Chapter 30Vasily #2
“He almost killed me. Right here, in my own home. And Tony tried to kill you. Or sell you, and it would have been worse. Every time I think about it, I...” I feel the need to do all the things I’m used to doing when I’m stressed and things aren’t going right.
We were both checked out at the hospital.
Ana got some stitches in her leg and I got a compress for my forehead and a muscle relaxant for my shoulder.
It’s still in the pharmacy bottle. I needed to get everyone home safe, and once we’re settled in for the night, I’ll talk to Ana about taking it.
I’m going to make this work. I’m going to be the father Artom needs me to be, and even if her head is still fuzzy and likely always will be, Ana knows best what Artom needs. I’m not going to be perfect, but I have to do my best.
“So that means you need to not think about it,” Ana says. “We just have to figure out how.”
“Stop talking like that. Artom is right there.”
“I wasn’t talking about that!” she giggles, squirming in my arms to kiss my cheek, which is a hell of a way to prove that’s not what she’s talking about. “Now go on, set me down.”
The best I can offer is sitting down on the sofa with her on my lap, but the moment my butt hits the cushion, I’m starting to stand again.
“No, don’t,” she protests .
“This is where Dima found me. I took my shot, and then I sat down here to play my game, and then...” I point to the controller, still discarded on the floor.
Once I started hallucinating, I don’t know how long it was before I dropped the controller or if I was still holding it, still attempting to play when Dima ran in.
“And that time I almost died here? Where was that?”
I gesture to the reclining chair closest to Dima’s door. “Right there. You, ahh, you thought I was sleeping in there. We had a fight the night before, and I ran off and you thought I’d come home and closed myself in there. See, there’s still a stain on the carpet where you dropped your fruit bowl.”
“Huh. Was that our first fight?”
I laugh awkwardly as I settle back on the sofa. Everything about this place has good and bad memories. The last I had here was a bad memory, so now it’s time to replace it with a good memory. “I would have to say that we were fighting the second we met.”
“Oh. Right.”
We’re still in the clothes from the funeral.
We both have blood on us, we’re both scuffed all over.
We’re both limping, too, although I’m doing my best to hide it.
I have an easy life now. I don’t take much damage anymore.
So I can let myself heal once Ana is healed.
“I should probably draw us a bath. We have good bath memories here, too.”
“Wait, no. In a minute, but not yet. I want to know about our first day together. I don’t remember any of it.”
“They’re not good memories.”
She sits up, careful with how she moves to avoid tugging those stitches in her leg. She gets herself upright, her head on my shoulder, her legs stretched across the cushion next to me. “Are you sure? Are they all bad memories? ”
“Well, for starters, I was—” high, I mouth, not wanting Artom to hear. His world is going to be darker than a lot of kids. I’ll only be able to shield him so much. But I’ll shield him when I can. Tripping balls.
Ana shakes her head, but she’s grinning. Her eyes meet mine, and I don’t have a single doubt that she isn’t every bit as in love with me as she was when I left my mark on her.
Which is good because I love her more than I ever have before, and I think every day I wake up will be the day I love her the most.
“It sounds like you were always like that. What else? Were you mean to me?”
“Never.”
“You can be honest with me.”
“Zvyozdochka, I was so furious that day that I was ready to kill your brother right then and there, but that wasn’t on you.”
“I can’t believe he survived today,” she grumbles, then stiffens up, flushing brightly when she realizes she spoke that out loud.
He’s not going to survive too many more days. But he’ll suffer in them. Prisons don’t have a whole lot of money for non-life-saving surgery.
“I was as gentle as I could be, and you were terrified, and I wanted nothing more in the world than to carry you out of there, but I had to... complete the task first.”
“I’m sorry if it was traumatizing for you.”
“You—what? You can’t apologize to me for that.”
She smirks at me. “I can, and I did. I know you, I know you were gentle with me, and I bet you told me you didn’t want to do it either.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Hmm? ”
“You enjoyed it.”
Any color she may have gotten to her face thinking about Tony drains at that. “I didn’t!”
“You did. And then I brought you home, and I brought you soap from Dima’s bathroom because he had girly stuff.
You yelled at me when I tried to buy you dinner, so I lied and told you that there was a BOGO special at the pizza place and I was going to order a pizza for you, so you may as well tell me which toppings you like. ”
“Did it work?”
“Yep.”
“Do you remember how I like my pizza?”
Oh, ho, ho. She’s trying to trip me up. She’s going to have to try way harder than that, though. “Extra cheese, and olives and mushrooms. Plus something sweet, not fruit. I got you cannoli.”
Or maybe it was a trap— she gives me the most victorious look. “You loved me. The very first day, and you loved me? Gosh, what a sucker you were!”
I don’t deny it. What would be the point? “And then you stole my hoodie. I know you, Ana. I know everything about you that matters. Of course I love you.”
Her grin goes shaky, and she has to dab tears from her eyes. “Stop.”
“Never.” I lean over her, intent on having my way with her, only to look up and realize Artom is watching us. He looks really happy, but certainly, he has no idea what’s actually about to happen.
Ana tilts her head to him. “Hey, buddy? I tell you what. Daddy and I are gonna go clean up, and if you take a really good nap, we’ll order a pizza, okay? Whatever you want on it.”
“I want whatever Daddy’s pizza is!” he says as he closes the door .
The moment it clicks, Ana grabs my collar, gives it a sharp tug, and says, “We got an hour. Tops. Let’s do this.”
Sasha leans back in the booth with his hand on his chest, staring lovingly at the cake before him. “My God, this is the best medovik I think I’ve ever had.”
I nod and sip on my tea. It’s a traditional Russian tea— and by that, I mean it’s instant tea, orange drink, and lemonade powders mixed together with some cider spices.
Apparently, Ana thought her Russian staff was all pranking her when they suggested it over tea brewed with fresh orange and spices until she went to the Russian market and found the products sitting together.
And yes, her restaurant is a nice one, not quite fine dining but a comfortable step down, accessible to the masses for date nights but good enough for the wealthy to dine casually.
Those who aren’t Russian don’t need to know that the secret ingredient is Tang.
“I’ll be sure to pass your compliments on to the chef.”
“How is she doing? Did her memories come back?”
It’s wild that the last time I saw Sasha was when I was picking Ana up from the Consummate compound, not even an hour away from where she’d been living and raising my son.
It turns out Dima was even in regular contact with them.
Not about Ana, but just as a professional courtesy.
He didn’t want shit to get stirred up because they got tingly over West Coast Bratva making regular appearances so close by.
This entire time, Sasha could have been eating Ana’s delicious honey cake.
I glare at him .
“You went someplace strange, didn’t you?”
I shake my head to clear my thoughts. “You may have Ana’s medovik.” But her honey cake is all mine, I think to myself to get over that little play on words.
“Aaaaaaand she is making it because her memories are back?” he tries again.
“Some. It took a couple weeks, and then a bunch came back suddenly. Now they trickle in here and there. The doctors are skeptical they’ll all come back, but she’s doing great.
She’s already scouting locations to open restaurants in LA and Flagstaff.
We just came out here to settle some things and officially announce the new management.
She wants the transition to be smooth. And for this, of course. ”
I tap the chip that’s in the side of the tablet Sasha brought me. The tablet isn’t anything valuable, but they’ve spent the last six months pulling together the contents of that chip, at a substantial cost to me.
And a stern reminder the money did not count as the favor I promised Consummate when Ana was handed over to me. I still owe them a favor on their terms.
“Alright, let’s go over what’s on here,” Sasha says, firing it up. “First thing, we were able to locate the schematics you thought might be hidden on Kostya’s equipment, but I have to tell you, Leo was not happy returning them to you. Wanna tell me what they are?”
I know Leo. Anyone else who saw the schematics and were able to identify them would have had a serious moral dilemma over handing them over.
I trusted outsourcing this job to Consummate because, although I’ve only met their computer guy twice, I know he doesn’t have a stitch of morality in him.
I wouldn’t be even a little surprised to find out the only reason he fights on the side of good is because his buddies are do-gooders and it’s easier to work with them than against them.
If Sasha decided to return to the Bratva and bring his team with him, Leo would be my wrecking ball.
So the only reason Leo wasn’t happy to turn them over was because he wanted in on the fun. Maybe I’ll call him up sometime and see if he wants a few for himself.