Chapter 23 - Tatiana
I hissed with pain and broke free from the thoughts that had me in a different world. Looking down, a drop of blood from where I’d carelessly nicked the side of my finger mingled with the tomato I was slicing for a sandwich.
Three days had gone by since that wonderful vacation from reality, where Kon had literally carried me off to bed after trying to show me I wasn’t truly a prisoner here.
But the day after that, everything went back to normal in the worst possible way.
It didn’t seem possible that this was my normal now, waiting and worrying, and not a word from Kon to put my mind at ease.
“When there’s something to tell, you’ll be the first person I tell,” he said every time I asked.
His scowls got darker, and I stopped asking, but that didn’t mean the questions weren’t still boiling my brain to mush.
I sucked on my finger and decided I didn’t need a tomato slice on my sandwich, or even anything at all, since I didn’t have much of an appetite.
Kon promised I could help and that I’d be kept in the loop, but it was almost as if we never had that beautiful day and mindblowing night together.
He had shared something with me about his late wife that I didn’t think he ever talked about, let alone thought about.
He opened a window to his soul and let me have a peek at his true self, gave me a reason why he was being so brickheaded about not believing the best of my father.
I thought that meant something changed between us, that he trusted me.
I was wrong, and it was that, along with the growing fears for Papa, that had me slicing my finger.
Kon wasn’t in a much better state than me, which was why I gave up asking for updates and left him alone.
The last three days, he’d been in and out of the apartment at all hours, on edge, brushing off my arguments that I might be helpful.
Always telling me to be patient, but not giving me any reason why I should be.
My worst fears were rushing back, no longer kept away by the facade of Kon’s kindness. He only wanted to find Papa so he could have his vengeance and punish someone who’d betrayed him. I was only useful if I had information, and without the shooter, I didn’t.
The ham sandwich I ended up making, despite my lack of appetite, was dry, and as usual, my stomach was tied up in knots, refusing to accept one more bite.
I was washing the crumbs off the plate when I heard the front door open.
Great. Would this be the beginning of another argument, or would I barely get the cold shoulder before Kon retreated to his office and shut me out?
It wasn’t Kon at all who the guard escorted into the kitchen, but a bright-eyed woman, probably only a few years older than me. As if she owned the place, she shooed the guard away.
To my surprise, he listened, though she was more than a foot shorter than he was. As soon as he was gone, she smoothed her tunic down over her curvy figure and tossed her pin-straight brown hair behind her shoulder. Who was this confident, much-too-pretty woman?
And why did I have that sickening, dull ball of jealousy forming in my already twisted stomach? I didn’t return her smile when she held her hand out to me, and was wary when I reached out my own to shake.
“I’m Celia Jane,” she said, blinking her green eyes at my confusion and obvious distrust. “Sorry, you probably know me as CJ. That’s what everyone calls me.”
I shrugged, watching her take a folder out of her enormous designer satchel. “You’re…”
Her head snapped up as she lay the folder on the table, surreptitiously wiping away the sandwich crumbs I hadn’t gotten around to yet, and making me feel incompetent for some reason.
“Oh, good heavens, does Kon not tell you anything at all?” she asked, expressing my own frustration with the man so completely that I relaxed a little.
“Nothing. Not a word.”
“I’m Mat’s wife. Mat’s his—”
“Oh, I know, Mat,” I said. Kon’s nephew had lived and worked in Moscow up until a couple of years ago, when he made the leap to LA along with his brothers and two of his younger cousins. “It’s nice to meet you.” I was able to smile sincerely now that she wasn’t a threat.
Not that she was a threat if she wasn’t married to Kon’s relative. Why did I ever think she was? But the horrible jealousy, which I was certain was just indigestion now, was gone. CJ sat down and opened her file, taking out dozens of pictures and lining them up like a game of cards.
I offered her a cup of coffee or tea, and she looked at me as if she didn’t understand why.
I recognized the concentration that Papa sometimes got when he was deep in a project, and I interrupted him to remind him he needed to eat.
Now I could see she had the same bluish smudges under her eyes that Kon had.
She must have been working night and day, just like he was, and probably the rest of his family members, too.
This was war, I had to remind myself.
She accepted and took a long, grateful sip of the coffee I poured over a glass full of ice. “Ah, thanks, that hits the spot.” She instantly turned business-like. “Do you mind taking a look at these pictures to see if any of them are your shooter?”
“Not at all,” I said, desperate to be helpful and starving for a breakthrough that would get me closer to saving Papa. “I mean, he’s not mine, though. He killed Kon’s guard and tried to kill us.”
She tutted and shook her head. “I can’t believe he took you with him to a stakeout like that. Ninety-nine percent of the time nothing ever happens, but when it does…”
“Please don’t say things like that to him. He’ll never let me—” I cut myself off. CJ might not know all the details about me being there, or that I was essentially a prisoner. I preferred her to think I was on their side.
I was, in a way. At least until we found Papa. Then it was everyone for themselves.
As I pored over the pictures, I tentatively asked if she knew why the men were shooting at us. Perhaps I’d get some information out of her without her knowing she was sharing too much.
She sighed. “I know we’re looking for your father, and I know he’s working with the Yakuza, who want to kill Kon. And take over my husband’s family’s territory.”
Okay, not on the same side at all.
“Do you just believe Kon without knowing all the facts?” I asked, shoving aside a group of pictures that didn’t include anyone I recognized. “Are you going to help condemn an innocent man?”
CJ didn’t look offended by my outburst. Instead, she gave me a slightly pitying look.
“I adore my husband. Mat would jump in front of a bullet for me, and I’d do the same for him.
” She smiled slightly as if lost in a memory.
“But it wasn’t always like that. I wanted to gnaw off my arm to get away from him in the beginning. ”
Despite my rush of anger, I was drawn in and waited while she took another sip of her iced coffee. Now her smile was gone, and she blinked away sudden moisture from her eyes. “My father sold me to him,” she said, spitting out the words as if they tasted bad.
“What?” I asked, horrified. “What kind of father would do that?”
“Mine,” she said with a half shrug. “And before that happened, I believed he hung the moon. He gave me everything I ever wanted, well, almost. He was never unkind. He was my hero. And none of it was real. The man he really was came out when he was on the verge of losing everything. If Mat hadn’t been the wonderful man he is…
well, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you right now. ”
“I’m sorry your father was like that,” I said. “And I see that you’re trying to make a point. But—”
She stopped me by patting my hand. “I never believed it could be possible either.”
I withdrew my hand and pulled over the next batch of pictures, studying the faces and trying to get myself under control, not sure if I wanted to cry or scream. What if…
No. There was no way CJ was right. My father wasn’t a monster like hers. Money, reputation, or even his own life would never be more important to him than me.
“I understand what you’re feeling,” she said after I shoved that group of photos aside. “And I hope you’re right, I really do. One thing I do know, though, is that Kon will keep you safe. No matter what.” She sighed. “Unless…”
She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Unless my father had done exactly what he was being accused of, setting Kon up to be killed and making off with a load of money. CJ was trying her best to be nice, but made it clear whose side she was on. No one in the Fokin family trusted my father or me.
But they were all I had right now, and despite the fact I’d already looked at more than a dozen pictures, I took the seemingly useless chore seriously and pulled over some more.
The first three I glossed over. Too old, too fat, too bald, nowhere near the appearance of the shooter.
The fourth made me pause, and I leaned closer, then just as quickly pretended to move onto the fifth while my eyes lingered on the man I knew to be the shooter.
I had seen him at our house in Moscow at least a month before Papa disappeared. Things were going so well in Tokyo that he’d invited some of the Japanese businessmen for a tour, and this man was among the ones who came for dinner.
I was rarely invited to play hostess when the guests were among the criminal element that Papa did business with, so I assumed they were just ordinary CEOs he was wining and dining. I shoved the photos away and mixed them in with the others.
“I recognized him,” I said, leaning back and refusing to glance at the photos for fear my eyes would give the answer away.
“Oh, fantastic,” CJ breathed, looking down at the jumble of pictures with a frown. “Which one? This will make finding him so much easier.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Not without getting some answers of my own.”
With a huff, CJ rose and hurried back to Kon’s office. He stormed out, leaving her in his wake, his eyes blazing with fury. “What do you mean you’re not going to tell us who it is?”
I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms and giving him back a glare as fiery as his own. “I will, but not until you promise not to shut me out. And if you don’t keep your word, then you’re exactly the kind of man you say you hate.”
There. Would he betray his promise to me? The way he was looking at me, I should have been more worried about living through the next five minutes.