Page 49 of Brutal Secrets

I’m not sure if my next words are true, but what the hell?

“Pleased to meet you too,” I say woodenly, not sure how to deal with a kid.

Her face lights up. “Spasiba,” she says. “Ochen’ pryatnaya.” Then in case I haven’t understood, she smiles. “That’s Russian. Nona taught me.”

Kesera looks over at Dex and then back at me. “Can you two run through the threats we’re facing and then brief me with a plan after breakfast?” She pushes the food around her plate and then rises abruptly, making the plates on the table clatter.

“You okay, Mom?”

“Didn’t sleep too well. I’ll go for a walk and clear my head,” Kesera says. “Don’t overload on screens while I’m gone. Draw a picture or pick up your guitar. The timer with your screen allowance will run out, and then you won’t be able to watch a movie tonight.”

“Mom,” Nadia groans, drawing out the vowels. Then she looks at me with a sly grin. “I bet Dad would let me have screen time. I bet he’ll let me use his phone.”

“Sorry.” I shrug. “I don’t know about these things. You have to listen to your mother.” I glance at Kesera, but she’s looking out at the trees and avoiding my eyes. “Anyway, I don’t think you’ll like this phone.”

I pull an old Nokia handset from my pocket and hand it to my daughter as I watch Kesera open the back door and step into the morning sunshine.

The kitchen is bigger than in our old place—and full of women and children—but it triggers old memories. My mind drifts back to a morning in the snow with Kesera on my lap in an empty house, lost to everything but the taste of her mouth and the roll of her hips.

This house is a mindfuck. What is she playing at, bringing me here?

“I’ll check on your mother.” I look at Nadia, who’s now trying to get Dex to lend her his phone. She’s nothing if not persistent, but she’s not my problem. Right now, her mother is. I’m going to get answers.

Nodding at everyone, I step toward the back door and follow the path I saw her take into the trees.

Rows of spring plants poke through the dirt in a vegetable garden situated near the side of the house. I can see where the grass has been trodden black, so I follow the trail of footsteps into the trees, past a wooden shack that looks like the banya we had out in Moscow.

My lover has rebuilt my past with a Hollywood gloss, and it’s making me feel dizzy. A daughter. A cottage in the woods. An angry Italian gangster who’s probably got a bullet with my name on it, and a vengeful Night Governor.

It all whirls around my head as I crash down the woodland path winding through the trees. No answers immediately spring into my mind as the path opens into a sunny glade, where I find her sitting on a tree trunk and spinning a branch in her hand. I lean against the scraggy bark of a tree and watch her, my nostrils flaring as I struggle to keep my breathing even. I’m angry, but I don’t know about what. Too many feelings and thoughts jostle for space, and I can’t make sense of them.

When she spots me, she doesn’t say anything, just regards me steadily.

“Is this some kind of joke?” I swing my arm around, pointing back at the house.

“Is what a joke?”

“You’ve rebuilt my life like some sort of Disney fantasy in the woods. And then you bring me out here? Are you trying to fuck with me?” I stalk toward her, my hands in fists at my sides as I glare down at her mess of bronze-and-gold curls. I want to thrust my hands into all that hair and use it to move her body.

Kesera’s green eyes flash at me, and she springs from her seat, jabbing her finger into my chest. “My god, you’re an arrogant asshole. I didn’t bring you here. This is my life you’ve walked into. Our life. My family’s life.”

She’s so tiny that her head barely reaches mid chest. I have a flashback of tangling in the sheets with her, her sucking and biting at my nipples. I can feel myself getting hard, even as I get angry.

“Then what the fuck am I doing here?” I ask.

She throws her arms up. “Why don’t you tell me that? You’re the one with the burner phones and the death threats and the demands to disappear.” Her fingers thrust into her curls, pulling at them the way I’ve fantasized about doing myself. “Do you think I’m some sort of idiot? I’ve run a business and raised a child without any help from you for a decade. Now you’re here with demands that we upend our lives.” She bites down on her lip as if swallowing a rush of emotion.

Turning her back on me, she stalks to the edge of the trees, but I’m one step behind her, pushing her up against a birch trunk. Even this reminds me of Russia, though the leaves are green and I can hear birdsong. Last time I was in the woods with her, everything was silent and covered in snow.

“Tell me why the fuck you rebuilt this house in America.” I push closer to her body, winding my fingers into her hair and using it to tilt back her head.

Her eyes burn with green fire, and unlike most of the men I’ve had in this position, she doesn’t look scared of me. In fact, she looks furious. I step toward her, aligning my pelvis with the small of her back and caging her in with my arms.

“Why the hell should I tell you anything?” she says. “You said you don’t want a relationship with either of us, so what does it matter to you?”

“A bit late for that now. Now that our daughter knows who I am.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

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