Page 72 of Little Blue

Could she know, though?

Of course, she couldn’t know. She’d been delightfully surprised to see that Ilya had someone he appeared to care for, the obsessive freak.

Why do I get the sense, then, that she’s aware of the depravities her son is capable of?

Tara mixes the batter before turning to instruct me, “Butter the pan, will you?”

I startle but move to do as she bids. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. I’m baking in a mansion with the mother of the man who kidnapped me, who I’m falling for. And she’s sweet.

I hate that she’s sweet.

Or is she sweet? Maybe if I told her what Ilya had done to me, how he’d stolen me, she’d harm me to keep me quiet. To protect her son.

“How did you and Ilya come to be engaged?”

Conflict twists in my belly. The truth burns on my tongue as a lie bubbles up my throat. I don’t know which to release. I wish Ilya hadn’t left me alone with her.

When her dark eyes flick to me, I’m confident I look like I’ve seen a ghost. I bet even my freckles are pale, nearly translucent now. I’d been careful about the amount of coffee I’d been ingesting, aware of the risks of an ulcer. All that diligence for nothing. I’m certain the stress I’m under right now has eaten clean through my stomach lining.

I feel like I might vomit.

She takes pity on me with a small, kind smile. “I met my husband, Alexei, when I was eighteen. I’d been working in my father’s café in New York City at the time, a small shop.” She smiles in fond memory. “More like a hole in the wall. It was nothing grand, but he would bake the most decadent cinnamon rolls every morning.”

The way she tells a story, there is so much emotion behind every animated word. I listen, enraptured.

Tara continues, “He saw me first from a car window. I’d been walking to the café with my father early one morning, as I did most mornings. I’d loved to bake, still do, and enjoyed helping him with the early morning baking. The streets had been quiet, the sky still dark with the night. Not even the birds sang, and even though it was summer, and the air was warm, that morning had been crisp. I remember the way the black car with the black windows slowed as it passed us. My father had thrown his arm around me then, ushering me to hurry into the cafe. The car sped away, and I thought nothing of it. Not until a man, a beautiful man far too old for me, came into the café. He ordered a coffee, black, and let me upsell him a cinnamon roll.” She laughs a quiet, dainty laugh. Her cheeks flush a warm, youthful shade of rose as she pours the batter into the buttered pan and slides it into the oven.

“He came back three days in a row. Every day, he ordered a black coffee, let me upsell him a roll, and sat alone at a table. I was very aware of how he watched me while he drank his coffee, enjoying his roll. I remember thinking he was so handsome, but also very foreboding. I knew, even as a girl, that he was a dangerous man, I should stay clear of. And I did. I didn’t engage him in unnecessary conversation. I didn’t try to beguile him. I served him his coffee and did my best to forget about him. Then, one evening after I’d closed the café for my father, I’d been walking home.”

I can’t breathe as I watch her, listening raptly as my heart pounds viciously in my chest.

“There were people everywhere. It wasn’t so late that the city slept. Men and women strolled. At a nearby park, I distinctly recall the sound of a child shrieking with joy. Then, in the middle of the road, not even bothering to park, a black car stopped. Horns sounded as angry drivers slammed on brakes behind the car, and I stood stone stiff as the dangerous man from the café emerged like a dark demon from the back seat. His eyes were an impossible shade of ice blue, and I remained frozen even as he neared.”

She pauses, and I hear myself whispering hoarsely, “What happened?”

Her eyes meet mine. “I thought he would talk to me. Perhaps he dared to ask me to dinner, despite the obvious gap in our ages. My father would never allow it, and even though there had been a part of me that was enamoured by him, even I knew better. The man was dangerous.” She pauses. I hold my breath. “He didn’t ask me to dinner. He didn’t talk to me at all.”

I frown. “Then what did he do?”

She holds my eyes for a long minute. “He took me.”

Thirty

Irelynn

“Are we telling this story again?” I jump at the sound of Ilya’s amused voice, my eyes snapping wide as I whip around to see him leaning in the entrance much the same way Tara had not long ago.

My head is spinning. The story Tara told me—it couldn’t be true.

She had to be messing with me.

Stiltedly, I turn away from the predator at my back to blink wide eyed at the woman. I breathe, “You’re not serious?”

“Oh, I’m very serious.” She turns to busy herself with the tea pot on the stove. “He pulled me into the car and stole me away to Russia. I remember being not only terrified, but enraged, and filled with so much grief for the family I’d been forced to leave behind.”

“He—the man—he kidnapped you?”

“He did,” she confirms gently. “He stole me from that sidewalk, and no one blinked an eye. I’m not even sure, to this day, that anyone spoke as a witness in my abduction. It was broad daylight, and no one came forward.” She gives an amused chuff of laughter. “Of course, now I know why that is. But then, I’d been infuriated. How couldn’t anyone have seen him take me? How could no one speak up?”

---