Chapter 27 Natalya
NATALYA
The tears didn’t last long. I lie on the carpet, listening to the muffled sounds of the house, feeling the vibrations of distant footfalls for a long time before the realization of it all hits me.
My father wants me dead. No, it’s much worse than that.
I’ve always thought that maybe he’s hated me enough to kill me for a long time, but for whatever reason, he just never went through with it.
Now, he’s got a reason. One good enough to excuse whatever blowback he might face if anyone knew how I died.
For the first time in your miserable life, you’re going to be of some use to me.
He’s never really been kind to me. Not the way other fathers are.
He provided me with food and a roof over my head.
He gave me money and paid for my college education…
but not once has he ever shown me love or even the slightest bit of affection.
I realize now that what he felt for me wasn’t hate.
It has never been hate. It’s indifference.
I’m a prop for him. A thing that was useful in keeping up appearances to his men. To the rules of his lifestyle.
That’s why this is so easy for him. Nothing is more important than the Bratva. Not even his own child.
I sit up and look around the empty room.
The light’s gone from the window. I’m not sure how long it’s been since the sun has set.
I imagine the time is coming when he’ll send his goons to kill me.
Will he wait until the wee hours of the night and take me someplace where no one can hear me scream?
Will he make Arseni do it? Or will he actually have the balls to do it himself?
Fucking piece of shit. The only thing I ever asked of him was for him to love me, and he couldn’t even bring himself to give me that. Even looking like my mother, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
I cross my legs and take a deep breath. The room smells faintly of carpet cleaner and the perfume I used to wear when I was a teenager. It’s a sweet and metallic smell like the flowers in a hospital room. This could be the last room that I ever see.
Or not. I might be nothing to Vladimir Petrov, but I’m not going to lie down and make this easy for him. He can’t win after everything he’s put me through.
I walk over to the window and try to open it. As I recall, there’s a thin ledge that goes around to the back of the building. If I can get out to it, I can probably edge all the way to the back porch awning and jump down from there.
The window doesn’t budge, however. I look around the edges where the window pane meets the frame and note the well blended paint along the corners.
Painted shut. If I were stronger or if I had a knife or some keys, I could probably cut through that layer of paint and loosen it.
I press my fingernail into the painted over crevices and watch as the hard paint doesn’t even budge.
It would take me days that I don’t have to pick away enough paint to loosen this window.
And so the door. The first thing I notice is that the doorknob looks different. My doorknob used to be one of those big, plastic diamond shaped ones. Now it’s a brass orb. I squat down and look at closely. The lock is on the other side… but I’ve seen locks like this before.
When we were in high school, Ilya showed me how to pick locks using a credit card. It was something she learned from a boy she started dating behind her parents’ back—for good reason. As I recall, he’d already been to juvie twice when she met him.
I don’t have my wallet or my purse with me. I don’t have anything close to a credit card…
Wait. Yes I do! I reach into my back pocket and pull out one of Anton’s business cards.
It’s still here! These jeans have only been washed once and somehow, the card has stayed in the pocket.
Good thing, too. It’s about to become really, really handy.
I look at it in the dim light of the room, the plastic feel of it delighting me.
Thank goodness he’s so extra about his business cards. This will do just fine.
I wedge the card between the door and the frame slowly, listening for the clicking of the locks as they disengage. I hope that this isn’t a lock that can’t be picked, some extra-special thing that my father paid a pretty penny for…
Sure enough, the lock clicks and the knob turns. I nearly jump for joy as a light breeze comes in from the hallway. Thank goodness my father has so little faith in my survival skills.
I creep out into the hallway. Now what? I can’t exactly slip out the front door.
His men are more than likely out there. And even if they weren’t, I wouldn’t know the first thing about stealing one of my father’s cars.
Ilya never taught me anything about hotwiring or anything close to that.
I guess she never dated anyone who was a real criminal.
I’ll have to figure all that out once I actually get out of the house. I’d say that I’m probably in more danger in this hallway than I would be just about anywhere else on the property.
I creep down the hallway carefully, my bare feet helping me out greatly as I move across the carpeted floor.
There’s only one way off the second floor and that’s toward the staircase at the end of it.
I get that far and stop at the corner, listening for any sign of anyone walking around.
I peek around the corner to see it’s empty.
From here, I can’t see over the banister in order to tell if anyone is walking around in the foyer.
If I can make it that far, maybe I can make it to the back doors leading the pool house.
And from there, I could probably slide out the gate and from there to the road.
After that, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out when I get there.
I step out into the second hallway, sticking close to the wall just in case there is someone downstairs. Once I get to the landing, I crane my neck as far as I can to see into the kitchen. I still don’t see anyone. Good.
I make it down the stairs and start to move toward the kitchen and possibly my freedom. The sound of my father’s muffled voice startles me and I freeze. I look over to see that it’s coming from his office down the hall.
The last time I eavesdropped, I found out something I most certainly did not want to know. This time, however…
If I make it back to Anton, I’ll need to warn him about what my father is planning. For that, I’ll need more information than what I have. Shit.
I creep down the hallway until I get to my father’s office. The first thing I notice is that the door is open slightly. I lean in and peer inside.
My father is sitting at his desk, a pen in his hand as he talks to Arseni. I can only see Arseni from the back, but I’d know that dopey stance anywhere.
No one’s saying anything right now. My father is staring up at him menacingly. Finally, he says in a low, threatening tone. “Say what’s on your mind.”
Arseni sighs. “I didn’t mean anything—”
“Arseni, I don’t have time for this. Either say what you came in here for or leave me at peace and do what I’ve asked you to do.”
He jumps at the sharp tone in my father’s voice. After a second, he says, “The woman… it was a bad play to sleep with her, sir.”
My father just stares. I know that look. That’s the look he gets right before he punches the shit out of the wall or somebody’s face. “You’re questioning my methods?” he asks.
“Of course not,” Arseni says. “I just wonder if the ex-fiancée of your enemy is someone you would be able to trust not to betray you to your enemies. When this is over, you will need her loyalty more than any of us.”
“Do you hear yourself? She is his ex. She’s probably the number-one person to want to see him fall. I don’t think I have to worry about her ‘loyalty’.”
Is he talking about Katerina? Gross. Why on earth would my father have sex with Anton’s ex?”
“Besides,” my father says with a leer. “I had to give her something for her trouble. If not for her, I wouldn’t have my second chance at this.”
Of course she was the one who sold me out. If I didn’t see it before, I certainly see why Anton hates her now.
“She won’t betray my confidence,” my father goes on. “Trust me.”
Arseni nods. Then he says, “Well, then, there’s nothing left to do but… what needs to be done.”
My father narrows his eyes at him skeptically. “You don’t have a problem with this, do you? I know you and Natalya grew up together.”
“I don’t have a problem with doing my job,” Arseni says. “I didn’t have a problem taking care of Maksim or with sending Anton a message through his sovietnik.”
“They aren’t your blood,” he says. “I told you long ago that in this world, you trust no one. Not even your family. You do understand that this needs to be done, don’t you?”
He takes a big breath and answers, “I won’t have a problem with slitting your daughter’s throat, sir.”
I have to cover my mouth to keep from gasping. Arseni, under my father’s orders, caused all this?
And that’s what my father meant earlier. He is actually trying to get Anton’s Bratva and Nikolai Novikoff’s Bratva to destroy one another. And whatever Anton thinks about the Amur right now, he’ll have no doubts about anything once he finds me dead, presumably at Novikoff’s hands.
I’d say it was a brilliant plan if I weren’t the linchpin to the whole thing. I’ve got to get out of here. I have to warn Anton.
I creep away from the door, moving as quickly and as silently as I can to the kitchen. Only a few steps around the corner to the sliding doors and hopefully, that much closer to freedom.
As soon as I put my hand on the handle, the kitchen lights come on. Standing at the entrance to the kitchen are my father and Arseni. Shit.
I pull on the handle but it doesn’t give. Locked. My fingers touch the lock and I manage to pull it down, but suddenly, I’m grabbed from behind and lifted off my feet.
“Where are you going, little cousin?” Arseni says in my ear. “We’re not done with you yet.”
“Let me go!” I scream, kicking my legs and digging my nails into his arm, which is tight around my waist. I’m being carried away from the door and my only shot at getting out of this.
“Bring her here.”
He turns me around just as my father grabs one of the knifes from the block by the sink.
I fight harder, kicking Arseni. One of my kicks connects with his shin.
He yelps and his grip loosens on me. I manage to free myself for a second, but I’m brought back when Arseni grab me by the hair and yanks me back.
He takes the knife from my father and puts it to my neck. “Enough, little lamb,” he says in my ear. “It’s time to do your part for the brotherhood—”
A loud bang from somewhere outside freezes them both. Gunshots. Lots of them outside. My father points past us to the living room and says, “Get her out of sight.”
I’m dragged away as the bullets break through the glass of the front door…