I feel honored. It feels truly special to witness such a tender aspect of his character.
For dessert, Ivan tells the waiter to bring us cheese-and-berry blintzes, as well as a bottle of muscat wine from Napa Valley. By this point I am already so full that the idea of trying to ingest anything else is a little intimidating, but the pure joy with which Ivan greets the arrival of our blintzes renders me unable to say no.
“These were my favorite as a boy,” Ivan says. “My father, he worked long hours, so when I was young he often had me stay with an old woman in our building. Her name was Galina, but I called her babushka. Grandmother.”
“She was your babysitter?” I prod, hoping for more. It doesn’t happen often, but I adore hearing stories from his past.
Ivan gives me a noncommittal head-shake. “More or less. But she was not paid by the hour like most nannies are here in America. Instead, my father paid her rent and many of her other expenses. She was, you see, closer to my father and I than a mere babysitter. She was the closest to a mother I can clearly recall. She was a very old woman, quiet and reclusive, and fragile. My father knew she was struggling to get by, and she had always been fond of me anyway, so it was an arrangement which benefited us all.”
“That’s so sweet.”
Ivan smiles faintly. “I suppose so. And babushka made the best blintzes. I used to beg her for them. So when I made good marks in school, when I behaved myself, she rewarded me with them.”
“What a good woman,” I say. Ivan takes my hand and kisses it.
“One of the best I have ever known. She is the one who taught me to respect and protect women. You see, my father taught me to be a hard man, but Galina showed me how to be soft.”
“Then I have a lot to thank her for,” I reply. Ivan nods.
“She died when I was twelve. But she lived a very long, interesting life. She was ninety-one when she passed, you know,” he adds proudly.
We spend the next hour or so talking and cuddling, slowly draining a bottle of wine between the two of us. By the time the bottle is empty, we are both heavy-eyed and happy. The sharp, intimidating hit man is still present in his rigid, upright posture, and in his occasional dodging glance. He is authoritative when he speaks to the restaurant staff, and his firm hand on my thigh under the table is a reminder of his strength and control over me.
But I see now, more than ever, the genuine human being beneath it all. And I adore it.
After Ivan pays the bill with a thick wad of cash that makes me a little dizzy to look at, he leads me out of the restaurant and down onto the street. He hails a cab and drives me home, stroking my hair and holding me close the whole way back to Brighton Beach. Somewhere along the way, I fall asleep, and when we arrive at my apartment building he lifts me out and brings me upstairs to bed. I try to wake myself up, certain that he will want to fuck me. After all, it’s his prerogative to use my body however he wants.
But to my surprise, he merely kisses my forehead and tucks me into bed, leaving silently. For a few hours I sleep heavily and contentedly. Then there’s a knock at my door around midnight, so I blearily drag my ass out of bed and trudge out to answer it.
When I open the door, I see a rough-looking guy holding out a single rose with a sheet of paper wrapped around it. In my sleepy mind I can’t figure out why a flower delivery guy would be dressed like a homeless man, nor why he would make a delivery in the middle of the night. But nonetheless, I take his delivery and go back inside to examine my flower on my bed.
Sitting cross-legged in the blankets, I set the rose on my pillow and unfurl the letter, a smile on my face. I’m certain it has to be from Ivan.
But as I begin to read the words on the page, I can feel the blood drain from my cheeks and the smile quickly turns to gape-mouthed horror. I throw down the letter and rush to my bathroom to vomit.
15
Katy
I am absolutely sick with disgust and despair.
My bathroom has been my bedroom all night, as I lay curled up in the fetal position on the cold tile floor. I stare up at the shower, thinking bitterly about our morning tryst under the hot water yesterday, thinking about how much things have changed over the past few hours, since midnight. Since I woke up to that knock on my door.
And that letter in my hand.
It’s now crumpled across the floor, damp with my tears and balled up and unfurled multiple times in alternate fits of rage and denial. It can’t be true. It just cannot be.
I’ve thrown up a few times tonight, this last night in my own apartment. I shudder as I realize that I’m supposed to move out today. I’m supposed to take all of my stuff and put it in a moving truck to drive it all over to Ivan’s place. That big transition, that culmination of months of learning to trust him a little bit, of learning bit by bit the reality of his past… it’s supposed to happen today. And this time yesterday I was over the moon about it.
Now, I just feel nauseous.
In fact, when my cell phone alarm goes off reminding me that the movers will be here in an hour or so, I am so overwhelmed that I get up and crawl back to the toilet to vomit again. I regret drinking so much wine and vodka with Ivan last night. But I know deep down it isn’t the alcohol making me sick.
It’s Ivan.
It’s what he’s done to me.
Standing up and flushing the toilet, I trudge to the sink to splash cold water on my face, hoping it will wake me up and give me some idea of what to do now. I gasp at the freezing water and dry my face on a decorative towel, glancing over at my hollow-looking face in the mirror. There are purplish half-moons under my eyes and my cheeks are still patchy and pink from the tears I’ve shed throughout the night. I can’t seem to pull myself together.
But I’ve got to. The hours are winding down and I’m running out of time. Because I have a strong feeling that the movers won’t be the only ones showing up at my house in a couple hours. Ivan will probably tag along to help load stuff into the trucks. To make sure I comply with the rest of his plan to control me and keep me close.
To keep me under his thumb and blissfully oblivious to the truth.
Anger boils up in my gut and I finally kick my ass into motion, tying my hair back in a no-nonsense knot on top of my head. I get dressed in jeans and a comfortable sweatshirt, throw a scarf around my neck, and fill a duffel bag with necessities. I slip on my sportiest sneakers, grab my cell phone, stuff the letter into my pocket, and prepare to head out.
But before I go, I pick up the single rose which accompanied the letter and toss it in the garbage. I take one last look around my apartment, then hoist my duffel bag over my shoulder and head down the hallway, locking the door behind me.
I know exactly where I’m going, and I don’t think anyone will be able to find me there. Not until I want them to. I load up into my car and drive a couple hours outside of town, to a small, barely notable suburb. It’s a quiet, peaceful area, far outside the 24-7 hubbub of New York City. It’s where my father used to steal away when life got too intense. He was a very hard worker, but he still needed a place to clear his head. And even when things got rough financially, he never could let go of this place.
I finally pull up to a little cottage far back from the road, following a long, curving dirt driveway to the front of the house. It’s a very small, quaint structure with one bedroom and a little old fashioned bathroom, complete with an antique clawfoot tub and a standing mirror. This is where my father retreated anytime he needed to leave his life behind for a while. He quietly bought it soon after my mom and brother died, and nobody knew about it but him and me. Sometimes I went with him, and we would rent movies and talk about politics, history, and everything else.
It’s a place that I strongly associate with both a crippling amount of loss, of stress, and of making peace with the horrors of the world. It’s where I need to be right now.
I get out of the car and carry my stuff to the front door, fiddling in my purse for the key to open it. Then I fit it in
the keyhole and the door creaks open with a low whine. It’s freezing cold in here, after months of being sealed up without the heat on. My teeth chattering, I hurry to the little stove that heats the house and turn it on. Almost immediately the cottage begins to warm up and feel like home again. I roll up my sleeves and walk into the bedroom, left pretty much untouched since my father’s death. Even when I did come here after he died, I made sure to sleep on the little pull-out futon instead of in this bedroom. It always felt too weird, too disrespectful to intrude upon my father’s space, even if he wasn’t around anymore. After all, this was always his hideaway — not mine.
Until now.
“Daddy, I’m sorry, but I really just need to lay down,” I mumble aloud, as though he can answer me and give me permission. But there’s no reply. And I just crumple onto the bed, peeling back the slightly-musty quilts and snuggling down into the pillows with my cell phone on the bed beside me. I reach under the sheets to pull the crumpled letter out of my pocket and look over it again, now that I’m in a safer place. It’s quiet enough here that maybe I can gain a little perspective and figure out my next move.
It reads:
‘Dear Katherine Foss,
I have information pertinent to your business. It has come to my attention that you are fraternizing with a very dangerous man. You know this. You may have even accepted the nature of his profession. You have learned to care for him, maybe even love him. But you have been deceived. You don’t know what he has done. And if you have any respect for the man you once called father, then you will cease all contact with him immediately. Ivan Dragomirov is the man who killed him. He was not ordered to do so. It was not a sanctioned hit from the Bratva. Dragomirov killed your father for personal pleasure. If you want justice for your father’s death, then you will turn his killer over to the NYPD. Consider this a warning from a friend. Act quickly, before he suspects something and kills you, too.’
I feel tears stinging in my eyes and I hastily wipe them away, once again crumpling up the letter and dropping it over the side of the bed. The letter isn’t signed, so I have no idea who sent it to me. I assume it must be someone else from the mafia, since the writer seems to know a lot about the inner workings of it. Someone who knows Ivan and probably knew my father, too. Anyone who speaks of justice for my father must be an ally, I think.
Then again, Ivan himself swore to me to find my father’s killer.
I sit up angrily in bed and cradle my face in my hands. To think that I allowed myself to believe him! To trust him! I let him lure me into a false sense of security, let him woo me!
And he really did woo me, I realize now. Despite everything I knew about his line of work, I truly cared for him. And where has it gotten me? All this time I have been sleeping with the killer of my father! I feel so dirty and disgusting. I have betrayed my own father for the sake of money and lust. How could I have been so foolish? All along I knew it had to be too good to be true, but I ignored my instincts. Well, now I am in a far worse position than I was before.
For who knows how long, I lay in the bed, my knees curled to my chest, alternating between bitter tears of heartbreak and anger so intense it makes me feel physically hot. I lay paralyzed with indecision, with fear, as it dawns on me that the warning in the anonymous letter might be true. If Ivan goes to my apartment to help with the movers and finds me missing, he’ll immediately look for me elsewhere. He’ll go to the Amber Room, I’m sure. He’ll call Natalie, Ashton, Charles — anyone who might know my whereabouts.
With a cold, shaking hand I reach for my phone. He’s going to call me soon, I’m sure.
And what will I do?
Before I can overthink it, I go ahead and shut off my phone. That way, he’ll just get my voicemail over and over again, and there’s no way he can track my phone while it’s off. Of course, I have no way of knowing for certain that he would even attempt that, anyway. But at this point, I have to rethink everything I thought I knew about him. It shouldn’t surprise me at all if he has been tracking my location using my cell phone signal. After all, he has always been able to find me easily, seeming to show up unannounced wherever I was. And I never really questioned it, as his presence was always welcome.
But I have to remember that now he is a hostile presence. And he has all the resources of the mafia to keep tabs on me and follow my every move. I take the battery out of my phone and throw it across the room. Now I’m starting to get a little paranoid.
What if he finds me here?
I mean, as far as I know he has no clue that this cottage even exists, much less where it’s located and that it belongs to me. I have tried to keep it a secret from everyone — even Natalie. So even if he interrogates her… she won’t be able to tell him where I am. Oh God. I hope he doesn’t interrogate my friends.
The writer of the letter is right. Once I disappear from Ivan’s sight he will start to suspect me. He will become angry. I’ve caught glimpses of that anger, and I absolutely do not want to be on the receiving end. I never thought I would be. He always reserved some modicum of generosity and tenderness for me. But only when I followed orders like a good girl.
And this… this was not something a good girl would do.
He’s gonna be onto me as soon as he sees that I’m not at my apartment, and being on Ivan’s bad side does not bode well for anyone. I know what he’s capable of, and I know what he could do to me if he wanted to.
Especially knowing what he did to my own father.
Another shudder of nausea rips through my body as I remember every detail of my sex life with Ivan. The same hands that have cradled me, gripped me, stroked me to orgasm — are the hands which ended my father’s life. I feel so betrayed, so angry, and so incredibly disgusted with myself. I should have known. Somehow, I should have caught on before now.
And he’s coming for me, with his muscles and his guns and his pinpoint rage.
Suddenly, my paralysis breaks and I am filled with a buzzing energy as I throw back the bedsheets and rocket myself out of bed. I have to search the house for something to protect myself, some kind of weapon. I am trembling as I tear through the kitchen, digging through silverware drawers that haven’t been opened in years, knife blocks with too-dull knives.
My heart is pounding in my chest. I can’t find anything to save myself. I will be totally helpless when Ivan inevitably finds me. He’s going to tear me from limb to limb. He’s going to kill me like he killed my father — ruthless and cold.
There are tears in my eyes while I look desperately through my father’s old things. Anything, even a wood hatchet or a fire poker, would be nice. But there’s nothing. It’s as though the house has been child-proofed or something.
“Come on, Dad,” I mumble tearfully, “I know there’s gotta be something.”
In my frenzy, I accidentally drop a box packed with old Polaroids and they scatter to the ground. I slump to the floor, sitting in the middle of a circle of memories. There are pictures of me as a toddler, my brother in his elementary school play, my mom baking cookies and poking her tongue out at the camera. My dad holding up a big fish with an even bigger grin on his face.
“I’m so sorry. I’ve let you down,” I whimper, holding my face in my hands. Then, as though by magic, a lamp I clumsily moved to the edge of a coffee table during my search clatters to the ground across the room. I groan and walk over to it, careful not to touch any of the broken glass. The dusty floor-length tablecloth that’s been covering the table is lopsided, and when I try to arrange it back into place, it just slips off the table entirely.
I gasp at what I see underneath the coffee table.
There’s a gun.
At first my eyes refuse to believe what they’re looking at. There’s no way I just found a fucking gun just sitting underneath the coffee table I used to play card games on. I mean, I must have played a thousand games of UNO with my dad, sitting on the floor at this exact, innocuous-looking table. Carefully, slowly, as though in a trance, I reach my
hand underneath the table to touch it.
The metal is ice-cold, and there’s dust on the barrel, but it feels real. Too real. I’ve never handled a gun before in my life, and I’m not even sure I can figure out how it works. I’m half-expecting the thing to just explode at any moment like a bomb.
But then I realize that I have what I’ve been looking for, at least to some extent. This is certainly a weapon. Whether I can actually use it or not, it will definitely serve to make Ivan hesitate. All I have to do is pretend I know what I’m doing. That might just be enough to stall him while I call the cops or something. Maybe. I hope.
So I pick it up and examine it a little, my heart hammering wildly in my ribcage. This is the scariest thing I’ve ever done, and possibly the stupidest. But I’ll be damned if I don’t at least try to stand up for myself when Ivan comes to find me. I turn around and bend down to scoop up some of the Polaroids to take with me. If there’s a chance I might die today, I want to revisit some sweeter memories before I go.
I move into the living area to watch the front door, sitting with the gun and a stack of photographs in my lap. I stare at the photos longingly, willing myself to somehow dive into the pictures and live in those worlds instead. I stay this way for what has to be several hours. There’s no clock in the house (my dad always said that the cottage was his “escape from time”), and with my phone deactivated in the other room, I have no real way of knowing the time.
But the sun is low in the sky when there finally comes a knock on the door.
By this point, I am no longer shaking. I am calm and resolute as I stand up, letting the photos fall to the floor. I cross the room and unlock the door, then back away a few steps. The door pushes slowly open and Ivan is standing there in the doorway.
I lift the gun and aim it at his handsome face.
16
Katy
Saved by the Outlaw: A Bad Boy Romance Page 52
