Chapter 33
33
DARYA
“ T hen it’s begun?”
I turn around to face Rosa, my heart still tripping wildly. Contrary to what I told Roman, I’m wearing soft wool trousers and a V-cut knit sweater. Even in summer, London isn’t exactly cami weather, especially close to midnight.
But Roman didn’t call to hear about my wardrobe. He called because he’s going to war, and he needed to know that I am going in with him.
“Yes.” I meet her eyes. “It’s begun.”
She sits down heavily on a chair and runs a shaking hand over her face. “I forgot what this feels like.”
More to distract myself than anything else, I say, “Did Roman’s father go to war like this too, then?” Perhaps because of the delicate beauty of his jewelry, and maybe because of the stories my father used to tell about his friend Ruki, I don’t have an impression of Aleksander Borovsky being warlike.
“Not Aleksander, no.” Rosa’s lips curve in a soft smile of reminiscence. “It was always Sergei who did the fighting. Aleksander was Ruki, the Hands. He told me that even back in the Paris days, Sergei had kept him from the worst of the killing. By the time he met me, Aleksander was no longer involved in Sergei’s business. In fact, since they’d arrived in Miami, they’d gone to great lengths to ensure there was no connection between them at all. We even used hidden tunnels in the compound when we visited one another, so nobody saw us. Sergei and Aleksander were closer than brothers. But they were also pathological about keeping their relationship hidden.”
She gives me a half smile.
“That didn’t stop them from seeing one another, often. And although Sergei would never discuss business, we would always know when things were bad, because he would call Aleksander and me to sit with Maria, so she wouldn’t worry. Roman was just a baby then, yes? He would crawl all over the kitchen floor while Maria and I baked. We used to bake to distract ourselves,” she says wistfully. “Aleksander would sit at the kitchen table, tinkering with jewelry. He would give Roman small locks to play with.” Her eyes are misty with recollection. “It is so strange, these things that I remember. At the time, I hated the waiting. We were all so afraid that Sergei wouldn’t return. No matter what Aleksander said, I knew he was just as afraid as Maria and me. But now, when I am thinking back, those days feel like the happiest time of my life.”
I’m curious despite myself. “How did you and my mother meet?”
“On the way from Colombia to the United States.” Rosa answers immediately, and her face alters, the years momentarily falling away. “We were both nineteen, and neither of us spoke any English. Maria was an orphan from a small village. She had no future that didn’t involve poverty and, eventually, some kind of forced marriage, so she had nothing to lose by leaving. My family had already made a marriage for me.” She tilts her head to one side. “Not a marriage I wanted. I felt that I, too, had nothing to lose.” Her smile fades. “I was wrong about that, as it turned out.”
She glances back at me apologetically. “But you asked how Maria and I met. We were in the back of the same truck, right at the beginning of our journey. The driver took a liking to Maria—rather too much of a liking, if you know what I mean. One day he stopped the truck in a remote place and tried to pull her out of the back. Maria was kicking and fighting him, but he was too strong for her. We all knew what he planned to do. None of the other passengers wanted to intervene, in case they were denied the ride they had paid for. But I had grown up with men like him—and I was running from one who was far worse. So I hit the driver over the head with a rock.”
I give a startled cough of laughter. “What happened after that?”
“We took his gun. It was the only one on board, and we were on a remote back road, as I said.” The look Rosa shoots me is almost mischievous, and despite everything, I find myself liking her. “We gave all the passengers a choice—they could come with us or stay on the ground with the unconscious driver.” She shrugs. “They chose to come with us, of course. Your mother and I drove that truck until it fell apart beyond repair.” Her smile fades. “Then we walked.”
I sit back in my chair, digesting her words. “My mother never talked about that journey,” I say slowly. “She never really talked about you at all.”
“No,” Rosa says quietly. “No, I imagine she wouldn’t have. It was many years before I could say her name without crying. Leaving Aleksander and Roman was the most difficult thing I have ever done, or ever will do. But leaving Maria... it was like leaving part of my own body. We had been together for so long, through so much. I think that was why we were all so drawn to one another, your papa, Aleksander, Maria, and me. We all knew what it was to fight for our survival against impossible odds, to feel utterly alone in the world but for that one friend. We became one another’s family. And for the precious years we were together, that felt like an almost unimaginable blessing. One none of us ever took for granted—and one we were all prepared to lay down our lives to protect.”
The sadness in her voice is so palpable I don’t want to interrupt her. Outside the window a soft rain begins to fall, the yellow garden lights turning the droplets a gleaming gold as they run down the window. The night outside seems almost uncannily quiet for so deep in the city. The five-story mansion is set behind a tall stone wall and surrounded by a thick garden and stone facade that effectively mask it from the street. We could be in the middle of a forest for all it feels like London.
“It was my family who came for us, in the end.” Rosa’s voice is quiet. She’s curled into the large armchair, her face shadowed in the dim light of the lamp on the coffee table. “By then, we’d stopped spending so much time together. The rumors had begun to spread. People were talking about the vault beneath your father’s house, whispering about what it might contain. Aleksander and Sergei didn’t want to draw attention to their relationship.” Her mouth curls sadly. “Alexander and I had to use the tunnels Sergei had built into the compound to visit him. Our visits were rare by then, so perhaps that is why I remember so clearly the way Sergei’s face lit up whenever he saw you and Alexei. I had never seen him so truly joyful as when he was with you both. You must remember,” she says, her eyes cutting to me, “all that Sergei and Aleksander had been through. Neither of them had come to America expecting to have another chance at family life. I sometimes think that Sergei could never quite believe it had happened. I still believe that is why he built that fortress. He was always preparing for the day when he would lose it all again.” She shakes her head. “I have wondered, sometimes, if it was our combined fears, the way we chose to deal with them, that created our own downfall.”
It’s like hearing the story of someone else’s life. I’m both greedy for every detail and dreading the tragedy I know is coming in her tale.
“I know some of this story,” I say quietly. “My father spoke a little of it, but never of his past, before Miami.”
Rosa’s mouth twists. “Aleksander told me once that both he and Sergei learned early on that the only way to deal with death or loss was to cut all memory of it out of their lives. He said that in the gulag where he and Sergei were both born that was the only way a man survived. He learned to leave grief behind, to never speak of it again. To cut the pain out of his heart and mind, or else he went insane.” She meets my eyes. “I know it must seem unfair to you, even cruel. But when life is full of death, we survive as we must. And some wounds are too painful to ever reopen, mija .”
My heart clenches at the old endearment. Nobody has called me my daughter that way since my mother died. Hearing it now is a bittersweet echo of the past, a reminder of all I’ve lost, and of all I still have to lose.
“I think I can understand what you mean,” I say quietly.
“Yes.” Rosa nods slowly, her face sad. “I guess you can.”
“Your family.” I return to the story, unwilling to allow myself to think too long on those things I might still lose if tonight does not go well. “The Cardenas cartel.”
“Ah. I see Sergei told you that much, at least.” Her mouth tightens. “They’d never stopped looking for me. I was my father’s only child. He had promised me as wife to the head of a rival cartel. Traded me like livestock. When I ran, I shamed my father and caused a war. Families like mine don’t forget insults like that. And there’s always someone willing to hand over information when the price is right.”
“I understand why you left Roman and ran.” It’s true; I do. “I know you were afraid that your family would hurt your husband and son. But I’m not sure I will ever understand why that vault was so important to you all, no matter what is inside it. Why would you risk losing your own son, just to protect his inheritance? It makes no sense to me.” I frown, staring at her. “There is nothing— nothing —I wouldn’t do to protect my children. I can’t imagine thinking a vault was so important that I would leave my child in danger.”
Rosa flinches slightly at the last line. “We thought that linking all three of you to the vault might save you from danger.” Her voice is subdued. “It wasn’t what was inside the vault that we were trying to protect, but the opposite,” she says quietly. “We thought that one day that vault might be the thing that protected you. A bargaining chip to trade for your lives, if you had to.”
I swallow a sudden, bizarre urge to laugh.
Or throw up.
“It didn’t quite work out that way.”
“No, it did not.” Rosa doesn’t try to defend herself, for which I’m grateful. “What I can say is that I never thought the Cardenas cartel would come at us with the power they did, nor that the war would rage on so long. They didn’t have that kind of power when I left Bogotá.” Her face darkens. “If we’d known Vilnus Orlov was bankrolling them behind the scenes, not to mention selling Sergei out the entire time, it might have made more sense.”
It wasn’t the Orlovs bankrolling them. It was Fedorov. For a moment I consider telling Rosa about Ilyan Fedorov. I have so many questions, things she might be able to answer. But then I remember Roman’s warning not to mention even the name to his mother.
Following his directions has never been more important than now.
Are they fighting now? Is Roman standing in front of a hail of bullets while I sit here?
I shiver.
I’m almost grateful for the interruption when the door opens and Vera enters the room.
My gratitude lasts about as long as it takes to absorb the scowl on her face. A scowl which, after even the few hours I’ve spent in her company, I’ve begun to think is a permanent fixture.
“You’re both up late.” She glares pointedly at first Rosa, then me. “Is anyone ever going to actually explain to me what is going on?”
She speaks English with a heavy Russian accent. Perversely, I haven’t actually told her I speak Russian, not least because Rosa doesn’t, and I don’t have the energy to deal with Vera’s seemingly permanent state of bitter discontent alone.
“Your guards have taken my phone,” Vera continues in a strident tone, “and the landline is dead. I’ve been given no explanation for why my home has been invaded. The only contact I’ve had from Roman in weeks was the call to inform me that you were coming to stay, but what you’re doing here without the children, when you are supposed to be their au pair, I’m sure I don’t know!”
She pauses to inhale. Her nonexistent bosom heaves up and down on a chest so thin it’s hard to believe a morsel of food ever passes her lips. Her penciled eyebrows arch so high they almost disappear inside her enormous blue-rinsed coiffure, over black eyes that watch us as beadily as any crow’s.
“I haven’t heard a word from Inger,” she snaps, fingering a diamond necklace so heavy it’s a wonder it doesn’t crack her skinny neck. “And I don’t understand why I’m not allowed to call darling Nicky.”
Darling Nicky?
Oh, God. Nobody has told her about Nikolai being dead.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given the tension we’ve been living with. But still.
Nikolai was her son.
She’s lost both of her children now.
I want to feel the horror of that.
But the truth is that from the moment we walked through her door, Vera Stevanovsky has been so damned nasty to us both that it’s difficult for me to feel anything for her other than distinct dislike.
From being openly insulting about Roman to never allowing me to forget that I’m the hired help, she’s made it perfectly clear at every possible opportunity that our presence in her house is an enormous imposition.
“I will be having words with Roman when he returns from wherever he is, you can depend on that. What are we coming to, if I must entertain his staff as if they are royalty?” Vera stabs a wooden side table with one sharp fingernail. “Two strangers in my house,” she mutters, glaring at us. “Yuri should never have handed that bastard boy the pakhan ’s chair.”
“Mrs. Stevanovsky.” Rosa stands up, her normally soft brown eyes flashing with a rather dangerous light. “Roman placed us under your roof because he wants to keep us safe. I doubt he would appreciate his... Lucia being treated with disrespect.”
According to Roman’s instructions, we’re in Vera’s house under our cover names. Lucia, in my case, and Sofia, in Rosa’s.
I didn’t realize quite how grating it would be to disappear back into the shadows of Lucia Lopez, nor how accustomed I’ve become to being seen, if not as Roman’s wife, at least as his partner.
Roman warned us that, for security reasons, neither Vera nor Yuri know the children are missing.
He neglected to mention that they don’t know their only remaining son is dead.
Then again, given that it was Roman who killed him, I guess that omission might have been on purpose.
Fuck.
I can’t tell her. Not now, not while Roman is risking his life to get the children back. I remember what Ofelia told me about the way Vera reacted when she received word of Mikhail’s death, locking herself in her room and screaming for hours on end.
Something tells me she’s likely to take the news about Nikolai even more badly.
It’s past midnight, and my morning sickness has returned with a vengeance amid all the stress.
I’m not telling her the truth. It isn’t my call to make, and I won’t endanger Roman, no matter how indirectly.
All of this passes through my mind rapidly. I blink back to the present to find Vera staring at Rosa in open-mouthed astonishment, clearly still astounded that a stranger had the temerity to confront her in her own home.
“Well,” she mouths furiously. “Of all the ungrateful, rude—”
“We’re so sorry, Mrs. Stevanovsky.” I interrupt her, placing a calming hand over Rosa’s and forcing myself to smile. “We have had a very worrying few days. There was a security scare with the children, and Mr. Stevanovsky wanted to make sure they were safe. I know he deeply regrets disturbing your peace, but he told me that you are the only person he trusts to keep us safe in his absence. We’re both so grateful for his care, and for your patience.”
The black eyes drop to me, and Vera’s thin lips curl in contempt. It’s my turn to feel the anger rise. I’m grateful for Rosa’s warning squeeze of my hand.
“Hmph.” Vera’s eyes flash spitefully, and she stalks out of the room, leaving an overwhelming cloud of Lanc?me Climat perfume in her wake. The scent of violets almost makes me heave again.
“ Dios mio ,” Rosa mutters as the door slams closed behind Vera. “Please tell me Roman does not call that woman mother.”
I snort into my hand. She catches my eye and gives a soft chortle of her own. A moment later, we are both doubled over, hands stuffed in our mouths to try to stifle our laughter. Perhaps it’s the tension, or perhaps it’s just the layers of insanity we’ve both been living for so long, but we both laugh until tears run down our cheeks.
When we’re finally done, Rosa takes my hand, and I let her.
Roman will be on the call to Orlov right now.