Chapter 23 - Nadya #2
High on that fervor, I confess, “I’m going tonight. I need to use your window to do it. I’m going to go get my guy. Don’t tell yours until I get off the grounds, okay?”
Yulia quiets, reaching over to smooth a gentle, doting palm over her daughter’s head.
This marvelous person she made from scratch with my brother, a man who’d felt like he’d probably always be alone, a wannabe-father to all of us—until he met her.
Zina’s very existence is proof that love, even between the most unlikely of pairs, can change the trajectory of what had once felt like a fact.
“Are you sure?” is all she asks me.
Breathlessly, I laugh my way into the tears that blur the sight of her.
“I shouldn’t,” I say pointedly. I’m not in the business of shoulds.
Viktor is in my head again. God, he hasn’t left it since he broke into it.
“But yeah. Against all odds, I do. I’ve tried to argue my way out of it six ways to Sunday, but—he is solid ground, Yules.
He’s who I want to have fun with and rest with after the fact. It’s him.”
Yulia searches my face for something. Whatever it is she’s looking for, I try to leave it out for her to reach.
I don’t need her blessing. I’ve had the time to make my peace with the likelihood that I won’t have anyone’s for some time, if ever.
But it means something to me to see her wanting to understand. Fuck, it means everything.
“I bandaged him up before they dropped him off back at the Zakharov estate. High off his rocker on painkillers, and the only thing he’d say was your name,” she says, shaking her head, and downs the rest of her wine.
I can’t help but grin. I don’t even try. “He’s obsessed with me.”
“Don’t let him consume you, okay?” Yulia sighs, booping the tip of my nose with the tip of her forefinger.
Then, a crazy woman in her own right, she suggests, “And call Iosif. He’ll take you to see his brother.
Anton Zakharov is probably the only person who can give you the information you need on the spot. I’ll handle your brother.”
Staunching my snicker, I kiss Zina’s squishy cheek until she’s squirming, then pass her back to her mom. I hoist my bag back up.
“Wish me luck.”
***
Me: can i borrow otto pls?
I’ll admit, it’s kind of an insane text message to send, not to suggest that I could be dissuaded by insanity.
Three dots appear immediately,
Iosif: ?????
Iosif: Obviously but
Iosif: What
Hysterical laughter burbles out of me into the endless-seeming sprawl of grass I’m running across. I hit dial, and it barely rings twice before Iosif answers.
“Christ take the wheel, woman, what the shitting fuck are you about to pull?” he demands in lieu of any greeting whatsoever.
“It’s better for you not to know yet,” I say.
“Nads,” my brother hisses.
“You either trust me, or you don’t. No information I give you can change that. But keeping information from Trif could cost you his trust, and I think one of the two of us pissing him off is enough for now.”
His stony silence lasts so long, I’d think the call dropped if I couldn’t hear him breathing on the other side of the call.
“Where,” he says at last.
“New York City, I think.” I’m pretty sure, actually. I’m just trying to give Iosif more of a cover here, just in case. “But first, I need Otto to take me to the Zakharov estate.
Iosif lets loose a groan that comes from deep within, maybe even the bottoms of his lungs, given how winded he sounds when he speaks. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he says. The way he says it, I know he honestly wishes I’d say those exact words just now.
But I can’t, because that wouldn’t be the truth.
“I'm going to be fucking sick,” he announces.
“Dude.” I duck beneath the break in the gate behind the same rosebush I’ve been sneaking out for many, many years.
“He's the first person outside of all of you who has ever looked at me and not asked me to be less. You of all people understand that. You have to. I’m the most me I’ve ever been with him—and someone completely different, too, that I never saw coming. ”
He exhales in a long, ragged breath of air. “You went through my phone while I was asleep,” he says darkly. “I have no idea how you got the address. I was completely unconscious. Dead to the world. An absolute log.”
“A picture of innocence,” I confirm solemnly. “A sweet cherub.”
Briefly, sounding more nervous than I thought my fellow-wildling brother could ever be, he chokes out a laugh. Then, there’s a pause. Iosif’s voice drops, low and serious. “Nadya.”
“Uh-huh?”
“If he’s not good to you—”
“He will be.”
“But if he’s not—”
“Iosif.”
“—I will find him, and I will—”
“Turn into Liam Neeson in that one movie he was a total DILF in, I know,” I cajole, an undercurrent of impatience lilting the words. “I know you will. That’s why I’m not worried.”
The muscles in my back only unspool at the sound of him exhaling all the way, finally, the last of the resistance going out of him. “Fine. I’m sending the address now. Otto’s on his way. He’s already nearby. You near the rosebush?”
Of course he is.
I’d texted first, and I can guess that Iosif had sent Otto before he’d even picked up the phone, because that is who my brother is.
“Thank you,” I say. “I mean it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Keep your phone on, twerp.”
“Always do!”
“Factually untrue, and we both know it. You literally just got kidnapped, and we let it go for a day because you’re bad with the phone,” he says, and hangs up.
My phone buzzes not ten seconds later.
I look at the address, then put it in my Maps app.
Four hours and twelve minutes.
That’s all that separates me from the last step before I find Viktor again.
I can’t wait.