Chapter 3 Questions of Trust #2
Evelina shifted her food items to the coffee table and readjusted in order to recline on the chaise, bringing her laptop back into position over her thighs.
But her fingers stalled above the keyboard.
How does one search for a PI? The same way they searched for a relative they’d never met, she imagined. Blindly.
Her phone began buzzing before she could finish typing the prompt.
Evelina stretched out her arm and snatched the offending device from the table, curiosity nipping at her at the name on the screen.
She’d been a lousy friend the last couple of weeks and she knew it, no matter her reason, so she ignored the part of her that wanted to pretend to miss the call.
It wasn’t Kat’s fault she was feeling anti-social.
Instead, she swiped her thumb across the screen and put the phone to her ear.
“If this is a drunk dial, I’m hanging up. ”
The effeminate voice on the other end scoffed. “Bish, that’s how you greet me after like two weeks of radio silence?”
A smile tugged at Evelina’s lips. “I’m sorry, Kat,” she said. “It’s just been … hard.”
On the other end of the phone, her best friend also softened. “I know. I just wish you’d let me be there for you.”
Guilt stabbed at her heart. Guilt she deserved.
She had quite literally told Kat that she wanted to be left alone for a while, to ‘figure things out,’ after her mother’s passing.
When her father had then also passed she’d only sent Kat a short text and asked Otto to respond to Kat’s concerned follow-up.
She hadn’t had the emotional space. Kat had been a good friend to her for several years, so she’d complied.
Evelina had done herself a disservice by insisting on distance.
Evelina drew a breath and projected a weak smile into her voice. “I’ll try harder.”
“Good,” Kat said. “Because I just registered us for that annual designer sale in Fort Wayne. The open days are next weekend, so prepare yourself for a road trip and bring extra luggage. We are coming home with thousands of dollars’ worth of goods or bust!”
Evelina burst into a hard, jarring laugh. “You’re insane. You registered both of us?”
“You’re damn right I did. You need some good old-fashioned retail therapy.”
Composing herself, Evelina dropped against the backrest of the chaise. “Fort Wayne’s, like, three hours from here. That’s going to be a crazy long day.” Not that they hadn’t done it before. That time, they’d just done it with more planning, and tickets.
Kat’s responding tone assured Evelina she was rolling her eyes. “Give me some credit, babe. I also booked us hotel accommodations so we can rest our achy feet after. I even remembered poor, out-of-place Otto and got adjoining rooms to appease his paranoia.”
Evelina couldn’t help her grin as she rolled to the side enough to look his way. He was watching her, of course, brow faintly furrowed and suspicion darkening his blue eyes. Into the phone, she said, “You really did think of everything. How much do I owe you?”
“It’s a gift,” Kat replied. “I might be able to sympathize with some of the emotions you’re drowning in right now, but the weight this shit’s dropped on your shoulders is beyond my real understanding.
This is the only kind of thing I can do for you.
If you’ll let me.” She said it matter-of-factly, but there was a whisper of vulnerability beneath the words, too.
It was that vulnerability that drove the spike of guilt deeper into Evelina’s heart.
She knew Kat wasn’t unfamiliar with loss.
So few of them were. Evelina closed her eyes, breathed in again, and pushed aside her pride.
“Thank you, Kat. Not just for this ridiculous weekend you’re planning, but for being a good friend. I’m sorry I haven’t been lately.”
“You’re welcome,” Kat replied, “but you can keep your apologies.” She paused, just for a second. “I’ve heard rumor that you decided to challenge Pyotr….”
Evelina slumped once more against the chaise. “It’s my birthright. Technically, he’s the one challenging me. I’m just planting my feet.” She sighed. “It’s not going to be pretty, though. I’m sure you can imagine.”
Kat hummed. “I don’t see it from the same angle as you,” she said, “but I do hear things—whispers and half-conversations—from some of the men who wander through the bar.”
Evelina tapped the fingers of her free hand over the bottom edge of her laptop, her mind whirling.
“I hate to ask you this,” she began carefully, “but could you … just keep your ears open, while you’re working?
Alcohol loosens lips, and it might really help me to know what some of the lower-ranks are thinking and talking about when they’re off-site. ”
Kat worked as a bartender at a Nikolaev-owned dive bar halfway across town.
It was far enough from the main house that it would be easy for an inebriated mind to not worry about prying eyes or eavesdroppers, despite that the bar’s ownership wasn’t much of a secret.
Like so many of their scattered holdings, it served as a way to both disguise and bolster the family business.
Kat’s particular location was often used for shady meetings, off-the-record conversations, and supply drops.
That was why every single member of the staff was sworn Nikolaev.
A strange giddiness lifted Kat’s voice when she spoke again. “You want me to spy for you?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“I suppose I can do that, boss lady.”
Evelina snorted. “Katenka, don’t you start. I’m going to be pakhan, but I’ll still be your friend.”
Kat laughed. “Good to know, good to know. If I don’t see you before, I’m picking you up Friday so we can get a good place in line for Saturday morning’s shopping, deal? We’ll do dinner on the road somewhere.” She laughed again. “Somewhere totally open and normie, so we can watch Otto twitch.”
“I can’t wait,” Evelina said, laughing quietly as she disconnected. Silently, she counted down from five.
“Why are we going to Fort Wayne?”
Like clockwork. Evelina returned her phone to the coffee table and glanced over at Otto just for a beat before resettling. “Retail therapy, apparently. It’s going to be a long, horrible weekend for you.”
Otto grunted.
Evelina reopened her browser, impulsively adjusting her previously intended search. “This could work out, though.”
“Impossible.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can’t trust any local PIs not to rat me out, and we’ve never been completely sure the Morozovs are off the board, so there’s also that concern.
” Her chest tightened as the name fell from her lips, necessary or not.
Her father had been confident they’d finally eliminated their closest rivals, but she’d never felt that degree of certainty.
She likely never would. She said none of that.
“Fort Wayne’s far enough away, out of state, that it’s beyond our reach.
Beyond any reach our nearest competitors might claim.
So, if I can find a half-decent PI, I can slip away before our trip is done and pay whoever it is an obscene amount of money to dig up the information I can’t find myself. ”
Otto pushed up from the chair he’d claimed and moved closer, dropping into a crouch at her shoulder. “Not your worst idea.”
Evelina tossed him a scowl before refocusing on her screen. “The thing is … I don’t want to take Kat with me when I do that.” She rubbed at her aching chest. “I know that kinda makes me a shittier friend, but this is too personal and too up in the air and I just—”
“You don’t have to defend yourself to me, Lina.” Otto curled his fingers over her shoulder in a feather-light touch. “We’ll find an opportunity to ditch her for a little while and make this happen.”
Evelina bit her lip for a moment, glanced his way again, and nodded. Even if it made her a bad friend, this just wasn’t something she was ready to share. Outside of Otto.
Otto pushed the door to the old house shut behind him and swept his gaze from left to right.
He wasn’t surprised at how little had changed since he’d last been there.
The house had become a time capsule in the years since his mother’s passing.
Otto still couldn’t decide if he respected his adoptive father’s unwillingness to box up her memory or resented it.
Regardless, none of that was why he’d made the trip home this time.
“Pa,” he called, projecting his voice as he angled by the front-facing stairs and started past the living room.
Seconds passed before he heard movement from deeper into the home, directing him toward what his mother had once called their hideaway room—it was just a smaller, secondary sitting room with bad lighting.
But it had made a good spot to watch movies.
His father stepped into the exposed hall as Otto neared, running a hand down the front of his wrinkled shirt.
Iouri Voronin was barely old enough to retire at sixty-four, but years of hard living and his fair share of confrontation gave him a rougher, more aged appearance.
More silver peaked through the once dark brown of his hair every time Otto saw him.
Otto exhaled quietly and tipped his head toward the kitchen. “You called me here. I assume there’s a reason?”
Iouri trailed behind him, his steps slower than they’d been in Otto’s youth.
Louder, too. And there was a rasp in his voice he’d developed only recently, a rasp Otto may not have paid much attention to if he weren’t spending most of his time watching someone else try to grieve her entire family.
“Can’t even spare a hello for your old man anymore?
” Iouri moved past Otto and up to the refrigerator, bending inside as he pulled it open.
Otto scowled and shifted to rest his hip against the peninsula. “What I can’t spare is a distraction that risks Lina’s life. Why’d you call me home, Pa? Why insist I come alone?”
Iouri held out a beer in offering.
Otto deepened his frown.
Iouri sighed harshly, returned the beer to the fridge, and extracted a bottle of pre-packaged, cold tea in a colorful wrapper. “It’s not healthy for you to be the only one protecting that girl. When do you sleep, eat, take a piss, or even fuck?”
Grinding his teeth, Otto said, “How I manage my schedule is my business.”
Iouri gave up attempting to unscrew the lid on his bottle and slammed it down on the counter. “Don’t you take that tone with me, boy. I’m still your father!”
Otto blew out a breath and took the bottle from his father’s hand. “I sleep when she sleeps. I eat when she eats. I take a piss when I’ve gotta take a piss.” He twisted off the cap and glanced down at the label. “White tea?”
“Doctor says it’s healthier for me. Wants me to lay off the vodka.
” Iouri reached out for the drink. “I still gotta limit myself, though. Even this shit has caffeine.” He gulped down a large swallow, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and raised a scraggly brow. “So? You coordinate your fucks, too?”
If it were anyone else, Otto would have punched them straight in the mouth.
He still had to flex his fists a couple times to curb the urge. “If you called me here to pry into my sex life, old man, I’m leavin’.”
Iouri scoffed. “Give me a break. You’re old enough now to start thinking about these things, boy. If your mother were still here, God rest her soul, she’d be houndin’ you for grandbabies.”
Otto folded his arms across his chest. “I’m protecting the entire bratva’s future. You’re both gonna have to be satisfied with that.” As was he.
Iouri stared at him in silence for a beat, took another gulp of the fruit-flavored tea, and set his bottle on the counter. “Otto,” he said, his tone somber, “this business about the pakhan, it’s not gonna end quiet. You know that, right?”
“You’re lyin’ to yourself if you think it started quiet.”
Iouri dipped his chin in a nod. “Fair. Fair.” He squared his shoulders.
“I need you to be straight with me, son. It’s just us here, and bein’ as I’m mostly retired nowadays, I have no reason to be loyal to anyone over you.
I hope you can see that.” His throat worked on a swallow and he locked his jaw for a singular moment.
“Are you … determined to stay by Evelina’s side in all this? Do you support her takin’ that role?”
Otto stared down into his father’s pale blue eyes, trying to gauge the old man’s reason for asking and exactly how honest he could be. Finally, he turned slightly sideways, allowing his father to see past him and into the dining area beyond the kitchen.
The dining area that was still full of his mother’s china. Even the table and two of the main chairs were the same, though damaged and sloppily repaired.
Otto studied the familiar scene for a long second before speaking again. “Are you determined to keep Ma’s stuff, to remember her, like she might just walk back in through that door?”
Iouri scoffed. “What kinda question—”
At the self-inflicted silence that followed, Otto tucked his hands into his pockets and faced his father again. “Why was it so important to ask me that, Pa?”
Iouri ducked his head, cleared his throat, and rubbed a hand through his hair. “Artem,” he finally said. “Artem approached me yesterday, said he wanted to meet with her. He said he wants to offer his support.”