39
Oksana
A normal person would have been horrified watching Vasilije sink three bullets into his uncle, but I wasn’t normal. All I felt was satisfaction, and envy.
Vasilije and I sat in the back, and Filip in the front beside John, and we sped through the snowy night toward the south suburbs.
At the front gate outside my father’s house, I rolled down the car window and blinked against the flurries. I gave the security guard a too-bright smile, but he recognized me anyway.
“Merry Christmas,” he said, trying to peer through the tinted windows. “Who’ve you got with you?”
“Vasilije Markovic,” I said. “He’d like to speak with Mr. Petrov.”
The guard went ashen and disappeared into his glassed-in hut, pulling the phone from his belt. After a brief discussion, we were waved through.
It was the house I’d lived in for the last four years, but it wasn’t home.
After the flight from Kazan, my father had ordered another paternity test, and when he couldn’t argue the results, Konstantine and Tatiana had welcomed me as their secret sister. My father’s wife had been warm, too, but she was a deceitful, calculating bitch. She claimed moral high ground when Sergey tried to get rid of me, and installed me in the house as staff.
Punishing him and me.
Keeping me close meant she could remind me every day what a fucking saint she was for supporting the bastard of her husband’s infidelity. I had clothes, food, a house, and even an education. She was never outright mean to me, but sometimes I wondered if it would have been better if she had been. Her fake smiles turned my stomach, and every biting comment she needled into me was impossible to defend against.
The exterior house lights were on, but the windows were dark. Two figures stood at the front steps, waiting in the falling snow. Fat snowflakes collected on the shoulders of my father’s two bodyguards.
John pulled the Lexus to a stop, and I took a breath to fortify myself.
As we got out, my father’s men didn’t pay attention to me. They watched Vasilije and Filip intently, ready for anything.
“I need a word with Sergey,” Vasilije said. “It’s urgent.” He opened his outer coat and pushed his jacket to the side, showing them his holstered gun. Then he buttoned the coat closed, signaling he didn’t intend to use it. “I’m only here to talk.”
“Leave your gun,” one of the men said, “and you can come inside.”
Vasilije gave them a dubious look. “I’m not going in unarmed. He can come out here and freeze his balls off like the rest of us.”
Negotiations ensued, and after we’d been searched, we were brought inside. Vasilije and Filip were allowed to carry their guns since security knew where they were, and could watch for them.
The entryway of the house was grand. My first time here, I’d gotten angry as I looked at the inlaid medallion on the hardwood and the space large enough it had a couch in it. As if someone would need to rest the moment they walked in here. The room was nearly as large as my mother’s apartment in Russia. The massive staircase curved upward, and beneath it, the arched doorway led into the rest of the house.
Sergey Petrov stood at the top of the stairs, inspecting us like we were fleas. He had on a black and blue striped robe, one hand on the belt and the other in a pocket, no doubt holding a gun inside. Was he wondering about me? Did he think I’d been forced to bring Vasilije here?
“Vasilije Markovic,” I said, my vocal cords strung so tight it barely sounded like my voice, “would like to speak to you.”
We’d caught him off guard, but he had to see this meeting as advantageous. This wasn’t public, so no one would know what happened, and it was in his home, where he was comfortable and could control nearly everything.
“Merry Christmas,” Vasilije announced. “Sorry we’re showing up late and without calling, but it’s important.” He used the same friendly tone he’d had at dinner last month, and it set me more on edge. I only had a fingertip’s grip on it.
“Let me get dressed.” Sergey’s distrust was so huge, it flowed down the steps and nearly knocked me backward.
“You don’t need to do that,” Vasilije said. “This won’t take long.”
My father was irritated, but controlled. “Fine. I’ll come down and we can discuss in my office. I don’t want to wake my wife.”
Only I was sure she was wide awake and hiding around the corner, just out of sight from where my father stood. She’d have a gun in her hands, ready if my father needed her.
He took his time coming down the stairs, cautious as a cat. His gaze landed on Filip.
“I’ll speak to you, Vasilije, or Goran without my security if that goes for both of us. Your uncle’s man will have to wait outside.” My father knew what Filip was capable of.
“Your men go, too, then I’m fine with it.”
Sergey gave a look of disdain. “I’d also feel more comfortable if you’re not armed.”
Vasilije unholstered. “Same. Also, Filip is my man now. My uncle’s dead.”
Sergey’s movements slowed as he considered the news. He glanced at Filip, who gave a single nod in confirmation. My father produced the gun from his pocket and set it down on a side table with a quiet thud. The wheels were turning in his head. He believed Vasilije would be easier to control than Goran, but he was dead wrong. My father gave a perfunctory smile. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Feels more like my gain,” Vasilije said flatly. “I’m the one who killed him.”
He plodded to the side table, set his gun beside my father’s, and told Filip to wait outside with the other security guards.
My father had no response to Vasilije’s statement. Instead, he turned and paced toward the office.
I’d only followed the men a few steps when his sharp voice made me flinch. “No. This conversation won’t include you.”
“Except she’s the whole reason I’m here,” Vasilije said.
He looked so confident and carefree walking into my father’s office, when he should have been studying every inch of space. I’d drawn him diagrams. I’d explained the layout in the best detail I could, but it wouldn’t compare to the real thing. I’d told him the couch was only a few feet from the bookcase, but I’d underestimated.
I needed to know Vasilije would succeed if I failed. He promised if anything happened to me, he’d finish what I started, and he told me he’d do it with pleasure.
It still smelled like darkness and death in the office. I’d killed a man in this room, but Ilia was just one of many to die here. It was my father’s preferred spot to end business deals. He moved toward the desk, but Vasilije was smart enough to stop him before the gun taped beneath the center drawer was within reach.
“You tried to get a spy into my house, and failed.”
“Did I?” Sergey’s half-smile chilled me to my center. “She got into your bed fairly quickly.”
“I’m not going to complain about that, but I wanted to make sure you got that you failed. Not just with Aleksandar, either. You played this all wrong.”
“How’s that?”
Vasilije smiled. It was all dimples and teeth, and I wanted to possess the same grin. Did it trigger danger alarms in my father’s head?
As Vasilije wandered further into the room, I followed his lead, and let my gaze linger on the books on the bottom shelf where the 9mm was stored. He did better than I did. His focus didn’t hover over the hiding spots I’d told him about.
“You sent her to plant a few bugs, when you should have had her kill me. A woman who looks like she does, and doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty? Oksana could have been your greatest asset. And loyalty wouldn’t have been an issue. I mean, she’s your fucking daughter, but then you go and treat her like shit. She probably could have turned me—”
Sergey’s hand came up, silencing him. His jaw set. “What makes you think she didn’t? You killed Goran, and came straight here, didn’t you?”
My eyes widened.
My father’s lie was simplistic but perfect and believable. After coming clean to Vasilije, I’d shattered the trust. I believed we’d built it back up, but what we had was fragile. When a broken bone heals and is hit in the same spot, it’s likely to fracture the same way. Would this lie do the same damage?
If he fell for it and left me, I was as good as dead. Not just because of what my father would do, either. How would I survive without this man, who’d seen the real me and might love me anyway?
“Nice try, but I know Oksana a hell of a lot better than you do.”
“What do you want?” Sergey asked. “An apology for attempting to get surveillance in your home? For turning one of your men?” His condescending tone was like being lectured. “If you think Goran hasn’t tried worse with me, you’re naïve. That’s the price you pay when you’re the head of the family business. Which I’m sure you—”
Vasilije shrugged. “An apology would be great, but it needs to be to her.”
It was like he’d been slapped. My father’s incredulous gaze swung to me. “For what?”
It’d all been building up to this moment, and the blood roared in my body so loud, I couldn’t hear my own thoughts. Every cell in me screamed. I’d been silent the whole time in this office.
God, other than my music, I’d been silent practically every second I’d been in America.
And I was fucking done with it.
I spoke in Russian, the language of my mother. “You can apologize for murdering an innocent family. You can apologize for treating me like I was less than garbage just for being born. And most of all, for how you’re a spineless fucking cunt.”
There was no tremor in my hands as I went for the gun. I bent, yanking at the books and flinging them away, and—
The shelf was empty.
No. No!
My hands moved on their own, or maybe they were connected directly to a part of my brain functioning on a higher level, existing above the thick fog of my panic. The gun was still here somewhere. My father was too cautious to remove it altogether.
I tore at the books and the decorative clutter, hurling everything on the shelves I touched toward the floor in a thunderous crash. I knocked over a silver bowl, sending the polished stones inside raining down on my feet, where they bounced and clattered on the wood.
There!
The 9mm dumped out the side of the bowl, hidden beneath the stones.
The metal was cold and sure in my grip, and everything felt so incredibly . . . right. I swung around and took aim, and the air buzzed and swirled. Sergey was racing to get around the desk, but he’d never make it in time.
I pulled the trigger with no hesitation.
God knew I’d waited long enough.
The gunshot was as loud as a cannon firing, and the recoil on the gun caught me by surprise, but I struck him in the back. The black and blue fabric of his robe exploded and Sergey grunted in pain, his knees going weak. He stumbled into the side of the desk, his hands splaying on the desktop, but got back on his unsteady feet.
I fired again, hitting him in the shoulder this time. The impact spun him halfway to face me, and as he went down, his expression was comical. He was so surprised, which was stupid. I’d killed Ilia only inches from the spot where he stood. He grabbed blindly at anything to keep him upright, and as he fell, he snagged the corner of the desk calendar and pulled most of the contents of the desktop down with him.
I pulled the trigger again—
It wouldn’t budge.
I squeezed, but there was no give and no sound from the weapon. I stared at my extended hand, confused. The safety couldn’t be off. I’d just fired twice.
Gunfire erupted outside, and movement dueled for attention. Vasilije closed in on me, and my father was getting up off the ground. There was something in his hand. Something metallic, and sharp.
Where the fuck had he gotten a knife?
Vasilije wrenched the gun from my hand. He slammed his palm against the base of the magazine, and racked the slide in a fluid movement, clearing the jam, and although he was fast, by the time he turned and fired, the knife sliced at his neck.