32. Tristan #2
I’ve sat next to Isolde all day on one of the couches, but her other side is always occupied by one of her other friends. Lennie, Russet, Adeline, or Ren. Luis is back and forth between the living room and kitchen, bringing us snacks that Abe makes.
Ben is also making phone calls. More and more people are getting nervous as the various syndicates around us realize something is going on.
Isolde leans her head back on the couch.
“I can get Tyler.” I keep my voice quiet, aware she doesn’t like a fuss.
She hasn’t complained once about her injury.
I watched her for five days, sleeping like a zombie or sobbing uncontrollably.
Never once did she mention her side, her brain had wound so tight against her other injuries.
But I haven’t forgotten about it for a single second.
She’s pale and without sounding like a possessive asshole, I wish she’d slow down.
At the same time, I’m glad to see her back to her love of planning.
“No, I’m fine.” She grabs my hand, and my spine relaxes against the Zimin’s ridiculously expensive couch.
Ben wraps up a call, nodding toward Ren, who gets up. Adeline promptly takes her seat.
“That Blake?” Isolde asks, nodding at Adeline’s phone.
She’s been on it the whole time. “I tipped off a reporter in the UK. I’m waiting for the news to break about the Met taking down a sex trafficking ring.”
“Wait, who’s Blake?” Lennie asks, looking up from her book.
Adeline’s phone rings. She stares for a second, debating taking it before hopping up and walking out.
“Wait, who’s Blake?” Lennie calls after her and then asks me, “Do you know?”
I cross my arms, leaning into the couch. I am not getting dragged into Adeline’s love life.
Ian appears, holding out a bowl of popcorn slathered in chocolate and pretzels.
“I love it when Abe comes over,” Russet utters with awe.
“Your child has eaten her weight in sugar,” Tyler replies. He’s hung out with his old neighbor most of the day when he didn’t doze, recovering from the night shift.
Ian settles down on the floor, passing the bowl to Russet.
“Oh, don’t side-eye me,” he says to me, bringing his knees to his chest as he relaxes. “I’ve spent enough time on babysitting duty.”
“You realize Abe was watching you,” Ren says, and for good reason.
Boris hasn’t looked at Ian once, but that’s not to say he won’t. He’s talked to his daughters occasionally, but his focus remains on being by Lev’s side, who keeps frowning at his wife, a mixture of worry and confusion on his face.
Lennie closes the book she’s been pretending to read, shifting her body so she can look at Ian better.
“How is your brother?” she asks in that shy voice she reverts to when speaking to newer people.
Ian’s head swings up. “My brother? Ciaran?”
She nods.
He makes a funny face. Not quite annoyed, but also resigned to the fact that everyone will always bring up his younger brother.
This time I don’t blame his curiosity.
“How do you know Ciaran?” Ian asks Lennie.
She frowns, the movement rippling the scar on her cheek. “Did he not tell you about him and A—”
The phone in the study rings. Every head snaps toward the room, where the double doors are wide open. Evening has fallen, so a few lamps emit soft yellow light.
Isolde is the first to stand, like she senses that this is finally the phone call we’ve been waiting for.
Yelena lets it ring, half in the shadows of the dim study. Lev stands beside her.
Her sons creep in behind Isolde, jockeying for space, while everyone else gathers.
The phone rings in the otherwise hushed air. I’m afraid she’ll leave it too long, and the call will end when a frail hand places the phone on speaker.
There’s a beat of silence.
A man’s voice fills the room, sending a crackle through the Russian men. They are still not happy an opponent has stayed off their radar for so long.
“Yelena Sokolova.”
Isolde cocks her head to the side, interested, but otherwise unbothered by the voice. Yelena’s sons, however, frown.
And I don’t blame them. The longer the Spider talks, the more apparent it is that he’s a misogynistic asshole.
“My family had wondered when you would come calling. We’d thought for sure you would be asking for our help getting rid of that squirrel piece of shit your father wanted you to marry. How is he? Still in love with his first wife, I hear?”
I can’t place the accent.
“Emma,” the Spider says, tsking under his breath. “So unfair to be the second wife. Especially when the first wife is a squirter.”
Boris grabs Lev’s shoulder, keeping him in place.
“It surprised us when you never called. We’d have happily killed your husband for you.”
“As if I’d let you take that opportunity away from me,” Yelena states dryly, unamused but not furious. Just bored. She’s expected this.
The Spider laughs anyway. “You’d have every reason to. It’s hard to live with a person who covets a ghost. When his cock was inside you, I wonder how many times he imagined Emma.”
Boris’s fingers dig deeper into Lev’s shoulders, stopping him from throttling the phone.
“I heard she loved to moan, much different from the frigid bitch I know. A tattoo across her thigh.”
Elijah frowns, this detail new to him.
“Those legs loved to spread for Lev. Hmmmm, yes, I always wondered how you two got on. If I could have, I would have felt sorry for you, but. . .” He lingers, implying it’d be very hard for him to feel sorry for Yelena. “Some bitches just bring misery upon themselves.”
The hair on the back of my neck rises when Yelena softly smiles.
“You are still upset about Kyiv then?”
Foreign words rattle down the phoneline. Swear words, if I had to guess.
An amused huff leaves Yelena. “Do you still walk with a limp?”
The Spider’s silence is a stark contrast to his shit talking. And it goes on. One beat, two. Yelena doesn’t move, her arms crossed as she hovers over the phone, bored again.
The man’s voice is deeper, gruffer when he speaks up again. “You escalate a war that you have no part in.”
Yelena glances at Isolde. “I am fond of women who destroy unworthy men.”
“You’re a cunt, Yelena. Always were. Always will be. If you think you can worm your way into this affair simply because you assume this to be an opportune time to try us again, you are mistaken, bitch.”
“Us?” Yelena laughs. “You are a dying breed, Christian. Anton is dead. It is just you.
“Come and meet with me,” she demands.
Christian huffs.
“Your chaos has touched my city. I tire of it. Come and put this to rest.”
“I will kill the girl.”
Tyler holds me steady.
“You will meet with us,” Yelena states.
“And if I—”
“You know Tristan Trevino, no?” she asks, meeting my eye. “The Ghost, they call him.”
“A bitch of a bodyguard if I ever heard of one.”
She smiles. “I have told him about Mazen.”
She has not told me about Mazen. But based on the tense silence ringing down the line, he is of great importance.
“What the fuck do you know about Mazen?” Christian growls.
She tsks. “You did not know he was here?” After a beat of silence, she continues. “I suppose it is no matter. Trevino is very worried about his woman. He will do what is necessary.”
Me and this Mazen guy are being used as bait. And Christian knows it too.
“That’s the play then?”
“And you will take it,” Yelena says, “not because Wilf was your favorite brother, but because even after all of these years you still love his wife, Magsie, more than anything in this entire world. It must kill you. . .”
Yelena takes no notice of the room anymore. Isolde has been inching up to the desk, but the look on Yelena’s face is akin to someone deep in their memories and thoughts. She could map out a family tree of the Karamazovs. There’s no doubt in my mind she could list out who and where they are.
We shouldn’t be afraid of the Spider. We should be afraid of Yelena Zimin.
“Do you really want to risk Magsie’s oldest son when you couldn’t save her other.”
No one needs to see Christian’s face to understand the swirling fury building on the other side of the phone.
“Ivan is already dead,” Yelena says, meeting Elijah’s eye.
Lennie grabs her husband’s arm.
“Killed by a Stuart no less,” Yelena clucks, clearly unimpressed by this death. “Do you really wish for Mazen to be killed by a man who runs around in a mask they call the Ghost?”
“It is not wise to make an enemy of me, Yelena.”
“We have always been enemies. Since the moment you got your brother killed.”
Peter. She’s talking about Peter.
Yelena rattles something off in Russian, my rudimentary level of the language knowing it’s a goodbye. And a final one, if we all have our wish.