Chapter Thirty-Six
In which there is stress baking and despair that even a mint brownie can’t fix.
Caroline…
The flight back is acutely painful.
Isaak and Rafail will not look at me, and I don't blame them. I betrayed their trust and opened them up to punishment if something had happened to me.
Alexsey, at least, smiles at me before sitting down with Roman and Nikandr. I'm in the back, surrounded by guards. How could Nikandr possibly think I wanted to see Johann? That I was feeding him information?
He's not wrong, I think miserably. I suddenly insisted on flying to Boston.
I escaped my guards. In the Morozov Bratva, traitors are killed.
Would my husband kill his own wife? Or, have someone else do it?
A surge of nausea hits me, and I fold my hands over my stomach.
The horrors of the last two days are stacking up like a Jenga tower, ready to topple and send my sanity screaming down with it.
"I need -" I stand up abruptly. "I need to go to the bathroom."
Renat stands to escort me back and I shut the door in his face before dropping to my knees, vomiting violently. I haven't eaten since yesterday at lunch, so there's not much. Still, I keep heaving for a long time until I realize I'm sobbing.
Everything in my life has collapsed in twenty-four hours.
To the Morozovs', this is worse than my brothers betraying Liria.
I don't know how I can prove why I was there.
Based on how Nikandr looked at me at Johann's crumbling mansion, how he had me carted away, I don't think he's going to give me a chance to try.
Washing my face, I look at myself in the mirror. My eyes look dead. My face is pale.
Fuck this, I think. I'm not a traitor; I'm not going to let them make me feel like one.
I put on my customer service face. The one I wear for surly and aggressive guests.
The one I wear to soothe the precious feelings of a deeply entitled rich boy who demands special services.
The customer service face that means, you can never upset me.
I walk back down the aisle, ignoring everyone's stares, looking out the window for the rest of the flight.
***
Vasilisa meets us at the private airport, frowning as she watches Illary and Renat escort me down the stairs, firmly gripping my arms. Nikandr gives her a brief instruction before getting into his Maserati SUV. He doesn't look back.
She approaches me slowly, hands in her suit pockets. "You'll be coming with me, Mrs. Morozova."
Watching my husband's car drive off, I give a short, humorless laugh. "Sure. Why not?"
To my surprise, she and the guards take me back to the penthouse. I'd expected one of the concrete-lined cells in a Bratva warehouse. "There will be guards stationed here at all times," Vasilisa says. "I fear that you will not be allowed to leave under any circumstances."
"But… I have work," I say stupidly. "The Lyric needs a GM."
She shrugs. "I'm sure your assistant managers will be called in to handle the day-to-day function of the hotel." The look she gives me is not unkind. I've seen Vasilisa's glare and it radiates enough menace to make a grown man drop dead on the spot. "It is best that you're here. Away from others."
"Yeah, you don't want some rando killing me in a vengeance-fueled quest," I chuckle bleakly, walking over to the massive windows in the living room. I used to marvel at this view, the city spread out before me. "I'm sure they're saving me for something special."
Vasilisa steps over to speak with four body guards, I know Renat and Illary, the other two are hard-faced men who look like they'd be happy to stab me themselves.
No Isaak and Rafail. When she comes back to me, she's still wearing a vague look of concern.
"Please do not make life hard for your security team.
No matter what you might have done, they are still prepared to give their lives to keep you safe. "
"That was a direct blow to the heart," I say, absently rubbing my chest. "Well-aimed."
"Thank you," she says modestly. "I will see you soon, Caroline Morozova."
Looking down at my wrinkled dress, I realize I'm still wearing my dress from yesterday with a Diet Coke spill down the front. Johann sucks as a host. No food. No change of clothes. Yeah, he's gonna make some woman the happiest bride in the world.
When I head for the hall, Renat steps forward. "Your areas of access in the penthouse are limited, ma'am."
"Can I go to my bedroom for a shower and a change of clothes?" I hate him. None of this is his fault but he's here and I hate him.
His face clears a bit. He's an older man, early fifties with every inch of skin covered in tattoos, down to the knuckle. "Of course." He follows me and I notice he carefully shuts the door to Nikandr's study.
Nikandr and I had sat there together, just a couple of nights ago, me doing research for wedding season at the Lyric on my laptop and Nik on his, maybe ordering surface to air missiles or something. There was an intimacy, just sitting and working quietly together that felt even stronger than sex.
My husband's face… Everything shut off when he looked at me, racing down the staircase at Johann's. I don't think we'll ever have a moment like we did in the study again.
The next morning, I wake up in our bed and for one, lovely second, everything is good. I love Nikandr, I suspect he feels the same about me… Then, everything crashes in on me. The mattress next to me is empty and I cover my face, giving myself two minutes to cry.
"Stop it," I scold myself, my voice sounding jarring in the silent room. "No more crying. Two minutes is all you get."
I remember my nightmares from last night as I get dressed.
I'd dreamt of my brothers, Mikal and Bobby, pale in their caskets.
Liria insisted on coming to the small service I'd held for them.
She'd come to support me, I know. In the dream, she flipped open the lid for a third casket.
"Climb in," she'd said before turning and walking away, her heels clicking on the floor in the empty church.
What will Liria think? She would never think I was a traitor, but then, I'm sure she thought the same thing about Mikal and Bobby.
The guard rotation has changed, the two men that I don't know are looming, one by the elevator, the other in the hall. "Good morning," I say. They both regard me steadily, neither says a word.
I'm not allowed the use of the TV, my phone is gone and my laptop is locked in Nikandr's office. Thank god for books and baking. By the time the elevator dings around 3pm, I've made chocolate chip cookies, mint brownies, and a marzipan cake. I regret that one. It will never be eaten by my husband.
"Oh, honey! Are you okay?" Liria comes rushing out of the elevator, followed by her bodyguard Roan. She nearly knocks me over with a fierce hug.
"Lir, I didn't think you'd come," I whisper. "Everyone thinks I'm a traitor, just like my brothers."
"Oh, that is some bullshit right there," she snaps. "Roan, tell her!"
He's in his mid-fifties and has guarded Liria for over ten years. They have a peculiar, verbally aggressive relationship but love each other dearly.
"Oh, yes, Miss Caroline," he intones. "This is a deeply disturbing episode for a multitude of reasons."
Eyeing him, I suspect he's not fully on board with Liria's assumption of my innocence.
"Cookies!" Liria says, heading into the kitchen. "And mint brownies? You must have known I was coming!" I remember then that her favorite dessert is brownies. Was I subconsciously trying to lure my nearest and dearest with baked goods?
We sit, cross-legged on the floor in front of the two-story high windows, basking like cats in the sun and eating our way through approximately six thousand calories of dessert.
"You went there because of me, didn't you?" Liria asks, brushing crumbs off her lap.
I froze, half-eaten cookie in hand. "Why would you…" My throat tightens and it takes a minute to swallow that bite of chocolate chip goodness.
She watches me, her silvery gray eyes steady. "That's why you came to the house and cuddled the twins. You kept touching me. Then, that high-stress call? I could almost smell your anxiety. Johann, he's Dritan's little special fella, isn't he?"
I burst into laughter, trying to smother it when the guards look at me disapprovingly. I tell her about his bizarre proposal in Boston. How he broke into my office at the Lyric. The phone call where he told me he'd pin that mass grave on the Krasniqis.
"It would be just like before," I say sadly. "You being the target of everyone's rage and your fucking father continuing to whither, perfectly safe, the son of a bitch."
She's pale, but she grabs my hand. "I love you so much, fam. But you are a fucking moron. There's no negotiating with crazy people. I remembered Dritan bringing young guys to the estate and training them. Other crime families would send these poor teenagers to him."
"Johann was one of them. He threatened to pin it on you immediately if I didn't come to meet him in Boston. I insisted on a public place, but… yeah," I sigh. "That didn't help."
"Why didn't you go to Nikandr? Or Alexsey?" she frowns, still clutching her half-eaten brownie.
I rub my eyes, suddenly exhausted. "Everything's been so bad, the break ins and theft.
The Morozov soldiers getting killed. I know they've all been buried under each new disaster.
Nikandr had to fly to Moscow and save those contracts.
It's stupid, I know. I thought I could handle it, I wasn't going to let that rat bastard put you in danger again. "
Tears escape her eyes, dripping down her cheeks. "Did you really kill Dritan?"
Smiling, I feel that unhinged satisfaction again. "I stumbled onto his room while I was trying to find a way out. Why should he still be alive after everything he's done to you? I saw him there in his bed, lounging like a snake."
"How did you do it?" she whispers.
I lean forward, taking her hand. "I folded his oxygen tube in half.
It cut off his oxygen while I reminded him what he'd done to you.
But that you were happy now, and no one would remember him.
" Her eyes are enormous. "Then, I tucked the folded tube under his pillow and told him that he was killing himself.
I watched him die. I've never seen that before. "
"Thank you." She leaps at me, knocking me backward, brownies flying. "Thank you so much." I burst into tears, too.
"He's never going to hurt you again," I sob. "Dritan is the corpse he should have been years ago." Over her shoulder, I see Roan looking at us, looking terribly sad.
"I'm glad you saved Miss Liria," he says. "I am deeply aggrieved that I couldn't kill Krasniqi. I am in your debt."
"No," I shake my head. "I was in Liria's debt after my idiot brothers betrayed her."
"Stop!" Her voice is sharp. "We're not talking about that. You are not Bobby and Mikal and you have nothing to make amends for.”
I'm pretty sure that it's all the Morozov men are talking about. The odds of me being alive by this time next week are slim.
"Miss Liria," Roan crouches gracefully next to us. "I've been instructed to bring you home."
We hug each other fiercely. "I'm sorry," she whispers, "I nagged Alexsey for hours before he'd agree to let me come."
"It's okay," I murmur back. "I'm so grateful I got to see you."
Especially if it's the last time.