Chapter 15 Natalya
NATALYA
This house is huge.
It’s almost like a castle, with old wood floors that look well maintained.
They shine like they were freshly stained and yet I can see spots where some of the boards have warped over time.
Parts of the floor creaked under our feet when Anton walked me to my room.
The walls are wallpapered with a shiny paisley design pattern that looks like it was popular in the eighteen hundreds.
Old portraits line the walls of tattooed men in suits alongside landscapes of far off places.
Some of them are painted but most of them are photographs.
This looks like the home of an old man or something like what my grandfather’s house used to look like. The old world of the Bratva lives within these walls…
My room is beautiful and a weird mix of both worlds.
The floors here are carpeted and so plush it actually looks completely untouched.
There’s a dresser and armoire for clothing, a full-length mirror in the corner that looks like it’s made of brass, and the bed, which is probably the most modern thing in here, cushiony headboard with a quilted cover.
As I sit on one corner, I nearly sink into it.
Gives for a good night’s sleep, something I haven’t had in a while.
The mattress in Ilya’s guest room is lumpy as fuck.
I’m gonna look forward to sleeping on this bed.
The curtains are drawn and I’m tempted to open them. I don’t know how safe that is, though. Anton said something about fortifying the premises before he left, so maybe I’ll just wait until he gets back before I get really comfortable.
Oh, shit. I’d better call Ilya. I pull my phone out and before I can call her, it rings. She’s calling me.
“Oh, thank God,” she says when I answer. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell her. “We ran into a little trouble, but I’m okay.”
“Yeah, no kidding. It’s all over the news. ‘Shootout at Vivaldi Park.’” She pauses, then, “What happened, exactly? He didn’t try to kill you, did he?”
“The opposite, actually.” I tell her everything, all the way down to how Anton had to defend me during our escape. As is her way, she listens silently as I drone on.
When I’m done, she asks, “So, where are you now?”
I start to tell her, then think better of it.
I don’t know who attacked us, exactly, and I don’t know what anyone else knows.
Someone might’ve been watching me and waiting for me to lead them back to her apartment.
“I think it’s probably better if I don’t tell you,” I say.
“I don’t really know anything about who tried to kill us and I don’t know who could be listening. ”
“That’s fair,” she says. “Does that mean you’re not coming back here?”
“It means that I’m going to stay away until things blow over. You should probably think about taking a vacation, too. Maybe stay low until this all blows over.”
She goes quiet for few seconds. “This just got really real, didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I owe you a steak dinner when all this is done. At least for putting up with my crazy life.”
“Your life wasn’t all that crazy until last night,” she says with a chuckle. “Not gonna lie, I kind of miss your inmate days.”
I laugh. “Me too. Believe me.”
“So,” she says with some hesitation, “in the meantime, what do I do if your father comes around looking for you? What should I say?”
I think about that for a moment. Stonewalling my father is probably not the best option.
He doesn’t like it when someone is actively lying to him.
“Tell him I left and didn’t say where I was going,” I tell her.
“He’ll be able to tell if you try to lie to him, so just tell him that.
But honestly, make yourself scarce so you don’t have to face him at all.
Things are kind of upside down and I don’t know what to expect. ”
“Got you. Well, Rodney has been talking about going to Myrtle Beach for a few weeks. Maybe now’s a good time.”
“Maybe. I’ll text you when I’ve got a better bead on my situation.”
“Roger that. Take care and be careful.”
“I will.”
I hang up and all of a sudden, I feel how alone I am. It’s so quiet I can hear my own breath…
I put my hand on my stomach, thinking of the baby I’m carrying. But I’m not alone. I guess I’ll never be alone again, really. And most importantly, I’m safe.
No. We’re safe. You hear that, kid? We’re safe.
A knock on the door wakes me up from my nap. I sit up and half roll over. “Come in.”
The door opens and Anton walks in. He’s changed clothes. Well, he just has on a dress shirt and slacks. His sleeves are rolled up and a couple of buttons are undone.
As usual, he looks really good. He smiles casually at me and it changes his whole face, giving him an almost mischievous and boyish look about him despite his crow’s feet and streaks of gray. God, he is a good-looking man.
“Sorry I’ve been gone so long,” he says as he walks all the way in the room. “I had to make sure I had enough security around the estate. It’s a lot of space to cover.”
“I’ll say.” I sit up and pull my knees to my chest. “This house is… well, it’s unbelievable. I didn’t think there were any houses this big in this town. How long have you lived here?”
“It’s complicated.” He pauses as if trying to find the right words. “I inherited it from the former Pakhan, so I haven’t been here longer than a few months.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Really? Wow.”
“He didn’t have any sons and he always said that if he’d had children, he would have wanted them to take over for him as Pakhan. Never happened, though, so years ago, he made arrangements for me to inherit everything once he was gone.”
I have to think for a second. Maksim. That was his Pakhan’s name, I think. The one who died recently. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” he says graciously. “I’m sorry to do this, but I need to take your phone.”
I frown. “My phone?”
“It can be tracked.” He holds his hand out to me. I walk over to my nightstand and hand it over to him. “Will I get it back?”
“Of course, you will.” He turns the phone off and puts it in his pocket. “It’s been a few hours. You’re probably hungry. Join me for dinner?”
“All right.”
He leads me out of the room and down the hallway, toward the stairs. “With everything going on, I didn’t really have time to have anything fancy made.”
My stomach turns a little. I don’t actually remember the last time I ate. I’d be happy for greasy pizza right about now. “I’m sure whatever you have will be fine,” I tell him.
He leads me to the dining room. It’s surprisingly small with a normal sized, rectangular table that looks to be made of heavy, black wood.
There are two settings already made up for us with a modest centerpiece of yellow flowers.
Opposite the door, there is a wall of curtains drawn to cover what I imagine is a large picture window.
And only two of the walls have decorations, paintings of beautiful landscapes here, not portraits.
The single wall without anything on it looks odd.
It’s wallpaper and wood like the others, but there are very thin folds with hinges every few inches.
I want to ask about the wall, but he’s pulling out my chair.
I sit down and instantly, his help brings us dinner.
A pasta dish is set before me on a plate with gold rimming.
It looks and smells delicious, round, cylindrical noodles that look like little pipes, a seasoned red sauce, and what I assume is hamburger meat.
I immediately dive in, spearing one of the little pipes with my fork. It tastes warm and filling.
“I guess you like it,” he says.
I nod eagerly. “It’s very good.”
There’s that smile again, so uncharacteristic and charming all at once. He looks down at his own dish and says, “I forget what my cook called it. It’s something that they made when he served in the Navy in Russia. He wasn’t expecting to cook for two tonight, so he just whipped it up on the fly.”
“It’s nice,” I tell him. “Very nice.”
We eat in silence for a few minutes. There’s a pattering on the windows beyond the curtains. Rain. Of course it’s starting to rain.
“So,” I ask him, “how long do you think I’ll be staying here?”
He hesitates, his fork slowing down as he moves the noodles around in his plate.
“I’ll be honest with you, Natalya. I don’t know.
” He sets his fork down and addresses me directly.
“The gravity of what’s happened… Let me just tell you that it’s not all on you.
There are things that were already in motion that up until now did not involve you at all. ”
My stomach starts to turn a little. I glance at the wine that’s been provided for us. Wish I could drink it. “Can I ask you something? Honestly?”
“Anything.”
A single word that he’s said before that turned a key somewhere inside me. It turns a little more now. “Were you supposed to kill me today?”
He tilts his head at me. “What?”
“I saw you kill somebody. I mean, clearly, it was someone you weren’t supposed to and now you’re in all this trouble.”
“Natalya, I am Pakhan now. I don’t answer to anyone. I’m the king of this Bratva, of this territory. You understand?”
I nod.
“And if I were going to kill you, you’d already be dead. We don’t negotiate with targets.”
That makes me feel a little better. “Okay, so, what happened in the park… that was about me? Someone’s after me because of what I saw?”
“It was mostly because of me for pulling the trigger on that guy last night,” I tell her. “But I wouldn’t rule out that they are looking for you, too. The Amur have enough spies to have full knowledge of everything that’s happened so far.”
The Amur. The name only vaguely appears in my memory. Something that maybe my father said or mentioned in passing to someone that was overheard.
“They are another Bratva,” he says to me. “And I’ve started a war with them.”