Chapter 17 Gabi
GABI
Irisha is giggling down at Ivan, eyes sparkling as little Katya inches closer to me.
“I’m hungry,” she whispers, and I stroke my hand over her soft, golden curls.
There’s no jealousy between these girls, as Katya isn’t clamoring for her dad’s attention while he’s giving it to Irisha. Whatever Petrov has been doing as a single dad, he’s been doing it right.
“Me, too,” I whisper back, even though I’m too tense to even think of food.
Right now, I’d do anything to get away from Petrov, from his muscular thigh and its heat transferring to mine. His arm on the backrest. His hand right there, ready to play with my hair.
The way he just fell in with us caught me off-guard. Sitting down to read with the girls as if this is totally normal. I can’t even scoot up because I’ll squash Katya, and she’s such a little thing. His wife must have been a delicate woman, because these girls are small for their age.
“Pakhan,” someone calls from the corridor. It’s an older man’s voice, scratchy and deep from decades of smoking cheap cigarettes.
“Vkhodi, Yuri,” Petrov says as he lowers Irisha to his lap.
Come in, Yuri.
I recognize the lean man from Central Park as he walks into the room.
Without his cap and now dressed in a suit jacket and pants, he looks very different, but his eyepatch gives him away.
The cap was good at hiding it, especially when he looked down, but I was on high alert and soaked everything in.
“You’re needed, boss. An urgent call from our supplier,” Yuri says in Russian, his gaze slicing to mine for a mere second as he holds out a phone to Petrov.
A rush of goosebumps floods over my skin at his words. His accent, the tone, everything reminds me of him.
Don’t even go there. It’s just the language’s cadence tricking my mind, making me think all Russian males sound the same. I’ve only heard him speak to me that one time, and it’s as if his voice got imprinted on my mind like a scent: flee at the first whiff of it.
Yuri is standing here, towering over me and blocking my exit. I can’t run. The clock turns back to a time long past and fear starts pulsing through my veins.
Surely, Petrov and Yuri won’t do anything to me in front of the girls. The thought is irrational, but it sprouts from deep within me. Having children around has never stopped the cruelty of men. No, sometimes, their cruelty is aimed at children.
“Irisha,” Petrov says, attempting to lower her to the floor.
As if she already senses he’s going to leave, she wraps her arms around his neck in protest. “We haven’t finished the story, Papa.”
“Some other time, malyshka. I’ve been neglecting my work for too long.”
Petrov unlocks her from his body with such gentle urging, it makes me want to cry. It’s more than him being soothing and careful with her… It’s because I clung like that, too, once.
Irisha stands, and Petrov takes the phone.
Yuri’s one eye is on me, and my shoulders tense even more under his scrutiny. I hold my book too tight, denting the paper. I consciously let go, closing it to protect my illustrations but really hiding the tremors running through me by gripping the hard cover.
Next to me, Petrov answers and I only catch a few words as I grapple to keep my composure. Something about a delivery and a container yard at some harbor.
“I’ll call you back in half an hour,” he says, in Russian.
Somehow his voice is softer, less grating than Yuri’s, and the cadence of the language becomes a folksong in my ear.
He turns to me, his startling blue eyes right there as he ends the call.
“I need to go to the harbor, so let’s wrap this up. ”
“Okay,” I murmur, wondering what will happen once he’s left. He isn’t going to leave me with this old Russian, is he? His henchman?
I swallow down my fear, reminding myself if Petrov wanted me locked up, I wouldn’t be here reading stories to his girls.
“I’ll show you your room and the rest of the house.” As he stands, his thigh brushes against my knee in an almost reassuring touch. “Yuri can show you the grounds.”
Petrov is leaving and I’m going to have to get used to being in this house, filled with Russians. I’ll have to overcome my fear and stick to my game plan.
I put my book to one side, and we file out into the corridor, the girls now distracted by the prospect of showing me my room. Far off in the opposite corridor, I spot a man in worker’s coveralls as he disappears into a room with a bucket of paint.
“On this level we have a lot of renos going on.” Petrov pauses on the other side of the security gate and holds open a door for me. “Everything except my suite and your room is off-limits.”
“Understood,” I say, shooting Yuri a glance. His eye is on me all the time, tracking my every move; one mistake and it could give my lie away.
The girls bounce ahead, and I follow in their wake. Yuri stays outside, giving us space as Petrov comes to stand next to me. My suitcases are parked in the corner as if I’ve landed in a five-star hotel room.
“Your bed,” Katya declares, scrambling onto a king-size bed fitted with white sheets.
The rest of the room is decorated in calm creams and wood.
There’s a reading chair by the window and a dressing table with a matching chest-of-drawers.
Everything is new and fresh, and there’s that wet-paint smell again.
“And your bathroom is in here,” Irisha says as she takes my hand and leads me to the adjacent bathroom.
It’s all white porcelain and marble, with a separate shower and double vanity, a makeup mirror and perfect lighting.
It’s spotless and looks like it’s never been used.
It’s too fancy for me, a convent girl who’s used to having a small bed with age-softened and mended linen, a cold wooden floor, one lamp on an antique nightstand.
Basically, it’s too fancy for a nanny. It’s too close to the family. It’s too close to Petrov.
“I didn’t realize I was going to be right next door to you.” I’m not sure it’s the right thing to say or why I’m balking about being so close to his room. There’s a gate and a door I can lock.
“When things get busy at work, I tend to get home late. Some nights, I won’t be here at all. I need you here, close to the girls.”
“I see. Are they going to keep on sleeping in…in—” The treasure chest? The safe room? “In the tent,” I manage in a weak attempt to cop out of all the questions I really want to ask, like why are they sleeping in a safe room?
“Until we’ve figured this out, yes,” Petrov says, indicating between me and him.
There’s a subtext I don’t get here, and what with the way he pauses, staring at me, it’s as if he’s waiting for me to get it. Get what? I have no clue.
“We’ll work on it and see how it goes,” he says. “This way.”
He gestures for me to walk out first. In the corridor, Yuri is waiting, not blinking, just staring. Cold, disinterested, but somehow calculating. I’m going to have to watch my back and my nerves in front of this man.
We head down the stairs and Petrov stops in front of a closed door.
“This goes to Milana’s suite of rooms. She also has a soundproof music room and recording studio.
” He hesitates, looking as if he wants to knock.
“Now isn’t a good time,” he says, brushing over everything that happened when we arrived.
“Let’s not disturb her. She practices piano all the time and hates anyone to break her concentration. She’s an artist and somewhat moody.”
“I see.” A sad, moody, tantrum-throwing artist. Such fun.
We head back to the foyer and through a door to an open-concept space where a big kitchen island separates a round eight-seater dining table from the kitchen.
“This is the family kitchen,” Petrov says. “We have a professional kitchen in the basement, for events and so on, but the basement is also off-limits.”
At this rate, everything will be off-limits. The girls are already heading in the direction of the next room, but I’m drawn to the big window above the sink giving a view over the garden. It’s endless lawn, rimmed by a forest about two hundred yards away.
Something blinks in the distance, and I narrow my eyes in focus. My heart flips, and I clutch at my chest as if that would slow the rapid beating. It’s a man with a…an automatic riffle?
Now that I’ve seen him, I can’t unsee him. Even worse, there are two of them. And there’s a dog. One of those German Shepherds trained to chase and kill.
A coil of razor wire unwinds in my stomach, hooking at my innards. God help me, I’ve never had assault rifles between me and freedom. Or a brute of a dog eager to rip through flesh. With the size of this property, there are likely to be many more where these came from.
“There’s—there’s—” I break off, giving Petrov a wide-eyed stare, hoping he’ll read my panic as I point through the window.
“Security. They’ll make sure you don’t see them when you go outside with the girls. The little ones are unaware of them.”
He directs me away from the window, his fingers stiff on my elbow as he steers me away from the guns, signaling to me he doesn’t like it, either.
It’s hardly reassuring that the girls don’t know about the security and their guns. I’d prefer to have zero bullets flying around, least of all around little humans in my care.
“Here we have the craft room, or school room,” he says. “Whatever you want to call it.”
My heart is a battering ram in my chest as we enter a gorgeous conservatory, flooded with natural light. The room is homey and a complete contradiction to everything else. Petrov seems to exhale as the girls head over to what they were working on last.
I shoot him a smile. “This is awesome.”
On a slow forced exhale, I try to release the aftershocks of every giant curveball that came my way since this morning.
Here we get to play and create. A big table stands center stage, and a stack of paintings has been shoved to the side to make place for clay.
The floor is a mess of paper shreds, pieces of wool, clay droppings, crayon tips, and other bits and bobs.
Trellised tomatoes, cucumber, and herbs line the one glass wall.
The other is filled with shelves holding all kinds of craft materials.
This needs a cleanup, too, but for all that the house is massive, I haven’t spotted a single cleaner or met the housekeeper yet.
Seeing this room, the way Petrov protects his daughters and how he interacts with them, tells me everything I need to know about Ivan Petrov.
He is protective to the core, and I already feel I’m under his wing, just like his girls.
He isn’t a threat to me, not of the kind I’m used to when it comes to men. As for Yuri—
Katya comes up to me, a drawing in her hands. “I made this, Gabi.”
“Oh, Katya, that’s so pretty,” I say, studying her creation and turning a blind eye to the array of red flags of the past few hours. I deflate a little as I force my focus on what’s important: looking after my charges and getting out of here as soon as I’ve figured out how.
But every security measure only spells out how the girls are in danger, or a target—and if so, how could I desert them?
I already sense a soft spot for them blooming in my chest. Protecting them comes first, but I wish I could barricade my heart to stop them from crawling right in there.
Loving these girls will cost me the day I leave.
“There’s a lot where that’s coming from, and they’ll show you everything,” Petrov says with a wink and a nod in the direction of a stack of painted sheets. “I’ve got to get going.”
“Yes. Is there lunch?” I ask, shooting Yuri a guarded look where he is standing by the door.
“There should be something in the fridge.” He looks at Yuri. “Sort them out.”
The henchman nods.
“You have her phone?” Petrov asks as he steps up to Irisha.
“Yes, Pakhan.”
“Call your brothers and let them know you arrived safely,” he says as he crouches down to his kids.
I arrived in one piece, but I don’t feel safe. Not at all. Not with him leaving and Yuri’s only eye on me, watchful.
“Irisha, Katya. Listen, Gabriella is here to look after you, with Yuri for now, until she knows where everything is,” he says softly as he looks at them one by one. “You’ll help Yuri, won’t you? Show her the playground and the chickens and rabbits and so on.”
They nod. Petrov gives each of his girls a peck on the cheek and strides out of the room.
I feel Yuri’s gaze on me, and it sends pinpricks over my skin. Honestly, after everything, the last thing I want is to be stuck with this stranger and his voice that drills down to the pit of my darkest memories.
And now chickens and rabbits. I meet Yuri’s gaze and it’s so cold, it chills me. Clearly, I’m the lamb in this equation, making a little detour at the petting farm before I head out to the slaughterhouse.