Page 29 of Blood Mosaic

“Mama, there were five missed calls.”

“From who?”

“From you!” Tatyana let out a breath and leaned against the counter. “What is going on?”

“Mrs. Lipovsky was yelling at me last night, and I couldn’t sleep. Why does she complain about my angels?” Anna started whining about her birds. “They’re on the roof. She’s on the first floor. She doesn’t even hear them. I promise you that.”

“Mama—”

“And Popov, that old bastard, he’s going to raise the rent again. I know it.”

Tatyana closed her eyes. “Mama, we own our apartment, remember? It’s paid for. He can’t raise our rent. He’s not our landlord anymore.”

“But he’ll charge us more somehow. The second toilet is broken. I know it is and?—”

“Mama!” She barked at her mother, then winced.

That won’t help. That will only make it worse.

She took a deep breath. “Mama, I’ll be home soon. I’m going to come home today.”

She should have been back yesterday. She’d been gone for a week, jumping through hoops at SMO like a trained dog, and now she was wearing designer suits and eating extravagant meals while her mother fought her demons alone.

“I’ll be home tonight.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be.”

Somehow she’d find a flight. She had money, and if there was anything she’d learned from growing up poor, money could make things happen.

She’d call the office and tell Elene that she needed to go back to Sevastopol and work from there. All the files she was supposed to check were electronic anyway. There was no reason she needed to work in Odesa save for Oleg Sokolov’s suspicious and controlling nature.

“Mama, take a breath.”

Anna gasped and let out a slow breath over the phone.

“Okay good. Are you feeling calmer?”

“Yes. As soon as you said that you were coming home, I felt like my heart just went very easy, Tanya. And my blood pressure. I think my blood pressure was bad like Papa’s this morning.”

“No, we checked it right before I left, remember?” She walked to the closet and opened the door to see four more garment bags lined up with notes from Lorala pinned to each and a neat line of office-appropriate shoes underneath them. “Mama, I need to go into the office and work for a little bit, and then I’ll be able to come home.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She grabbed the nearest garment back and unzipped it to reveal a pale yellow sheath dress with a jacket. “My new boss will be in at nine o’clock and I need to get some files, and then I can work from home again. Won’t that be nice?”

“So nice.” Her mother’s voice instantly transformed. “Okay, okay. I’ll go to the store and buy some pork cutlets and make that for dinner like Baboolya made, right? Does that sound good?”

Tatyana pressed her eyes closed, fighting the tears at the memory of her grandmother. “Yes, that sounds perfect.”

“I’ll see you tonight.” Her mother hung up the phone, and Tatyana’s arm dropped to her side.

Love shouldn’t feel like a trap.Her grandmother’s words battered her memory like a bird caught behind a window.

She’d been fifteen and convinced that her first boyfriend was her true love. That she had to bend to his ridiculous demands because she “loved” him. As if a sixteen-year-old boy’s whims should dictate her life.

Her grandmother had wisely taken her arm, hugged her, and told her that loving her grandfather made her feel free. “Love shouldn’t feel like a trap, Tanya. That kind of love will have you carving off parts of yourself until there is nothing left.”

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