Chapter 24Vasily #2
Dima nods, breathing through any irritation at my tone. “Right. I was supposed to keep my distance unless she was in trouble, and she was in trouble pretty much the second you kicked her to the curb.”
I scowl at him as I attempt to get more comfortable on the sofa, giving up and letting my ass sink into the spot where the springs have failed. I can’t get comfortable. I’m uneasy right to my core.
Ana’s fidgety, too. “Was I... was I really that bad? I’m only remembering a few flashes, a second here and there. But I thought I was doing okay.”
The bastard softens his harsh features. “You were hanging in there. But it was you against the world, and once Tony kicked you out, you were a single mom barely able to keep everything together.”
“You should have told me,” I snarl at him as Ana squeaks out, “I thought Tony bought me my house!”
Dima holds his hand up for me to yield as he says, “Yeah, he did, but he wanted you gone after you had Artom. He promised to help you, but that didn’t last a year before he stopped taking your calls and the collection notices started up.”
“You should have told me,” I repeat, more firmly this time. I could kill Tony for this alone. “I would have paid. I would have—”
Dima smirks at me. “You did pay. I dumped a ton of their bills onto one of your credit cards, dickhead.”
“I’m the dickhead? You never told me about my son, ublyudok!”
Dima’s low nod and long breath have an undeniably heavy quality to them, taking the mood down a notch, flipping the energy to a somber fug that has me reaching for Ana and pulling her back in.
“I had to,” he says quietly, his eyes unwavering from mine, forcing me to see the truth in his words, the conviction.
“It was for the best for him. And you. All of you. I’m sorry it all came out this way, but I’m not sorry for waiting until now to tell you about him. ”
“He’s my son. I should have been there. I should have— fuck,” I hiss, rubbing my chest roughly with my palm, pressing into the sharp pain in my heart. “He’s my son,” I repeat more softly.
“He is. And he wants you to be his dad, even if I did call you a yobany priduruk so many times he started to repeat it. But I needed you to be solid, and you were, well, you, and Lacey was doing well, and...” He scrubs the back of his head.
“You told me to make sure she was safe and happy, and the way you’ve lived your life, the way she was doing so well in Tampa, there wasn’t a good time.
But we always told Artom that you had to be apart because you loved him, and one day, you’d come back. ”
Murderous feelings brew again. Neither Dima nor Ana had the right to decide this for me.
But I was the one who sent Ana away the second I had to take over the brigade. I was the one who couldn’t see anything else except my impending demise, so I couldn’t allow her to stay with me and grieve the death I knew was coming. Logically, I didn’t want that for any potential child either.
But Artom isn’t a potential child. He’s my son.
I bounce up onto my feet so suddenly Ana yelps, but I need to pace.
I’m in a room built for pacing. I see the tracks in the floor, the paths men left behind as they awaited the killing blow, knowing their lives were over as surely as the lives of their wives, their children in the room across the hall.
I follow those tracks even though I’m still here.
Ana’s right here. Artom is... I don’t know where, but I trust Ana that wherever he is, he’s safe, because I know she’s a good mom .
“Was it your idea to name him Artom?”
My eyes are still hard on the floor, but Dima takes the question. “No, I was still keeping my distance then. I wasn’t even sure at first the kid was yours—no offense, Lace. I just didn’t know how far along you were until you were already having him. And then I saw him and, well...”
“He looks just like me,” I finish.
“Yep. I did some stuff behind the scenes, gave Ana some lucky days, if you know what I mean, just made sure that things went smoothly for her—oh, you’re a silent partner of her restaurant—but I kept my distance until she spotted me at a playground.”
“I remember that!” Ana laughs, and yeah, I look up to see her face light up again, and I see now that her happiness is definitely over finding the memory itself, not that it was Dima.
“You were the creepy single guy. I wasn’t even the one who spotted you, it was one of the other moms. Oh my god, it was Svetlana. ”
Dima blushes.
The fucker actually blushes.
“A single mom, I take it?” I drawl.
“They dated for, like, five minutes before she dumped him,” Ana informs me. “I can’t believe I remember that. I can’t believe she dated him.”
“Thanks, Lace,” Dima huffs. “But yeah, once Lacey knew I was watching her, she basically forced me to hang out with her. Because she missed you so much she cried about you all the time.”
He stares her down hard as he says that, ribbing her as confidently as Kseniya and I rib each other. Thinking of Kseniya steadies me again, but it’s another double-edged sword. He protected Kseniya, but that’s just another facet of this disaster .
“So let me get this straight: you’ve been hanging around with Ana, hiding her from me, practically raising my son, and still she was kidnapped, and you weren’t even there to get Artom before Tony got called in? What the fuck?”
Dima lifts a brow at Ana. “You gonna tell him?”
She stares blankly at him for some time before saying, “Oh, I don’t remember that. It’s an amnesia thing, I think. I’m pretty sure the stuff that happened right before the—” she knocks the side of her head “—are gone forever.”
Dima rolls his eyes. “Of course, the thing Vasily is most likely to still kill me over, that’s what you don’t remember. So don’t kill me over this, but... it was Ana’s idea, I swear.”
I... might kill Dima. “It was Ana’s idea to get whacked in the head so hard she lost her memory?”
“No, of course not, but...” He grunts as he hunts down the words least likely to end in his death.
“But we found out a kidnapping was planned. I tried to talk Ana into leaving, but she refused once she found out it was sex traffickers. She wanted to be a decoy so the traffickers could get caught.”
I try to stay calm; I really do. But one second, I’m standing in that path of dulled tiles, the color evened out over time and wear, and the next second, my hand is at Dima’s throat, the legs of the melamine chair collapsing under us.
“How the fuck did you let her get kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring?” I screech at him, tightening my hold even as the color in his pale cheeks goes strawberry red.
He holds his hands up for mercy, but I’m going to fucking kill him. He knew she was going to get kidnapped, and he let it happen? No, fuck everything. Fuck every single thought I had that Kostya was the villain, not Dima. If Kostya is the villain, so is Dima, no either-or.
Dima is going to die.
I get hit from the side, a swift kick from ballet flats I know were paid for with my credit card, but damn, does Ana get my kidney just right that I flop over, the wind knocked out of me.
She looms over me, all soft curves and wrecked dress and irritation and matronly exhaustion. “Dima taught me where to kick. I do remember that. And he’s the reason I haven’t hated you with every grain of my entire body for the last six years even though you’re pissing me the heck off right now.”
God, she’s fierce. I bet she’s a mama bear with Artom. And yeah, okay, I’m furious with Dima because he should never have allowed whatever crackpot plan Ana had to actually happen, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she fought tooth and nail for it. She wanted to take down a sex trafficking ring.
Dima catches his breath before swinging an arm wide enough to peg me in the chest. “We had everything planned out. She was going to get herself caught, but she had a tracker on her, sewn into her shirt. Sasha Kozlov had the GPS. He didn’t know who she was because we didn’t want him to turn us down, what with you being the fucking psychopath you are and Lacey being your girl.
We just didn’t plan for the concussion or the amnesia.
And then Lacey didn’t want to stress Artom out too much, so she decided it would be best if Artom stayed the night with Tia, his sitter, like usual before I picked him up.
We had a rendezvous point set up, she had a story she was going to tell the Consummate crew, we had a hundred contingency plans.
Even if she did get injured, I knew where she’d be.
If I didn’t hear from her, all I had to do was call Sasha again.
We spent weeks planning this. Ana even overscheduled at her restaurant to make up for this.
I was going to bring them to LA. It was time.
I was—fuck, I had it planned so goddamn well.
Then Kostya told me Ana and Artom were already in LA, and I thought everything was fine. ”
Ana didn’t just want to take down a sex trafficking ring, she did take down a sex trafficking ring.
Sasha mentioned they’d been given an anonymous tip about it, but the information was so strong that they were in full force.
He said they knew it was at a pick-up, where some poor woman was scheduled to be taken, although he didn’t know who the woman was or how she’d landed in such a predicament.
It was Ana.
“Why was Ana getting picked up in the first place?”
He gives her the most pained look, and I get the feeling this isn’t the first time he’s had to tell her why she got targeted by the ring.
“Because Tony sold her to them. He planned to pretend she’d been murdered and raise Artom as his heir, but instead of paying a hitman, he sold her. For $20,000.”
I’m going to kill so many people. So... many... people. I just have to get myself on my feet first. I have to find a safe place for Ana first. I have to retrieve Artom first.
And them I’m going to kill so many people.
But my outrage is overshadowed by Ana’s gentle, wobbly voice.
“So I was only worth $20,000 this time?”