Chapter 30 Anton
ANTON
We get to Iggy’s within the hour, and it’s a good thing, too. I’m starting to feel lightheaded. I look down at the bullet wound and I realize that in this great adventure, I’ve probably lost quite a bit of blood…
“Well, you look like shit,” Iggy says as I walk into his back office. He adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses and scratches his mass of white hair as he looks me over. “Cut yourself shaving, did you?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, have a seat. Let’s get that shirt off—Oh? And who is this?”
I glance over my shoulder at Mikki… and at Natalya standing shyly behind him. Mikki follows his gaze and looks back at her, then they both look to me for a response.
“Unimportant,” I tell Iggy as I sit on the dentist chair in the center of the room.
The pain in my side burns like fire as it travels up the side of my body.
My shirt suddenly feels as tight as mummy wrappings around my body.
I look over at Mikki, silently asking for help.
He obliges, walking all the way into the room to lend a hand.
Iggy continues to look Natalya over. “‘Unimportant’, huh? Well, you’re a damned fine ‘unimportant’ from where I’m standing.”
She’s trying not to smile, but she does. The corners of her lips turn up and her cheeks flush as she turns her eyes down to her shoes. Iggy sticks his hand out to her.
“Igor Brodsky,” he says. She shakes his hand tentatively.
“Natalya. Natalya Petrov.”
I don’t have to see Igor’s face to see his smile has dropped. He straightens up a little and utters a short “Oh” before clearing his throat. “Well, Natalya, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He glances around at the chairs near the door. “Why don’t you have a seat—”
“Wait outside,” I tell her. “We won’t be long.”
She looks at me and her smile fades. I’m expecting her to argue or give me a hard time about throwing my weight around, but she doesn’t. She just backs out of the room.
Mikki finishes helping me get my shirt off. It’s no easy task. My arm is starting to feel like it’s on fire now, so once I get it off one side, I’m practically dying as Mikki lifts my arm to get it off the other side.
But it’s off. I lean back as Igor turns the overhead light on and aims it at my wound, then turns to the cabinets under the sink, pulling out bandages, antiseptic, large tweezers, and a variety of other items. Without looking at him, he says to Mikki, “Why don’t you keep Ms. Unimportant company while I work?
I hate having someone hanging over my shoulder as I work. ”
Mikki looks at me for confirmation of the request, and I nod. He leaves the room.
“It’s been a little while since you’ve seen me,” he says. “A little birdie told me you were in the Motherland for a little while.”
“I was,” I say. He nods, then puts everything he took out on a metal tray and brings it over to me, setting it down on a small table by the chair.
“Mmm.” He turns and walks back to the cabinets and stops at the sink.
The low din of the room fills with the sound of water running as he washes his hands.
“I don’t think I ever had the chance to offer my condolences about Maksim, by the way.
He was a good man… or at least as good as men are in our line of work. ”
Pretty sure he has offered his condolences, but it’s all right. I don’t have the strength to bring it up. “Thank you.”
He turns and gives me a smile as he grabs paper towels from a small stack on the counter and dries his hands. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
He puts on a mask and sits down next to me, scooting his chair up so he can see the bullet wound better. “You mind lifting up for me?”
I do, turning on my side. I hear him tsk.
“No exit wound, friend. You know what that means.” I roll over and he regards me with his tired gray eyes. “What’s your pleasure?”
“Vodka.”
He chuckles. “Fresh out. I might have a snifter of Jack under the desk in the lobby.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“Right. Tough guy. Let’s do a local so I can get a proper lay of the land.”
I lean my head back as he pokes me with a needle.
After a minute or so of waiting for me to numb up, he sets about the process of removing the bullet.
The local anesthetic numbs me, but the odd feeling of him rooting around in the wound is unnerving.
The feeling of metal scraping metal inside my body as his tweezers find and close around the bullet is the worst. It sets my teeth on edge.
“So, tell me about that beautiful creature sitting in my lobby.”
I knew that was coming. Sometimes, Iggy can get too far into my business. “She’s… an acquaintance.”
He sighs. “Anton, I would rather you tell me nothing than a lie. I thought we had a relationship of trust here.”
“I’ll opt for nothing if you’re giving out multiple choices.”
He laughs. “The way she looked after you when you walked in suggests that she’s more than just some random off the street. You mean something to that girl.”
I frown. I know I do. That’s not news… and really, maybe, that’s the whole problem.
“I know this isn’t exactly my lane,” he says, “but whatever the problem is that you have with her, I’d consider fixing it.
” I glance down to see that he’s still rooting around with two tweezers in my wound.
One to hold it open and another, smaller one to fish out the bullet. Dark blood pools and runs down my side.
“You’re right,” I say, looking away. “It is out of your lane.”
“Yeah, well… I’ve been doing this long enough to know that women only follow their men here for two reasons—to make sure they live and to make sure they die.
That one out there desperately wants the former.
I can see it in her eyes. Let me tell you, that’s a face I see less and less of with you Bratva types.
You always seem to pick the worst women… ”
I take a short breath, too afraid for my abdomen to move while he’s working. “You’ve barely spoken to her. How could you know something like that?”
“Experience, my boy. Experience. I’ll even go as far as to say that woman is head over heels for you. And being the daughter of Vladimir Petrov, I’d imagine that’s a very big deal. Loyalty’s everything, right?”
The sound of squelching fills the room and Iggy grunts a little. A moment later, he lifts a blood covered bullet up into the light as he places a piece of gauze over my oozing wound. “There’s the little bastard. Want to keep it?”
“Hard pass.”
“Suit yourself.” A clang as he drops it onto a metal dish. “Now for the fun part.”
He turns to get the needle and thread to sew up the wound. I think about what he’s said. Loyalty’s everything. Funny how that statement pokes at the thing that’s bothering me.
I didn’t know she was pregnant. I don’t even know how long she’s been pregnant. We’ve had really rough sex since she’s been living with me. And then there’s what Kat did to her and tonight… She threw herself in front of Vladimir’s gun. He could have, would have, killed both her and this baby.
I’m mixed up about it. I never would have wanted her anywhere near anything that happened tonight. The entire car ride, at every one of Mikki’s hard turns, I prayed that she didn’t get tossed around too much in the back seat.
She shouldn’t have put herself in the line of fire, even if she did it to save me. I don’t know how to take it. I don’t know if I can take it. Loyalty is everything, huh? What does that even mean right now?
“All done,” Iggy says. I look down to see the stitches in my reddened skin. “Just gotta bandage it up. Keep it clean and dry. Change the bandages daily. Don’t wait until they’re oozing and pus-filled. You know the drill.”
“Thank you,” I tell him. “I’ll send your payment in the morning.”
He waves me off nonchalantly, but he doesn’t deny me the option. He tapes the bandage on me and says, “Hope like hell I don’t see you again for a long time, Anton.”
I smile. Probably for the first time since this whole night started. “Same, Iggy.”
Mikki drops me and Natalya off before leaving for his own apartment. I told him he was welcome to stay the night here, but he just waved me off and said, “With all due respect, I’d rather sleep in my own bed tonight if that’s all right with you, Boss.”
We walk into the house and without looking at her, I say, “It’s late. You should get some sleep. We can talk about everything tomorrow.”
I take about two or three steps away from her and she says, “Can we talk now?”
I sigh. This woman is exhausting. “Natalya—”
“Because you just found out something really important and… and I need to know where you land on it. I think you can understand how important it is that I know that, right?”
I turn to look at her. She looks small to me all of a sudden. Her long red hair is a little mussed and her baby blue eyes are rimmed with red. She’s clasping her hands together tightly, waiting for me to say whatever it is that she thinks I should be saying to her.
The truth is that I don’t know what to say. And even if I did, I’m not sure how to say it. “You’re talking about… the baby.”
She nods.
I take a breath. My side is starting to ache and I could really use a drink. “What do you want from me, Natalya? Three hours ago, I didn’t know I was going to be a father in… How far along are you?”
“About six or seven weeks, I think.”
I quickly do the math. That first night we were together. Damn. That long. “How long have you known?”
She pauses, her eyes darting over my face with a slight bit of desperation. “The night after you killed the Amur.”
I stare at her as she looks away in shame. “Were you planning on tell me or were you waiting to throw yourself in front of your father’s AR for dramatic effect?”
She winces slightly. “Anton, he was going to kill you.”
“He would have killed you,” I snap. “I’m legitimately shocked that he hesitated at all, actually.
I don’t know if you ever realized this, but your father was a fucking psychopath.
He was ready to throw both of your lives away for power.
” I have to stop myself from ranting. All these emotions are brewing under the surface like lava in a volcano.
“How could you put yourself in danger like that?”
“I did it for you,” she says, her voice breaking. “Anton… I don’t know what I would do if you were dead. I don’t know how I would be able to go on—”
“You don’t know what you would do? What do you think it would have done to me if you died on the same day that I found out that I could’ve been a father? You should never have gotten in the way, Natalya.” I approach her and she flinches, stepping away as tears roll down her face. It stops me cold.
She sniffles and wipes her face with her sleeve. “I didn’t tell you because… because this baby is mine, Anton. It’s my responsibility. It’s not my father’s legacy or your burden. It is mine. At the end of the day, I’m the one who has to carry it. I’ll be the one who needs to care for it.”
She looks up at me as the tears run down her face in rivulets. “The worst thing is that I was going to keep it a secret. I was going to leave here and live my life and you never had to know, but stupid me… Stupid me fucked around and fell in love with you. I was going to tell you this afternoon.”
She pauses as she starts to shake, little sobs bubbling up. “Don’t sweat it, though. You don’t have to worry about what might’ve happened or what will happen, okay? I’m letting you off the hook.”
“Natalya—”
“It doesn’t matter. It never mattered. You were right all along. Now that the danger is past, the best thing for me is to leave. So… that’s what I’ll do. First thing tomorrow, you can wash your hands of this entire thing… and of me.”
I reach out to her but she backs up. “Natalya—”
She doesn’t say another word to me. She sidesteps me and walks away, up the stairs and out of my sight until I hear her door shut upstairs. I watch after her for a few beats… then I go to my study and make myself a drink. I get as far as the door before I find that I can’t move another step.
What am I doing? Why am I blowing this up? Loyalty’s everything. I step back from the study and look longingly up the stairs after her.
There is nothing to be done. She’s going to leave in the morning and there’s nothing I can say to stop her.
I open the door of my parlor and walk over the threshold. In the morning, she’ll be gone and once she is gone…
Once she’s gone, then I’ll be alone again.