Chapter 24 Gabi
GABI
I don’t have time to think much of premonitions. Time slips away as Ivan’s one night away turns into three. My prayers have been answered. My temptation is at work, and so am I.
It doesn’t take much to get into a routine with the girls.
I do my best to keep them busy and distracted so they don’t miss their dad.
With the massive grounds, there’s a lot to do and explore, and anything I want for the girls is just a call away, what with Kostya always on standby to go shopping on my behalf.
Yuri delegates, watches, observes. He’s slowly relaxing around me being with the girls, even giving me free rein when we’re outside, but I twist ever tighter in fear of exposing myself to him in some way.
My latest worry adding to my pile is that this old Russian somehow knows my decrepit Russian.
They are in the same age bracket and the world is a small place.
It helps that Ivan phones every morning and evening to check in on us.
He first talks to the girls, but it’s a quick and fruitless conversation.
He needs to be here, and I can sense he misses them.
When it’s my turn, he makes sure I’m fine and that I’ve spoken to at least one of my brothers that day.
After my last conversation with Dominic, I’ve been dreading more bad news, but speaking with Ivan makes me…
happy? Lately, there’s been a smile in his voice, small jokes when I tell him something about his daughters, and it hits different—deeper.
I’m helping here, I’m good for the girls, some stability after some unknown disconnect in the family.
I can’t look too far into the future, but I can’t be here forever, either.
While I’m here, though, I’ll make it count.
It’s midmorning and we’ve already had our morning call, but Yuri is handing me his phone again. “Pakhan, for you. Again.”
This is not to our schedule. Something must be amiss.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as I answer.
“I’ll be home for dinner tonight,” Ivan says. “Do you think you can manage to put something together for us?”
My heart leaps in my chest.
Dinner. Tonight. Him. Home.
The visual of Ivan, in only a towel, still glowing with the heat of the shower, water droplets running down a masculine chest just begging to be lapped up by my tongue, invades my mind.
There can be no repeat of that night.
“Of course,” I say, then bite my lip. I’ve been making basic meals for us since it’s expected, and Yuri, being omnipresent, has eaten with us, but this is more serious. “I don’t have a big repertoire.”
“After months of ready meals, anything you make will be a treat, moya ptichka. If you need any ingredients, let Yuri and Kostya sort it out for you. I’ll see you later.”
He rings off, and as I hand the phone back to Yuri, irregular footsteps sound through the kitchen, followed by a crash and a “Blyad’!”
Yuri turns toward the noise, breathing a soft curse of his own.
“Yuri!” a woman’s voice calls. “Has Kostya gone shopping yet?” she asks in Russian.
If my Russian were better—and if I’m honest, there’s lots of scope for improvement in my speaking ability and listening—I would have picked up on it immediately, but I don’t. It’s only when Milana stumbles into the conservatory, an empty vodka bottle in her hand, that I realize she’s drunk.
I don’t know where she’s been hiding out, but I haven’t seen her since that first day. For all I knew, her existence was a rumor.
Now she’s here, in the flesh, her hair a wild, uncombed mess of brunette waves, with smeared mascara running down her cheeks mapping the route of tears.
Her creamy silk nightgown is still the same one from the other morning when she tore into Ivan about her credit cards, except now it’s stained and ripped at the hem, her robe falling off her shoulder, spilled red wine looking like a gunshot wound that’s bled out.
She comes to a standstill as she sweeps her gaze over us, swaying on her feet. “Blyad’, what a cozy scene.” She’s reverted to English now.
“Milana,” Yuri warns as he approaches her, but she swings the bottle in his direction and parks the bottom on his chest, stopping him from taking a step closer.
Here comes trouble. With a hand on Katya’s shoulder, I bring her against my leg as I twist to protect Irisha from seeing her aunt like this. If the bottle was broken and she stabbed at him like that—
“Nothing’s stopping me from drinking, Yuri. And fuck knows, the only way to get through the day is with my Russian friend here.” She taps the bottle on his chest to stress this fact and leans into his face. “My vodka might be done, but I’m not. Tell Kostya to stock us up, will you?”
Goodness. She’s worked through some wine and then moved on to vodka.
“You will give yourself alcohol poisoning, Milana,” he says as he closes his hand over the bottle and gently tries to pry it from her hand.
She cackles. “And what then, huh? Would be kinda hard to burn that body, wouldn’t it? Just imagine, do you think I’ll burn longer or will I just go poof like a petrol bomb? Stuffed full of cheap alcohol? Fuck me, imagine that mess to clean up, hmm?”
Goodness, this isn’t talk for little girls’ ears.
“Come, girls, let’s go play outside,” I say softly as I reach for Irisha’s hand and steer Katya by her shoulder.
“Oh, look. I’ve offended the sweet, innocent nanny. What does he call you? Moya ptichka? His little bird? Figured out you’re in a cage yet and you can’t get the fuck out?”
“Milana!” Yuri cuts in. His icy tone makes everyone cower, and the girls seem to freeze in fear. “Stop this right now. Think of the girls. Think of Ivan.”
I struggle with the door that leads outside but manage to push it open. We pile out and are hardly a few steps outside when Milana bursts out crying. As I rush the girls toward the playground, situated not too far off, I keep glancing back to see what’s happening.
Yuri has her in his arms, hugging her close as he rests his chin on her head.
Sobs rake through her body, and I can almost feel each of them reverberating through my own.
Something happened to Milana because she’s hurting deeply.
It’s clear she needs help, but I’m not sure the men in her life—which seems to be limited to Ivan and Yuri—have realized this yet.
“Girls, are you okay?” I ask, making them stop just before they can clamber onto the jungle gym and make as if nothing happened back there. I crouch down and look them in the eye, one after the other.
Irisha stares back at me, bottom lip trembling. “Milana was never this sad.”
“She used to play with us,” Katya adds. “She watched movies with us, too.”
“Oh, sweethearts,” I say as I pull them in for a much-needed hug. I can just imagine how they must feel about Milana’s fit back there or seeing her disheveled and in pain like that. “What happened?” I ask softly as they burrow into my neck.
It’s cruel to ask these small kids, but there’s nowhere else to dig.
Irisha presses closer to me. “Dedyulya is sick. That’s what Papa says.”
Grandad is sick. Oh, gosh.
“And Dimtri is gone,” Katya adds as she wipes at her nose.
“Not Dimtri, silly,” Irisha says as she leans out to look at her sister. Her little pointer finger boops at the tip of Katya’s nose, stressing each syllable as she says, “Di-mi-tri. Dimitri is gone.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, not sure what else to say.
“So Papa is also sad,” Katya says. “But we’re not sad,” she adds, and twists out of my hold to climb up the slide.
There she goes, just being a child with no concept yet of loss and heartache and how cruel the world can really be. I have no clue who Dimitri is, but he was clearly close to Milana, close to Ivan, because Papa is sad, too.
Gone can mean so many things. Dimitri was Milana’s boyfriend and they broke up? Ivan’s friend? I bite my lip, my mind racing. Could be Dimitri is dead.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask who Dimitri was to Milana and what happened to their relationship, but these girls won’t know, and it isn’t fair on them to pry.
My thoughts wind back to Dedyulya, Ivan’s dad, the old Pakhan.
I’m still pondering if he would be in a hospital or care home, because nobody has mentioned anything to me…
Wait. Matteo mentioned that the Petrov patriarch, the old Pakhan, had retired to Hawai'i. To play golf. Fit as a fiddle.
Something’s not adding up. All I know is Milana is hurting and even on a mission to destroy herself, and I can’t stand by, pretending to be blind to it.
Ivan is hurting, too, and from what I’ve seen of him, he would do anything for his daughters, for his sister.
He would do anything and everything to take her pain away.
I watch the girls as they play, wishing I could do more, that I could split myself in two and go talk to her and help her, but my priority is Irisha and Katya, and I must stay with them.
When Yuri leans out of the conservatory’s door, calling me minutes later, I rush over, keeping an eye on my charges.
“I need your help with Milana,” he says urgently. “She needs to shower or bathe or whatever and get to bed. She hasn’t slept for days.”
“She needs a doctor, Yuri,” I say, kneeling where Milana’s crumpled to the floor.
“I know, but it isn’t possible. Nobody gets to see what goes on in this house, understand?”
That feeling of fingers wrapping around my throat intensifies, so I just nod, even if Milana’s words to me echo in every hollow space in the room: figured out you’re in a cage yet and you can’t get the fuck out?