest nightmare in his life, Luka’s hatred grew, the bile forming in his throat, and he aimed his SIG at Damir’s chest.

  Speaking in Russian, Damir laughed, “Ah... now I see. This one is yours. She wasn’t being particularly forthcoming about her place here, and I thought maybe she belonged to Yuri or Slavic. You have fine tastes, but why didn’t you tell me you’d found somebody to warm your bed? You would have saved me a trip to America.”

  Luka’s temper snapped, an angry roar of a beast consuming him, destroying his closely guarded composure. “Did he hurt you?” He recklessly shoved her behind him. “Did he even threaten to harm you? Because if he did, I’ll fucking kill him right now!”

  “Luka, stop,” she whimpered. “I’m fine. He just... he just startled me, that’s all.”

  But Luka’s gun was drawn, the slide pulled back, ready to use and his furor was prepared to pull the trigger. He could kill him, destroying the man who’d destroyed so many lives. Right now. Pavel would help him cover it up. He put his finger on the trigger guard, when koshka begged, “No, Luka, don’t. Please.”

  For a second, he hesitated, staring at Damir who’d had grown pale in the face of so much hatred, his hands in the air as if to proclaim his innocence. Before Luka could move his finger back to the trigger, two burly men came from the front of the house with their own weapons drawn, pointing their guns at Luka and Mia and shouting in Russian for him to stand down.

  He’d taken too long, destroying his one chance to save her. If she were hurt, it would be his fault, but his gun was the only thing protecting her, and he wouldn’t lower it. They stood for a long few seconds, all of them watching for any small sign of danger before they broke.

  Speaking in Russian, Pavel’s calm voice broke the stalemate from the back door. “Damir, I was not expecting you. Put your weapons away. We are family, and this is my home.”

  “My son drew his weapon first,” said Damir, his cold, calculated glare trained on Luka. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fucking shoot him.”

  “Because if you do, my sons will kill you,” said Pavel, his tone mirroring his brother’s.

  Luka took his eyes off Damir and his men long enough to see Pavel, with Yuri, Slavic, and Anton standing behind him, their guns pointing at his father and their unblinking expressions showcasing their steel resolve. They wore hastily grabbed sweats and shorts with no shirts, and their hair was still messed from sleep. Pavel’s men outgunned Damir’s four to two, but somebody would die in that close proximity, and Luka feared he’d already lost her.

  “Put your weapons down,” repeated Pavel. “You too, Luka. We won’t kill each other in my home.”

  Damir nodded to his men who lowered their weapons, and Luka slowly dropped his to his thigh. With another prodding from Pavel, all of the guns were reluctantly holstered, but every man on that deck remained on edge.

  With no way to understand the Russian shouting, Mia had stayed quiet. He was desperate to get her to safety, but the door to the house was a long ten feet away, and she’d have to pass Damir and his men to get there. Unable to help her and unable to move forward, he stood in front of her, prepared to kill any one of them.

  “That’s settled,” said Damir, still speaking in Russian. “Aren’t you going to invite me in, Pavel? I’ve not had breakfast yet.”

  Pavel appeared to give his request great thought before he shook his head. “It would be best for all of us if you say what you have to say and leave. I don’t owe you anything, and you don’t owe me anything, so let’s leave standing on our own two feet with nothing between us.”

  “I’ve come all this way to see why my son has been postponing his return to Russia. At first, I feared it was due to an unnecessary alliance with you, but now I see that he simply had a good fuck going for him. But surely these many miles are worth a cup of Zoya’s coffee before you turn me out into the street?”

  Pavel’s icy tone was almost emotionless. “You will never get anywhere near her unless you would like me to slit your fucking throat. We are done, Damir. You have the business contacts that Luka sent you, and now is a good time to tell you I am not sending you any more money. You will leave this house, and you will never bother any of us again. Not Luka, not my sons, not Anton, none of us.”

  “Ahh, Anton,” acknowledged Damir. “I figured two of these brutes were yours, but that’s who this third young thug is who pulled a gun on me. Anton, I have not seen you since you were a tiny boy, holding onto your mother’s coat sleeve with a runny nose and skinned knees. You were a strangely shy child. Have you grown out of it?”

  Anton’s cold expression never changed, but Pavel spoke. “Raising Katya’s child was the least I could do for her after you sold her to the Andreyevs, but you know I never agreed with that decision. She was young and beautiful, and she deserved better than what you gave her.”

  “You act as though you were innocent in all of this,” dismissed Damir. “You benefited from that agreement just as much as I did. After the government collapsed, we had nothing without their KGB ties. Besides, we were lucky to rid ourselves of that responsibility. Katya was a slut.”

  “She’d never been with a man before her wedding night. She grew to love Gavrie and they both loved Anton. Don’t tell yourself lies just to live with your guilt.”

  “It’s done, Pavel,” Damir said, his anger rising. “They are dead, and here we are. What makes you think I am going to allow you to walk away from me? Even if you killed me here, today, my sons would avenge my death, and you will all suffer, even your Zoya.”

  “But it isn’t done, is it? There is another piece of our family drama you’ve chosen to forget. Just like the night you killed Nina with Luka as your witness, there was a witness to the night you killed Katya and Gavrie. They were driven off the road, and two people are alive who know this to be true. You, because you drove the car that killed them, and Anton, because he was there.”

  Damir turned his attention to Anton as if to assess his character, but he faced cold anger without a hint of fear. “He’s lying,” said Damir. “It never happened. The roads were icy, and there was an accident. The police looked into it.”

  “Do you think any of us believe there is credibility in a precinct you controlled with your cash?” said Pavel. “Anton climbed out of that car at the bottom of the ravine. It was two days before anybody discovered his parents, but a passing trucker found him wandering alone. You just assumed the housekeeper had taken him to the authorities when Katya and Gavrie never returned, and you sent Zoya to get him so you never talked to the police. But did you know three-year-olds can be excellent communicators? Especially a shy, intelligent three-year-old whose mother’s beauty and grace will live on through him for the rest of his life.”

  “You were the one who told me they were running back to Sochi, Pavel,” said Damir. “Did you tell Anton that? They were going back to his family to cut us off from all of tho
se contacts. You were just as guilty as I was.”

  “You aren’t telling him anything he doesn’t already understand. I told him years ago that I betrayed his parents because I believed that there was no true threat to our business, therefore, I believed there was no threat to their lives. I was stupid enough to believe that even you weren’t that heartless. Katya was our baby sister. You held her hands when she took her first steps and taught her to tie her shoes and ride a bicycle, but your temper defeated you, didn’t it?”

  His uncle nodded to Anton, who calmly repeated his mother’s words. “Hide in the back seat, Anton. We are playing a game with djadja. We are going to your grandfather’s beautiful house by the sea where we will be safe and happy, but you must hide under the blanket until he leaves.”

  Pavel finished for him. “He didn’t understand everything during your argument before Gavrie drove down the road, but he understood the anger. When Katya’s broken body was lying at the bottom of that ravine, she told him to go for help and to stay as far away from you as he could because you killed them. Just like you shot Nina in front of her child.”

  “Why now?” asked Damir. “Why would you bring all of this up after all these years?”

  “Do you deny that you just tried to wipe out my entire business, leaving me with nothing? Nina’s family was insignificant and posed you no harm, but the Andreyevs would kill you if they knew you had a hand in Gavrie’s death. Be assured that I am willing to start a war to protect my family. In return for keeping this secret, you will leave and never see any of us again.”

  Pointing to Damir’s men, he added, “Give him the keys to the car that brought you here. I suggest you two leave him before he realizes that you’re now a threat to his future. If you would like a job working for me, I will find you one, but I would not return to Russia with him.”

  “You think you will walk away from this?” asked Damir incredulously. “I will destroy you, and Luka will come with me. I won’t leave here without my son.”