Chapter 35 - Tatiana
I couldn’t carry my plan out on my own, not with Kon supervising my phone usage like a hawk. Ever since he flat-out refused to entertain my plan to contact Riku, he’d been closed off, and I gave up asking to use the phone at all, even during the allotted times.
A melancholy settled over me, growing heavier by the day. I’d been through dark times before, but I had never felt so low, or so completely swamped by sorrow. I was always able to shake it off and face the world with optimism, or at least find a way to distract myself.
Most of those distractions came from Papa in the past. He always had a joke ready when I called. He always answered. Now, nothing. Now I realized I had begun to see Kon as a source of strength and encouragement. Not a replacement. Something new.
Something I had begun to value too much if I missed it this sorely now that it was gone.
Kon’s cousin’s cook wasn’t quite as fancy as the one in LA, but left delicious and hearty Russian meals that should have had me rushing to the table at dinner times.
Kon was seldom there anymore, and when he was, he was reserved.
My loneliness and increasing despair made the food seem as appetizing as old cardboard, and I found it difficult to get a few bites down to keep up my strength.
When I hit a snag in the yarn on my weaving project, well into this week of isolation, it almost made me burst into tears.
Tears over a knot that would take less than a minute to pick out and splice together again?
Since it was an abstract piece with no real plan to it, I could have just as easily left the knot there for an interesting focal point.
Instead, I was sniveling like a lost child. Oh hell, was this heartsickness I was feeling? Over a man who had kidnapped me?
Over a man whose bed you spent a whole load of enjoyable time in. A man who’d die before he let anyone hurt you.
“Oh, shut up,” I said aloud to my intrusive thoughts.
There was no way I was going to lapse into a daydream about all that time Kon and I spent in bed together.
It would only make things worse, and I might weaken.
He didn’t trust Papa or me, and his refusal to go down the one road that might help find him stoked my fury, which was actually better than feeling so low.
My only consolation was that he seemed equally as miserable as I was, and the night before, I caught him looking at me, his mouth open like he was going to say something meaningful. Maybe that was wishful thinking, because when our eyes met, he only scowled and looked away.
So, no, he wasn’t about to admit my idea was a good one and that we should go through with it. Did I think he would declare that together we were unstoppable? I was delirious if that was the case.
It was time I shook off this torpor and did something, with or without Kon’s help or approval.
Another good thing, besides Kon’s obvious misery that we were no longer as close as we had started to become, was that he was less diligent about keeping me out of his private office. There was nothing in there that he didn’t lock up in the safe when he wasn’t around.
I had taken to sitting by the sunny window in there to read, hardly looking up when he entered. The first time I made a show of getting up to give him privacy, he waved me back to the chair, casually mentioning it was the best view in the house.
All the views were amazing, but I agreed with a nod, and after that, he seemed to forget I was there while he worked. Maybe he liked my quiet presence. Maybe that was me projecting. Either way, I finally managed to see him punch in the code to the safe.
Now all I needed to do was bide my time until I was alone in the house again, and it was driving me up a wall. The knot in the yarn was forgotten when Kon went running past the door of my makeshift studio like the house was on fire.
I took off after him, and he paused long enough to tell me everything was fine.
“Here, anyway,” he added with a wry twist of his mouth. “Dima’s got some issues he needs help with, though.”
“So, same as usual?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, too caught up in his cousin’s trouble, which may have been entangled with our own troubles with the Yakuza, not that he’d share that with me. He was gone, ordering some of his guards to go with him.
I thanked the gods of chaos for giving me the moment I needed, and went back to the office, making a beeline for the safe.
Dima’s beach house may have been fortified on the outside, but it was definitely a family home on the inside.
The only cameras covered the front and back entrances, so no pesky alerts were going to ring on either his or Kon’s phone that I was messing with the safe.
Once I had my phone, the first thing I did was check to see if my father had sent a new message. My heart sank when there was nothing, but I braced myself, scrolling through all my contacts and asking each of them in turn for Riku’s contact information before I could chicken out.
Anyone who answered would forever be under my suspicion, but that was the least of my worries. I stared at the screen, pacing back and forth between the window and the desk. The day was waning, the sun no longer streaming in, and I was too preoccupied to turn on the overhead light.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was shockingly only twenty minutes, someone who worked in the company that Kon and Papa had been running in Tokyo messaged me back with a number, nothing else.
Taking a leap of faith, I quickly compiled a message.
If this is Riku Yoshida, I’m willing to make a deal, but I need proof that my father is alive. You know who this is, and you know who I’m with.
Breathing out, I sent it, turned the phone to maximum volume, then began to pace. I barely made two circuits of my short path when my phone pinged so loudly, I jumped. It wasn’t from the strange number that was supposedly the Yakuza boss, but from Papa’s.
Tears blurred my vision as I read it through, the Russian words like a balm to my soul.
My dearest child. I am fine, and only concerned for you.
You should have listened to me! If you’re truly with Konstantin, he’s more of a danger to you than you can imagine.
I’ll be with you before your second birthday if you trust in Riku and do what he says.
First of all, tell me you’re okay and where you are.
I tried to call, but he didn’t answer, which had me concerned, but the mention of my second birthday clinched it for me that it was really Papa.
Since my actual date of birth was in the dead of winter, he had begun letting me have a second one in the summer time, usually sometime in July, so we could do something fun outdoors.
I told him my location, praying he could get to me, then I could convince him and Kon to talk this through.
I didn’t get another reply, and my second call once again rang through to voicemail.
There were a dozen reasons he couldn’t pick up, and I didn’t want to endanger him if he was in a sensitive situation.
God, I hated all the intrigue. Why couldn’t anything ever be simple?
Still, he was okay. As soon as the relief hit me, I was overwhelmed with heartbreak.
What the hell was going on? I shook off the confusion.
At least he was alive, and surely, he had a good reason for going against Kon to work with the Yakuza.
I didn’t have too much time to think because another message came through, this time from Riku himself.
I hope you have been assured of your father’s safety. His only concern is for yours. Neither of us ever wanted to involve you, but now we feel we must, for your own safety. Grigor will explain more if you allow me to get you to him.
What was I supposed to do now?
How? I answered.
My hands shook. Every fiber of my being was screaming that Kon was no danger to me. If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead. He had complete control over me, and if he so much as wanted me harmed, I wouldn’t have free range of a gorgeous beach house with catered meals and other perks.
Unless all of that was to keep me pliable. Kon never fully trusted me or Papa’s innocence. Except it turned out Papa wasn’t exactly innocent if he was with Riku, was he? I shook off my doubts. There had to be a reason. But the only reason meant that Kon was the villain in all this.
Another message pinged.
Wait for the signal and then run like hell from the property. Someone will be waiting to pick you up.
That meant they were closer than Kon thought. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? What was I supposed to do?
There was nothing after that, and I deleted all the messages.
I kept my phone with me while I went to force down some dinner to maintain an air of normalcy in case the few remaining guards were watching my movements.
Then I went back to the office to wait for the sign, whatever it was supposed to be, still not sure what I’d do if I recognized it.
When had Papa ever lied to me or led me astray? Never, that I knew of. He was a good man, despite his line of work. He certainly committed countless crimes in his lifetime, but still had a code of honor that was unshakable. If he was working against his longtime best friend, there was a reason.
But at the same time, Kon had never done anything so wrong—at least that I knew of—for Papa to feel the need to turn against him.
“Why are you looking for reasons to defend him?” I muttered as I resumed my nervous pacing.
If it was because I liked his kisses, then that made me a fool. I messaged Papa one more time.
Please tell me everything will be all right.
To my relief, he answered. I’ll see you soon.
I was clinging to that promise an hour later when all hell broke loose.
A crash from the back of the house had the guards running through from the front.
I hurried to see if it was merely a gust of wind whipping a chair into the wall, but as I crowded out to the deck behind the guards, the night air was still.
The chairs were exactly where they always were, but a small fire blazed out on the sand.
And then another loud crack and a new fire erupted a few yards away, and another and another. One of the guards who remained at the front shouted at the same time, there was the bang of a gunshot, and a drone whizzed by overhead.
The guard that was closest to me shoved me back into the house. “Get in your room and stay there,” he shouted, already aiming his gun at the first drone as another one appeared in the sky.
Well, this had to be the signal. I fled to the guest room I’d been sleeping in since Kon, and I had grown chilly towards each other, looking out the window.
Since most of his guards had gone with him to deal with his nephew’s problem, the few that were left were preoccupied with yet another fire on the beautifully manicured front lawn.
Neighbors were swarming out of the surrounding mansions, and it was only a matter of time before sirens began wailing and emergency vehicles showed up.
I tried to shove open the window; grateful this room was on the ground floor.
The only thing in my way on the outside was some spiky palmetto plants.
The window was locked from the outside, typical Bratva paranoia, or possibly Kon’s own addition since I left his bed.
Fury swept over me, crystallizing my resolve.
With a towel wrapped around my hand, I grabbed a heavy marble vase off the bedside table, dumped the fresh daisies, and smashed through the glass.
As soon as the biggest shards were swept away, I climbed outside.
Then I ran like hell.