Chapter 15 Natasha
NATASHA
Did Pop know where I was … with Lach? What would he think?
While my heartbeat clanged in my ears, I tried not to squeak when I spoke. My thumb ran smooth over a nautical blue resin epoxy vase beside the bed. You’re on vacay, Tash, be chill. “You got me, Uncle Sim. Hopefully, this situation eliminates those old-school Russians.” Is Father aware?
“Old school?” He scoffed at our generational differences. “Edik Mikhailov can protect you. Lach—”
“Chased down a guy in New York,” I snapped. “Lach reacted courageously. We had no clue if he had a gun or—”
“Stop. Talking.” The bite in his tone made me pinch my nose and smother a retort. “You don’t have to marry Edik.”
Good. I need to figure out how to tell Lachlan he exists.
Hell, I hadn’t seen Edik in two years. Every time our parents connected, I fished for a convenient reason not to meet.
An arranged marriage? What the heck. Matching my uncle’s confidence, I asked, “Does Simona have the option to decline his older brother?”
An acerbic chuckle broke through. “I was calling for that very reason. Nyet. Not about Rurik, but about moya doch’. My sources say Simona isn’t with you in Greece. Where is she?”
A vulnerable feeling washed over me as I rubbed my shoulder. I never grasped the unexpected falling out between Simona and her parents. After she moved back home at age fifteen, she vanished again as soon as she was legal. She came and went to this day.
“I don’t know, Uncle Sim.”
He heaved a sigh. “Whatever she tells you—”
“Sima doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Oh? I’m just curious about what’s on her mind. Why … she hates me.” The sound of liquid followed a deep swallow. “Listen, this entanglement with the baseball player will give your father a heart attack. If you wish Vassili to be a dedushka someday, don’t do anything improper.”
Don’t have sex. Understood. Of course, my family had to be old-school Russian. “That wasn’t part of the plan. But … are you telling Pop?”
He said, “I’ll tell myself later on tonight. I’m more …”
“Resnov than anyone else” we ended together.
I never understood how he was more Resnov than my father. The motto didn’t sound arrogant, either. But something was there.
“Thanks, Uncle Sim. Love you. And … whatever Simona is going through … she loves you. When we talk about you,”—which is super rare—“she seems homesick. Like she wants to jump across the chasm, offer you and Aunt Anastasiya a big hug. I dunno. Maybe that’s book talk.”
His chuckle seemed forced. “You read so much, Natasha. Just like me. Read better books, dorogoy.”
“No thanks. Did you miss her birthday? Call her one of her sisters’ names? You know how the twins are when you mix them up?”
“Da, tirany. But nyet and nyet.”
“Did she see you … in the family attic?” Pop had forbidden us from playing there in the past. A stern look and stiff wagging finger. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why it remained off-limits.
“Don’t think so.”
Occasionally, our calls seemed to help him cope with Simona’s distance. However, a knock sounded on my room’s inner door, cutting the call short. Lachlan.
I hope someone helped Simona through whatever she experienced. She was your typical Russian. Every pain, every hurt, locked in.
My sentiments mirrored hers after my twenty-first birthday. But tonight, I wanted to tell Lachlan everything. And that was just what I did …
“It’s your twenty-first birthday, and you celebrated it with many wealthy, old ublyudki,” Simona said, shaking her head, hair in a strict updo that aged even her flawless dark brown skin.
She settled against the silver chair, placing her hands on the now-empty white-linen clothed table. “And you pocket no money.”
She spoke in jest, and I shook my head, inhaling the fragrant floral air of the hospital’s memorial gardens.
The event servers cleared off tables around us.
I glanced at the green canopies of cherry blossom trees, wishing they bloomed in summer like the beautiful rose hedges. “I didn’t get a check from you.”
“Did you get one from Simeon?” She uttered her father’s name without an ounce of emotion. Although on occasion, the longing a daddy’s girl had for her father laced in Simona’s tone.
“Surprisingly, a bigger check than the Cheap-O I call Pop.”
“So, drinks at The Red Door?”
“Now that I can score shots without you glaring at bartenders, will you put on a happy face?” I ended in a sing-song voice.
“Nyet.”
I smirked. “Okay. Meet you there?”
“Where did you park?”
I smiled, rising from the chair.
“Natasha, is that smile for me? Because I will not—”
“You won’t smile. I get it.” I ran a hand through my hair, bone straight, which touched my shoulders. “I can only stay …”—I was lying my butt off—“for a little while. I’m sleepy.”
“Translation: Lachlan has birthday gift for you before the clock strikes midnight?”
“No.” Yes. We hardly saw each other in the first half a year of our acquaintance—my self-preservation tactic—but we’d agreed to hang out tonight.
My eyes followed servers as they finished removing champagne flutes and dessert plates from a table in front of us.
“Um, not that type of gift,” I murmured, though I had to use my every defense to keep from pressing my fingertips to my lips.
Man, did they tingle from the way he’d kissed me less than an hour ago before leaving the event.
Simona hid a smirk behind the bottle of champagne she’d stolen from the hospital kitchen. “Oh, yes. Your vow to God. Marriage first, I suppose.”
“C’mon, and stop being so … judgy. I parked down the street.”
“Why?” Simona groaned as we wove around the tables in the hospital atrium that hosted my event.
“How many movies open with a parking garage, a flickering lightbulb, and night?”
“It’s nine-forty-five, Natasha.”
Ugh. She made me sound like someone’s Grammy. “Whatever. Meet you at The Red Door.”
We’d parted ways as she ventured to the elevator, and I slipped out of the hospital doors, pepper spray in one hand, taser in the other. I glanced back.
Too many nights I’d spent here, sick to my stomach from medicine strong enough to kill me, hoping it would kill the cancer cells instead.
Outside, I passed through a smaller, empty lot that provided accessible parking spots. My cellphone buzzed in my diamond clutch. Lachlan.
I’d text him once I reached my car, not dumb enough to play the bimbo in my own scary movie.
He’d left to deal with his sports agent, a pushy mother of two, who knew how to get what she wanted.
Farther out, sat an abandoned lot. Luckily, I hadn’t needed to go that far. I’d scored a spot right across the street from the hospital.
My SUV, a Ferrari Purosangue, sat in front of an unlit Thai restaurant. Really? Couldn’t they keep the lights on?
My kitten heels stepped off the curb, and I was more than halfway across when a beep made my shoulders slam against my chandelier earrings.
Lights sped toward me. The glare from the vehicle’s headlights made me squint. That was when I saw him.
A stranger in all black stood in the shadows in front of a darkened storefront.
The passing vehicle was gone before I could turn back.
I ran to my car, reaching for the door. My fingertips brushed the handle when he rushed toward me.
The man knocked the pepper spray from my hands. The taser was my last hope, and I didn’t think he expected it. I zapped him in the neck.
As his body seized, he forced out a hard breath, broke the prongs, and tugged me to him. The muscles in my arms became mush beneath his steely hold. The stranger unlocked the rear door of my SUV and shoved me inside.