Open Up!
“I s this real?” Anatoly couldn’t believe his eyes. Looking around, he pushed a breath out of his mouth and watched the mist in the air. What in the hell? He was back in Kapotnya standing in the very courtyard that had started him on his journey in life; only now he was a grown ass man, relieved of youthful innocence and second guesses. Finally, another chance.
The snow crunched under his boots as he moved toward the rusty swing set, eyes trained on his pre-adolescent sister. He could hear the squeaking of the metal against metal and his heart beating in his chest. Oddly, she was still the same girl he had left, but the eyes were different. Somehow, they were darker, filled with pain and anguish. Without a word, she spoke to him, begging for his help and protection.
“I’m coming,” he whispered.
Moving in slow motion, he pulled the gun from his jacket and pointed it, feeling the same incessant anger, he had felt the day he was forced from his family, only this time the playing field was leveled more; the pedophile was armed as well.
“I’ll kill you a thousand times if I have to!” Anatoly yelled.
The man had already pulled his weapon. While Anatoly was moving in slow motion, he seemed to be moving faster. A grin was on the man’s thin lips like he had already won before they could even begin to play the game. As Anatoly pulled his trigger, expecting to very possibly be shot himself, he saw the bullet exit the pedophile’s gun. However, the gun wasn’t aiming at him. No! God, no! The back of Anastaysia’s little head exploded, and she fell forward out of the swing into the white snow.
“Anastaysia!” Anatoly screamed in a broken voice. Tears ran down the side of his face and his heart nearly stopped.
Covered in sweat, Anatoly’s brilliant blue eyes flashed open to see the wall across from the bed. Face still wet from the tears, he panted, hands still in balled fists. He swallowed hard, his dry throat restricting around thick saliva. Dehydration from too much alcohol and not enough water, made it hard to pull in his ragged breaths.
Rolling over in bed naked and glistening, he realized that he was back at his home in Miami, a million miles from Kapotnya and his sister. He pushed his head into the pillow and sighed. That shit felt so real.
Propping up his finely muscled right leg that adorned a Russian star on his knee cap, he ran a hand through his long, matted blonde locks, wet from sweating in his sleep, and glanced over at Renee. Her pouty lips had long since been free of the gloss. He had sucked it off the night before.
Thank God, his personal terror had not awakened her from her peaceful slumber. Had she been awakened by his fretting, she would have questioned him like the fucking Gestapo. But it hadn’t. And now, she was resting uninterrupted beside him, completely naked except for her nude heels and wrists still tied by the denim belt on her dress from the night before. Her long hair spilled over the pillow and her legs were curled into the fetal position. So sexy.
Damn. She always looked so pleasant when she slept, like there wasn’t a care in the world. He could watch her for hours as she was now. Something about it was therapeutic for him, but as he looked at her in this moment, all he felt was profound urgency. It didn’t matter if it cost him his life, he could never allow her to befall the horrors that his sister and so many in their family had experienced. Renee was special and fragile. She couldn’t handle the bad things in life, that’s why he had to protect her.
His sister’s face crossed his mind briefly.
It was impossible to fall asleep again after a nightmare like that. What was wrong with him? Stealthily, he pulled the end of the belt until it unwrapped from his wife’s wrists and then pulled the sheet over her exposed brown temple. Just in case his daughter came sneaking into the room, he didn’t want her to see Mommy in such a compromised position. That was for Daddy to enjoy.
Last night had been all Renee promised. When they got home after dinner and a movie, and she saw that the bed had been replaced, Renee turned to him and dropped her dress. The invitation was unmistakable. He had done the rest. Slowly, he pulled down her panties, ran his tongue over her mound and tasted the sweetness between her legs. On his knees, he had pleased her until she creamed in his mouth and then he put her on the bed, her thick round buttocks up in the air, and made sweet love to her until her whimpers mellowed into satisfied moans. He had finished faster than he wanted, but as long as she didn’t mind, neither did he. That was the beauty of marriage. There was always another opportunity to get it right.
The flashes of Renee’s body twisted in ecstasy revisited him now and a selfish part of him wanted to roll her over in the bed and take her again. You’re mine, he thought inwardly. He traced a finger over the side of her hip, unable to resist the need to touch her. Such soft skin. Renee was a testament to real beauty in every way. Curves. Stretch marks from carrying his child. Full heavy breasts. And that mouth…. While it was vicious when she was angry, it was so sweet when she was happy.
“Ana,” she said absently, shifting again.
Nestling in the bed, breasts fully exposed, he felt himself growing hard again as he watched her. His manhood started to swell, blood rushing to the large, veiny erect member while he laid beside her. Leaning over to her, he hissed a breath over her pebbled brown nipple and sucked it gently.
“Mmm,” Renee moaned.
He was about to run a hand between her legs and use his fingers to give her a good morning when a soft tap on the door stopped him. His eyes shot to the door, knowing exactly who it was.
With haste, he jumped out of bed, grabbed his jeans and slipped them on, then opened the door. He glanced down at his daughter, her mop of sandy curls wild atop her head and blue eyes wide after a long rest.
“Hello, Daddy,” she said with a warm smile.
“Hello, pumpkin,” Anatoly whispered, putting his finger over his lips. “Shh. Mommy is still sleeping.” He stepped out of the door and closed it. In one scoop, he picked her up and rubbed his nose on hers. “How did you sleep?
“Good,” she answered.
“Well,” he corrected. “You slept well.” English was his second language, but not hers. She needed to learn how to speak properly for the money he was paying the Montessori school she attended.
“I want to go swimming,” she said, ignoring his grammar correction. “You promised.” Her small pudgy fingers lingered on his neck.
“You’re right. Daddy did promise.” He ran his fingers through her hair and looked lovingly into her eyes. What a little negotiator she’ll be when she grows up. Anatoly had forgotten about his bargain. But it was a beautiful, bright morning, and he was a man of his word. “Go get your swimming suit from the dresser and put it on. It’s in your underwear drawer.” Renee had imposed a new rule of late. His daughter had to dress herself now as part of learning to grow up and be a big girl.
“Then we go?” she asked, cutting her eyes at him.
“Da, we can go, ,” he assured. He sat her down on the floor and watched her run as fast as her little feet could take her, down the hall to her room. He nodded at the guard who sat outside of it, and then went back into his room to shower and put on a pair of trunks.
***
Well-rested, Renee rolled over in their new bed and realized Anatoly wasn’t there. Huh. She rose slowly, sheets falling down to reveal her brown areolas and rested her head against the headboard, feeling the stickiness between her thighs and the ache in her lower back.
Last night had been great – earth shattering, but waking up here, even in the new bed, sort of felt wrong again. She hated herself for her immature jealousy, but hated Destiny Palmer even more for the video she had given her years ago.
No matter what she did, Renee could not rid herself of the image of Anatoly screwing that detestable woman in the pool for everyone to see. Ugh! He was a bastard for recording it, and Destiny was a bigger bitch for delivering it. The both of them, in their own selfishness, had nearly destroyed her, and now for the greater good, she was just supposed to act like none of it had happened.
That was life. Men made the mistakes, and women were supposed to forgive them.
Anatoly had asked her a hundred times, since then, to come with him to Miami, and she had graciously declined each time, always having an excuse. However, after Big Momma passed, she didn’t want to be without him, so she had to come here and faced this place and all its old ghosts.
She knew that she couldn’t just stay in the bed all day, so she made herself get up and head to the bathroom to clean herself up.
After taking a quick shower and slipping on mismatched white socks, one of Anatoly’s never-used, tailored dress shirts, and putting her hair in a ponytail, she found the strength to start the day.
Yawning, she opened her bedroom door and looked toward her daughter’s room, but the bodyguard was no longer sitting in his chair, which meant Alexandria must have already awakened and was with her father.
Evidently, she was the last one up this morning, but it wasn’t a surprise. At this point in her pregnancy, she was always exhausted – nothing that a daily vitamin wouldn’t fix.
In a slow stroll, she headed down the hall to find her family. Hopefully, they hadn’t gone out into the city without her. She didn’t want to sit here all day with nothing to do.
The mansion looked even bigger in the daylight, and with the brilliant white walls and oversized bare windows, much brighter. Inching down the main staircase that led from the upstairs bedrooms to the grand living area, she followed the cheerful sound of her daughter giggling toward the kitchen.
Huge slabs of shiny white marble on the floor led to a marble-tiled walls and chic white furniture and appliances. A large vase filled with white lilies sat atop the bar along with her daughter’s dolls and the daily newspaper opened to the business section.
The television, mounted on the wall between four built-in ovens, was on a local news station. It caught Renee’s attention for a second. She stopped in her tracks.
“Hurricane Mallory looks like it could threaten the entire Miami-Dade area. The governor is monitoring the situation and preparing with FEMA representatives. Local officials are working on evacuation plans and will present at this evening’s town hall meeting,” a female reporter said, standing in front of the Biscayne Bay with her microphone. The wind blew at the young woman’s cotton yellow dress, showing off her exceptional legs. She grabbed the bottom of her dress with her free hand and continued. “This is the largest hurricane in over 100 years, already at a category five.”
Great. Renee hated storms of any type, but hurricanes scared the crap out of her, considering she had grown up in a city so far removed from such occurrences. Grabbing the remote, she turned the television up. “While it is currently lingering out in the Atlantic Ocean, the hurricane could possibly make landfall within the next week,” the reporter warned.
Well, that wasn’t good. The last thing she wanted to do was get caught in Miami in the middle of a historic natural disaster. She leant against the bar, running her fingers over the marble and listening to the report when one of their bodyguards stepped into the kitchen from outside. He pulled off his shades and nodded toward her, opening the pantry to pull out a bag of dog food for Anatoly’s German Shepherds.
“Good morning,” Renee said absently, looking out of the window at Marat sitting by the pool in a chair, watching Anatoly and Alexandria play.
The sound of the dog food hitting the pail drowned out the television. “Good morning, Mrs. Medlov,” the guard answered in a deep Russian brogue. When he was finished, he folded down the bag and put it back in the pantry. “Can I get you something?” Alexandria laughed again in the background.
“No. Thank you. Looks like someone beat me to fixing breakfast.”
On the kitchen table, the chef had placed a large spread of bagels and lox, croissants, fruit, juice and coffee. Evidently, everyone had already eaten except her. She meandered over to the white marble-top kitchen table and picked up a banana.
“I’ll let the maid know that you’re up, so she can clean your room,” he said, avoiding eye contact with her, especially as she was half-dressed.
Renee didn’t care. After living with a house full of servants and bodyguards for years, she had learned to simply live life like they weren’t there. Curiously, she stepped out of the glass-plated doors onto the patio and covered her face from the bright mid-morning sun with a hand. She watched while Anatoly pulled her daughter across the crystal blue water of their infinity pool.
“Hey Mommy!” Alexandria waved when she saw her. “Look, I’m swimming.”
“That’s good, baby,” Renee smiled.
Anatoly looked over to his wife, noticing his shirt barely covering her body and grinned. “Hey, Mommy,” he mocked with a wink.
“Hey,” Renee said, crossing her arms over her chest. The smile she had for her daughter disappeared. This was the place where it had happened. A flash of Destiny’s arms wrapped around her husband’s neck as she rode him in the pool nearly paralyzed her. She could feel her throat tighten and her stomach turn.
Water splashed over Anatoly’s blonde locks, his face tanned from the sun. Dunking Alexandria, he laughed and said something under his breath in Russian.
“Are you getting in?” Anatoly asked. “We miss you.”
“Not today,” Renee said, rolling her eyes.
“Daddy, I have to pee,” Alexandria said, swimming to the edge of the pool.
Marat stood up from his chair and went over to Alexandria. Grabbing her by both of her little arms, he pulled her out and took her over to the table to retrieve a towel.
“I’ll be right back, Daddy,” Alexandria promised, running toward the kitchen door.
“Don’t run, baby. You might fall.” She bent to her daughter, moving wet strands from her face and kissing her fat cheeks.
When Alexandria was gone, Anatoly swam over to the edge of the pool where Renee was standing. He looked up at her, blue eyes gleaming in the sunlight, and noticed she didn’t seem pleased. What had he done now?
“What?” he asked.
Renee looked over at Marat, giving him his cue to step inside as well. “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. She crossed her arms over her chest.
Marat had been around long enough to know when he wasn’t wanted. Without another word, he walked inside quietly and closed the door.
“Don’t tell me nothing. You look like someone just called you fat.” Anatoly put his hands on the concrete, muscles flexing with every fluid movement, and pulled himself out of the water. Standing up soaking wet in a pair of black swim trunks, he wiped the water out of his face. “You feeling sick?”
“No,” Renee said, trying not to push the issue. She avoided looking at him. “I just…” she sighed. “I don’t...”
Anatoly frowned at her sudden lack of words. “Spit it out.”
“You fucked Destiny in that pool,” she bit out quickly. “Okay. There. I said it.” Her heart was racing now. Stepping out of the sun, she sat down at the table under the cover of the umbrella and crossed her legs.
Anatoly followed. He sat across from her and looked out at the pool. “Alexandria asked last night if she could swim. You told her she could. You knew yesterday what had happened here. Why are you making this a thing?” he asked calmly.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I guess until this minute I didn’t realize how much I wasn’t over it. Being back here is bringing back these horrible emotions.”
“It was before we were married.”
Renee threw up her hands. “It was in this house.”
“We spoke about it. You nearly left me over it. What do you want me to do?”
It was a good question, but one she couldn’t answer. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either.” He rolled his eyes and picked up his pack of cigarettes.
“Don’t.” She snapped her head toward him. “It will make me nauseous.”
He put the cigarettes back down on the table and huffed. “Renee, this is stupid.”
“I know, but I can’t help it.”
“You want me to get rid of the pool too?” At this point, he would if it would make her happy and end this game of cat and mouse.
“No, I want to talk about this. You know, talk. Something we never do. I’m just supposed to ignore things, forget about it. Well, somethings are very hard to forget. And I’m not trying to argue with you…”
Anatoly smirked facetiously. “You could have fooled me.” He stood up.
“Where are you going?” She pushed to the end of the chair and glared at him.
“Inside.” He looked down at her and felt guilty all over again. “I don’t want to argue with you.
“Sit down,” she ordered, uncrossing her legs.
His head tilted, face stoic. “I don’t like your tone.”
“I don’t care. Sit down,” she ordered again.
He did as she asked, fighting the temptation to snap at her. She was pregnant after all. He had to have patience. “Do you want to beat me over the head with this? If so, just go on and do it.”
She wasn’t going to let him off that easy. “I want to talk. I want to tell you how you made me feel. I want to know more importantly, how you feel.”
He shrugged his shoulders in frustration. “What does it matter, how I feel? I’m still going to be wrong when it’s all said and done.”
“Why don’t you open up, Ana?” Renee’s voice strained in a high pitch.
“Not this again,” he said, dropping his head. Two words he could live his entire life without hearing again – OPEN UP. He ran a hand over his wet hair and gripped the back of his neck. “Renee. I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry.”
“About what?” She pushed him to open up and say something about his own emotions. “Why are you sorry?” She’d take any explanation except one that wasn’t sincere. She was tired of him just telling her what she wanted to hear.
Anatoly didn’t speak. Keeping his eyes focused on the ground, he shook his head. This was going nowhere fast.
“Ana…” Renee reached across the table to touch him, but he coiled back.
He gritted his teeth and clenched his square jaw. “What? What is there to say? Why are you always trying to get me to say something?”
“Because that is what marriage is about. You need to open up and talk. You need to tell me what’s on your mind. I need to know who is behind those eyes. Emotions are not bad.”
He waved off her words. “In my line of work…”
“We are not talking about your fucking job!” She snapped, hitting the table.
A slow gaze finally landed on her. His face tightened. “Lower your voice.” He looked at the kitchen door. Alexandria was looking out at them until Marat put a careful hand on her shoulder and led her away.
Renee refused to give up. “For once, we are going to talk about this. We’re not leaving this table until you say something worth hearing.”
“Talk then,” he sneered.
“What you did here hurt me.” She touched her chest. “I didn’t realize until I got here, but knowing that woman was with you in the pool that our daughter was just swimming in makes me so angry I could kill that bitch, Destiny. You put the video of you fucking her up on YouTube to kill her career, but in many ways, it has killed me. Millions of people saw that video before it was taken down. And while they don’t judge you, because that’s the way things work, they judge me. They think I’m an idiot. Hell, being here, I feel like an idiot.”
“No one judges you.”
“How do you know?” Renee asked, eyes watering. “You know every man I’ve ever been with, but you on the other hand, weren’t so honest.”
Anatoly might have been a bastard, but he wasn’t an asshole. “I’m not going to lay out in detail who I’ve been with. It’s improper.” Why couldn’t she understand, he would not do it, out of sheer respect for her?
Renee released her quiet frustration. “A heads up about Briggy would have been nice. I mean, considering she lived in the house with us. Would that have been so improper? Would you have wanted me to keep quiet?”
Anatoly wasn’t expecting that. He could defend his actions with Destiny, but the live-in maid who then became his cousin’s live-in girlfriend was a different story. He had purposefully avoided not telling Renee about Briggy, and he hoped after she was killed, her secret would die with her. It was a stupid hope to have. Women always found out everything.
“It happened before we were married. I’ve never cheated on you. Does that count?” He wrung his hands, wishing at that moment he had someone to choke.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you had a sexual relationship with her? Why did I have to hear it through Valeriya, who didn’t know that I didn’t know?” She watched her husband shift uncomfortably in his chair. He was finally cornered. Maybe now, she’d get some answers and some closure.
Anatoly shook his fist. “Briggy meant nothing to me. She was something to do.”
“Like Victoria?” Renee asked. Oh yes, she knew about her too. The woman who had lived with Dmitry and Royal, been the nanny, drugged Royal, tried to sleep with Dmitry, did sleep with Anatoly and finally betrayed all of them. Royal had told her everything in detail.
Anatoly twisted up his lip. “Yes, like Victoria.”
“You have a problem fucking the help.” Renee said, hearing her heart beating in her ears. “You have a problem telling the truth.”
“I’ve never lied.”
“You avoided the truth. That’s the same thing.”
“If that’s what you believe.”
“What happened to Briggy?” Renee asked, cutting him off.
Anatoly stood up. “I’m done.”
“No, you’re not.” She pushed up from her chair and stood in front of him. “What happened to her? One day she’s there; the next she’s gone. Where did she go?”
“Far away.” He stared into her eyes.
“Like Victoria?” She asked defiantly.
“Yes.”
“What happened to Briggy?” Renee pushed again. “Answer me.”
“No. I won’t answer you.” He stepped closer. “Don’t push me on this. It’s not your business.”
“It is my fucking business.” She put her hand on his chest. “You may scare everyone else in this house. Not me. You may tell everyone else here what to do. Not me. You may….”
Anatoly had had enough. “I keep you safe. I keep you protected. I keep you as happy as I can. I give you everything that you want. That’s enough.”
“No, it’s not. Money isn’t everything, Ana. It’ can’t buy everything. It’s no substitution for talking and sharing not only your bed but your emotions with me. You owe me an explanation. I’m not some Stepford wife, bimbo bitch. You can’t piss on my head and call it rain, Ana!”
“Alright.” He leaned in where no one could hear. “Briggy is dead. FUCKING DEAD. Victoria is dead too. I had Briggy’s car blown up with her in it. A leg here. An arm there. A bullet was put in the back of Victoria’s head in a vineyard.” He waited for her to explode, cry or faint.
Oddly, she didn’t. Her face relaxed. “How many people have you killed?”
“I honestly don’t know, and I don’t care. Keeping count is not my thing.”
“Are you trying to scare me or are you being honest?” she asked in a near whisper.
“You wanted honesty, you got it.”
“Was that so hard?” She took a deep breath. “Being honest for once.”
He relaxed his shoulders, unsure how to take her response. “No.”
“How did those women’s deaths make you feel?” she asked, hoping she was breaking through to him. There was no point in trying to talk about the men he had killed or his life as a mobster, but the personal relationships were a different story and one she needed desperately to hear. “Tell me. How?”
Anatoly felt like she was getting too close and it scared him. “What does this have to do with me fucking Destiny?” It was a defense mechanism design to throw her off the subject, but it didn’t work.
She pointed a finger into his chest. “All of your relationships with women end in death with the exception of me and Alexandria. It’s all important. It defines who you are because you won’t talk about it. Your mother is dead. Your…”
Anatoly narrowed his eyes at her and walked off. He was done with this conversation, done with her analyzing and judging him. What the fuck did she know about anything sitting up in her ivory tower watching the world below? How dare she speak about his mother to him?
“Come back here, Ana,” Renee called out, tears streaming down her face.
Anatoly didn’t answer. Pushing through the kitchen door, he disappeared into the house without another word.