Chapter 6 Ruslan
RUSLAN
“Ruslan?” Valentina knocks gently on the door to Ivy’s room, then lets herself inside with a steaming mug of tea in her hands.
I lift my head and watch her out of the corner of my eye, unwilling to take my eyes off Ivy. “What?”
“Here.” To my surprise, she passes the cup of tea to me. “Don’t worry, I made sure there was an insane amount of sugar in it.”
I study the cup and small cluster of bubbles spinning around on the top for a moment, fresh from the spoon she used to stir, then I accept it with both hands. “Sugar and poison?”
Valentina scoffs slightly. “If I were going to kill you, do you really think I wouldn’t do something more creative than poison?”
“I know you would.”
“Exactly.” She sighs and crosses her arms while I bring the tea to my lips and take a sip. It’s as sweet as she claimed.
“So, why then?”
“You’ve been in here for three days nursing her. I was beginning to forget what you looked like.”
“You were worried?”
“No, you just have a forgettable face and I didn’t want to shoot you the next time I saw you.” There’s a lick of humor underneath her words and amusement pulls very slightly at my lips.
“She went under asking me to let her die. The doctor who came said the stress of the crash and her injuries, plus the heartbreak of her parents, is too much.”
“And if she never wakes up?” Valentina lifts one perfectly arched brow. “You can’t stay in here forever.”
“I know. Just a little while longer.”
Valentina’s hand warms my shoulder and she squeezes once, then slips from the room.
Silence falls, and I nurse my tea. Three days I’ve watched Ivy toss and turn, caught in the throes of a fever.
Three days I’ve wet her brow with a cold towel, dribbled water past her parched lips when she’s gasped from thirst, and administered medication to try and draw her out of it.
It’s hard not to be responsible.
When I first got here, Bradley warned me about the kind of things I would see. How working here, being one of the team is unlike anything else I’d see in the world of organized crime. I was cocky and told him I could handle anything. I was the Ace, after all.
I was wrong. This entire thing sits heavily in my gut like a bad meal refusing to shift. Something about this entire situation stinks and if Ivy dies, then I’ll likely never find out the truth.
She can’t die. Selfishly, I need to know the truth. I need to know why that plane crashed, why her family was so brutalized, and why those assholes were parading as cops.
The silence drags on, broken only by the beep of her heart monitor and the occasional shift of her body under the blanket. I drink my tea until there’s nothing left, and it’s only my own body heat that warms the mug.
Three days, fifteen hours and twenty minutes after she collapsed from a fever in my arms, Ivy finally wakes up.
She cracks open her eyes slowly and stares up at the ceiling, unable to mask the clear rush of disappointment when she doesn’t see whatever it is she’s looking for. She blinks slowly, then turns her head, and our eyes meet.
“Hey,” I say quietly. “Welcome back.”
Disappointment lingers in her eyes, and the air around her seems to deflate as she stares at me. “What happened?”
“You passed out and fell into a fever. I was worried it wasn’t going to break.”
She wets her lips with a dart of her tongue. “You weren’t worried.”
Persuading her of my intentions isn’t the goal here. “A doctor came to check you over. We’ve kept your fluids up and some painkillers. It’s good to see you with clear eyes.”
Rising, I stand over her, and she continues to stare at me even as I press the back of my knuckles to her forehead. Unlike the past few days, her skin is no longer scorching to the touch.
“Am I still…” Her eyes flutter as if she’s wrestling with the urge to blink. “It was all… still true, wasn’t it?” She wets her lips once more. “The crash… my parents.”
I nod slowly and retract my hand. “It is. Doc advised that you were to get up as soon as you woke up, so when you’re ready, come and join me in the kitchen and I’ll fix you something to eat.”
She doesn’t speak again until I’m at the door, mug in hand. “I don’t know where your kitchen is.”
“Just follow the smell of food.”
Leaving the door open slightly, I walk down the hallway and fight the urge to look back. I can’t baby her, but the relief that she’s awake is like a rush. With her back in the world of the living, the truth is in my grasp. And it’s one less death I have to record.
An hour later, I stand over the stove with scrambled eggs sizzling in the pan in front of me and a row of sourdough, toasted, resting on a plate. The small squeak of a door hinge alerts me to a presence and looking up, I see her.
Ivy stands in the doorway looking somewhat frail while leaning heavily on the crutch I left by her bed. She’s still in her gown, but the dressing gown from the back of the door drapes over her shoulders, tied loosely at her waist.
“Hungry?” I ask, spooning the scrambled eggs onto the plate next to the toast. “Unless you’re lactose intolerant, in which case I’ll make you something else.”
She cautiously steps inside and tucks a strand of her messy blonde hair behind her ear. “Feel like I haven’t eaten in forever.”
I run a quick calculation in my head from the plane crash to now, then add an extra scoop of eggs. “We’ll get you back to your old self in no time.”
“Why?” Ivy hobbles toward the counter. “Why do you even care?”
“It’s my job to care.”
“Your job?” She pauses at the counter, gripping the crutch so tightly that her knuckles are pale. “What is this place? Who even are you?”
Setting the plate down on the kitchen table, I pull the chair out for her. “Eat first. We’ll talk after.”
“But—”
“Eat.” My tone firms up. “Please.”
Her eyes narrow faintly, but ultimately, hunger seems to win over and she sinks down into the chair with a soft whimper.
After securing her crutch against the wall, she picks up the silverware and delves into the food like she’s ravenous.
By the time I’ve washed up the pots and pans and wiped down the counters, her plate is spotless and she’s gulping down a glass of orange juice at an alarming rate.
“Oh, my God,” she gasps, lowering her glass and wiping away a few droplets of juice that cling to her lip. “I’m so thirsty.”
“You burned hot for a while,” I say, moving back to the table. “Although you should drink this instead.” I place a bottle of water from the fridge in front of her. “We don’t need a sugar crash. But slowly,” I add as I sit across from her. “We don’t need you flooding your kidneys either.”
She seems more alert now that she has some fluids and sugar in her, so now feels like a good time to talk.
“You talk so clinically,” she remarks after a few mouthfuls of cold water. “Eat but slowly. Drink but not too fast. Making me walk here so my joints warm.”
My brow twitches. “But you feel better, don’t you?”
She nods as she screws the cap back on the water, then a wall of thoughts seems to strike her as the shadows around her grow darker. “What happened?” she asks, and her voice quavers. “I don’t understand anything.”
Leaning back in my chair, I try to appear relaxed to ease the weight of what I have to say.
“We know someone deliberately crashed the plane you were on. While you were out, we got ahold of the investigative report and it was sabotage. A small explosive in the hold that went off on a timer and blew a hole through three different floors. Small enough to be overlooked by the untrained eye but enough to put the plane into difficulty.”
Ivy’s grip tightens on the bottle and the plastic crinkles. “Someone… blew it up?”
I nod. “And they’re cleaning up. Were you close to any of the survivors?”
She squints at me. “I… no, I don’t think so. That cop said it was only passengers who survived, right?”
I nod slowly.
“My… my friends were on the crew.” Her voice wobbles and one hand moves over her mouth as if she’s trying to smother something. “My God. They’re all dead, aren’t they? Tasha and George and…” Slowly, her beautiful eyes fill with tears.
“Every other survivor is dead.”
Ivy’s head snaps up and her watery gaze locks onto mine. “What?”
“If you believe the news, they died of natural causes or took their own life because they couldn’t cope with surviving such a crash. But we know differently. Someone is cleaning up the leftovers from the crash, and that includes you.”
Her eyes dart back and forth as she shakes her head, and the bottle crinkles louder under her fist. “But I… I-I don’t know anything! I didn’t do anything! I would never hurt someone. This isn’t my fault!”
“I know,” I reply calmly. “But I know you found the drugs on board. And I don’t know if that was intentional or accidental, but it makes you look like you know more than you’re letting on.”
“Who would you think that?” Ivy screeches as panic takes over her. “I’m just a regular person! I had a shitty apartment, and I work a long job. I deal with arrogant and whiny passengers all day. That’s it. That’s all I do! I don’t… I’m not a criminal!”
She’s convincing. So convincing that she might be telling the truth.
“There are two criminal families at war in New York City right now. The Sidorovs, a Russian family, and the Romas, an Italian family. They’ve been at war for a few years now, under careful guidance, and the drugs on that plane were part of a peace agreement between the two.
One was selling and the other was buying, so when that plane went down, a lot of money was lost on either side and people are pissed. ”
Ivy closes her eyes, and fearful tears roll down her pale cheeks. When she opens them, her eyes are still swimming. “What do you mean, crime families? Like the Mafia or something?”
My lips twitch into a brief smile. “Exactly.”
“That… that makes no sense. If there were crime families, the police would arrest them all.”
A small huff of amusement warms my chest. “You underestimate the power these families have.”
“More powerful than the cops?” She wipes under her eyes with her knuckles, but the tears keep coming. Her entire body starts to tremble as if she’s fighting to keep control of herself. I stand and fetch her some kitchen towels, then retake my seat.
“Yes. More powerful than cops. The way the world really works would shock you, but most remain in the dark for their entire lives, and we prefer it that way.”
“How can people be at war and no one knows? It would be on the news or… or the mayor would talk about it or there’d be a lot of arrests and stuff.”
“The media don’t report on it because we don’t let them. The cops get a cut of the deal and that keeps them in business. That’s just how things work.”
Her lower lip wobbles, and more tears fall silently down her cheeks even as she wipes them away. “I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”
Running my tongue along my upper teeth, I study her face as I speak, looking for any sort of reaction or hint toward the truth.
“The deliberate destruction of that plane and those drugs leads each family to believe that you, the only survivor with knowledge of the plane in any capacity, are a spy working for the other side. The Russians think the Italians paid you off while the Italians think you’re a Russian mole. ”
“I’m not either of those things. I’m American!” Ivy whines. “I’m not a spy for anyone!”
My lips curl faintly, amused by her claim. Nothing but shock melts across her face. I think I’m right. She doesn’t have anything to do with this. But someone thinks she does, which means she’s either caught up in it by accident or someone is trying very hard to make it look like she’s involved.
“I’m sorry, Ivy. These suspicions are, I think, what led to your father being murdered and your mother being attacked. What happened to them is a very cut and dry Mob hit.”
“No,” Ivy whispers, shaking her head back and forth.
“It’s not true. It’s not. My parents are good people.
My dad just works in a bank. My mom’s a florist. We’re just normal people.
It’s not true, it’s not!” A sob finally tears out of her, and she clutches one hand to her chest like it physically pains her. “I c-can’t believe Dad’s dead.”
For the first time in a long time, a real pang of sympathy stabs through my chest. Her tears and her grief feel so genuine that it’s difficult to believe she has any roots in the criminal world. Someone who does knows that at any moment the scales can tip and loved ones become a message.
“I-Is that why you k-kidnapped me?” she gasps through her tears. “To kill me?”
“No.”
“Then can I leave?”
“No.”
“B-But I want to be with my mom!”
“No.”
“No?” She stands abruptly and sends the chair clattering back against the tile floor, then she clutches at the crutch to stop herself from falling over. “You can’t keep me here!”
“I can.”
“No! I have n-nothing to do with drugs or planes or anything! I’m not a criminal. I don’t care about whatever Mafia games you’re playing. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home. I want my dad! I want to g-go be with my mom!”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Why not?” she yells between sobs. “Who the fuck are you?”
I stand slowly, wary in case she decides to run and further injure herself. “I’m the only chance you have to live, Ivy.”