Chapter 23Ana #2
Over and over, he declares that I’m his in the video. He makes me declare it, too. He tells the world that we’re trying for a baby. I beg him to give me a baby. Everything he says is so incredibly, deliciously crass, and every single thing he says, he does so with love.
Vasily loved me in this video every bit as much as I loved him.
And I don’t know that anyone else would see it the way I do, but he’s not nearly so concerned about camera angles or dominance or shock value as he is that I’m safe.
I’m comfortable. I’m enthusiastically consenting to everything he does.
He loves me so much.
I can’t help but pull up the other video after I finish this one.
I force myself to get past my begging him to stop, his cruel words and manhandling, I get to a point where he forces me to perform oral sex on him and then tips my head up when he finishes so he can spit in my mouth and I can drool the mess all over myself, and it’s impossible to ignore the truth when I see my eyes .
I was excited. I didn’t know what he was going to do, but I tremble as though on the verge of orgasm as he degrades me.
Conversely, he seems far less sure of himself than I initially thought and every bit as surprised as I am by his own actions.
I think I made him do this. I think that for all the lies he told me in Los Angeles, he was dead serious when he told me exhibitionism is my thing, not his.
It takes me some time to steady myself before I return to the McDonald’s, and my brain is filled with so many questions that, unfortunately, I don’t think a single person in the world can answer except Vasily.
My eyes go to the table we were at, which only has what’s left of my meal on it, and I panic for a second that this was all some terrible trick and Maria’s run off with my son.
But no, a peek around the corner has me spotting them both sitting on the edge of the ball pit with their legs dangling in it as though poolside.
Maria is saying something to Artom, but the restaurant is too loud for me to hear anything.
Whatever she says, he laughs loudly, cracking up at the joke.
Maria is a confusing person. I don’t understand who she is or where she exists in the world between Vasily and me, but my instincts feel positively about her.
I know she won’t be able to answer all my questions, but I don’t think she’ll intentionally guide me in the wrong direction.
Instead of sitting next to Artom, I sit next to Maria. “Are you a threat to Vasily?” I ask with a gesture to where I know her gun is.
“No. My job is more about managing than ending his career.”
“How can I trust that? You’re law enforcement! He’s—” Not going to say it, not to her. It doesn’t matter that she knows his crimes far better than I do or that I don’t actually have spousal privilege because I’m not actually his spouse .
“A crime lord? Who’s murdered at least thirteen people in the last decade and is responsible for countless others? Who’s a leading contributor to the ghost gun industry?”
I grimace. I didn’t need a body count.
“I provided the equipment necessary for those guns.”
I pan slowly to her, then look around to see if there’s some hidden cameras somewhere. But nope, just screaming kids and tired parents. “So... you’re a... rogue ATF agent?”
“Again, I’m more of a manager. He was going to produce them whether ATF was involved or not, and if we shut him down, someone else would take over.
Vasily’s been incredibly effective at dominating the market and is about as ethical as we can hope for, so we’d rather him in business and monitored than whoever would take his place. ”
“And Tony? Are you a threat to him?”
She’s slower to answer that one. She hums thoughtfully before going with, “Not through my job.”
“So if it came down to a fight between Vasily and Tony?”
“I would never side with Tony,” she says honestly, with a grimace that tells me she’s painfully aware that Tony is my brother and my loyalty is currently in question.
But no, I need this honesty. “You don’t say you would side with Vasily,” I point out.
She gives me a half smile. “I tell myself I would remove myself from the situation. That’s the right thing to do.
But the longer I’m in this game, the harder it is to do the right thing.
My entire life is trying to figure out if the wrong thing is justified, and I just keep justifying it. So I don’t know.”
“Does he know what you are?”
A shrug to that. “I’ve never told him. But he’s a smart man. And Janson—have you met Janson?—is former FBI. It’s a dance we all do. So maybe he does, but I keep going like he doesn’t, just in case.”
“Are you in love with him?” I ask, knowing we’ve already gone over this but needing the assurance.
Before she can answer, Artom peeks around to look at both of us and say, “Mommy, she can’t be in love with Daddy. You’re in love with Daddy.”
Maria snorts.
My cheeks heat up. “Have I told you that?”
Artom bites his bottom lip like he’s realized he’s said something he shouldn’t have, but Maria and I both give him the sort of looks that wring the truth out of little boys. “Umm, no. But... Uncle D did. He said you love Daddy and Daddy loves you, but Daddy’s a yobany priduruk.”
“Uncle D?” Maria mouths at me as I ask, “What’s that mean?”
I shrug at her. Yeah, still no idea who Uncle D is.
Artom shrinks like a turtle retreating into its shell.
“Is it a bad word?” I ask, and he nods in relief.
“I’m not in love with him,” Maria assures me. “I like him more than I probably should, but not in that way. He’s just, well, you know already how good he is at scratching itches.”
I grimace.
“Mommy’s got this long stick thing for scratching itches,” Artom chimes in.
I grimace harder. “A back scratcher. He means a back scratcher.”
“Uncle D says I’m not supposed to go in your bed drawer ‘cause of your back massager,” he adds.
There’s an incredibly long, incredibly painful moment of silence where I just want to crawl into the ball pit and die, but I also don’t want to find out what nightmares I might find at the bottom of a McDonald’s ball pit.
And I’ve been wondering about who this Uncle D is.
I had a thought he might be a boyfriend, but if he thinks Vasily and I love each other, hopefully not.
If he says bad words about Vasily, though, and if he knows about my ‘back massager,’ maybe he is my boyfriend, and he’s hoping I’ll eventually give up on the guy who’s clearly not coming back.
The guy who I still don’t understand why he sent me back to my brother to begin with. I saw how he looked at me in those videos. That wasn’t a man planning on sending me back home pregnant out of spite, like Tony described it.
“I know you have a lot to think about,” Maria eventually says.
“And if you don’t want to go back to Vasily, I understand.
I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have your strings pulled in a hundred directions and not have any of your life experience to guide you.
There’s some stuff happening right now, too, stuff I don’t think you should be mixed up in.
I promised Vasily I’d keep you safe, and that’s all I care about.
But Tony... Tony has put you in bad spots before, and I can’t say he won’t do it again.
So I’d like to work on getting you out of his place as soon as I can.
If your memories come back or if the situation changes somehow and you decide Tony is your best bet, that is.
..” She shrugs. “That’s not what I’d advise, but it’s your choice.
But I want you at least independent somehow. ”
It seems impossible, not when I can’t function, but those newspaper articles bolster me some.
“I owned a business, a restaurant. I have a whole community back in Florida. The church, there’s a women’s shelter I’m heavily involved in, and I think I need to figure out who Uncle D is.
Plus, Artom’s school. I don’t want him to fall behind because of me.
Do you think we could figure out how to get me back there? At least find out if it’s an option?”
Maria has a doubtful look on her face. She taps a finger on the edge of the pit, a tell. It’s important that I start learning tells. From Vasily and Tony, from Artom, even from Camilla. She’s my best friend, but I don’t think she was fully honest with me yesterday.
With a nod to herself, Maria says, “Yes. I will make a call to Tampa, see if I can get your information.”
“I want to talk to Vasily,” I tell her before I start to waver on that. “On the phone. I don’t have a phone, but I have access to a computer. I can talk to him that way.”
Maria lightens up at that request. “Yes, absolutely we can make that happen. He’ll feel better just talking to you, I’m sure.
He hasn’t been doing well, not mentally.
He’s just worried about...” Her words trail off as she grabs her phone, only for it to start vibrating the moment she touches it.
She frowns and takes the call with, “Hey, Janson.”
Her face falls as Janson begins to talk on the other end, but this isn’t like Vasily getting chewed out by his sister. I can’t hear his side right now.
Maria takes a couple deep breaths after she says, “Yeah, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” and hangs up. She tells Artom he should try the slide, and only when he’s up in the belly of the jungle gym does she look at me.
Her face is stricken, the color melting away behind her makeup. “Vasily’s overdosed. They think it was heroin. He’s at the hospital, but they don’t... they don’t know if he’s going to...”
I’m already on my feet when I say, “I have to see him.”