“All done,” Nick said as he shut the trunk.
Katya turned to him with a determined smile. “You’ll like Inna. I’m sure,” she said. “She’s really delightful. Sensitive. Funny. I absolutely adore her.”
“I trust you,” Nick said. “The date will be great—once we finally get there. Ready?” Without waiting for Aleksei’s next excuse, Nick contorted himself into the backseat.
They pulled back onto the highway, and Nick’s thoughts shifted to Inna. Katya had been all sunshine and love whenever she discussed Artur’s daughter. Nick got the impression she genuinely liked Inna. But then Katya had also married Aleksei, and so her judgment on this matter was more than slightly suspect, despite Nick’s declaration that he trusted her.
What would Inna be like? Was she also an innocent dupe, like Katya, taken in by Artur’s immigrant persona, a good person who might be hurt?
He found he didn’t care all that much. Truth was truth, and avenging his family had been the driving purpose in his life for as long as he could remember. A niggling conscience wasn’t enough to make him deviate from his long-decided course. Justice, after all, was blind.
KATYA
THE NIGHT WAS off to a rocky start, and Katya could feel all of her good intentions buckling under the weight of Aleksei’s reluctance and Nick’s growing hostility. Maybe the double date wasn’t such a good idea.
She had hoped that Nick and Aleksei would connect. Nick was a good, solid man, responsible and smart, professional and educated. He offered a far better choice for a friend than Aleksei’s questionable crowd. Aleksei liked to be the life of the party. He enjoyed having everyone’s admiration. Lately, Katya had been thinking that Aleksei was attending the wrong party, seeking the wrong people’s admiration. She especially disliked his friend, Mikhail, who always seemed to be present when Aleksei dipped his foot into trouble, always behind the moments when Aleksei withdrew from her. Secretly, Katya hoped that Nick would be a good influence on Aleksei.
Katya suspected that her husband was a chameleon, the type of person who camouflaged his true self to fit into his surroundings. Sometimes she wasn’t sure she knew who he really was herself. But she loved the man who joined her family for Sunday brunch, played on the floor with his niece and nephew, helped her brother-in-law fix his sports car, and stepped in quietly to help with her parents’ financial worries. She loved the man who remembered his mother’s birthday and brought her gifts and could be sweet and loving. She even loved the man who wore leather pants and strutted through Brighton Beach like he ruled the place.
But there was another Aleksei, a darker man, who drank too much, played games with high stakes, and grew dangerously angry if Katya asked too many questions about where he had been or what he had been doing—Mikhail’s Aleksei.
Katya glanced over at Aleksei. He usually exulted in his fancy sports car. In his peacock way, he loved to see and be seen, to show off to the world that he could afford this car and could afford to go fast. Tonight, there was none of the joy or fun. He gripped the wheel with a grim determination and practically puttered along the parkway at the speed limit.
Inna wasn’t her husband’s favorite person, and Aleksei didn’t favor Katya’s efforts to befriend her. Nor was he all that excited about the prospect of getting to know Nick—or relating with anything that had to do with her work, for that matter. In a manic burst of desperate optimism, Katya had convinced herself that her attempt at matchmaking would pay royal dividends. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Aleksei was doing as she had asked tonight, albeit reluctantly, but at least he was trying, she told herself, clutching tightly to thin hope. He had made some effort, had shown up, even if late, had taken a stab at conversation with Nick. Right? The evening could be salvaged. Her plan could work. Please let it work.
Maybe matchmaking wasn’t the best strategy for trying to save her marriage, but she was running out of options. The chances of a love match between Inna and Nick were slim if she were honest. Inna was very sweet, but she was also a little shy and aloof, especially around men. She tended to hang back in the crowd, to watch but not participate. Katya had worked hard to draw her out, and she wasn’t completely convinced, for all of her wishful thinking, that Inna would rise to tonight’s occasion and put on the full coy charm of her heritage.
Inna, though pretty, hardly played up her looks. At parties, she seemed to work at blending into the background when most Russian women dressed for events and for men. Bright colors. Dazzle and shine. High heels. Dramatic makeup. Katya’s family had survived when they first got to America by catering to the vanity that even poor immigrants saw not as luxury, but as necessity, building their American dream in Brighton Beach on the promise of Russian beauty.
A junior partner at the law firm, Nick was handsome enough, trim and tall with broad shoulders and a full head of dark wavy hair, to have his pick of women if he were actively looking. Nick worked too much to have much time to play the field and was at the right age and stage of his career to be serious about settling down. He was ready to be lured and caught.
Katya hoped her sister-in-law would dress to impress, just this once.
They exited the parkway and threaded their way through the busy lanes of traffic toward the colorful neighborhood of shops and apartments where Aleksei had his nightclub. At a stop light only a few blocks from the club, Katya reached over and placed her hand on Aleksei’s knee, a small show of solidarity and affection.
He jumped and cast her a reproving glance. She withdrew quickly, and her eyes stung at the clear rejection of her advance. She closed her hands into tight fists, but holding on didn’t help. Her slim sprig of hope withered and shriveled. Her chest ached with heartburn, and she rubbed at the soreness to no avail.
“Are you okay?” Nick asked from the backseat.
“She’s fine,” Aleksei grumbled.
“Fine,” she echoed quietly. The men’s mutual irritation filled the car like smoky fumes that threatened to choke her. She turned her head away from them both, opened the window slightly, and leaned her forehead against the cool glass. The salty air was tinged with car fumes and the smell of cooking meats from the restaurants, most of which served some form of shish kebab. The cool night air felt good against her skin, but the smells made her stomach roil. She closed the window again.
As Aleksei pulled into the parking lot behind Troika, an ambulance shot past them in a sudden shriek of sirens and streak of lights. Katya straightened in her seat and peered at the chaos in the parking lot. Four police cars clustered near the back entrance to the club. This had to be more than a patron having a health emergency. “What happened?”
“Blyad!” Aleksei swore viciously under his breath and smacked his hands on the wheel. He didn’t seem surprised by the commotion, only riled. “Mikhail said he had everything under control,” Aleksei muttered.
Mikhail? Katya’s heart started to race. Something was very wrong.
“He doesn’t even work here. What was he handling? Where’s Jack? What’s going on?” She battered Aleksei with questions, but he shrugged her off.
He shot out of the car and jogged across the small parking lot. She was quick to follow. Her heels clicked across the asphalt as she struggled to keep up.
Her father-in-law, Artur, and his associate, a younger, tall, brawny man, appeared at the back door, flanked by policemen. Artur spotted Aleksei and pointed an accusing finger at him. “You! Where the hell were you? You were supposed to be with her,” he said.
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” There was alarm and an almost pleading tone in Aleksei’s voice.
“They’re taking your sister to the hospital,” Artur said as a cop hustled him into a patrol car. “She’s been raped.”
“Raped?” Katya gasped. A cold sensation tingled up Katya’s spine. She took a step back in shock and bumped against Nick, who was right behind her. He grasped her upper arms, as if to steady her, and she pulled out of his hold, wishing to be close to Aleksei instead, w
ishing her intuition wasn’t pinging with alarms.
“Who did it?” Aleksei demanded. The cop slammed the door before Artur could answer.
Another officer turned to them. “Mr. Koslovsky, are you the owner of this nightclub?”
“I am.”
“Stick around. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Can we do this later?” Aleksei said. “I should be at the hospital—with my sister.”
“No, I’m sorry. This is officially a murder investigation.”
“Murder? Who was killed?” Nick asked.
Katya noticed that Aleksei hardly seemed surprised. Her stomach swirled with nausea.
Aleksei had seemed deliberately to delay their arrival at the club. It was as if he had known something bad might happen and had wanted to avoid arriving in time for it. And Mikhail was somehow involved.
INNA
INNA HAD A terrifying taste of déjà vu. This was not the first time she had awakened with no memory of the preceding hours. Not the first time she had awakened sore from hard sex with no recollection of who or how or where or when.
Inna took in her surroundings. She was propped up in a hospital bed. An ugly green curtain, checkered with blue and pink squares, had been pulled around her bed and an empty, utilitarian chair in pink vinyl. She had an IV in her left arm. No monitors. No bandages. No telephone for calling anyone. No windows. The overhead lights were dimmed, and she had no idea what time of day it was. Or what day it was.
She remembered having one drink. Only one.
She remembered blood and screaming. The image of the dead man and the gun made her whole body shake.
Calm. Stay calm. Keep breathing. Deep breaths. Count to ten. She practiced the techniques Dr. Shiffman had taught her for managing her anxiety. What she wouldn’t do to have a conversation with her therapist now, but Dr. Shiffman had abruptly abandoned her practice to retire to Florida. Maybe she would accept a long distance call. Circumstances certainly warranted calling in the cavalry.
In the background she could hear the beeping of monitors, the announcements on the speakers for this or that doctor, and the squeak of soft shoes against industrial linoleum. She supposed she was in one of the observation beds in an emergency room. Not the first time for that either.
The distance between past and present melted away, and she was young and scared again—a teenager, away at college, who learned her first fraternity party had ended, not in finding a boyfriend or even in an exciting hookup, but in gang rape.
She had been so careful tonight. She’d had one drink, watched the bartender pour it for her. She’d been at her brother’s nightclub, surrounded by people who knew her. She had been waiting for Katya, her sister-in-law, to arrive with her friend, a lawyer, a nice man she had said, whom she wanted Inna to meet. No pressure. Just see what happens. Inna hadn’t wanted to be hobbled by her past. Seven years later—seven years of therapy and medication, of emotional pain, and hard work—she was finally putting it behind her.
And now this. The misery of it all bore down on her, and she started to weep. Hot, fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
She wore a faded hospital gown, white criss-crossed in blue, and the droplets collected and soaked the fabric in her lap. Where were her clothes—the red dress and strappy shoes that had made her feel attractive?
“You’re going out like that?” her mother had criticized. “You look like a tart. Mark my words, walking into a nightclub like that will only bring you trouble.”
Inna had discarded her mother’s sharp words. Her dress was hardly scandalous for Brighton Beach, even if it was a bold departure from her usual, and she had secretly been hoping for trouble, the good kind, a little bit of it anyway. She had been feeling empowered, in charge of her destiny, in touch with her actual age. She was twenty-six, successful, and fairly pretty. Why shouldn’t a romance be in her future—especially with a guy Katya had identified as one of the good ones?
Was wearing a little red dress and hoping for love such a crime that the universe would punish her again? Her mother’s warnings had a way of being eerily prophetic. She should have listened.
Her sobs deepened. Deep down, she knew the fault was hers. She had reached too far, only to be smacked down by her own failings. She had been careful, but not careful enough. Had she met Katya’s friend? Had he done this to her?
The only man she could trust was her father.
The curtain around her swung open. The rings securing it at the top scratched metal against metal. A man in a white coat approached. She scrambled to sit up. He clasped her shoulder with a warm hand, and she flinched.
“Easy now. Take it easy,” he said.
She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t stop crying. He rubbed his hand on her shoulder, likely to soothe her. She shrugged away from him.
“Please don’t touch me.”
He held up both hands, one empty and the other with a clipboard, as if in surrender. She drew her knees into her chest. He was only trying to be kind, she told herself.
She was relieved when he took a step away from her. Her breaths started to slow, the sobs diminishing to hiccups. “How long have I been here?”
“Several hours,” he said. “We examined you. The police investigators came from the Special Victims Unit. Do you remember?”
She nodded. She recalled the tests and prodding, the tide of panic that hadn’t receded, the female detective who had been stationed at her side.
“You fell asleep after the initial exams and tests, and we thought it best to let you rest. You were pretty distraught, and we didn’t feel we could release you until we knew you were stable.”
“You mean until after the shrinks clear me,” Inna said.
The doctor smiled, a professional, non-committal smile. He was her brother’s age, in his mid-thirties, with fine lines starting to feather around his eyes. His white lab coat hung neatly over wide shoulders and a lanky frame. In another life, she might have found him attractive. His voice was soft and low, and she sensed a gentleness in him, though she didn’t trust it. “How do you feel?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to answer that question,” Inna said, and he nodded as if her answer was perfectly acceptable.
“Do you remember what happened last night?”
“No,” she said.
Again he nodded. This time he scribbled something on his clipboard. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was at Troika. I was waiting for my brother and sister-in-law. They were fixing me up on a blind date, but they texted that they were running late. Flat tire. I was pretty nervous, and I decided to order a drink. To take the edge off. I don’t remember anything after the bartender put the drink in my hand,” Inna said. “Not until I woke up screaming and then found myself here.”
“That’s consistent with the blood test results,” he said. “You tested positive for Rohypnol.”
“You mean Roofies? Someone drugged me?” Who would have done that to her?
“Unless you took them yourself? You know, to take the edge off. Some people …”
“No,” Inna said. “No, I don’t do drugs.” He made another note in his chart.
“What else do you know about what happened to me?” she asked.
“You have bruises on your thighs, and your internal exam showed vaginal tearing. The Special Victims Unit took DNA samples for their evidence kit, but nothing’s back yet. Did you have sex before you blacked out?”
“No.”
He nodded as if she had confirmed what he suspected. “Your injuries were consistent with rape,” he said. The doctor’s confirmation made her body jolt with a nasty shock of electricity.
Rape. The ugly word reverberated in her brain. Nausea engulfed her. Dark spots danced in front of her eyes, and she thought she might pass out. Almost wished she would. She forced herself to keep breathing.
How could this have happened to her again? “Who? Who did it?”
The doctor shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, strained to remember, but all she saw was blackness. The only detail she could recall was the heavy scent of his cologne, mingled with the metallic odor of blood. “I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything!” She sobbed as the full horror of what had happened wracked her. “Will I ever remember?”
“Probably not,” he said. “Maybe a few flashbacks. But the memory doesn’t usually come back completely in these cases.”
She pulled herself into the smallest, tightest ball she could, tried to shut out the harrowing reality. Then a hideous thought invaded. Her heart fluttered crazily. Revulsion rocked her. She lifted her eyes to the doctor. “Am I pregnant?”
“At least that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about,” he said.
Thank God! She dropped her head again. The tears flowed freely. Anguish and relief coursed through her. “Diseases?”
“We’re still waiting for a few more test results, but it doesn’t seem so.”
“Is she ready to answer a few questions?” Another man, this one with a gruff voice, invaded her nightmare. She blinked wet eyes to bring him into focus, tried unsuccessfully to catch her hitching breaths. He wore a police uniform. Her eyes cut to the gun at his hip. She shrank back against the pillow. “Easy there,” he said. “No one’s gonna hurt you.”
She had been holding a gun in her hand. Had she shot her rapist? Her stomach and chest knotted tight, so tight it hurt to cry. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to be. She rocked herself in the bed.
“She’s not ready,” the doctor said. “And she won’t be until she’s had a psych referral.” He was firm with the officer, protective of her. Because he thought she was going crazy?
“No, you’re not going crazy,” the doctor said, and Inna realized she must have said the words aloud. “You’ve been through a traumatic experience. Your response is perfectly normal.”
“Did I shoot him?” she asked, frantic with terror. She was going to prison. Her life was over. Because she had dared to hope. Because she had gone out in a sexy dress. Because she had imagined a future with love and marriage and children. Because she was a terrible person who didn’t deserve to be happy.
Kings of Brighton Beach Bundle Page 3
