Then he turns his eyes away from mine and reaches for a piece of black bread. I exhale the breath I was holding slowly. I look at his flushed face and, no, he has no idea. We are only chess pieces on his board. His arrogance would never allow him to believe that we could pick up our own skirts and move ourselves, or the other pieces.
The wine is poured, the food is brought in. There is not just shashlik but kulebyakas (pies made with meat, chicken, and cheese), a variety of blinis, pastries, fritters, meat jellies, paté, boneless duck with cucumber, two types of ukhas (soup). It is clear that each dish has been lovingly prepared and beautifully presented.
How I do, I do not know, but I consume the feast. As does Baba. Once my father stops to take a phone call, my eyes collide with Baba’s and my heart stops. For an instant, it looks as if she has changed her mind and cannot bring herself to go through with our plan, but then she forces herself to smile at me. It is a relief to know that seeing Papa at his most charming has not changed her mind.
The desserts arrive, chocolate mousse, another favorite of Papa’s. A sweet Hungarian wine Tokaj is opened and our glasses filled.
More anisette is poured, more toasts are made.
Baba looks at Papa. ‘Where there is love, there is no sin,’ she says. We down our drinks.
He fills our glasses again. ‘To love,’ Papa says, holding his glass out to Baba.
‘To long life,’ I say, and we empty our glasses again. The alcohol burns my throat.
Then I watch him eat the mousse. He appears to enjoy it and not notice the aftertaste of the pills I got from Dimitri. I had been worried he would detect it, but he has eaten and drunk so much his senses have been significantly dulled. By the time coffee is served my father starts slurring his words. Baba asks one of the servants to help him up to his room.
Most of the servants start preparing to go home.
I go to my room and change into jeans, a T-shirt, and a thick sweater and sneakers.
10.15pm: it is the change-over time. For now only a skeleton staff of two guards at the entrance and, of course, the prowling dogs. Then in less than an hour, all stations, back, front and sides, will be fully manned again.
10.20pm: I go out and call to the dogs. I bring them into the storeroom where I have put meat left over from our meal and close them in. Then I jam the camera by putting a piece of wood on the arm that moves it on its one-hundred-and-eighty-degree journey. It is unlikely that the men in the guardhouse will notice that the camera has stopped turning. If they do, I’m dead.
I wait.
10.30: I throw the rope ladder over the wall. Dimitri’s men, Kiri and Vasluv, all dressed in black, climb silently over the wall. I pull the rope ladder back. I point at the stick holding the camera from moving and one of the men pulls it off. We slip into the dark kitchen and put the rope ladder and the stick into the bag.
10.34: I lead them to my father’s room and stand watching as they inject my father with a longer lasting, deeper sedative. Then they pick him up and carry him down the stairs. They stop at the front door and wait for me.
10.40: I go out to the storeroom and let the dogs loose.
10.45: I see first the dogs, then both guards, their alarms bleeping, their guns at the ready, racing towards the back entrance. The computer screen is showing the back entrance has been breached. There may be an intruder in the grounds.
10.46: Baba cuts the electricity. The entire house goes dark. The cameras stop working. With my heart pounding, I run out to my father’s car, start the engine, and open the trunk. The two men carry my father out of the house. They move surprisingly quickly considering my father’s bulk. They stuff him into the trunk and close it. Vasluv uses the key to open the electric gates that are stuck shut without electricity. Then he waits for us by the gates. Oh, shit. I see that one of my father’s socks has dropped to the ground.
‘The sock,’ I whisper, pointing to it lying on the driveway.
‘Fuck,’ Kiri curses. He jumps out of the car, runs to it, and picks it up.
‘Hurry up,’ I urge, looking nervously towards the back of the house. Soon the guards and dogs will return.
‘Come on, come on,’ I say, my voice full of panic. I can already hear the dogs coming around the side of the house. They will tear Kiri to bits if they find him running in the compound. As he nears, I put my foot on the pedal and the car starts moving. The rest of the guards should be arriving soon. I pray they don’t arrive early.
Kiri lunges into the open car door and slams it closed as I drive through the gates. Vasluv gets the gates to clang into place just as the dogs slam themselves against it in such a frenzy of barking that their mouths froth. In the rear mirror I see one of them running to where the sock dropped, sniffing the ground at the scent left by Kiri.
My palms are sweating so much they slip on the steering wheel. I wipe them on my jeans one by one as I slowly drive down the road and pick up Vasluv. After driving around the block I park the car and call Baba.
10.59: ‘Is it still okay?’ I ask.
‘Nothing to worry about, child. I’ve spoken to the guards. Apparently, it was just a false alarm. There was a glitch and the electricity went off. It’s back on again and everybody is back at their stations.’
I breathe a sigh of relief and with shaking hands start the engine again.
Thirty-four
Tasha Evanoff
It is a strange, almost surreal feeling to know that I have defeated a ruthless Mafia gangster’s security system, though to be fair to the gangster, I had an unfair advantage. One he never considered when he was setting up his security system. That he would be betrayed by his own family.
I think of my father sleeping like a baby in the trunk of the car while he takes his last journey on this earth, and don’t feel the least bit frightened or regretful. In fact, I feel nothing. Not even anger in my heart. My father has already taken all that I loved away from me. I don’t allow my mind to dwell on Noah even for a second. The loss is too great, too profound. I don’t think I have started to come to terms with the idea that he might be gone, just like Sergei. Part of a dream. No, I’d rather push it away and deal with it later when I am able to.
I focus my mind on the task at hand as we head to the outer rim of the city where I have only gone once. Then I was sixteen years old. I sat in the back of my father’s car and paid careful attention as he told me to learn the route by heart. This is the Evanoff safe house. Only he and I know of it. Not even Baba does.
‘If ever there is any kind of trouble, I want you to come here and wait until I come and get you.’
What a strange and twisted turn of fate that the very house that is meant to be a safe house for him and me, will end up as the most unsafe place for him.
It is dark and things don’t look the same as they did in the bright light of day, but one by one the landmarks come into view, and one by one I tick them off. Bridge. Shell gas station. Vauxhall tube station. NCP carpark. Railway crossing. Weeping willow tree in the Seven-Eleven carpark. Block of Council estate apartments.
The men remain ducked. Almost an hour after we began our journey, I spot the row of industrial looking warehouse and mechanics. The area is badly lit and isolated. My father picked it because it is a place that you’d struggle to find without directions. It is also a place he is not known. A rough, depressed place where poor people live and work. We pass foraging foxes near some bins, a couple of beggars sleeping rough, and a group of kids drinking and smoking.
The roads are bad, filled with pot holes and I slow right down as I don’t want to go past the entrance and have to double back. The more invisible we are the less attention we will attract. I peer worriedly out of the window. All these storefronts look so similar in the dark. Dimitri said the tranquilizer would keep my father out for up to three hours, and since it’s now been an hour-and-a-half since it was administered, I’m anxious that we get him into the building and secured before he comes around.
‘Here it is,’ I
announce with relief as I spot the narrow doorway. I fish into my pocket for the key that he gave me, and take the small torch I brought.
I tell the men to wait in the car as I walk in the path of the headlights towards the entrance door. The heavy lock looks rusted and I pray that the key will work. With a little persuasion the key goes in and thankfully turns. I have to use my shoulder to open the heavy door and then step inside. I shine my torch to the left and then the right, locate the light switches and pull them.
Yes!
Bravo Papa. You paid your bills.
The lights are not wonderful, but adequate and I start looking around for the door to the basement that he said was virtually soundproof. I spot it at the far end of the warehouse. The door is locked, but I find a key in my bunch and I open it. The air smells damp and stale. I shine my torch to the sides and find the light switch on the left of the door. I turn it on.
It’s eerily silent. I take a few steps and nearly scream when something brushes my leg, Ugh, rats. Cobwebs catch my hair and send a shiver down my spine. Obviously no one has been here for a long time. I duck my head and see that the room itself is exactly as I remember it. There is a fridge, a cupboard, a bed, chairs, tables. Everything you could possibly need for a week’s stay.
I go back outside and wave to the men to bring him in. While they are lifting my father from the trunk, I reach for the rucksack that I placed in the car earlier in the evening.
I watch as they each take an arm from the inert man and wrap it over their shoulders. Then they rush him through the door. Once inside they let his sleeping body rest against a timber beam.
‘What do you want us to do with him?’ Kiri asks.
‘Down here,’ I call as I make my way down the short flight of steps. I turn around and watch them lie him on his back on the steps and simply let go. My father’s body bumps all the way down. To be honest their roughness horrifies me and then I realize what a mad thought that is.
‘Where next?’ Kiri asks, standing next to my father’s body. His voice is loud as it echoes and reverberates around us.
I scan the cold concrete room again. ‘Put him on the chair and tie him up securely. The ropes are in the rucksack,’ I point out.
‘Okay, Miss Evanoff.’
I look at my father as he sleeps on the chair and I am suddenly moved by his sleeping form. This is my father. What am I doing? I grasp my throat with my hand and remember what he did to Sergei. And my Noah. This is not my Papa. This man is a stranger. Don’t be fooled, Tasha. Behind that peaceful sleeping face lies the heart of an evil monster.
‘Are you sure he is properly secured? Hands and feet?’ I ask.
‘Yes, he can move his head so don’t get too close to his face,’ Vasluv, the older man, tells me.
That brings a scatter of goose bumps on my flesh. I swallow my fear. ‘Good,’ I tell them. ‘You can leave and I’ll text you when it’s time.’
‘You’ll be alright on your own?’ Vasluv enquires.
I gaze at him blankly. I definitely did not expect concern from one of Dimitri’s cold-blooded killers. ‘Yes, yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you.’
He nods. ‘We will wait for your message to return and do the necessary.’
Thirty-five
Tasha Evanoff
My heart is in my throat as I watch them climb the steps and listen to their footsteps go along the upstairs warehouse floor, then I hear the door close behind them.
Alone in this depressing and creepy place, my plan seems outlandish, stupid even. Surely, I didn’t think I could kill my own father. What was I thinking?
I should have asked one of them to do it.
I can still call them, but that would be the cowardly way out. I have to do it myself. I want my father to know why. I want to face him and let him know how he has hurt me with his actions. He never even gave Noah a chance. He just rubbed him out. Just like that. As if he was just a figment of my imagination. Now he’ll never know how much I loved him. I feel myself choke up and, with a sniff, I turn away from the stairs, the door, the idea of letting someone else do my dirty work for me.
I pull a chair opposite my father and wait for him to wake up.
For nearly an hour I sit as if hypnotized and probably a little mad in front of him. Yes, mad with grief. When he opens his eyes I am meant to kill him. Who of my friends could imagine even in their wildest dreams little obedient, dutiful me sitting here contemplating murder? Yet, here I am. I must have become unhinged when I saw Sergei’s body. I’m still unhinged.
The first sign that he is coming to makes my pulse hammer and my spine go ramrod straight. His eyes flicker and his mouth quivers. Soon his eyes open a little more, but he is still groggy and disoriented. He blinks and shakes his head. I think his mouth must be dry because he licks his lips and swallows. Perhaps they hurt his body too when they let him bump his way down the stairs because he winces.
His eyes widen when he tries to shake his body and finds that he cannot move. Suddenly, he becomes shockingly alert. His eyes narrow as they first fall on me, then look startled when he sees his environment. He looks down at the ropes that tether to the chair. He struggles, but only briefly, when the realization hits home that these are no amateur binds. He will not get free of them.
‘What is going on, Tasha? Why am I tied up?’ he demands.
‘Try to guess, Papa.’
He frowns, suddenly remembering. ‘You drugged me.’ Then his voice changes. ‘Who is here with you?’ he demands.
‘We’re all alone, Papa. Just you and me like all those times we went out to eat ice cream and we went to the movies together.’
‘What nonsense are you talking about?’ he asks harshly. All traces of sleep has fled from his eyes, and he is as furious as I have ever seen him. His face is red with it.
I shake my head. Even at a time like this my father will never give an inch.
‘Who has put you up to this?’ he questions.
‘You did, Papa.’
He stares at me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s a good thing you asked, because I’ve been meaning to tell you anyway. I’ve never told you, have I, how hurt I was when you kicked Mama out of the house and never let me see her. All those years you forced me to hide and lie and run around meeting Mama in toilets. You denied me a mother,’ I scream.
Tears start filling my eyes and I dash them away.
‘I forgave you all that because I loved you. I pretended to myself that it’s not as bad as all that. Then when I told you what a horrible man Oliver is, you didn’t care. You still wanted to sacrifice me to your ambition and greed for power and status.’
‘What are you talking about? I told you I’d protect you from him,’ he cuts in aggressively.
‘Oh, Papa. You are such a liar. You knew even if he did terrible things to me I would never come and complain to you. I was too frightened of you. I would just bear it as I have borne everything else.’
‘Look. This is silly. All right. You don’t have to marry him. You have my word.’
‘You think you’re here because of that?’
The first flash of fear crosses his eyes. ‘Then what?’
‘You sent someone into my bedroom to kill Sergei. He was like my son, Papa. He was an innocent little thing and I loved him with all of my heart, and you just took him away. How could you? How could you?’ I sob. The tears are rushing down my cheeks, and I’m ugly crying, but I don’t care anymore.
‘Solnyshko, Sergei was not your son. Sergei was a dog. One day you will have a child and you will understand. You are my daughter, my flesh and blood. Everything I have done is for your own good. All of this we can put aside … and start again. Maybe I’ve been too harsh with you. I’ll change … I’ll be a better father. What do you say?’ His voice is soft and manipulative.
‘As if that wasn’t enough, you then took the only man I’ve ever wanted. I loved Noah, Papa. I would have given up my life for him. I didn’t even get a chance to tell him.
You took everything away from me.’
‘Solnyshko, listen to me,’ he says, his voice is not sorry or remorseful. It is just wheedling. It’s all just a technique. A trick. A bluff. As if I’m stupid.
For a few seconds I continue to stare at his pathetic attempt at finding a way out of his mess.
‘You are young and beautiful. You will find someone else,’ he says.
I walk over to where my rucksack is on the floor and feel his eyes follow. I kneel down, pull out the untraceable handgun I got from Dimitri’s men, and take the safety catch off. I get to my feet and walk towards him with the gun in my hand. What irony that it was my father who taught me how to use a gun.
Thirty-six
Tasha Evanoff
If rain drops were kisses. I could send you showers. If hugs were seas. I’d send you oceans. If love was a person I’d send you me!
-Shahid Abbas
‘It’s too late for that,’ I say softly.
My heart feels like a piece of ice. ‘You are a destructive rabid dog. The poison is in your bloodstream and the only humane thing to do is to put you down.’
He struggles instinctively, making the chair rock so violently on the concrete floor it almost topples over. Curiously, for I have become quite removed from the scene around me, I see real uncontrollable fear slither into the bully’s face. He’s beginning to sweat. For the first time in our lives the power is in my hands.
Without warning he stops struggling and makes a great effort to control himself. He’s changing tactics. He laughs. It has a harsh hollow sound to it.
‘You think it is so easy to take a man’s life? It doesn’t end when you have pulled the trigger. Let me tell you about the nightmares. They come back. Their souls haunt you. There’s nowhere to run. Kill me in cold blood, you want me in your nightmares, because I swear, Tasha, I will never forget this ingratitude. I will haunt you until your dying day, and after you are dead I will be waiting for you in hell.’
You Don't Know Me: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Page 14
