Chapter 3
TATI
“So, you got to see Viktor, huh?”
I smile as I lie back on the bare mattress, phone in my ear.
The only belonging I was able to grab before they dragged me out of the club was my cellphone, and I’m so thankful for that right now.
The first thing I had to do when my father’s men brought me back to this room was call Marla.
We’ve been in touch on and off all these years, and thank heavens.
Now that I’m stuck in this situation, I’m going to need her to keep my sanity.
I had to tell her about seeing Viktor again, Nikita’s best friend and mentor when I was a kid and all through high school.
Before he was that, he was the one man in the lower ranks who always seemed to be around the house.
Especially around dinner time. By the time I was old enough to start having budding feelings about boys, he was maybe in his early twenties.
And by the time Nicki started becoming attached to his waist, he had to be nearing his thirties.
Oh, how I used to fantasize about that man. Back then, I used to try and spy on him when he didn’t think I was looking. Days when he and my brother would meet up in the kitchen and talk about girls or whatever the interest of the day was always had me sitting and listening on the stairs.
And then sometimes, I would catch them talking and sharing a cigarette on the back patio, so I would hide and admire Viktor from afar, tall and muscular, with short, dark hair and brooding, dark eyes.
Viktor Morozov in his twenties and thirties looked a little more conservative than he does now, but he still looks like sex on a stick.
The dreams I used to have about him would set my bedroom on fire if I ever revealed them outside of my diary.
I’m picturing him in my mind now, still tall, still muscular, but his hair is longer now, nearly to his shoulders, and it’s streaked with gray.
His salt-and-pepper beard is full and well-trimmed.
And those eyes, dark and sensual when he’s just gazing at me.
I can almost feel them like hands on my skin.
I chuckle deviously in response to Marla’s question. She adds, “That man has aged like fine wine.”
“Hasn’t he?” I say wistfully. “The things I would do to him if I ever got the chance.”
She laughs. “He’s still too old for you, you know. I think he’s, like, forty now.”
“Oh, come on, Mar. I’m not jailbait anymore. We’re both consenting adults now. He could probably use a young thing like me to spice up his life.”
“He’s Bratva. His life is spicy enough. No good will ever come from messing with a guy like that. Trust me, I know.” She laughs a little, and it dies away… and I remember what today is.
“Oh, Marla,” I say softly. “I’m sorry. I called you out of the blue to tell you my problems. I forgot all about what today is.”
“It’s fine,” she says. “I mean, you’ve been in Europe all this time.”
“That’s no excuse.” I sit up and cross my legs. “How are you holding up?”
“It’s been seven years,” she said. “You’d think I’d be over it by now.
I’m not, though. There’s no support group for girlfriends of late Bratva members.
” She sighs and says, “I’m okay, though.
No need for you to worry. Especially with your current situation.
I’m thinking you might be a little worse off than I am at the moment. ”
“I wish I could disagree,” I say, looking around again at my bare walls.
“He can’t keep you locked up like that… can he?”
“He can do whatever he wants,” I say as I trace the stitching on my mattress with my finger. “The only thing I’m confident of is that he doesn’t actually want me dead. Not yet, anyway.”
“Don’t talk like that. You know, he might be a Pakhan, but you’re still his daughter. I’m sure once he’s calmed down, he’ll see some sense and let you out.”
All I can do is chuckle at that. She gives my father too much credit.
“Maybe when I do break out of here, we can hang out. Just because they caught me tonight doesn’t mean I shouldn’t stop trying to escape.
I mean, even the great Nikolai Aronin can’t watch me twenty-four, seven. I’m bound to catch him slipping.”
She giggles. “I honestly can’t wait for that day. Maybe the first thing we ought to do when you break out is go shopping.”
“Or we can hit the club,” I say. “It’s been six long years since I’ve been in an American club. And at least a year since I got laid.”
“A year? Really? What about that one guy? The dude from France.”
“Yeah, we never got past second base,” I say. “Found out he had a wife and three kids in the South of France.”
She laughs. “I knew it. I told you about men in strip clubs. They’re all animals.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say with a little bit of regret.
Pierre, the guy from France, I kind of had high hopes for.
He was well-dressed and well-spoken and just nice.
Or at least he seemed that way. “I’m glad I didn’t give it up to him.
Can you imagine? He’d probably be at his job bragging about it before his side of the bed was cold. ”
“Well, we wouldn’t want a repeat of the Guillermo incident.”
I shudder. The infamous ‘Guillermo Incident’ happened while I was in Spain a couple of years ago. Met a guy, and we hit it off pretty good until his wife showed up under my balcony screaming in Spanish about how much of a homewrecker I was.
“It’s probably a good thing I left Europe, actually,” I say to Marla. “I don’t think there are any single men left in Europe.”
“If it’s any consolation, they’re all trash here too. Not that I’m looking.”
My heart sinks a little when she says that. Not that there’s any time limit on grief, but I’ve been hoping all this time that Marla finds somebody to make her happy. Instead of pushing her about it, I just say, “There are no more good men in the world, I guess.”
“Yeah. They’re all married or gay… or dead.”
I smile in spite of the sadness in the moment. I like it when she turns to dark humor.
“What do you say that instead of hitting the club,” she says, “we go to the movies? You know, they’re showing Roman Holiday at the State now. Might be interesting to watch it now that you actually made it to Europe.”
“It’s a date,” I say. I glance over at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It’s well after midnight. “I guess I’d better try and get some sleep. Who knows what fresh hell my father has waiting for me in the morning?”
“If you want, I can try to see if he’ll let me come over and give you a change of clothes, at least.” She tsked. “It’s barbaric what he’s done. You know, I ought to call the police—”
“Don’t even joke like that,” I say to her. “You know that’s not an option.”
“Yeah… Yeah, I guess it’s not.” She pauses, and I can hear more in it. “Can I ask you something? Like, in all seriousness, best friend to best friend.”
My stomach does a little flip. “That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”
“I’m serious, Tati. It’s kind of important.”
“Okay. What’s the question?”
She hesitates, and I think I hear the scratching of a pencil on paper in the background.
Marla doodles when she’s nervous about something.
“What if Nicki’s death wasn’t exactly an accident, and somebody came along and could prove it?
How bad would it be for all of you? Like, if he went to the police or the Feds about it.
I mean, not just your father, but everybody around him. ”
I frown a little. We’ve been here before. Marla has been holding onto the idea that Nicki’s death wasn’t an accident, probably since the day it happened. I have to sigh and say, “Marla, come on. We’ve been over—”
“I know we’ve been over it,” she says quickly.
“And I know you’re tired of talking about it.
I’m just asking a theoretical question because…
well, I got to thinking today that if somebody knew something and it got around to the police, then maybe more than just whoever was responsible would get into trouble. ”
I nod. I get it now. “Like me.”
“Like you. You’re my best friend… Well, kind of my only real friend. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I start to pick at one of the stitches, my mind turning. “Mar, do you know something I don’t? Somebody snooping around asking questions or something?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t think so. I mean, I wouldn’t be able to tell them anything, anyway.
I wasn’t even there when he died. I guess I was just worried that somebody else out there might have the same idea that I do.
With everything going on, it would really suck if you got caught up in that too. ”
I lean back on my headboard, looking up again at my bare ceiling in my bare room. “It’s like I told you when I left,” I told her. “I’m always all right. I know how to land on my feet.”
“Good.” She yawns. “Because I just got my best friend back after all this time. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing you're safe.”
That I am… until the warden changes his mind. “I’m gonna go to bed. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Love you, Tati.”
“Love you, too, Mar.”
I hang up, a heavy feeling in my chest. Marla’s been in pieces since the day Nikita died.
And while I blame my father for not doing more to help him, I know it was an accident.
Nikita was a shitty driver. He was bound to crash his car eventually.
I always just hoped that if or when it happened, he’d walk away from it having learned his lesson.
Marla has always held the belief that there was something more to the story.
She knew Nikita had some enemies and she knew how dangerous his life was.
I suppose it just made better sense to her that someone killed him rather than it being a product of his own incompetence.
I don’t blame her for thinking that way.
I wish I could. I’m not a fan of fate being the culprit.
Maybe she’s finally letting it go by wondering how the fallout of that might affect me. Hell, it might actually be doing me a favor if the police decide to go after my father. If he gets pinched, at least I won’t be locked up in this room anymore.
I hear talking somewhere outside, so I get up and go to the window. Walking along the sidewalk just under my window is Viktor. Handsome, mature Viktor. My father’s with him and he’s talking while smoking, the cigarette sitting strategically between the fingers of his right hand.
I wish I could read lips. The conversation looks pretty benign, but not friendly. My father’s talking and Viktor is nodding in attentive silence. Maybe he’s giving him orders.
Who has Viktor killed, I wonder? I know what he does for my dad—what both he and Nikita did together—and sometimes, I wonder what that must be like for him.
I can picture him with his shirt off, covered in a sheen of sweat and dirt and cuts and bruises, staring down at his prey with a glare like burning coal.
Or coming in from a job, sweaty and dirty. He sweeps me up in his arms, lifting me up off the ground like it’s nothing…
My father nods to him suddenly, then takes a drag from his cigarette and flicks it across the circle drive. As he turns and walks off, Viktor looks over his shoulder, right at my window. I have to duck behind the nearest wall.
My face flushes, and I have to put my hand over my mouth to keep from squealing like a little girl. I feel like I just walked in on him in the shower. I wait a few seconds, then peek again. He’s turned around and is walking around to the driver’s side of his car.
Tanechka. That’s the name he has for me. No one has ever called me that but him, either. When I was a kid, it used to annoy me. I used to stand up to him and spout that I wasn’t a little girl, even when I very clearly was.
Now… I don’t know. Things are different now. I’m grown and so is he… and his calling me by that nickname kind of turns me on.
I watch his car drive away. If the day ever comes when I can get him alone, I’d love to see if I can make some of my fantasies about him come true.
Wishful thinking. The chances of living out my dirty teenage fantasies are kind of slim at the moment. I lie down on the mattress and pull my knees up to my chest for warmth. Gotta get out of this room first.
And I will. My father can’t keep me cooped up here forever.