CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Anastasia
All I want from Fyodor is an explanation, because I don’t understand why exactly he went to Dallas to meet with my father. I am not sure exactly what they discussed, but I plan to have my own discussion with him.
The only thing I know is that the moment he stepped on that jet heading back here, my father placed a call to me telling me that Fyodor is coming back home.
In his words, he told me that I should find a way to forget about the past and look forward to what the beautiful, bright future stands to hold.
For the past two days, I have been thinking hard after listening to what Dimitri had to say and what Katya keeps saying about how much her brother sacrificed everything. The truth of the matter is, there are still many things about both Dimitri and Fyodor that I do not know.
But today, I intend to get to the bottom of it all.
I patiently wait in the living room, knowing that sooner or later he will appear.
Finally, about five hours after he left Dallas, I watch the door open, and Fyodor steps in.
He seems taken aback to see me in the living room, and I get on my feet as I walk to the door.
“Welcome back, darling,” I greet him with a smile. Fyodor barely moves, almost as if he’s frozen on the spot. “Papa told me that you would be tired when you got home. By chance, would you like to freshen up, or do you just want to sit down here and chat?”
It took him going away for me to realize that I am in love with him.
And with what Dimitri told me, I am determined to see if there’s a way that we can make things work between us.
I have never been the type to easily give up, and I am starting to see how perfect the two of us are together, but will I be able to convince him?
He hesitantly tells me that he would like to have a shower first. The most important thing is to let him relax before we dive into our conversation.
Fyodor climbs the stairs, and I follow after him.
He goes into the bathroom while I remain in his bedroom, thinking about how much I’d love to step inside with him; however, there are more important things for me to deal with.
We’ve only been intimate three times, yet I find every fiber of my body craving his touch, and for so long I have been blaming it on the pregnancy.
Now, I am no longer in denial, as I know that I truly want Fyodor in every sense of the word.
The pregnancy angle was just a lie I came up with to justify why I would crave the touch of the man who killed my brother.
After discussing with Dimitri and seeing Fyodor’s reaction to my confession, I consider the possibility that he might actually not have been the one who killed my brother.
But that begs the bigger question of how exactly he is involved in this whole mess.
Why did he leave San Francisco and come to LA if he wasn’t involved?
After his shower, Fyodor steps out of the bathroom, and I can't help but stare at his face, his hair dripping wet, his broad chest, and the tattoo on his chest.
“Do you want to talk about it now?” Fyodor asks as he puts on a shirt.
“Talk about what?” I ask, looking away from his body.
It takes a few seconds for me to realize what he’s talking about, and I answer that I have no problem waiting. Fyodor comes to sit right next to me, asking if I am all right.
“Yes, I’m fine; I just think that it’s time we have a heart-to-heart conversation. No secrets; just the two of us opening up to each other.”
He brings his hand to my face, and from this simple gesture, I can sense his affection and desire.
I bring my own hands up, wanting to feel his biceps and his skin against mine. This man is clearly driving me crazy, and I wonder how anyone is able to do any work when around him.
“Even if I am responsible for your brother’s death?” he finally asks.
“Are you?” I bring myself to ask him.
He doesn’t give a reply, but instead, he moves away from me. Something about his retreat scares me, and the possibility that Fyodor might be saying goodbye breaks my heart. However, I am not going to give up that easily.
Papa asking me to forget the past and look forward to the future has to be some subtle sign from him that Fyodor isn’t involved in Alexei’s death, but I don’t want to read too much into his words. I need to hear from Fyodor how exactly he was involved in the events from ten years ago.
“Yes and no,” he finally answers. “I didn’t kill your brother, but my inadequacies caused his death.”
That statement is a bit confusing, but I’m sure that Fyodor has a reason for giving it. He gets on his feet and tells me that this might take a while, and he needs me to let him finish his story before I react.
“Once I am done, I’ll be okay with whatever decision you make.” He looks at me, his eyes filled with emotion.
I am not sure what the perfect response is, but I tell him that I won’t have a problem making a decision once he gives me the full story. With that in place, Fyodor tells me about what happened ten years ago.
At the time, he had just joined the San Francisco Bratva and was working as a runner.
His intention was quite simple: take over his father’s place and try to provide for his siblings, who were just thirteen and seven back then.
His mother had medical complications, so she couldn’t exactly work, and his father had died in an accident, so the responsibility of looking after his family rested on his shoulders.
“I’m not sure if you’re familiar with how things like this are done, but starting as a runner is pretty standard.”
I am well familiar with the runner system, but I let Fyodor continue with his story.
He had been placed under a man named Yuri, who had him running errands from getting drug deliveries, delivering cash to the cleaners, and once in a while, he would have him deliver guns to anyone who might be in need.
Fyodor’s plan was quite simple, and it involved him trying to get as much of a reputation as he could so he could climb the hierarchy quickly, but climbing the ranks wasn’t that simple.
“I had just made a delivery that day when Yuri called and asked me to run an errand.” Fyodor leans against the wall. “It was out of the blue, which is unlike Yuri, but I thought there had to be a good reason for it.”
After delivering the package Yuri had asked him to deliver, Fyodor was leaving when he came across a car wreck. He had seen people from two other cars taking things out of the wreck, and he had hidden, knowing full well what it looked like.
“I planned to run away, but then I heard someone calling for help. A man’s voice,” Fyodor says slowly, his voice getting heavy with each statement. “I debated whether I should get involved, but in the end, I couldn’t just stay away.”
As he approached the wreck, he noticed a man who was trying to crawl out of the car and a young girl who was pinned.
“My first intention was to get the guy out and then work my way toward rescuing the girl, but he told me that I should save his sister first.”
Tears begin to stream down my face as I realize that Alexei had pushed for Fyodor to rescue me instead of him.
Fyodor moves closer, sitting right next to me as he wipes my tears away.
He tells me that he spent minutes trying to free the girl, and just as he began to take her away, she gained consciousness and began to scream her brother’s name.
“I had to get her to safety first before going back to rescue her brother, but before I could, the car exploded,” Fyodor ends his story. “It’s my fault that Alexei died, because if I had not debated… if I had been quicker, I might have been able to save him that day as well as you.”
My tears are now in full swing, and Fyodor holds me tenderly as the grief wracks my entire body. Alexei sacrificed his life for me, and Fyodor was instrumental to my survival.
“I went to see your father to try and discuss things with him because I never knew back then who Alexei truly was. After the incident, Yuri told me that I had to go underground, and then he brought me here to LA to start under Ivan Orlov.”
“Why didn’t you say anything when I asked you about it?”
He shrugs, and hands over the original police report.
He then tells me that he wasn’t sure exactly how to convince me that he wasn’t really responsible for Alexei’s death without some sort of proof.
Back then, I would have taken anything he said as nothing but simple deflection, but now I know better.
“I already had someone looking into Alexei’s death after I met with Dylan, and he mentioned how this was something you had planned, back when we met at that bar.”
“Dylan? You met with Dylan?”
He nods and explains that he had someone tail Dylan, and he had appeared in Los Angeles a few weeks back. “He was trying to meet with you, but I wasn’t sure how you’d take the news, so I had to meet with him first.”
If it had been Papa, I know that Dylan would be buried somewhere at the moment; but Fyodor isn’t that kind of person. I have no idea why Dylan would think I’d want to meet with him after everything he did, but then, people can be silly at times.
“He’s currently somewhere in Canada, unless he managed to get caught by your father,” Fyodor assures me. “I know how much he meant to you, and I didn’t want to hurt him for your sake.”
Fyodor is a wonderful man, and I almost messed things up. He looks me in the eye and then asks me if there’s anything I’d like to say.
“I’m sorry,” I begin as I break down into tears again, and Fyodor tells me that there’s no reason for him to apologize.
“You only wanted to get revenge for your brother, and if I were in your shoes, I’d have made the same choice without thinking twice.”
I look at him, finding it difficult that despite everything I have done, not only is Fyodor caring and understanding, but he’s willing to make things work between us.
“And now? Do you think we have a chance?” I bring myself to ask him.
“Anastasia,” he begins, “I have tried to battle my feelings for you, especially since I have always been convinced that there’s no way I’d be able to get Natalia out of my mind.
I won’t say that I am in love with you because I am still not sure how I really feel, but one thing I know for a fact is that I want a future with you, and I’ll do everything in my power to get that. ”
That is more than enough for me, and I lean forward, kissing Fyodor on the lips, sealing our union together.