15. Emory
EMORY
The front door opens, and Rashid stands in the frame consuming it. I assumed there would be guards with guns and I'd be walking into a hostile situation, but it's just him.
I'm not sure why this is scarier than the alternative, but it is.
"Where's my son?" I'm soaked to the bone from rain and shivering like I'm hypothermic, but I move toward him. I need to know where Lex is, and he's not going to keep me from my boy.
He steps to the side and holds the door open as I walk past him into a foyer that's bigger than my entire apartment.
The floor is polished stone and there's a staircase curving up to the second level.
It reeks of pretention, and it disgusts me.
I turn around to face him as he shuts the door behind us.
"Tell me now, you asshole! Where is he?" I'm barely containing the anger in my chest and the tears in my eyes.
For three years I had nightmares of this exact thing happening, though in those dreams I ended up tied up or dead.
He looks at me with disdain, with nothing in his face that resembles the man who pressed a emerald necklace into my hands a few days ago.
That man is gone and the one standing in front of me is carved of ice-cold granite—uncaring, unfeeling. He's the monster whose reputation in this city precedes him.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, walking past me into the house. I follow him because I don't know what else to do. He has my son and I'm not leaving here without him. "You never told me about a child, Emory. As far as I know you don't have one."
God I hate the sarcasm in his tone.
I could hit him if I wasn’t so afraid he'd pull a weapon and hurt me. I'm on the verge of tears, ready to fall apart completely.
I've just had to flush my dreams down the toilet; I don't have emotional energy for this.
"You took him from Irina's apartment. Don't stand there and pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.
" Folding my arms over my chest, I stand shivering as he turns slowly to narrow his eyes at me.
I see the violence in his eyes. It's as terrifying as Batya warned me he might be, and I am a stupid, stupid woman for not obeying him about that club three years ago.
"I took a boy whom I believe might be mine.
A boy whose existence was hidden from me for three years by a woman I fell for.
" He stops in the middle of his sitting room and turns to face me.
"If you had told me the truth when you had the chance we wouldn't be standing here right now.
" His calm hand gestures almost make me explode.
I'm holding on by a thread, so close to going feral it hurts.
"I didn't have a chance," I hiss. "You think I wanted to hide him from you?" I'm shaking so hard my teeth are clicking together. "I was scared, Rashid. You're a monster. Everyone in this fucking city knows that. I was barely twenty years old and pregnant and I didn't know what you would do...."
"So you decided for me," he says calmly, and his eyes go black as night. I swallow hard, trying not to let him see the fear in my eyes, but it has to be obvious.
"I decided for my son."
"Our son," he growls, then continues. "And how has that worked out for you?
" He gestures around the room without breaking eye contact.
"You're living in a place that isn't fit for a dog, your father's in debt to men who would kill him over pocket change, and the boy is being watched by strangers in a building with no security.
Tell me how your decision has kept him safer than I could. "
I've done the best I could with what I had.
But that doesn't give him the right to take my child out of a home where he was loved and bring him here without my permission.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and try to steady my voice.
"I want to see him. Right now." The emotion starts to crack into my tone, turning from anger to fear.
I don’t care anymore.
I need Lex in my arms to know he's safe.
I don't think Rashid would hurt him, but I wouldn't put it past him.
"No—"
"He's my son." I start toward the door, ready to search this whole place room by room if I have to, but he stops me.
"He might be my son too, and you kept that from me!" The shout is paralyzing. I turn to look at his angry face. "So you don't get to walk in here and make demands."
My knees give out and I go down on the floor hard, catching myself with both hands. I'm sobbing and I can't breathe. "Aleksandr!" I scream. I'm so raw and desperate. "Lex, baby, Mama's here!"
Rashid stands over me and his hand closes around my arm, yanking me to my feet without giving me time to react.
He stomps down a hallway, dragging me along, and I stumble to keep up.
Outside of those assholes the other day, no one has ever been so aggressive with me. It's shocking, and I almost piss myself in fear.
He stops at a door near the end of the hall and pushes it open. Inside there's a woman sitting in an armchair with Lex asleep against her chest.
She's older, with sharp features and silver hair pinned back, though she's rocking him gently at least.
She looks like Rashid, only feminine and older.
She looks up when the door opens and her eyes shoot to Rashid, then to me, then back to Rashid.
She doesn't look surprised. She looks like she's been waiting for this.
I pull free from Rashid's grip and race across the room.
Lex stirs when I reach for him and his eyes open halfway.
He sees me and his face crumples instantly, reaching for me as sobs erupt.
I take him from the woman's arms and pull him against me, and he buries his face in my wet coat.
"It's okay, baby. Mama's here. I'm here." I cry into his hair, rocking him. Never in his little life have I felt so relieved to have him back in my arms. No mother should ever have to feel the way I've felt for the past half an hour.
I spin around with Lex pressed against me and face Rashid, who's standing in the doorway with his arms crossed. "You had no right to do this," I snarl, now ready to tear his head off. I have my boy and now he's going to hear what I think. "You're a fucking monster. Do you know that?"
"Careful," he says gruffly, like he's trying to warn me.
"I'm taking my son home, you piece of shit." I start for the door, but he steps in my way.
"And where is home, Emory?" Rashid's eyes track down his nose to glare at me. "Because I'm sure those Gusev men know… yet I've been kept in the dark. Should I ask them?"
"It's none of your business."
"Everything about your life is my business now." When his arms cross over his chest and his shoulders square, I know he's sending a message that he's not budging.
"Get out of my way, Rashid," I snip, side-stepping him, but he moves with me, almost like we're dancing. Then he nods at the sofa across the room.
"Sit down, Emory," he says smoothly now, but I'm seething. We are not friends, and I don't want to sit in his house for a single second.
"I'm not sitting down. I'm leaving." Again I try to move, but he blocks my path and now I'm starting to feel frantic.
"You're not leaving with that boy until I have answers." He looks past me at the woman in the chair. "Mother, this is the woman I told you about."
The woman stands up slowly and brushes the front of her dress. She glares at me with hostility. "She's soaking wet, Rashid. The child's going to catch cold breathing in that moisture."
"I'll handle it."
"Handle it faster. The boy was just settled." She walks toward the door and Rashid steps aside to let her pass.
She pauses next to me and her eyes linger on Lex for a moment before she looks at my face.
I don't know what she sees there, but she glares at me with cold hatred as she walks away.
Then Rashid turns back to me. "I've submitted DNA samples to my doctor. The results are pending. Until I have confirmation of whether that boy is mine, he stays in this house."
"His name is Aleksandr." I hold Lex tighter and step back from him. "Not 'that boy.' And I'm taking him home."
"This is his home," he says coldly.
"I'm leaving," I say, stepping forward again, but this time he puts his hand on the doorframe and blocks my path entirely. I'm holding a child, so I can't push past him and he knows it.
He's using my own son as leverage against me and it makes my stomach turn.
"Mother," he calls down the hallway, and she reappears so fast I know she was listening from around the corner. "Take the boy."
"No." I twist away but she's already beside me, reaching for Lex with steady hands. This is insane. She can't touch him. He's my son. "Don't touch him. Don't you dare take him from me again."
"Emory." Rashid's voice cuts through my panic. "Give him to my mother before you hurt him."
"I would never hurt him. You're the one hurting him by keeping him here." Tears burn my cheeks again as the woman's spindly fingers try to wrap around Lex's arms.
"You're shaking so hard you can barely stand. Give him to her."
I look down at Lex, who's wide awake now and staring up at me with dark eyes full of confusion and fear.
My arms are shaking so badly I'm scared I might actually drop him, and the thought of it makes me loosen my grip just enough for Rashid's mother to slide her hands under him and lift him away from me.
He reaches back for me and wails.
The sound breaks my heart.
She carries him down the hallway and his crying fades as she rounds a corner. I stand there with my empty arms dripping rainwater on the floor and stare at Rashid through blurred eyes.
"You can stay in this house until the results come back," he says. "You'll have a room, dry clothes, and access to your son at all times. Or you can leave right now, but the boy stays. Those are your options."
"You can't do this," I say, and now I'm whimpering. I know who I'm up against. I know I can't win. I can't even call my father. If he finds out where I'm at and who Lex's father is he may very well disown me. And the Gusevs will have his head, maybe mine too.
"I already have."
Rashid walks past me and disappears down the hallway in the direction his mother went, leaving me standing alone in the room with nothing.
I sink into the chair where his mother was sitting and press my palms against my eyes as my shoulders heave with sobs.
I can't leave my son in this house.
If I walk out that door Rashid could disappear with him and I'd never see Lex again.
It's not an empty threat. He has the money and the means to take that boy anywhere in the world, and there isn't a thing I could do to stop him.
I don't have another option than to stay here and play his sick game. I need to be wherever he is.
But when the time is right and his guard is down, I'm going to take my son and disappear so completely that not even Rashid Krasnov will be able to find us.