Chapter 31
31
DARYA
R oman stands on the tarmac as our plane takes off. I stare at him out the window as we roar down the runway, drinking in his tall, wide-legged figure, his arms folded across his chest. Clad in black, face grim and set, the sun gleaming off his aviator sunglasses, every muscled inch of him spells darkness and danger.
I’ve never loved him more.
I put my hand on the window, not knowing if he can see me or not. He raises his own in a final salute. I watch until his figure fades to a speck far below and the plane turns west.
I turn back to find Rosa watching me. Her sunglasses are gone. Her eyes are a soft brown, shadowed with old pain. I can see Roman in her face, in the determined set of her jaw, the high forehead and sculptured lips. They curve now in a half smile so similar to her son’s it makes my heart twist.
“You love him.” It isn’t a question.
I nod. “I do.”
Her eyebrows arch curiously. “How did that happen?” Then, as if recalling the circumstances of our meeting, her smile falters, the light in her eyes fading. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t.” I take the ginger tea the stewardess offers and sip it gingerly, though my sickness is notably absent, probably scared away by the drama of today. “I was working in a café across the road from Roman’s business. He came in every morning for coffee.”
I realize I’m smiling. Those days seem so far away now, like another life.
“Ah!” Rosa’s eyes sparkle. “So it was love at first sight?” Her voice has a faint lilt, a singsong accent that is a reminder of her Colombian heritage. It reminds me painfully of my own mother.
“Not exactly.” I actually laugh softly. “We used to try to outsmart one another. I would do the crossword in his favorite paper. He would try to... make me uncomfortable. Every day was like a little battle of wills, I guess.”
Rosa’s smile widens, and when it does, her entire face lights up. “But this is exactly how love begins, I think, no?”
I lift a shoulder. “Maybe, yes.”
“But he didn’t know who you truly were? Or you him?” Her forehead wrinkles when I shake my head, her eyes searching my face. “How can such a coincidence happen?”
“I don’t know.” My smile fades. “It wasn’t... easy, for either of us, when we found out the truth. I was working as Roman’s au pair by then, living in his house.”
“Yes.” She sips her glass of champagne. “Your father told me this, but I could hardly believe it. I thought that he must be losing his mind at first.” She smiles at me apologetically.
“Did you know who he was by then?” It’s something I’ve wondered ever since Papa told me about Roman opening the vault. “Roman, I mean. Did you know he had changed his name to Stevanovsky? Where he was?”
“No.” Her face falls, and she seems to shrink into herself. It’s awful, like watching the sun disappear behind the clouds. Worse than that, because I know intuitively that I’m watching Rosa slip back behind the running mask. I know that mask. I wore it for six years.
I can’t help but wonder how it would feel to have worn it for over two decades.
“The alert system from the bank was set up more than twenty years ago, when technology was much different than it is now. And it was set up carefully, to avoid any kind of trap. It took months for news to reach me that someone had accessed the safety deposit box. When I finally came to Switzerland I was cautious. You must realize.” Her eyes meet mine, opaque with old pain. “At that time, Roman had been thought dead for nearly a decade.”
“My father said you never believed that.”
“No.” Her mouth almost smiles, then falls still again. “No, I never did. But what mother wants to believe her child dead? It was all I had, the only reason—” She cuts off abruptly, but she doesn’t need to finish the sentence.
The only reason I had to stay alive.
I understand that better than she could ever know.
She takes a deep breath. “I still didn’t know much. The biometrics Roman used to enter the bank showed his fingerprints, but there wasn’t an optical scan when I first closed the box, so that didn’t help, and I know better than anyone that fingerprint casts can be made. The bank wouldn’t show me the footage of the person who opened the box. And then there was the fact that the egg was still inside it—along with the key. Afterward, when I told him, Sergei and I argued about that, about what it might mean.” She smiles at me sadly. “We argued about everything. It was when you were still in Argentina. Sometimes we could manage to meet, when you were working.”
I tense, and she touches my leg, a gentle gesture of apology. “You must not judge your father for keeping my secrets. I had been running a long time by then. I was... hardened. Fearful. And, I confess, I was angry, too. Sergei still had two children. I had lost everyone, everything, that mattered to me. He didn’t want me to go to Switzerland at all, but I insisted.” Her mouth twists. “After Switzerland, we swapped sides in our argument. I was convinced that whoever had opened that box was impersonating my son, trying to draw us all out. Sergei argued that anyone other than my son would have taken the egg and run.
“In the end, it was Alexei who initially made the connection. Or rather, a journalist whose articles he was following.”
“A journalist?” I frown. “Not Lance Ryder?”
Rosa nods. “He did a piece on your family that concerned Alexei deeply, since it used your photo.”
I nod. “I saw it, in a doctor’s office in Spain.”
“Yes. Well, Alexei has a Swedish friend—”
“Lars Andersson,” I supply.
“Yes, yes. This is his name. Well, the Swede paid Lance Ryder to stop writing about your family and offered instead to pay a high price for any information Ryder discovered about the Naryshkin treasure. He lied to Ryder, told him that Alexei knew very little about his own history. Andersson told Ryder that if he discovered information that helped him and Alexei open the vault, they would pay Ryder a generous cut of the contents.”
So Ryder really was working with Alexei.
I think of the man Papa saw with a camera outside our old apartment. Of the day our lockbox was stolen. Of Ryder thrusting a camera in my face outside the café.
“It would have been nice,” I say tightly, “if my brother had mentioned that the journalist was working for him. But then, it isn’t as if any of you told me anything.”
Rosa leans forward and puts a hand on my knee, her face sympathetic. “Don’t be angry at your brother. Or your father. Any contact between the three of us has been very minimal. Months, sometimes years, passed without any communication at all. I never knew where you and Sergei were. Neither did Alexei. And he never told me about Lars Andersson or Lance Ryder.” The sadness in her face is palpable. “We have all had to hide, Darya. Your brother perhaps most of all.”
Perhaps. But all I really see is Alexei’s determination to open that vault. Even if it meant exposing Papa and me. I can’t forgive that, let alone him endangering the children.
“It was Lance Ryder who first made the link between Hale Property and Roman Borovsky.” She sits back, pouring herself some water. Her hand isn’t quite steady. I’m not the only one who is finding this conversation difficult.
“Ryder tracked the anonymous buyer of Borovsky pieces at auction back to a Roman Stevanovsky. Then he discovered that a Swiss bank had given Roman extensive financial backing to start Hale Property, without any obvious security.
“That was the first time Alexei contacted me with the news that he thought Roman was really alive and living under the Stevanovsky name.” Her hands clasp and unclasp in her lap. “I was still in Argentina then. And the message was brief, with less than half the information I have told you now. I still barely dared to hope.”
I know that feeling. Hope is almost the worst kind of torture. It’s easier to sit with grief than it is with the tremulous promise of hope, something that can disappear at any moment, leaving you lower than if you’d never had it at all.
“It was only when Sergei contacted me independently with the same news that I finally accepted it might be true. We were afraid that if I came to Spain, I would risk exposing you both. I had to wait until Alexei contacted me again.” Her face tightens. “Those weeks were... long.”
“When finally I managed to speak with Alexei, things began to happen very quickly. He put me in touch with his friend, this Lars Andersson, who helped me get into Switzerland unseen a couple of weeks ago. He told me that you would arrive soon and said I would be contacted when you made it to the safe house in Zurich. He said there was a chance that Roman might be with you. Or follow you. That was why I went to the bank every day. Just in case, you understand?”
Her voice cracks, and she turns away quickly, but not before I see the sudden sheen of tears in her eyes. “I thought it would be different.” She swallows, trying to regain control of herself, but her voice is low and strained. “I didn’t expect Roman to welcome me with open arms, of course not.” Her voice breaks again, and it’s some time before she gains control of herself. “But I didn’t expect him to be so angry. I should have, I suppose.” Her voice fades tiredly. She still doesn’t look at me.
I don’t want to feel sorry for her. I am still angry, no matter my sympathy for her struggles.
Roman and I have both lived in darkness for most of our lives because of the secrets kept by our parents. Despite the compassion I have for the years she spent running, another part of me feels frustrated that all of this has been about that damned vault.
And nothing she says will ever remove the horror of that blast.
I swallow my anger, knowing it won’t help. But in the silence that follows her story, I know I need to say something to help her understand.
“Our children were taken.” They may not be the right words, but they’re all I can manage. “And Alexei knew about it. That is too much for Roman and me to forgive.”
Rosa’s head snaps around, her eyes wide with shock. “You cannot think that Alexei knew about that bomb!”
“You said it yourself.” I’m unable to hide the anger in my voice. “Alexei told you it was going to happen.”
“No!” Her face is white, her lips quivering with emotion. “No, I don’t believe that. Alexei would never endanger you like that, let alone children. Never.”
I close my lips on all the things I want to say, knowing they won’t help.
Rosa stares at me, clearly trying to work out how to argue the point, but I don’t have the energy for it.
“Excuse me.” I stand up, my stomach churning.
I head to the bathroom and throw up, again and again.
When I come out, I choose another seat, as far away from Rosa as the private jet will allow. I close my eyes, trying not to think about where Roman is right now, or about all the things that can go wrong.