Chapter 34
SASHA
Two days later…
Bogdan drives through the cold gray light of morning. My gaze lingers on the wet asphalt, the exhaust haze, the thud and splash of tires over road puddles.
I sit in the back of my Maybach, coat collar up, my eyes on Ruth’s dark green Mercedes G Wagon two cars ahead.
“There,” Bogdan says. “The bank.”
The car smoothly slides into a spot in front of a bank ahead.
The driver, a hulking man in cargo pants and an ink-dark peacoat, exits and steps around the car.
He opens a door and Ruth emerges. She’s in a beige trench and black flats, her eyes hidden behind designer sunglasses and her hair tucked behind her ears—it’s her style when she means business.
I watch as she says something to the driver, then hurries into the bank. The driver returns to the car and pulls out, merging into traffic.
“So,” Bogdan says, “what do you think she’s up to?”
“Moving money around,” I say. “Consolidating. Making sure she’s ready for what’s ahead.”
“Almost like she’s bracing for something.”
“Good. Let her brace. If she crosses me, it won’t help.”
Bogdan flicks his eyes to mine in the mirror. “You sound like a man who’s already decided on blood.”
“I’ve decided on what’s necessary. If she’s planning on merging with Peter, she’s positioning herself to be my enemy.”
Bogdan sips his coffee. “I suppose there’s no chance you’ll let her simply move into the illegal affairs we’re leaving behind?”
“If that’s what she wants, she’s going about it in the wrong way. And I know for a goddamn fact it’s not what Peter is aiming for.”
“So, the same plan?”
“The same plan. We interfere with her operations as much as we can, without resorting to violence or destruction. We slow her down. This will give us time to finalize the deal and isolate Peter.”
He exhales, nodding. I can tell he has something else on his mind, something he’s not sure if he ought to bring up.
“Speak.”
Bogdan sighs. “And what about Gabriella? You said she’s still in the dark about Peter. You think she’ll make it through this without finding out the truth? What happens if the truth catches her without your knowing?”
My jaw tightens. Bogdan is doing what he does best—confronting me with truths I don’t want to hear but need to deal with all the same. I just can’t bear the thought of saying the words out loud to her.
“She’s better off not knowing,” I say quietly. “For now, at least.”
“She’s better off knowing, and from you.”
The air between us is tense. Bogdan’s loyal, but his loyalty has teeth—he knows he can speak to me like this, and I’ll not rip into him for being too familiar, for stepping out of line.
“She deserves the truth,” he says. “All of it. And to be blunt, if she finds out the truth from someone other than you, you’re screwed. She might very well never forgive you for hiding it.”
“And what happens if I tell her?” I snap. “She runs? She looks at me and sees the enemy of her own father? What if her loyalty shifts?”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” he asks, a scoff in the words. “You must not think too much of her if you imagine she would turn on you like that.”
“I’m the father of her children,” I say, even though I think he’s right. “But he’s her blood. If she found out the truth now, right at the cusp of war breaking out, it would be a burden she shouldn’t have to bear.”
“Ah, so now you’re doing her a favor by withholding the truth.”
“She doesn’t need him. She doesn’t need to know. What goddamn difference would it make?”
“Need?” Bogdan repeats. He’s pinpointed the most important word in my little tirade. “Who’s to say who needs what? But she has a right to know. And more than that, keeping her ignorant doesn’t protect her. It merely makes you a liar in her eyes when she finally learns the truth.”
“She’s mine,” I whisper.
“Perhaps, but if she is yours, you owe her honesty, not more control.”
Goddamn, it’s hard.
Every instinct in me screams to keep her where I can see her, where Peter can’t touch her—where I can control what happens to her. Peter has ruined so much. No doubt in my mind he’d ruin her, too, blood or not.
“What do you think would happen if Peter were to find out?” I say. “He’d use her as a weapon. That’s what a man like him does.”
“All the more reason to tell her first. If Ruth knows, then it’s only a matter of time. You can get the advantage by starting clean, not by hoping you can keep the lie going, not by becoming everything about Peter that you hate.”
That lands. I turn, watching rain streak the window.
Bogdan sighs, softening. Perhaps he feels he went too far. “Listen, I know I’m reaching the point where you tell me to shut the hell up, but it’s clear that you love her. But love can’t live under glass. It suffocates.”
I picture her again, this time from the other night in my office. I think of the way she looked with her head on my chest, sleeping peacefully after our lovemaking. I’d held her for a long while before carrying her to bed, simply enjoying her there, knowing she’s growing our children in her belly.
“If he touches her, I’ll kill him.” The words pour from me without my active consent.
“I know,” Bogdan says. “Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that.”
I lift my eyes and spot Ruth coming out of the bank.
“There she is,” Bogdan says. “Keep following her?”
“Yes.”
The G Wagon pulls up to the curb. The driver steps out once again, Ruth flowing gracefully into the car.
We’re downtown, skyscrapers vanishing into the gray, late-winter fog above.
The precipitation is somewhere between rain and snow, but nothing sticks because it’s not cold enough.
I find myself imagining summer, Gabriella’s belly huge with our twins, then fall, when it’s time for the little ones to arrive.
But whether or not that future comes to pass depends on me. I have to keep her alive. It’s the only thing that matters.
Bogdan expertly follows the G Wagon through downtown, staying far back enough so as not to be noticed, close enough to never lose sight. After ten or so minutes, her car pulls up to the half-circle parkway in front of one of the towers.
The driver repeats the process, letting her out and driving off. This time, however, a pair of men are there to greet her at the tall front doors of the building. They form up at her sides, and together the group goes in.
Bogdan reaches forward and types something into his phone, making a satisfied noise a few moments later. “This is—”
“Valmont Equity Partners,” I say. “One of Peter’s shells. Offshore funding, private security.”
Bogdan cranes his neck to look at the tower again, the logo glinting twenty-stories above us. “She’s meeting him, no doubt.”
“No doubt.” Whatever’s going to happen in that building is not good. “She’s moving money, meeting with Peter.”
Bogdan grunts, saying without words that this is bad. “You want to post up here for a while?” He checks the mirrors.
“No, we’re already too close. Cameras, guards—only a matter of time before someone spots us. Drive.”
He pulls into traffic, the car gliding back into the river of sedans and SUVs. I watch the skyscraper shrink in the rearview mirror.
They’re both moving, and soon. Now. What their ultimate plans are is hard to say. But no doubt part of it involves coming for everything I have—my company, my name, my family.
Gabriella.
The mere thought of her name in Peter’s mouth makes me see red, makes me feel feral.
I’ve been telling myself that keeping the final truth about him from Gabriella is about safety.
But no, it’s about control. Not just controlling what she knows, but for me, feeling like I can make a decision to control the greater outcome.
But watching Ruth step into that building makes it clear—the future is coming. And likely war with it.
“What’s the move?” Bogdan asks.
I sigh, shaking my head. “The truth. Before someone else tells her.”
He nods once. “About time.”
Maybe it is. But I can already feel it.
The moment I tell her will be the moment everything burns.