Chapter Twenty-Four
Toni sat listlessly at an outdoor table at her favorite café. She felt completely wrung out without even knowing why. Dimitri had said that he loved her. Shouldn’t she be over the moon about that?
She sipped rich black coffee from her mug and had the odd thought that it was really too bad there wasn’t a Russian café that served the rich black coffee she’d grown up drinking with her mother. Sometimes they’d put vodka in it. Other times they had eaten copious amounts of blini with their coffee, adding cream and sugar until the whole thing had been a concoction so sweet that it promised an immediate toothache.
Toni fingered the letter sitting on the table before her. It was the same one that Pyotr had pulled from her father’s safe. She hadn’t read it yet. She’d been too busy. Or maybe she had been too much of a coward to read what it said. Pyotr had insisted that the letter would have saved her so much trouble and worry. What did he mean? What would she discover? Perhaps until this moment she had been praying that she would never actually have to find out. Or that she could ignore what was probably a truth she would never be ready for.
She took another drink of her coffee and then picked up the letter. She put her finger beneath the flap and neatly ripped it open. She held her breath and managed to read even with the tears stinging her eyes.
My Dearest Toni-
She read, the words swimming on the page. Swiping at her eyes, she forced herself to read to the end, and then read it over a second time. The information inside didn’t change. In fact, she felt both better and worse. It was a horrible sensation.
“Toni?” Katya sat across from her at the tiny bistro table. “Isn’t your father’s funeral today?”
“Yes.”
Katya cocked her head, looking curious. “Are you going to go?”
“I’m not sure. Are you?”
“I intended to.” Katya shrugged. “I appreciated your giving me the details. Especially since there will only be a graveside ceremony.”
“It seemed pointless to have a big service for a man that nobody really liked.”
Katya reached across the table and gently touched Toni’s hand. “People liked him, Toni. He was charismatic and charming. They did like him. He was just a little misguided sometimes.”
Toni snorted. She wasn’t certain if she would ever think of him that way. Not after reading what her mother had written just before she died. Toni pointed to the open letter on the tabletop. “Read it.”
“What is it?”
“My mother’s last—well I suppose you could call it her last will and testimony. Or just testimony. Take your pick.”
Katya looked taken aback. She picked up the letter and skimmed it once. Toni could see her working things through in her head. Then Katya read it again. Carefully folding the letter, she placed it back inside its envelope.
“So your mother really did commit suicide,” Katya whispered. “I’m sorry, Toni.”
“How can I ever reconcile the idea that my mother killed herself because she wanted to protect me and my inheritance from my father?” Toni thought her heart might break. “I might as well have put the pills in her mouth myself.”
“She loved you,” Katya whispered. “You have to see that. The woman loved you so much that she was willing to die to do what she thought was best for you.”
“I would have rather had her.”
Katya sighed. “Your mother was miserable, Toni.” Katya shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I talked to her twice. The two of us had tea one day at your house. You were gone I believe. Boris had brought me over to introduce me as the surrogate.”
“Surrogate?” Toni said with derision. “That’s a stretch.”
“I know, but I was impressed by your mother,” Katya admitted. She sat back in her little seat and folded her hands over her pregnant belly. “Your mother told me that I should think carefully, because having a child would change me completely. I didn’t believe her. I was already pregnant, and I figured it would be no big deal to give up a kid I didn’t even know. But your mother was right. I love this baby. I would do anything to protect her. She’s mine and I don’t care who her father was. If someone told me that in order to give my baby the bright future I want for her, that I would have to take my own life?” In that moment Katya’s expression was absolutely determined. “I would do it without even flinching.”
Toni was suddenly grateful for this woman who had become such a strange, and yet valuable friend. “Your brother keeps asking me what I want to do. I keep putting him off.”
“Don’t know the answer?” Katya didn’t seem to have any trouble guessing Toni’s reasons.
“I wasn’t sure. But now?” Toni glanced around at the café. “My mother and I used to come here. We used to go to a few other cafes too. It’s comfortable to be here. I’d like to own the same kind of place. You know?”
Katya sat back in her seat, practically beaming. “That sounds just about perfect.”
“Do you think so?” Toni licked her lips, feeling for the first time as if she might actually have a future that did not suck.
“I think you should do whatever makes you happy,” Katya said softly. “As long as it involves you and my brother living happily ever after. I can’t stand to see him mope around any more.”
Toni sighed. “Now I just have to get through my father’s funeral.”
“That’s what friends are for.” Katya stood up and took her hand. “Come on. We can do this together. I promise.”
***
Dimitri gazed around at the sparse assembly of men at Boris Rustikov’s graveside service. He didn’t see Toni or Katya anywhere. The priest was beginning to scratch his beard and shift from foot to foot with obvious irritation. Even the other attendees were starting to look restless.
The day was cool. A breeze had kicked up, bringing the scent of the nearby harbor with it. Dimitri gazed at the hole in the ground, paying the most attention to the fresh grave of Maria Rustikov beside Boris’s intended resting place.
“Ah!” The priest raised his hand and Dimitri saw Toni approaching with Katya at her side. “There you are my dear.”
“Sorry we’re late,” Toni murmured. “You may begin.”
The priest began the short service in Russian. The assembled guests looked appropriately dour. And the proceedings were over before anyone had time to fidget much more. Dimitri couldn’t stop staring at Toni.
She was a truly beautiful woman. Her long black hair curled softly about her shoulders, framing the delicate bone structure of her face and making her look like an angel come to earth. Her blue eyes were dry. There were no tears for her father. And he was grateful for that. The man didn’t deserve them.
There was something indefinably different about Toni today though, and Dimitri couldn’t quite put his finger on it. His sister looked different too. She was heavily pregnant. That was certain. In fact, by the midwife’s calculations, she could go into labor at any time now.
The two women stood together, holding hands and looking like a united front. It occurred to Dimitri that the child his sister was carrying was actually Toni’s half sibling. Talk about a convoluted family tree. Their children were going to be cousins several times over—or something. And he certainly wanted to have children with Toni. He wanted a life with her. He could be patient. He could wait until she was ready, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
The service was over. People were milling about, talking to Toni and Katya. Dimitri had missed most of the proceedings. He wasn’t even sure what the priest had managed to say about the philandering, mafiya connected deceased. What did priests say in situations like this? Death of natural causes? Only if that included a bullet to the chest from Anatoli’s gun.
“Hi.”
Dimitri turned, realizing that he had spaced out again. Now Toni was standing directly in front of him with a soft smile on her face. He glanced around and noticed he was standing directly in front of her parents’ headstone.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” he said suddenly, not even knowing why the words came out.
“It’s okay.” Toni took a deep, shuddering breath. “She left me a letter you know. It was with my father’s things. He kept it from me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” Toni glanced at his sister. “Katya and I read it earlier and talked things over.”
“Did you?” He wasn’t sure what to think about this budding friendship between the two women. On one hand he was thrilled, on the other he was afraid. “And what did the two of you decide?”
“Katya helped me to see that my mother’s suicide was done out of love.” Toni wrinkled her nose. “That sounds all kind of wrong when I say it out loud. In fact it sounds downright insane.”
“I understand.” He gently drew Toni into his arms. There was too much space between them. “She was trying to look out for you. It might not have been the only choice, or even the best one, but it was what she honestly believed was best for everyone involved.”
“Even your sister,” she whispered.
“What?” He wasn’t sure he’d heard that last bit correctly.
Toni shook her head. “I’ve decided what it is that I want to do.”
“Have you?” He held his breath. Was it wrong to wish fervently that she was not going to tell him that she wanted to take her father’s place within the mafiya ranks?
“I’ve sold my father’s holdings to my uncles.” She gestured across the group to where Viktor and Nikolai Kabalevsky were speaking in low, hushed tones to a few of the other bosses that had attended the service. Toni gave a little smile. “I don’t want his things. I don’t even want that house. Once I liquidate everything, I’m opening a little café.”
Dimitri felt a profound sense of satisfaction mingled with relief. “That sounds perfect.”
“I never really thought about it until you started nagging me about what I wanted.”
He laughed. “It’s a question that nobody asks. Have you never noticed that?”
“Then what do you want?” she asked with a mischievous smile.
“You,” he said softly. “I just want you. I want to hear you tell me that you love me. I want to marry you. I want to grow old with you and wake up beside you for the rest of my life.”
“Hey!” She looked indignant. “Now when I say that I love you, it’s going to be like you told me I had to say it!”
Dimitri cocked his head. “Are you saying it now?”
“I don’t know? Are you making me do it?”
“Will it make you mad if I do?”
She made a sound of feminine outrage. “Are you trying to make me mad?”
“Maybe.” He chuckled. “If it motivates you.”
She pursed her lips, looking thoughtful. “I do love you, you know? I love you a crazy lot actually. Sometimes I think about what I feel and it scares me a little.”
“Why?”
“Because you could ask me to do just about anything, and I would do it.” She reached around him and held tight. Resting her cheek against his chest, she sighed. “And I’ll marry you.”
“Did I ask?”
“You’re going to.”
He took a breath to speak, but a sharp cry from a few yards away interrupted anything he intended to say. Katya was holding her belly, looking pale and yet excited.
“Katya?” Toni pulled away from Dimitri and started toward his sister. “What’s happening?”
Katya’s eyes were huge. “My water just broke.”
“Dimitri, I think its time we head for the hospital,” Toni said. She already had her arm around Katya and was steering her toward Dimitri’s car.
Yes. Life was most certainly going to be interesting.