Chapter 29
Anya
The last time I stood in front of Nikolai”s private plane, it seemed much larger. Granted, I was thrown over hisshoulder in protest, screaming and shouting, whereas this time I”m standing on my own two feet. He brought a light sweater and jeans for me. Tighter than I would have chosen, but it”s a step in the right direction, and right now I”m just pleased to be dressed in something clean that feels more my pace. To stay centered, I pull the soft fabric down over my hands. When my thoughts become too overwhelming, I squeeze them tighter,and it helps.
Nikolai said nothing to me the entire way home. I”m sure he has a lot of things to put back in order. I wouldn”t know the first thing about trying to cover up the sinking of a cargo shipor the sheer number of dead bodies he has to hide. If that”s what he”s doing.
I could ask, I think, but I don’t want to. I think it’s better that he give me a little bit of space. I need it in order to think everything through. It is just so much to process, and I don’t know if I can mentally put everything where it needs to be while it is still so fresh in my mind.
What I do know is that Nikolai is close. I just have to reach out my hand for him, and there he is. I wish I had the words to properly express to him just how comforting that is right now.
Ivan is waiting for us when we land, he has been medically transferred to whoever Nikolai’s contact is in the States. I almost miss the Doctor—he brought a much-needed lightness to things. Perhaps I will be able to go and see him again. I’m certain that he would let me be his assistant if I learned how to cook the things that he likes. Though, the only thing that I have come to a conclusion about is the fact that I have no intention of running back to my old life. I wouldn’t fit into it anymore.
Ivan straightens as we depart the plane, and my heart leaps with joy as I take the small stairs two at a time off the plane and over to where he is leaning on a single crutch shoved awkwardly up underneath his arm.
I run to him, and nearly knock him over sideways when I collide into him. Happy tears slide from the corners of my eyes. Seeing him lying there unconscious, even with what the Doctor said, had been so scary. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry that they did this to you!” I don’t have any tears left to cry, but I need him to know that I never would have allowed them to harm him. “You did your best, Ivan!”
“That is still yet to be seen,” Nikolai says beside me, and Ivan straightens. His arm drops from the awkward half hug he had been giving me as he turns to look at Nikolai. I release him, but keep myself between the two men. Just in case.
“He did everything he could. Nikolai, we were outnumbered!” I quickly disagree. I’m prepared to keep going, to plead Ivan’s case but the look on Nikolai’s face stops me. He reaches forward and grasps Ivan’s shoulder firmly. He nods his head once, as if the matter is settled.
“I know.”
“Oh,” I feel stupid for thinking Ivan would be punished. I just didn”t want to see Nikolai punishing him in the same way that the man on the plane had. He motions for all of us to enter the Vegas apartment. It hasn”t even been that long since I”ve been here, but it feels foreign. Maybe I”m the one who”s changed. The walls are the same, and the library that I fell in love with remains... but I”m not sure if I fit inside of this anymore either.
No, not yet. Perhaps never. My feet carry me there anyway, hoping for some clarity from the comforting scent of the old books, or maybe to lose myself in the way the ceiling pool”s refracted light bounces patterns across the floor.
I’ve been standing in the doorway for a minute when Nikolai joins me, leaning against the opposite side of the door. “We need to talk.”
I shake my head. “I’m not ready.”
“Does not matter. There are some things that you will never be ready for but we must discuss them anyway.”
I bite my bottom lip. He’s probably right. “Why?”
“Time does not wait, Anya, and things have to be set in motion now. If you do not act, then somebody else will. Come.” He nods his head in the direction of his office, and I follow him silently.
When we arrive, I sink into the chair he points to. I want to close my eyes and remember the last time we were in this room so I don”t have to face the next conversation. I keep my eyes open. I can do this. Let”s just rip the bandage and be done with it. I can”t possibly hurt any more than this. The numbness has to kick in sooner or later.
Nikolai grabs three manila folders from the bookcase on the side of the room and drops them heavily onto the desk as he takes his seat across from me. “These need to be attended to, take a look.”
I swallow hard and scoot forward in my chair. I pull the folders closer to me and flip open the first one. “What am I looking at?” I slide the pictures apart to see them better. There are photos of warehouses, ship manifests, shipping logs, blueprints for what I can only assume are safehouses.
“These are the remaining properties in the Griffith empire, as well as the contents of every ship left in processing with cargo that needs to be shipped and moved. These I can do for you, with your permission. I would have them seized and reallocated into the Volkovich name and distributed as I see fit. I am willing to give you a cut of the profits.”
“Why are you speaking to me like I’m supposed to understand what you’re saying? Why do you need my permission?”
“I don’t,” Nikolai hesitates. “I would like it.”
“Just do it? Why does it matter?”
Nikolai shifts, why does he look so uncomfortable? It’s a weird thing to see on him, I never thought anything could make him feel this way. “As your father has passed without any living male heirs, the entire Griffith empire falls onto your shoulders. If you do not make some very important, very quick choices about what happens to the contents of these folders then it defaults into no man’s land. Which means that any interested parties can come and place their bids for the materials. I have men in position to move so that you can still make a profit off of this—as distastefully timed as it might be.”
“I don’t want the empire. I never approved of what he did for his money.”
“Then I shall handle it. The Griffith legacy shall be absorbed into my own, and I will set you up with enough money that you shall be happy for as many years as you have left on this earth. You shall want for nothing.”
My brow furrows. “Why are you saying that like that?” I ask, but he does not answer.
“The next folder, Anya.”
I open and instantly shut the next folder. Casket options and burial plots.
“Just pick one. It has been handled but I wanted to give you the option of where to place him. I did not think that you wished to have him buried beside your mother, given the circumstances.”
I nod. I only take a couple of moments to look at the various options when the numbness finally sets into my bones. “None of these. Just do whatever you normally do,” I say with finality.
“I don’t want to know. Not after what he did to my mother—not after what he almost did to me.”
He”s right; I don”t want him buried alongside my mother. I”m sure there”s another massive family plot in London where the Griffith line originated, but I”m not interested in that either. The man who died on that ship was notmy father. Maybe my father hadbeen dying inside every day for a long time. I am ashamed that I missed it. I was so clouded by my childhood resentment that I missed the warning signs. Or maybe I did. Maybe I just didn’t want to know because I don’t know if he ever really loved me, or anybody. Maybe he did his best, and his mental illness was to blame but I have spent hours debating that with myself and I can’t do it anymore. Not today.
Nikolai studies me silently for a long moment, but then pulls the folder from me and slips it into his desk drawer.
“The final folder will likely take you a little bit more time. As I’ve said, you shall want for nothing, of course. Should you not choose anything inside of the folder—just say the word and I will place you anywhere that you wish to be, in any location in the world.”
The final folder contains photos of every house I grew up in, as well as a few I don”t recognize. I have so many memories associated with so many of these locations that I find it difficult to look at them. I flip through those quickly. Some that I don”t recognize are a lot nicer than the ones I remember spending time in as a kid, and I refuse to be upset about it. Not now. Not when it feels like Nikolai is sending me away.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask finally, and slide the folder in front of me closed.
“This is my way of apologizing to you.”
“What?”
“I am sorry for everything that you have endured because of me, everything that I have put you through.”
I shake my head and lean back in my chair. If this is how he thinks that this little ‘business’ negotiation is going to go down, he has another thing coming.
“You saved my life, Nikolai. I’m not going to discount that. I can’t say how long my father has been going downhill. For all I know it was only a matter of time before he came for me anyway.” I pause, pushing away bad memories. “He’s always said that I looked like my mother… the comments became more frequent in the last few years and I foolishly thought it was because he missed her. Maybe he did, in his own way, I don’t know… but you were right.
He could not continue—you saved me from him. The whole thing was corrupt, and I’m not going to sit here and say that it’s the outcome I liked but I understand why it had to be done.”
“I don’t want to add to your unhappiness by keeping you here. I have made many selfish decisions in my life, but I cannot keep you prisoner anymore just because I love you.”
I focus on him, he’s suddenly the only thing in the room. Everything around him becomes hazy. Did he just say what I think? He did.
“What I am saying, Anya, is that you are free to go. Pick a house, pick a property, hell, just dream up a castle and I shall have it arranged. Any life you like, become anyone, go anywhere—whatever you want. I’m setting you free. You never wanted this life, and now you can finally be free of it.”
“Just like that? It’s over and done? Just like that?”
Irritation flashes on Nikolai’s features, but he suppresses it. “Please understand, there is still a great deal that you do not know about me. About this life. If you can have the chance to leave it all behind and start new, you should do that,” he sighs, and leans back in his chair.
“Unlike you, I was not raised in this life. Which is probably a surprise, but children to families like this are always in danger. Just as I kidnapped you for leverage, I, too, was kidnapped as a child. I was raised in another family, by a set of parents that were truly the worst sort of parents. I did not understand until I was older.
Ivan told me that you learned about how we met. I ran away from who I thought were my family at a very young age. They spent years attempting to track me down and in that time I learned how to fight, I learned how to stand up for myself, to be a man and by the time that I was found by my true parents I thought that I was grown.
I was still very young, and I spent many years with them, but I had become hardened enough to realize that this was the only life I could ever have. I sometimes wonder if I would have tolerated my father”s dry humor and particular brand of tough love if I had not been raised in this way. I”ve got the scars to prove it, and I treasured every moment I was allowed to spend with my actualmother because I was old enough to appreciate her.
However, if they had never gotten me back? If I had been raised on the streets instead? Constantly used as leverage? This is not the future that anyone sane should choose.”
“That’s a choice that I should be allowed to make for myself.”
“That is why I am giving you all of the options here, Anya—those like us do not get very many chances to break the cycle. To get out, really and truly out. This is the only life I can live… but you, you can be something else.”
In another setting, I would like to delve into the bombshell of history that he just dropped on me—but I know I can’t. He expects me to make a decision, and if I don”t choose my words carefully here, I might not get another chance. Everything he”s saying bothers me. Move away? Become somebody else? Move to another country and simply go about your business as if I ama regular person with a nine-to-five job? How could I ever return to that?
I purse my lips together. “Fine.” I say simply. “I want your house in Moscow.”
Nikolai’s eyes narrow. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Stupid? Funny choice of words there. I think that the only one of us who is being stupid right now is you, you idiotic, infuriating bastard. Do you really think that if I didn’t want to be here, then I wouldn’t have escaped from that run down excuse for a hospital that you put me in? I would have pulled a page from your book, stabbed the Doctor and made a run for it. I could be gone, but I stayed and I did it on damned purpose.”
Nikolai looks almost angry with me.
“Selfless is not something that you will ever be, Nikolai, and it’s not a good look for you.” I lean forward, holding my ground as I stare at him, unblinking. “If you’re hellbent on sending me away after all of this—I want your house in Moscow. I want the Volkovich family property and all of the land that it sits on,” I smirk, even this silly little spat makes me feel a little bit more like myself. Certainly, more like myself than I’ve felt in the last two days. “In fact, I’ve just decided that I’m going to have that property one way or another.”
“Is that so?”
I nod confidently. “We might not be the typical love story that I fantasized about when I was a child, but that is absolutely the snow-covered castle that I always wanted. We’re going to have this library moved there, for starters. Either as part of my conditions, or because you are going to take me there, and move me in as your wife.”
“Wife?!” He nearly chokes on his own saliva, but it’s not in shock, it’s amusement. “You would be a terrible wife.”
“Absolutely.” I agree. “To a truly horrible husband whom I can annoy every day for the rest of my life. Either as Anya Volkovich, or as a partner in your empire. You are right, I never wanted this life, but I’ve seen too much now to walk away from it all. There is no going back.”
Nikolai rakes his fingers through his hair with a slow grin. He sighs, and brandishes a finger at me. “You drive a hard bargain,” he leans forward suddenly, and dips into his open desk drawer to pull out a small leather ring box and throws it at me. “I suppose you shall be needing this, then.”
I snap open the box to reveal a stunning three carat diamond set in a white gold and pearl inlay. It’s huge, far too big for my small hands but it warms me in a way that I can’t describe. I pull the thing from the box and slide it onto my finger with a bright smile.
“First intelligent thing that you’ve said all day,” I crawl up onto the desk slowly, over the folders until I deposit myself into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck while he encircles his around my waist.
“Don’t think that this means you’ve tamed me.”
He lifts his chin, his lips brushing softly against mine. “Never.”