Chapter 23Ana
Ana
"You know more about me than I know about you," I remind Maria as we sit down outside the McDonald's half a mile from Tony's house.
I refused her offer to drive us somewhere nicer, and she understood.
She's treating me to a six-piece McNuggets and Artom to a cheeseburger Happy Meal, which he orders with all the gusto of a kid who knows he's getting away with something but can't resist.
The moment I bite into the nugget, I know there isn't a chance in hell we eat this regularly. It's not even the chicken that's the problem. It's overprocessed, clearly mashed together from whatever bits of the chicken made their way into the blender, but it's the breading that alarms me.
How do you get breading that consistency? Why does it feel like that in my mouth? What is in this seasoning and why is it inherently wrong in a way I just know I've questioned every time I've eaten them?
I'm not mad at Maria, though. I don't trust her, but so far, she hasn't done anything to me.
"Sounds like that's a common theme in your life," Maria replies, zero sympathy in her voice. I don't think we were friends or even friendly with each other, but I appreciate that she's not holding back.
"What did Vasily tell you?"
She gives Artom a look that tells me she doesn't want to say anything in front of him.
"Why don't you go play with the other kids?" I tell him, pivoting in my seat to make sure I can see the ball pit clearly from my seat. I don't think I trust that pit either, but I'll give him a bath when we get home.
Artom grabs his food and runs off, making instant friends with the other kids in there. I honestly can't believe how lucky I've gotten with him.
"I can tell you all kinds of stories about why Vasily is the hero and Tony is the villain in your story, but for real?
For real real? I'm here of my own accord, and my only interest is in keeping you safe.
If you don't believe that, believe me that my life would be a hell of a lot easier right now if you'd kept your ass in Florida. "
"Why? What did I do? I'm the victim here!
I had no—" My words and my confusion die when I catch her flushing.
She has a thick coat of makeup on, a natural look but a foundation that nothing passes through, but she reddens right to her ears.
I don't know how I know, not when I don't even know the stuff I do know, but I know.
"You're the reason he has condoms in his office," I hiss at her.
I swear I say it quietly, but the air around us goes stagnant as conversation dies off and eyes slide our way. And I'm pretty sure I sounded way more pissed than I meant to, than I really am.
Because I'm not pissed.
I'm not.
But she's prettier than me.
If I was worried about honesty from her, "Yeah, but mostly out of boredom," is enough to make me think she doesn't know how to be anything but honest.
And then she adds on, "And full disclosure, I'm ATF."
She even pulls out her badge.
There's no way for me to know if it's real, but it looks real.
"That's... a lot," I mutter, not sure of what else to say.
"When I said Vasily's a friend, I meant friend with benefits and nothing more. In fact, he's being kind of a dickhead right now. You know he banned me from the office while you were there? Like he thought I'd pull some jealous girlfriend crap if I met you?"
I take a sip of my Dr. Pepper to keep myself from responding, but the moment the straw leaves my mouth, I mutter, "Maybe he was worried I'd pull some jealous wife crap."
Maria's mouth twitches once, twice, and then she snorts. Her shoulders start to shake.
"He told me I was his wife!" I cry out, and now everyone is staring at me. "Do you think I wouldn't have been upset about a mistress?"
"Mistress is a strong word," she says. "I know you're not going to like hearing this, but no matter what we did, his heart was always for you."
My own heart swells at that, only for me to remember myself. Remember everything he did to me. Remember the lies and that video. "No, not him," I say quietly. "I promise, whatever you think is a heart, it's just manipulation. He's a bad man."
"He is a bad man," she agrees, "and your brother is a worse man. Tony might have told you the truth. It might have made sense and explained whatever you were doubting. But if it convinced you to come back here, I promise you Tony was manipulating the story far worse."
I desperately want to believe that, but it wasn't anything that Tony said that convinced me.
“Vasily lied about my name, do you know that?
When I was rescued— did you know what happened to me?
How I got a concussion, where the amnesia came from?
— when they checked me out afterward, my doctor told me there was no guaranteed way to get my memories back, but going back to the life I was living before would be the biggest help.
But Vasily took me to an apartment I've never been to in a city I've never been to before, and he told me this is where I lived.
He stocked it with brand-new clothing and said it was mine.
" And soap that did smell right. "He invented this whole life that had never existed, and he gave me a fake name. "
"Ana?" she asks. "Is that the name he gave you? Ana Baranov because you're his wife?"
"I'm Lacey Lombardo."
"Right. Short for Analiese. I heard once that he called you Ana because he thought Lacey was a disrespectful name. A stripper name." She shrugs. "Not sure of the truth of it."
Analiese. That's my name. I knew that. It's on all the certificates stuck to my bedroom walls. I don't know why it didn't click that Ana was simply another nickname for Analiese, but it makes sense.
I swear I can even hear Vasily complaining about Lacey sounding inappropriate, although I doubt he would have said it was a stripper name. That's not the word he would have used. It would have been far gruffer.
And as much as that already sells the story better than the assumptions I made when Artom said my name was Lacey, I can't look past the hardest truth.
The incontrovertible evidence of Vasily's cruelty.
It's hard to say it, knowing what I'm admitting to and knowing what Maria will also have to admit to, but I go for it anyway.
"I've seen the video."
Without missing a beat, Maria says, "Which one?"
It’s a small comfort that it takes Maria several minutes and even more apologies before she finds the video, but it does little to ease the bubbles brewing in my gut.
The opening frame hits hard. It’s not me, it’s Vasily, but a slightly younger version.
He manages to look both mildly stressed and sleepy, and it takes a second to remember he did a lot of drugs back then— and another second for it to hit that no one else would notice either of these things in this flash as he’s reaching for a camera.
My heart pounds. If Maria is wrong about how I’ll react to this video, I don’t know if I’ll survive cutting the final string of the love I thought I had for him.
His hand covers the lens, and when he once again releases it, the camera is facing the opposite direction, facing me.
A younger me. I’ve changed a lot more in the past six years than Vasily has.
No wonder, since I had a kid and reinvented myself on the opposite side of the country, but of course I have to wonder what Vasily thought of me when he saw me at the Consummate building.
Self-doubt threatens to hurl the McNuggets from my body, but then I see why Maria thought this video would change my perception of the events that happened six years ago.
I’m not terrified in this video like I was in the other one.
I’m in love.
In this moment, in this frame, in this second in time that’s been forever preserved, literally the entire world can see that I am in love with Vasily Baranov.
He tells me to smile for the camera, and he calls me that name he called me the last night we were together, and I hear the love in his voice.
He asks me if I love being on my knees for him, and he says my full name, Analiese, as though to confirm that whether the viewer knows me as Ana or as Lacey, they know it’s me and not a lookalike.
I don’t answer his question. Nope, I grab right for him, reaching down his pants like I own him. Like there’s not a chance in the world that I’m doing the wrong thing here because I know I can do no wrong in his eyes.
In the video, I pull his pants down, and the angle of his camera has his cock slashing across my face.
I blush, acutely aware that I’m now sitting in a McDonald’s with my son and a bunch of random kids not twenty feet away. I should stop watching. The video has done what Maria wanted it to do, I’m sure of it.
But I don’t want to stop watching.
“I’ll keep an eye on Artom for you if you want to take that outside,” Maria offers.
I thank her before pausing it and rushing out, finding a secluded spot between parking lots where I can listen to the video at full volume without worrying about getting put on a list for lewd acts in public— although that does seem to be my thing.
I can’t stop watching. I can’t help but absorb every second of it.
I can’t keep my body from responding with flutters in my core.
I watch myself playing with Vasily’s cock, and I wish I could be somewhere private so I could let it swirl in my head as I touch myself.
I feel acutely jealous of Vasily for having the last six years with this video to rub one out to, pretending his hand is mine, that it’s my fingers splayed between the bars on the underside of his cock, clearly visible in single frames that I freeze on to count.
Seven bars, but only one remains to this day. Six years gone, six bars gone.
Vasily’s insane enough to keep time that way.