Page 50 of Corrupted Guilt

21. Katya

It’s funny how Dmitry was the center of gravity to both of our lives, and his dying set us both adrift. I wondered if Yuri cursed or thanked Dmitry for bringing him home and into our family, into the bratva? Life on the streets must have hardened him and made even the Bratva life seem enviable. But now, years later, as a man, how does he feel about it?

It’s no wonder he doesn’t care about happiness, or anything or anyone.

I know I need to visit Dmitry’s grave, and Yuri should too. So, I brought it up after breakfast.

“I’ll take you, but first, a surprise.”

He had a mischievous glint in his eyes at the word surprise, that I just didn’t trust.

“No surprises, what is it.”

“Come with me,” he said, walking out and up to the garage with his big black Suburban taking up at least two parking spaces.

“Just the two of us?” I ask a little too cutesy as I climb up into the passenger seat. Grim silence is all I get in return as we drive further and further from downtown. After about twenty minutes, we stopped at a small house, part gray stone, part brown shingles, built in the middle of a large square tree-covered plat at the edge of a lake called Long Pond. The driveway was crushed white stone with an all-black Jeep Cherokee parked on it. There was no lawn, just underbrushand pine needles and a big garage and mother-in-law apartment built over it.

“What do you think of it so far?” He asked.

“What? Your new house?”

“Your new home. Your freedom, on the installment plan. And truck.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Surprised?”

“Floored,” I admitted. Never expected this to happen, especially not this fast.

“Come on, show me around,” he smiled, throwing house a key FOB with house keys on it to me.

“You haven’t seen it?” I asked.

“Nope, I wanted to see your reaction first.”

We walked through to a large country kitchen, big, with old, deep double-sink and old appliances, old linoleum flooring— everything was old, but still charming. The window over the sink showed a neighbor’s house, white clapboard.

Yuri stood over my shoulder and looked at the house, too, saying, “No neighbors, except in the summertime, the rest of the year it’s all yours so they tell me.”

That made sense. This place too was someone’s summer lake house getaway. Or at least it was a generation or so ago when mom could move with the kids to a lake house for a summer while Dad worked and came up on weekends. Now, if I had to guess, the kids who inherited it sold it to Yuri.

Still charming. I could work with this. Build my nest.

There was a stone fireplace in the living room and brilliant floor to ceiling French doors that opened on the lake. I could already smell the fire and the coffee and see the sunrise over the lake.

“All mine?”

“Yes,” Yuri demurred, drawing out the Yes.

I gave him a quizzical look.

“My men in the apartment over the garage to protect you. But they should be invisible,” Yuri said, turning towards me again. “Those are my terms, non-negotiable.”

I’d be a fool to be angry at that. “I’ll think of them as my mother-in-law, a nuisance but necessary.”

“Good. Now before you build your nest, follow me to Dmitry’s grave, you can visit him, and test drive the truck.”

We drove over to the cemetery and when I was the only one to get out, I was a little disappointed that Yuri was staying in his suburban, talking on the phone instead of accompanying me, but I couldn’t nag him into coming to the grave.

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