Chapter 34
Nadya
I LET MYSELF IN USING the code Vera had texted me. There were also two old school deadbolts, but Vera had left them unlocked for me.
The door opened to a living room. Sean had bought the house less than a year ago along with all the furniture, so everything looked clean and unscuffed, but there was a medical journal and a book about weapons developed during WWII.
Considering Sean was ex-military turned private security, one would assume the book belonged to him, but it didn't. Vera liked her history.
An empty teacup with lipstick print just barely visible on the rim proved that Vera had been reading on her day off.
I stared at the cup for a long moment. My apartment would've had a shot glass instead, proving I needed to quit. With that reminder, I quickly assessed my own body. Definitely jittery, but I’d taken meds for my headache, so at least that part was still fine.
Vera must've heard me come in because she emerged from the archway that separated this room from the next. Was it a dining room on the other side? Had to be.
There was no reason to be tense, but Vera radiated the same energy as a bomb tech checking a suspicious package. Then her mouth softened in the best imitation of a smile Vera could manage.
People assumed Vera was a bitch because of how stern she was, but that wasn’t how that worked.
In our culture, we believed that laughter without a reason was a sign of a fool, not to mention a liar who probably wanted to put people at ease and make them an easier mark for whatever scheme they were running.
Since Vera had very few reasons to be happy and wasn't a fool or a liar, she rarely so much as cracked a smile.
“Hey,” I said, closing the door behind me.
“Hey yourself.” She waved me to the couch. “Did you eat?”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
Between my session with the therapist and Nick's news about his sister, my appetite was non-existent.
She gave me a look that meant, ‘That is unacceptable, but I won’t fight you about it right now.’ Instead, she sat next to me, angled in just a little, not quite touching but close enough I could feel her presence.
Sean and Nick had gone out to “do errands,” which was the most obvious cover story on the planet. Sean's little brother, Glen would be at school for another two hours, so we had the place to ourselves.
We sat in silence for a while; Vera sipped her tea and I picked at the seam of my sleeve. I’d rehearsed what I was going to say on the way here, but now the words stuck in my throat.
“So,” I said, after a stretch of silence. “This is weird, but I need to talk to you about something. It’s—” I hesitated. “It should stay between us and not just because of my need for privacy. There's an ongoing investigation and I don't want to compromise it.” Or the agent going undercover.
“Hold on.”
Vera got up, crossed to the far end of the room, and flicked off a lamp. Then another. She moved from switch to switch, methodical, until every light on this floor was off, then came back to the couch.
“Sean’s got camera bulbs in every room,” she explained.
That took me a second. “You mean, like, those smart bulbs that record everything?”
Vera nodded. “He did it after Nick told him someone might be after me.”
“Do you want me to smash them?” I said. “Because I will.”
She almost smiled. “They turn off when you switch the light off, so if we want privacy, we can still have it.”
I nodded. Now it was just us, the daylight, and the dust motes spinning in the shafts of sunlight. Should be safe enough to talk.
I took a breath and let it out slowly. “There’s this pattern with how kids like us were adopted—no court, no real records, just a paper trail that looks fine from the outside but doesn’t actually hold up when you poke it.”
She didn’t flinch. If anything, she looked relieved. “I always thought it was strange that we didn’t go to the courthouse. That everything was signed off in a lawyer’s office.”
I nodded, heart pounding. “Nick says it’s the kind of thing a trafficking ring would do. Get kids from overseas, funnel them through fake adoptions, then—” I stopped, because I didn’t want to say the next part. Vera knew what had happened to us, but she didn't know about those trips.
“So.” How do I tell her the next part? “I saw more of the people involved than you and Ljuba did.”
There. An explanation about why the traffickers wanted me gone without ripping my insides out and laying them bare.
Vera paled, obviously reading between the lines. “How many?”
Damn it. A drink would be really good right about now.
“Have I mentioned I talked to a therapist? She said I’m an alcoholic.” I’d rather hear Vera’s I told you so than answer her question.
Vera put her hand over mine. “Yeah, I figured. I have some chamomile and lavender tea, if your withdrawal symptoms are hitting you. It won't take them all away, but it is calming.”
I shook my head. If I stopped now to have tea I might never have the guts to have this conversation.
“One of them broke in the other night, but Nick got him arrested and they found a little boy at his place. And then they found bodies of more kids. So, their operation is still active and they have no intention of stopping.”
Vera sat closer and put an arm around my shoulder, holding me together when my memories threatened to shred me.
“Now I understand why that FBI agent was asking me all those questions. They're trying to shut it down,” Vera mused.
We sat with that for a while. This was probably the most we’ve talked about back then in years. I could go a few more decades without talking about it.
Thankfully, Vera didn't ask me how many of those pervs I’d seen. Not that she forgot about it or didn't notice my less than subtle change of topics, but because she understood that I didn't want to go there.
The silence was cut by a sudden noise—a metallic scrape, then a soft thud from the back of the house. Both of us froze, instinctively turning toward the sound.
Vera’s face was calm, but her body went rigid. “Must be Sean,” she said, but her voice was just a hair too high.
I grabbed her wrist, hard enough to feel the pulse under her skin. “Why would Sean use the back door?” I whispered.
Her eyes widened, the practical nurse suddenly gone, replaced by the girl who’d hidden under beds and in closets to keep the monsters away.
We both listened, breaths held, as the noise came again. Another scrape, then the unmistakable sound of the back door sliding open.
We crept toward the stars. Probably not the best escape route, but we didn't have time to backtrack because the sound of footsteps coming closer reached us.
Vera's eyes widened at the sound, and she gestured for me to go upstairs with her following closely behind just as another set of footsteps joined the first. They sounded aggressive.
Upstairs, Vera herded me to the giant bathroom and locked the door.
“That didn't sound like Sean's footsteps,” she whispered as she started rummaging under the sink and pulled out cleaning chemicals.
I took a canister of scrubbing bubbles. Not the best weapon, but it would have to do. Vera grabbed a mop, unscrewed the handle off, and held it like a weapon.