20. Rashid
RASHID
It's been a long day, and after the stunt Emory pulled last night and having to keep Rostov quiet in the basement this afternoon, I know it's time to return and get information out of him. Devid walks down the stairs ahead of me, pulling the door open as I adjust my cuffs and step into the room.
Oleg is sitting on the edge of the cot, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees.
He flinches when the door opens and looks up at me with hollow eyes that haven't seen sleep in days.
The bruise on his cheek has gone a deep purple overnight and his lip is still swollen from where the guys knocked him around.
I pull a chair across from the cot and sit down, taking my time crossing one leg over the other while Devid shuts the door and leans against the wall behind me. Oleg finally raises his head and looks at me, and he looks like death warmed over.
"You look terrible," I tell him.
"I haven't slept," he grumbles in a gravelly voice. I see the fatigue in his eyes, and I see a faint resemblance to Emory too. She looks like him.
“Hmmm, at least you're sobering up." I study him for a moment, and unbutton my suit coat, getting comfortable. "You know why I'm here."
"You want information."
"I want to know what Gusev's doing with my shipments. I want to know where his men are operating and what they're planning to do along my routes. And I want you to give me a reason to keep feeding you instead of turning you over to the men who want to kill you for your thievery."
Oleg rubs his face with both hands and lets out a long breath. "I don't have what you're looking for, Krasnov." He's much sharper now that he's not drunk, though the hangover has him squinting. I bet his head is pounding—too bad I don’t have a metal drum right now.
"That's a dangerous thing to say to me right now," I tell him, and I let him feel every bit of the threat in that sentence.
"It's the truth." He drops his hands into his lap and looks at me with resignation—or maybe it's the last stage of fear before he stops caring altogether.
"I was a middleman. I passed along what I was told to pass along and I collected what they paid me.
I never saw the shipments. I don't know where they went or what was in them or who's handling them now.
I just told them what the Afghani contact told me. "
"Then what good are you to me, Oleg?" Leaning forward, I steeple my fingers and narrow my eyes at him. He has to understand he's a bargaining chip, and he's not worth bargaining with if he has nothing to offer.
"I don't know," he says quietly, making my gut churn. I think I actually believe him, which isn't good for either of us. "I don't know what good I am to anyone anymore."
I lean back in the chair and look up at Devid, who raises an eyebrow but says nothing. The old man is an open book, and the book is empty.
He gave everything he had to Gusev and kept nothing for himself, not even enough information to bargain his way out of a basement.
He's useless to me as an intelligence source and he knows it, and that knowledge is eating him alive because it means there's nothing standing between him and whatever I decide to do next.
And a man with nothing left to lose is a dangerous man.
"You told me you'd cooperate," I say. "You told me you'd give me everything."
"I gave you everything I have. It's just not as much as either of us hoped it would be."
"If I find out you're holding something back from me," I tell him, leaning forward until he can feel my breath on his face, "I will let Devid take you apart piece by piece."
"I'm not holding anything back," he says, and his voice cracks.
"What about Gusev," I ask. "What can you tell me about his operation?"
And just like that the heavens open. It turns out I've been asking the wrong questions entirely.
Oleg Rostov doesn't know what Gusev plans to do with my shipments, but he does know how Gusev runs his businesses.
He's an open book, giving me detail after detail of Gusev’s operations until he looks winded and ready to pass out.
"And you're sure this information will check out?" I lift an eyebrow skeptically, typing into my phone frantically. I'll have to have men check this out to be sure, but if what he's telling me is good, I'll be able to tear the Gusev organization apart thread by thread.
"I swear," he says, raising his hands in surrender. "On my daughter's life. Now?—"
Oleg looks ready to barter when the door at the top of the stairs slams open, and Emory comes charging down the stairs with Krispin hot on her trail.
"Let me see my father you fucking animal!" she snarls, as Krispin tries and fails to grab her.
"Sorry, boss," he mumbles, stumbling after her. Her eyes land on her bruised father and she gasps in shock.
"Get her out of here," I tell Devid, but she runs right to her father, dropping to her knees in front of the cot and taking her father's hands in both of hers.
"Batya, are you okay? What did they do to you?
" She clings to him, touching his face gently and checking him for wounds.
It's such nurturing contact it's surprising to me.
I've only seen the party girl and the vehement mother, never this, and it's almost making me jealous.
Not once in my life have I had someone fawn over me with such care, not even my own fucking mother.
Is that what love in action looks like?
I slowly stand up and button my coat, but she won't budge from where she's at, even when Devid tries prying her off the old man, so I motion for him to step back. Krispin retreats up the steps wisely, and Devid and I stand over them waiting.
Oleg's eyes well up with tears he doesn't try to stop, and he pulls her into his arms. "Emory," he chokes out. "You're alive. I thought they killed you. I thought Gusev took you and the boy and I was never going to see you again."
"I'm right here, Batya. Lex is upstairs and he's safe. We're both safe." She cradles his cheeks then kisses them several times, and he mirrors her actions.
He cups her face in both hands, turning it side to side, checking her the way you check a child after a fall. "Nobody hurt you?" Then his eyes flick up to me with skepticism, as if trying to discern how I got ahold of his daughter so quickly. He still doesn't know?"
"Nobody touched us."
His body gives out, and Emory catches him as he pitches forward, easing him back onto the cot and sitting beside him with her arm around his shoulders.
He drops his head into his hands and sobs hard while Emory holds him, rubbing her hand across his back and whispering to him while he shakes against her.
She pushes his hair back from his forehead and comforts him like a mother, only making the pit of jealousy I feel worse.
Oleg recovers enough to pull back from Emory, wiping his nose on his sleeve as he studies her face again. "How are you here, Em? How did he find you?"
She glances at me over her shoulder, then turns back to her father and takes his hand. I can see her working up to something —the way her throat moves when she swallows and the way she won't look at either of us for a second.
"Lex is his, Batya," she says quietly. "Aleksandr is Rashid's son.
He tracked me down and found out about Lex and then...
" Her shoulders fall in shame. "He took us both.
" It's not the entire truth, but I feel somehow oddly spared by that confession—that she isn't painting me as a child abductor, just a monster.
Why?
Oleg goes very still. Emory is bracing for the explosion, I can see it in the way her shoulders tighten and she clenches her jaw, but it doesn't come. The old man's red-rimmed eyes move from Emory to me and back again. Then his expression drops and he sighs hard.
"I always assumed the boy was his," he says, almost to himself.
"From the day he was born I could see it.
And you were at that club... didn't come home that night.
" He looks utterly defeated now, like his worst fears have come true.
"I never said anything because I didn't want to believe it, but I've known since the beginning, Em. "
She stares at him and I can see the hurt registering before the anger, which is unusual for her. Emory has a feisty temper, just like me. "You never once said a word to me about it."
"What was I supposed to say? You already knew the truth and you were doing everything you could to keep that boy safe from both sides.
" He squeezes her hand and then lets it go, turning to face me with more composure than I've seen out of him since my men dragged him through my front gate.
"I targeted you on purpose, Mr. Krasnov. "
Devid shifts away from the wall where he's been relaxed, and his shoulders square, hand reaching for his weapon. Rostov's confession changes nothing. Whether it was targeted or coincidental, the damage is the same. It's what we do moving forward that matters right now.
"When I sold your routes to Gusev I knew exactly what would happen," Oleg continues, sitting straighter on the cot.
"I knew you'd trace the leak back to me, and assumed you'd steal my family to manipulate me.
" I'm not sure what's more disgusting—a man who'd put his own daughter and grandson in danger by his skimming, or one who'd actively give them up to his enemy.
"And once you saw the boy I knew you'd put it together, because he looks just like you and there's no hiding it. "
Oleg's body seems to shrink now, wilting before my very eyes as Emory pulls away from him with her hand covering her mouth. The pain in her expression is excruciating to look at. Feeling that level of betrayal from a parent isn't something you get over easily—I know. I've experienced it personally.
"You sabotaged my operation so I would come looking for your daughter?” I ask, still in disbelief.
"I sabotaged your operation so you would take her. Gusev was going to kill us, Krasnov. It was just a matter of time. I couldn't get us out of the country because I gambled the money away, and I couldn't protect them from men with guns showing up at our apartment whenever they felt like it."
He pauses, and his jaw works for a moment before he gets the rest out. "But you could. You have the men and the money and the will to fight, and I knew if you found out you had a son you would move heaven and Earth to claim him. Even if it meant I had to die to make it happen."
"Batya, stop," Emory says, gripping his arm and shaking him. "Tell me you didn't do this."
"It's all my fault, Em. Every bit of it.
" His voice thins out but he doesn't look away from her.
"You and Aleksandr aren't safe out there anymore because of what I did, and I can't undo it.
But he can keep you safe." He nods at me.
"He can do for you and the boy what I should have been doing all along. "
Emory turns away from him, pressing her hand over her mouth again as her shoulders start to shake.
The wail that erupts from her is horrific.
I have to look at the wall for a second because something about it gets under my skin.
I have a strange urge to comfort her, and hold her until the pain is over.
"Get her upstairs," I tell Devid quietly. I'm ready to tear this fucker limb from limb, and yet I have an overwhelming surge of gratitude welling up too. He may very well have saved her life, the poor bastard.
Devid crosses the room and takes her arm, guiding her toward the stairs. She doesn't fight him this time. Oleg tells her he loves her, repeating it over and over until the door shuts at the top of the stairs and cuts him off.
I can't act on this rage or I'll regret it tomorrow when Emory has more questions. She'll be angry and want answers, but at least Oleg has given her a reason to stay put here. She's safe.
"If your intel on Gusev checks out," I tell him, "we talk about what happens next. Perhaps we can work out an arrangement." Who knows what else he knows about Gusev that could be useful?
"It'll check out," he says without lifting his head.
"This isn't forgiveness, Oleg. Your daughter is the mother of my son, and that's the only reason you're still breathing." Well, not the only reason, but a big one.
I leave him sitting there to sulk and march up the steps. Mikhail locks the door behind me as I turn toward the sound of Emory's crying.
The nursery door is open at the end of the hall and I can see the glow of the lamp as I approach.
Emory sits in the rocking chair with Lex against her chest, rocking him slowly, her cheek resting on the top of his head.
Her face is still wet, but her breathing is evening out.
When she looks up at me in the doorway I'm braced for the usual fire, but it isn't there.
Whatever I'm looking at right now, I've never seen it from her before.
She looks utterly broken and torn down the middle, like she's been tasked with choosing between one love and another, and she's chosen me. The bitterness in her face isn't anger, it's sadness, and she isn't hiding it well.
"Do you want to hold your son?" she asks me.
I stand there for a moment, looking at her and at the boy sleeping against her chest. Then I cross to her and she rises, easing Aleksandr into my arms carefully, adjusting his head against my shoulder before she lets go.
He's calm finally, but heavier than I remember. His small hand finds my collar and holds on tightly as I lower myself into the rocker and Emory stands over me, arms folded across her chest.
Oleg's confession did more than break Emory's heart. It took a few bricks out of the wall separating us. Something is immediately different now, I just don’t know what. But I like it. And part of me hopes it doesn't vanish.