Page 32 of Brutal Secrets

I nod at our doorman as I walk to the elevator, head bowed. “I’ll call you later, okay? We need to talk about the court case. Jimmy is suing me for libel, saying he loved me like a daughter and never laid a finger on me. I could use some moral support right about now. I don’t need another lecture.”

“Kay.” Stevie has known me long enough to know when I’ve reached the end of my rope, and I’m right down to the frayed edges this morning.

I let myself in and pad past the kitchen. I have a meeting with the lawyers later today. It’s a whole parade of assholes with no letup, and I’m about to put on a suit and my battle-armor makeup when Nona steps in front of me. As if she knows what’s going on, she holds her arms wide and pulls me into them. I sink against her round shoulders and soft chest. Nona is all soft curves, and she smells of honey and pistachio.

“Devuchka.” She uses the Russian for little girl. “Now, we talk.”

“I’ve got to get ready.” I pull away from her, but she follows me into the bedroom and sits on the bed. It’s like when Nadia was little and Nona had to follow us into every room in the house to make sure comfort was always on hand.

“This man. Nadia’s father. I know men like him. Back in Moscow.” She reaches for my hand and pulls me to sit next to her, stroking my arm for comfort. “If he find you. Probably trouble. You tell me what he say.”

I pull out the burner phone and hand it to her. It sits in her hands like a bomb that’s engaged to explode. “He gave me this. He tried to give me one for Nadia too, but I wouldn’t take it.”

Nona just watches me. Waiting.

“He wants us to disappear.” I search her face as she nods. “What does that mean?”

“In Moscow, when I was refugee and I needed work. I work for men like them. He want you to disappear?” She regards me with dark, solemn eyes. “It means he in big trouble. Means you and Nadia in big trouble too.”

A text lights up the phone, and we both look down.

7pm. Be Ready.

Nona goes to the closet and starts pulling out bags and laying clothes on the bed. I don’t know what it all means. Or maybe I do, but I don’t want to admit it. But she’s in motion like she’s done this before, opening my bedside drawers and pulling out medication and phone chargers.

A second text comes in. There’s no emotion. Nothing to soften the words.

Nadia too.

Chapter Twenty-One

Adaughter. A little girl. The words echo like a drumbeat in my head as I walk down the street to the banya, head down and shoulders hunched. I turn the thoughts over and over in my mind, trying to wrestle them into a shape I can control.

“Yo, watch where you’re going, man!” I feel the weight of a body slamming into my shoulder and turn to see a skinny guy with tattoos. He’s too jittery from a night out to notice that I’m not the sort of man you shake your fists at. Even in broad daylight.

Last night’s news has made me lose my edge to the point that strung-out clubbers don’t think I’m a threat. What about the Italians or the Albanians? What about my boss?

Plunking down on the gray stone steps of the Russian baths, I cup my head in my hands. We usually meet here on Sunday, and it’s not good news that Sasha has broken our routine and asked me to come down here on a Friday.

What the fuck will I do if the Night Governor finds out I’ve fathered a kid with a celebrity? Ten years ago in Moscow, he was powerful and dangerous, but now he’s terrifying. He owns half the earth: mines, banks, shipping lines, congressmen, members of the FBI and CIA. There’s not a thread of American life the Night Governor can’t pull if he wants to. A few words in the right ears and Guelman can make anyone’s life unravel.

I tug on my hair and try to catch my breath before I go upstairs to see Sasha. The stone beneath me has been worn by the feet of a hundred years of Russians like me feeling lonely in America. When I didn’t seek refuge in the banya, I lay in bed listening to Kesera’s voice singing about that lost weekend in the woods.

Fuck. I thought she was safe. And now she’s fucking found me.

Rising wearily to my feet, I trudge up the steps to meet my best friend. Nausea swirls in my stomach. Maybe I’ll feel better after I sweat it out. You can tell what a man’s about when he’s drunk or naked. Less to hide that way.

After stripping off my clothes, I head into the steam and the silence. The first session is about to start, and Sasha is already lying on the top bench, ready to bake as the heat rises. There are only two other people on the tiered pine benches.

Lev, the old, paunchy guy from Belarus, wears a tattered bathrobe around his body and a fuzzy felt cap on his head to keep the heat off. It gives him the look of a demented goblin as he pads to the door, his flip-flops slapping against the tile.

He turns to the room. “Last call. I’m closing the door, so if you want to leave, do it now.”

I slap Sasha on the arm as I lower myself next to him.

He opens one eye with a dark glare. “I need to talk to you, fucker.”

My head falls back against the pine, and I shut my eyes. Fucking great. I need to ask for Sasha’s help with this Kesera situation, and he’s already agitated. Not that I say anything as Lev scatters eucalyptus oil across the room and the sharp tang of the trees rises from the pine benches.

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