24. Zora
ZORA
Three days without a single message from Bogdan, Makar, or Yefim, and the absence gnaws at the lining of my stomach every time I reach for my phone and find nothing waiting there.
I sit at a corner table in a café on Sibirskaya Street with my coat draped over the back of my chair and my hands wrapped around a cup of black tea that has already gone cold.
I haven't spoken to Alisa in over a month.
Thirty-two days, if I'm being honest with myself, and every one of them earned by the guilt I feel whenever I think about what I've been doing to Kazimir.
Alisa doesn't know any of it, and she definitely doesn't know why I disappeared.
The longer I let the silence between us grow, the worse the excuses became until I stopped trying to make them at all.
But this morning, waking up in Kaz's bed with his arm over me, I thought about how long it's been since I talked to anyone who isn't him or my brothers.
I need my best friend in my life, and I need to make this right.
So I texted her.
And she said yes immediately, no questions or guilt trips, because that's who Alisa has always been even though I don't deserve it.
The café door swings open and cold air rushes through the room, chilling me.
Alisa comes in like a breath of fresh air, cheeks pink from the heat of the sun, and she's smiling broadly.
After ordering she sets down her purse and drops into the seat across from me and grabs both my hands before I can pull them back from the table.
"You look different." She squeezes my fingers and tilts her head, scanning my face. "You look really good."
"I feel different." It's hard to hide how I really feel, but she's already putting me at ease.
"It's the new guy, isn't it?" She doesn't phrase it as a question, and her grin sharpens with satisfaction. "Tell me everything right now because I've been going insane with zero information for a month."
The barista brings Alisa's latte and sets it down between us, and steam curls from the surface in a thin ribbon that disappears before it reaches her chin.
I watch her wrap her hands around the cup the same way I'm holding mine and I feel the distance I put between us start to close. I want to tell her everything so badly, but I just don’t want her to judge me and hate me.
"I'm in love with him, Alisa." I grin at her, which is easy to do because it's true.
I love Kazimir. Somewhere along the line, the mission my brothers sent me on became secondary.
I think I love him enough to lose the chance at running my own club.
The problem is I think I screwed both things up.
I can't have my club and I can't have him.
Her eyebrows lift and she pauses her mug halfway to her mouth.
"I know how that sounds after a month of nothing from me, but it's real and I know it's real because everything in my life rearranged itself around him."
"Oh, Zora, that's so sweet. I'm so happy for you.
" Now she drinks deeply but I hear the note of sadness in her eyes.
She knows she's lost me to a love affair now.
We knew it would happen one day, that one or both of us would find partners and our close friendship would shift.
She's being left behind now, faster than either of us thought, and I don't want her to feel sad about it.
"That's not all…" After years of telling her all about my brothers and their horrible plots and pressuring, I watch her face fall.
"Is it your brothers?" she asks, scowling.
"No…" There's no other way to say this than to blurt it out, because I have to get it off my chest. "I'm pregnant."
She sets her cup down too fast and coffee sloshes out of it. Then her eyes go glassy and she covers her mouth. "Zora."
"I know."
"You're—Oh, my God." She reaches across the table again and grabs my hand. "How far along are you? When did you find out? Are you okay?" She's acting shocked and concerned, not happy for me, which means she understands this wasn't planned and may not be a good thing. God, she's so intuitive.
"I'm okay." And I mean it. Even if my world crumbles and I don’t get to be with Kazimir, I want this baby. It's a part of him I will never have to leave behind. "I'm early still, and I haven't told him yet, but I'm okay."
"You're gonna be a mom," she says quietly. I swear I see tears forming in her eyes. This isn't at all the reaction I thought she'd give me. "I'm so happy for you."
I can only smile as I sip my coffee and listen to the bell over the door jingle. A burst of warm air rushes over me from the door and when Alisa's eyes darken, I know before I even turn around that one of my brothers is standing there. I look over my shoulder and feel my gut twist uncomfortably.
Yefim stands in the doorway and his stormy eyes are fixed on me from across the room.
"How?" I mumble as I watch him stalk across the room toward me. "How did you know I was here?"
Yefim pulls a chair from the neighboring table without asking and sits down. Alisa's eyes drop to her coffee mug. I can tell she wants to get up and run away but she stays put. And my brother doesn't bother noticing anything but me.
He scowls and says, "We put a bug in your purse, Zora.
It's been there for a month." He leans back and folds his arms over his chest and my chest feels like it might blow up.
Anger burns through my body, searing and cauterizing every last ounce of affection I even have for them.
They didn't just bug my apartment. They put a tracker in my purse too?
My blood goes hot and thick from my stomach up through my throat to the base of my skull.
Four weeks of every café, every grocery store, every night at Kaz's apartment tracked and time-stamped and relayed back to my brothers.
I can't believe they'd do this. It was one thing to force me to clone Kazimir's phone, but they have no respect for privacy.
It means they heard me telling him I love him, and when we had sex too.
Oh, my God!
"You stopped reporting things we needed, Z." Yefim keeps his voice low enough that the couple at the next table can't hear him. "You got too close and you went dark on us, so we adapted."
"You had no right," I hiss, glancing at Alisa whose eyes are narrowed in confusion and pain now. She knows nothing about Kazimir. Yefim is fucking everything up!
"You were doing a job for us. What did you think would happen when you quit?" He unfolds his arms and leans forward, and I can smell cigarette smoke on his breath. "You have a responsibility to this family and you abandoned it because you got emotional, so now we're pulling you out."
"No, you can't do that." I'm frantic now, wondering if I should get up and run. I need to call Kaz. He'll come get me and keep them from taking me. I don't want to be pulled out. I want to be with him.
"Zora." Alisa's thin voice comes from my left. She sounds confused and hurt. "What's he talking about?"
"Family business," Yefim says without looking at her. "Stay out of it."
"Don't talk to her." I push my chair back from the table and the legs scrape against the floor with a sound so loud, it turns two heads from the counter. "Don't look at her, don't address her. She has nothing to do with this."
Yefim stands and his chair rocks back on two legs before settling again. Then he grabs me by my bicep and starts yanking. I try to pull away but his hand tightens. He's already dragging me toward the door.
"Get your hand off me."
"We're leaving," he snarls.
"Zora—" Alisa's on her feet now with panic spreading white across her flushed cheeks. "I'll call the police, okay? Oh, my God." She has her phone in her hand ready to dial, but Yefim turns on her like a caged beast.
"Sit down and stay out of family business." He slaps her phone out of her hand and she jumps back, gasping in fear.
"Let me go!" I protest one more time before he has me out the door and halfway to his car.
When he shoves me into the back seat, I scurry to the other side to get out, only to find he's enabled the child safety locks so I can't open the door from the inside. Then he's in the seat, taking off.
"Where are you taking me?" I snap at him, still trying to pry the door open. I look over my shoulder as the car surges into traffic, but it's no use.
"To my place, where you should've come after we trashed your apartment.
You had a perfect out, Zora. You could've told Kazimir that his life was too dangerous and you wanted away from him.
He fucking told you what he is, and you told him you love him.
You fucked him." His eyes bounce between my reflection in the rearview mirror and the road in front of him
"You listened to me having sex! You're fucking disgusting." I'm so angry I could hit him, but he could wreck the car and kill us both.
"We did what we had to do to protect our sister. Now just sit back and let me deal with cleaning up your mess." Yefim holds his hand over his shoulder and says, "Now give me your phone."
"No fucking way," I hiss, hugging my arms over my chest, but I know how this will go. They'll just hold me down and take it from me. He's probably going to lock me up too, keep me from reaching out to Kazimir at all.
"This can go easy for you if you let it, Sister.
" His eyes look pained, but I know he could care less.
If he loved me at all, he'd let me get out of this car and do things myself.
I was going to tell Kazimir about the baby myself, about everything.
And now whatever they have planned, I know it isn't good.
I sit back and stew, staring out at the street and the passing traffic.
Yefim showed up to that cafe less than twenty minutes after I got there.
If they really have been tracking me, and they know where the offices are and Kazimir's real house is, they have enough to kill him. Not just take down his businesses.
"What will you do to him?" I ask, not able to keep the emotion out of my voice.
"You should be more worried about what Bogdan is gonna do to you. You really fucked up, Z," he says, and the way he emphasizes my nickname Kaz gave me, I know he's mocking me.
This can't be happening. I have to find a way out of this and I have to get back to Kazimir to warn him. Whatever they're going to do, I know it will be bad for everyone. Including my baby.
Oh, God… Bogdan is going to use this pregnancy to hurt Kazimir. I know it.
And it's all my fault.