Chapter Thirty-Seven
In which nobody is happy with this.
Iris…
As the elevator doors open, I'm ready. I practiced a few openings on the way home.
"Hey, have you heard the joke about the Morozov Super Sperm? Turns out that's not a myth."
"Imagine the joy of having your life completely upended and baby drool on your Balenciaga suits?"
"Hey, Andrey, you knocked me up after all so maybe that stylist was on to something."
I'm ready.
I'm going to tell Andrey.
Sure, he doesn't seem interested in other people's kids, but that doesn't mean he'd feel the same about his own. I can't hide this any longer, not when it feels like I'm lying to him. I'm going to tell him I love him, and we're having a child. Also, that it seems that I'm appallingly fertile.
Shaking my hands, I blow out a breath. I'm shaky. I'm excited. I don't care that I'm only twenty. Sure, it's stupidly early. But this is Andrey's baby and I want this child.
"I know he loves me," I reason with myself as I walk up the stairs towards his study. "Maybe he can't say it, but he shows it in little ways, every day. Like the flowers."
Now that I don't have the "You shall not pass!" admonition to never enter Andrey's study (and boy, did I love giving him shit about it when he finally invited me into his sacred domain.) he often leaves the study door open. Walking down the hall, I can hear him talking.
Andrey has such an incredibly deep, commanding voice.
I can tell he's trained a bit because it becomes even more so in public appearances and when he's in the courtroom.
I sat in the back row and listened to him make the closing arguments on his last case before he took the judgeship.
His stern face, how he used his hands and that voice, I was weak in the knees for the rest of the afternoon.
He won, of course.
Someone's talking on speaker. "I'm glad you warned me to go through any inquiries for a record on your wife," the man says. "There were three pings, someone was trying to dig through the police files and they must've had pretty good clearance to get that far."
"Thank you, detective, I know we deleted the attempted murder charge and the others I'd put into the arrest warrant. They were easy enough to remove, but I wanted to make doubly certain that the Long Island charges had disappeared as well."
The hallway feels like it's moving, like an earthquake. I put my hand on the wall.
"I heard the news about your wedding, so I'm assuming the fake charges did their job," the other man says, sounding slightly amused. He is immediately shut down by Andrey's glacial tone.
"We will never talk about it again," he says sternly. "I would like you to speak with Kolya, our best tech expert. He might be able to trace those inquiries."
"I'm happy to," the man says. "But I can tell you there's nothing to find."
"Thank you for clarifying," Andrey says. "Are you finding your new vacation home enjoyable?"
The other voice brightens considerably. "Yes! Thank you again. My wife couldn't believe that we could get a place on Rhode Island."
"Excellent," Andrey says. "Goodbye for now."
I should storm in there. I should scream and throw one of his bronze paper weights at his head. But if I take my hand off this wall, I'll collapse into a heap. I try to focus on staying upright instead of the fact that my heart just cracked wide open.
He put those charges in my record.
Andrey must hear me wheezing, he walks out of his office and a look of concern crosses his face when he sees me against the wall. "Are you all right?" he asks, moving swiftly and trying to pick me up. I shove my way out of his arms. "What's wrong? Are you injured? Are you sick?"
"Don't fucking bother." I don't recognize my voice. It's flat, lifeless. "You faked all those charges. The extra felony counts, attacking a police officer, and the- the attempted murder. Was it really worth it for you to do that to me?"
A shadow seems to settle over his face, like a cloud over the moon. "It is hard for you to understand this," he says. "But it wasn't personal. It was simply necessary to get the job done."
His sheer heartlessness is breathtaking.
"You came into that interrogation room, looked at me chained to the table and you thought, ‘Oh, good. All my problems are solved.’ How can you not see how fucking evil this is?
You lied to Roman and Violet, to Dmitri, your Pakhan.
You told them you were saving me from those fucking charges and you're the one who added them to the warrant! "
I'm going around in circles now, like some sort of hellish carousel that I can't seem to get off of. "How could you do that to me?" I repeat. I'm not crying. I feel kind of numb.
"Iris." He steps forward, his hand reaching out and I pull away before he can touch me. "You were the one who put yourself in that jail, not me. Take some responsibility for that, at least. But I think we can both agree that this has been for the best."
My jaw drops. "I don't know how you can keep making this worse, but you are. Yes, the arrest was my fault. But all the sick shit you added, that could have put me behind bars for twenty years!"
"I never would have let that happen," he says. "Even if the charges were real."
"Even if- even if you had maybe told me later and asked for forgiveness, if you had been honest about it maybe I could –" Wiping my forehead, I'm surprised to see how sweaty I am.
"But you were never going to tell me, were you?
You were just going to save that portion of our meet cute for the rest of our lives. "
Andrey stares at me, his face cold, and composed. There's something in his eyes, though, I haven't seen before. Could that possibly be remorse? No. Andrey doesn't give a shit about anything. Specifically, not about me.
"Oh fuck." I wipe my forehead again. "I feel so stupid, so trusting."
"I never intended to hurt you," he says, woodenly.
"Oh, that's rich." I slap the wall, letting out a high, hysterical giggle.
"You never meant to hurt me," I repeat. "I shouldn't be making this kind of fuss if you didn't intend to hurt me, huh, Andrey? It just never occurred to you to imagine what it would do to me. After all, you were getting what you wanted.” I shake my head, backing away.
“I hate you.” I race back down the stairs.
"Iris! We are not done talking. Let me explain –"
I slam the elevator button for the floor below me. I know I'm not getting out of here without a bodyguard, but I need to go now. I step into the elevator and as the doors close, I see Andrey coming down the stairs.
"Come back, let's talk –"
I don't have to hear his horrible, heartless voice any more, his indifferent excuses. His complete inability to see that what he did was so fucking cruel. I text Melina and she's already waiting for me. She frowns, reaching out for me before she stops herself. I must look worse than I thought.
"Do you need to see a doctor?" she asks quietly.
I laugh bitterly. "What I need is for the last four months to never have happened." Her beautiful, sharp face softens slightly.
"Then we'll take a drive and you'll tell me what you need."