20. Tori
TORI
There was a coffee shop called Kahve Moon a few blocks away from campus that I’d taken to haunting lately; a small, warm space lovingly decorated by the Turkish couple who had owned it for years.
Brass planters overflowed with succulents and tiny ferns, the floor was painted wood, and each table had a colored glass candle holder in its center.
As I looked up from my textbook, I saw Reyyan, the wife, approaching with my coffee, her long skirt swishing over the floor with every careful step.
Turkish coffee was made from beans ground into a fine powder, and was dark and strong, stronger even than espresso.
I loved it. By now, Reyyan knew that I preferred mine with an obscene amount of sugar and just a little milk, though the milk was a thoroughly American accompaniment. She was a master barista.
“Just as you like it,” she said, smiling as she placed the delicate cup with ornate silver handle, called a kahye finjani, on the table. “Let me know when you need a refill.”
“Thank you,” I murmured over my notebook, inhaling the rich scent. “It’s perfect.”
“Need any help with your verb tenses today?” she asked.
I’d been dabbling in Turkish on the side, trying to see if I had any affinity for it. There was a course offered at UChicago that broadly covered Turkic languages, but I’d have to give up ASL next semester to fit it in. I was still on the fence.
“I’m all good for now,” I said, gesturing at the stack of books beside me. “But soon.”
Reyyan nodded and went back behind the counter, busying herself with another customer. Brewing Turkish coffee was more of a ritual than a process, gorgeous to watch, but I reminded myself I had to buckle down today and get caught up with my coursework.
Regardless of how happy I usually was to study at home, Stefan was becoming more and more of a distraction at the same time that my classes started getting more difficult.
He was a sexy, gorgeous, orgasm-giving distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.
I’d never pass my finals if I didn’t find a new place to camp out and hit the books.
I knew I had an open invitation to rejoin my study group whenever I wanted, and of course Harper Memorial was always open to me, but after everything that had happened at the club with my girlfriends, and the new distance I’d established between myself and Gavin, I wasn’t as obsessive about spending all my free time with my classmates as I’d initially been.
We were friendly at school and texted often, but I had told them that I’d found a new home base off campus.
Sometimes my hippie friend Diane would meet me there, but mostly I was solo.
With Kahve Moon, I’d found the perfect place to study.
Hot, fresh, super-strong coffee that was within walking distance of campus, a quiet and cozy atmosphere, and friendly owners who were more than happy to speak to me in Turkish and correct my grammar when I got confused.
There was nothing like total immersion to help get the hang of a new language, and I started spending practically every afternoon there, chatting with Reyyan and Kadir in Turkish and drinking as much caffeine as my body could handle. It was my home away from home.
Flipping to a fresh page in my notebook, I started copying questions from the study guide in my psycholinguistics text. I was so caught up that I didn’t even notice that someone was standing right next to my textbook-strewn table until she cleared her throat.
Distracted and confused, I looked up and tried to figure out if I knew this woman. “Can I help you?” I asked.
She was tall and lovely to look at in that remote, otherworldly way. Her eyes were wide-set, her hair was a waterfall of black, and she had gorgeously bushy brows.
“Sorry to bother you,” she said, dropping into the seat across from me.
I looked around the café. There were plenty of empty tables.
“Have we…met?” I asked, tugging a book out from underneath her Vuitton hand bag.
Though I didn’t think I knew her, she looked vaguely familiar—the kind of Eastern European gorgeous that was KZM’s hallmark. And her accent seemed to jive with that suspicion.
She was dressed expensively. Her designer coat was draped across the back of her chair, her snug black sweater looked to be cashmere, and her heels were black and extremely high.
“No. But I know your husband well. Stefan, yes?”
I felt my stomach drop, and tried to prepare myself for the worst. I should have known one of Stefan’s mistresses might seek me out eventually. I’d finally convinced myself that he wasn’t sleeping with the models, was just a workaholic, but maybe it had been wishful thinking.
Still, it was disconcerting that she’d found me so easily. First Stefan’s bodyguard, now this woman. How long until Konstantin started having me followed, too? Maybe he already was.
“Yes, Stefan is my husband,” I said, feeling more than a little unnerved.
After everything that had happened over the past few weeks—the drugging at the club and the horrible incident with my father-in-law—I was very aware that my life wasn’t as safe as it used to be.
Stefan had warned me, told me that finding out about the dark, seedy underbelly of the KZ Modeling empire meant that I was a part of his world now.
But now that world had hunted me down, right in broad daylight.
“I’m Irina,” the woman said, holding her hand out.
She was smiling at me, her expression warm and open. She didn’t seem dangerous, nor distraught in any way. I relaxed a little and shook her hand, but still I braced myself for what she had to say. Maybe she’d say she was pregnant. Maybe she’d ask me to leave Stefan.
But Irina just nodded, her face still lit up with that mega-watt smile.
“Will you please tell him that everything worked out?” she asked me. “He is, I think, a good man. A very good man. You are a lucky woman.”
I stared at her.
“I don’t understand,” I said, still waiting to hear the word “pregnant” or “relationship.”
“I cannot get word to him anymore,” she continued. “That is why I seek you out. Please tell him for me?”
I tried to process her words. She wanted me to tell Stefan that everything had worked out, so he wouldn’t worry. What had worked out? What had he helped her with?
Somehow, I nodded.
“I’ll tell him,” I said.
“Thank you.” Irina took my hand in hers and squeezed it gratefully. “So much.”
Before I could say another word, she got up, took her Louis Vuitton bag and her designer coat, and strode out of the coffee shop on her slick spike heels, disappearing into the cold Chicago air and leaving me gaping in her high-fashion wake.
I just sat there trying to process what had happened.
Stefan, a good man? It seemed like a bit of a stretch to me. He had definitely been easier to deal with lately, and there was no doubt that he was an extremely handsome and powerful man, but good? I couldn’t imagine it.
Yet clearly Irina felt indebted to him. He had done something to help this woman.
Something that was so important that she had sought me out in order to pass him a message regarding her welfare.
What the hell could he have done to help her?
And why would he bother helping in the first place?
My husband had never shown an altruistic side.
Maybe there was a good and noble heart hiding inside the human that hid inside the monster, a soft spot beneath the cold and ruthless front that Stefan put up every day.
How many layers deep was he? His sister had said that he’d been different once, too.
That when they were younger he hadn’t been as hard, hadn’t been as mean.
That something big had happened to change him into the man he was today.
Did that mean he could change back?
I felt a twinge of hope. Maybe he really could be the man I wanted him to be. The man I had first thought he was, the man he’d been on the night we first met.
And maybe I could help him be that man.
I thought back to what my stepmother Michelle had told me shortly after my wedding.
About how when you married a busy, important person, it was your job to make their lives easier.
She’d said people like my father and Stefan were under so much pressure on a regular basis that they needed someone to come home to who could be the calm in their storm.
Maybe if I did that for Stefan, and tried to be the kind of wife that Michelle had told me I should be, he would be able to become the man I needed him to be.
The man I hoped he still was. But first, I needed to know more about Irina and the reason behind her cryptic message.
And there was only one way to find that out.
I’d have to confront my husband.