15. NICK

“My parents and I left Moscow in the middle of the night with literally the clothes on our backs. The KGB was crumbling, and men about to lose their grip on power wanted revenge on my father. Papa was an officer in the Spetsnaz for many years before we left, and he made a lot of enemies.”

Storm’s eyes widen as I recall the night we fled Moscow. Like her afternoon on the boat, the memory has sharp edges, even now, thirty years later.

“What’s the Spetsnaz?” she asks.

“Undercover special forces, like America’s Navy SEALs. They were elite soldiers, some of the best in the world. But the fall of the Soviet Union was total chaos, and suddenly they were going months without pay. A few of them turned on their former colleagues in exchange for money from their former KGB handlers.”

“My God…”

I shrug. “It’s the law of the jungle, and Russia was a jungle then. No one knew who was in charge. There were military skirmishes everywhere, coups and counter-coups being planned. We once lived for a month on nothing but potatoes and canned meat. We had no control over our lives.”

Storm’s gaze is far away. “I can relate,” she says softly.

Is that why we’ve connected the way we have? We’re from different worlds, but we have more in common than I first realized.

“Papa called in some favors and got us passage out of Moscow into Belarus, then on to London and finally New York. But we were flat broke when we landed here.”

I don’t tell her about the night we left – the gunfire, Baba’s dying screams. It doesn’t add anything to the story that she needs to hear.

“The Volkovs – Arkady’s grandparents – helped us when we arrived. Our families had been friends for generations. Papa went to work for their… business. His skills came in handy; so did his contacts throughout the former Soviet Union. With them, the Volkovs were able to expand back into the new Russia and take advantage of the chaos there to invest in oil and other moneymakers. Soon, Papa and Evgeny – that’s Arkady’s grandfather – were partners. Not fifty-fifty, but still a partnership.”

Storm nods silently. She may be young, but she’s far from stupid – she’s reading between the lines about the family “business” and connecting it to Arkady. Which means she now understands much more about me.

And she’s still here. That’s a good sign.

“What about you?” she asks.

“Josef and I were just teenagers at the time, but we learned the business from our fathers. He always had more of a head for figures than I did. Thanks to Papa’s training, my specialty was more… hands-on. Meeting people face-to-face to discuss things. Negotiation.”

Intimidation, I don’t say. Sometimes the people we did business with would try to back out of a deal, or to take more than their share. Sometimes they made threats, or worse, hurt people.

I was the one who dealt with them.

“Like the way you negotiated with Arkady,” Storm says. “That kind of thing?”

I nod. As I said, she’s a smart girl.

“Evgeny and Papa both died around the same time, when we were in our twenties,” I say, leaving out the part about the ambush by a rival family. “Josef and I inherited the business. It was… a difficult time. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“When did you leave the business?” she asks.

When I met the woman who would become my wife, I don’t say.

“A few years later. Josef and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. So I took my share of the business and bought this house. I’ve been retired ever since.”

The look Storm gives me tells me she knows there’s more to the story, but she’s willing to let it go for now.

“And then fate brought us together,” she says, clinking the rim of her coffee cup against mine.

I grin. “It sure did.”

“So what do you think will happen now? With Arkady, I mean?”

“The moment Josef hears my name, he’ll tell Arkady to drop the matter. At the very worst, I might have to pay what you owe him, for the sake of honor, but I doubt it.”

“And that’s it? I don’t have to worry about him anymore?”

I shrug. “The only one you have to worry about from now on is me.”

Her smile makes my heart soar.

“I think I’ve got your number, tough guy,” she grins. “I’ll take my chances.”

She takes our empty cups to the sink and rinses them as the dogs trot off to some other part of the house. Out the window, I can see gray clouds gathering over the Atlantic. A perfect day to stay inside.

“I know I’ve said this, like, a thousand times by now,” Storm says, wrapping her arms around my waist. “But thank you.”

“And I know I’ve said this, like, a thousand times: you don’t have to thank me.”

“But I do, though.”

“Okay, then,” I say. “Thank you, too.”

She smiles, confused. “For what?”

“For giving me a reason to get out of bed every morning.”

Her eyes mist over and her smile widens. Then her face turns serious.

“There actually is one more thing we have to worry about,” she says gravely.

“What’s that?”

“We have a bunch of people coming here for a dinner party on Friday evening. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a thing to wear.”