31. Brooke
“Motherfucker.”
Lev curses under his breath as we walk into the auction and take our seats at our allocated table.
I look around to see what’s got him so pissed off, and that’s when I see Vlad sitting two tables away, watching us with a snakelike smirk on his lips.
Although he hides it well behind an unreadable expression, I know Lev is seething. He doesn’t want to be in the same town as Vlad, let alone breathe the same air.
It’s changed his demeanor entirely. On the car ride over, he was almost… relaxed.
Now, his bristles are out, and he’s like a simmering time bomb waiting for something to come along and detonate him. So when they bring glasses of champagne to the table, I take one to calm the sudden anxiety I feel crawling up my spine and hand him one to stop him from blowing his fuse.
At our table there are six guests already seated, and by the way they greet us, all of them are excited to be sitting at the same table as Lev Zarkov. One in particular, a slightly older blonde lady, leaves her chair to stand beside him and can’t keep her hands off him as he talks politely to her. She keeps touching him and looking down at him with big, unblinking eyes.
I sip my champagne as I watch him hide his irritation behind his charisma and charm.
“Lydia, I’d like you to meet Brooke,” Lev says, taking my hand as he introduces us. The blonde immediately cools and casts her heavily made-up eyes over me.
“It’s a pleasure,” she says coolly, and I give her a bright smile even though her tightly pinched face screams you don’t belong here.
She turns her attention back to Lev and starts to drone on about all the famous people here tonight, name-dropping along the way, probably for my benefit. But then she mentions the dementia medication Lev’s company is working on and how she’s been following his progress in the newspapers. And I notice the shine in Lev’s eyes as he talks about it. For the first time since she approached us, he actually looks interested when he talks about the medication and the possibilities it could bring to sufferers.
There is a steady stream of guests who approach him after the blonde unblinker leaves. And I find myself playing the dutiful plus one so well that by the time he suggests we take some air outside, I almost have myself fooled. That this is real, and I am his girlfriend.
The stark chill of the evening air is a cool relief to the stuffiness I felt inside the ballroom, and I pull in a deep breath. The two glasses of champagne have relaxed me, and I feel myself loosen up even more away from the other guests.
“Tell me more about ZeeMed making dementia medication,” I say as we step onto the verandah.
“We’re hoping to launch it in the next few months.”
“Why does the pakhan of an already wealthy bratva and with extreme personal wealth buy a pharmaceutical company and invest so heavily in dementia medication?” I ask.
“Don’t read anything into it, Brooke. It’s purely a lucrative market.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s more than that.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says.
I nudge his shoulder. “I’ll tell you something if you tell me.”
He half smiles. “Fine, tell me about the bracelet you always wear. What’s so special about it?”
I look at the charm bracelet and let the memory rise to the surface. “My mom gave it to me when I was five. She told me it was magical.”
“And you believed her.”
“Of course I did. I was five.” I smile at the memory. “I was afraid of the dark, and I mean really afraid of it. I had to have all the lights on in my bedroom and down the hallway, and absolutely no open closet or cupboard doors anywhere. One night, my mom asked me why I was so afraid of the dark, and I told her it was because I couldn’t see what was hiding in it. So the next night she gave me this bracelet. She said that owls can see everything in the dark, and while I wore it, I wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore. That the owl was magic and I was safe.”
Lev chuckles. “The innocence of youth.”
“Right? But I never took it off after that. And I wasn’t as afraid of the dark anymore.” I play with the charm. “Now it has a different meaning, I suppose. Of course, I’ve had to add a couple of links since she gave it to me.” A cold lump forms in my throat. “It’s the only bit of her I have left.”
Lev takes my hand in his and rubs his thumb over the owl charm. His touch is gentle as he studies it, and I feel the warmth of it spread up my arm and throughout my body.
“Now, your turn,” I say, pulling my hand away. “Why did you spend a billion dollars on a pharmaceutical company so you could make dementia medication?”
He leans down to rest his arms on the railing and stares out at the moonlight on the lake.
“My grandfather died from dementia.”
“You were close?”
“He basically raised me. My father was busy as pakhan, and my mother lost interest in me when I was born. She had done her duty and produced the heir my father desperately wanted. She didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. She was all about looks and luncheons and her affairs with men that weren’t my father, and I was too much for all the nannies they employed to take care of me.” He lifts his eyebrow. “I was a bit of a handful.”
I mock gasp. “You? No.”
He smiles, but it fades. “My grandfather stepped in and taught me everything, from how to read and write, to being a man. But when I was eighteen, he developed dementia. By the time I had my twenty-first birthday, he didn’t even know who I was anymore. He died a few months later with no memories of me or our time together.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“My pain is just one of a billion, Brooke. There’s nothing special about it. The disease is as widespread as it is insidious.”
“So you invested your wealth to stop other people from experiencing the same pain?”
He laughs, but it lacks humor. “It’s not that romantic, zayka. It’s business, plain and simple.”
I shrug off his denial. “I’m sure you stand to make a lot of money. But even you can’t deny that your motivations were more about saving millions of lives than greed.”
“They would be the actions of a good man.”
“Then perhaps you are a good man.”
He turns his face to look at me. “No, Brooke, that’s where you are wrong. I’m not a good man at all.”