Page 103 of Wicked Arrangement

“It’s a phone Marta gave me to pass on to David so she could contact him. I never got around to giving it to him before… everything. But she mentioned that she’d already sent some voicemails to it that he could listen to, to hear her out in his own time if he wanted to. I’d almost forgotten about it,” Kim seems both happy and sad about the discovery.

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled,” I comfort her.

“Do you want to listen first?” she asks, looking at me with love and concern for my pain.

I shake my head, “No. it’s his. If he is happy for me to listen after him, maybe… but not now.”

We continue to tidy her belongings away in silence, neither of us knowing what to say to the other. I have no idea how to begin broaching all of the things we need to talk about.

Kim is the one who speaks first. “Yaroslav, why am I here? Not that I don’t want to be,” she hurries to add, “But has something happened?”

“Yes, no… not really. I just realized that I’m better off with you by my side,” I want to tell her right now that I love her, but it doesn’t feel like the right time and the words catch in my throat.

“I think I’m better off with you too,” she says softly.

“You didn’t like it at the Gillihans?” I ask, worried about how she feels about everything, about me.

She shakes her head, “No, that’s not it. I actually had a nice time, everything aside. I really like Grace, and I enjoyed getting to spend time with her kids, seeing what life could be like for… for our child,” she says, seeming to correct herself.

I wonder if she meant to say ‘for us’. I wish I knew what she was thinking—if she loves me too.

“I know we need to talk properly about our feelings for each other, about the future. But first, we need to take care of the Sharkozi situation,” I say voicing my thoughts.

She nods in agreement. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to slowly have you appear to everyone that you’re ‘winning my trust’, then, once that’s been fed back to Bogdan and Amelia Sharkozi, we will have you send false information. We suspect that Sharkozi’s goal is to usurp the deal we have with the Gillihan Mob. If he can make one of our deals go badly and destroy our alliance, then he’s free to move in and form a deal with them instead. Or better yet, by destroying my shipment and leaving the Gillihan crew without product, they can flood the market and try to take over,” I pause checking that Kim is following me.

She nods, encouraging me to continue, “So, where do I come in?”

“Bit by bit, we feed them correct information to gain their trust, ten thousand dollars here or there, nothing I can’t afford to lose. Hopefully, they will trust you enough that the mole shows himself, or that we can take them down with the promise of abig bust, the one they’re really looking for. We’ll also divert their attention away from where your grandmother is being held and send in a rescue team,” I explain.

“Okay,” she says with a determined look, “You just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I trust you.”

The words are like music to my ears, I want to take her in my arms and kiss her. I want to stay here all night making love to her and not let go. But I can’t do that. Not yet. We need to stick to the plan.

So instead, I get up to leave, “I should go, we can’t seem to reconcile too quickly.”

She nods, getting up too. I gently kiss her and she responds, her body melting to mine and it takes all my willpower to break away.

“Soon,” I say, the word a promise.

***

After finally plucking up the courage to go into Marta’s room I’m now hunting through her things. I’ve found several items, including some old photographs of us as kids, that I can give to David. As I’m looking through the wardrobe, hidden toward the back, I spot a box with my name on it.

Intrigued, I pull it down and look through the contents. Inside, there are reams of information and evidence, mostly surrounding Uncle Innokentiy and his wife’s family, the Petrovs. Some of it I already know, but there’s a lot here that I was unaware of. I settle down to look through it properly.

There are photographs of Innokentiy and his illegitimate sons, I’ve seen one or two before, so I recognize them, but I’ve never seen their mother. Some nobody, I’m told, a prostitute he visits regularly. It’s part of the reason why Zinaida has tolerated the affair.

There’s a journal in the box, too. I open it and realize that it must be Marta’s. The diary is written to me, as though Marta is right here speaking. In it, she documents in detail her feelings about our uncle. How she suspects he isn’t trying to help me, he’s trying to usurp me. That he’s been trying all along. This isn’t news to me, but as I read on, I realize I didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle.

In one extract, Marta writes how, not long before our parents died, she overheard a conversation between Innokentiy and our father.

Everyone in the house had long gone to bed. I should have been sleeping too. But you had been suffering from nightmares a lot and, although Papa always told you off when I slept in your bed to comfort you, you had pleaded with me earlier that night for me to be there. I knew that if I was caught it would be you who would be punished for your ‘weakness’, so I had to be very quiet and stealthy. I’d grown good at sneaking around the house undiscovered.

Which is why Papa and Uncle Innokentiy didn’t realize I was right outside the door during their argument. I heard everything. If Uncle Innokentiy knew this, I’ve no doubt he’d have killed me. As it was, he thought I only suspected, which is why he sent me away.

Uncle Innokentiy had recently returned from a business trip to Macau where he had visited a casino and blown all ofhis money. He was demanding more, accusing Papa of being miserly and paying him a pitiful allowance compared to what he was worth.

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