Page 75 of The Den of Sin
The way he laughed reminded me of our days in college. This was really bad timing. I needed this job. In my head I tried to line up the most efficient plan.
“Okay. I can stop and get clothes on my way there,” I muttered to myself more than anyone. “Get dressed in the store, and boom. I’m ready.” I raised my gaze to find three sets of eyes watching me. “Can someone drive me?”
“Isabella, your interview… it’s here.” Vasili wasn’t making any sense.
“What do you mean?”
“This is the private clinic,” he replied. “Remember, I asked you to work for me. This was it. And you applied for the position too. Alexei runs the clinic but wants someone with a strong ER background to take it on.”
Alexei’s arm folded on his chest. “You fit the bill. Want it?”
My brain was too slow this morning. I stared bleak at him, blinking several times, trying to process it all. “Like here?”
Alexei smirked. “This is where the clinic is.”
“So no interview?”
“After last night, you passed.”
“Hmmmm.”
This was not how I expected my morning to go. Vasili watched me curiously, his gaze warm, and I was half tempted to go snuggle back against him. As if he read my thoughts, he patted a spot next to him. I literally could feel my cheeks flaming. His brothers were here, but my feet moved on their own and I sat back next to him.
“So what does hmmm mean?” Alexei asked.
I chewed on my bottom lip, unsure if it was smart to work for Vasili and his brothers. What would happen when things ended between us?
“I’ll think about it,” I told him. “It’s a bit too much to process on an empty stomach and without coffee.”
“Fair enough.” He stood up and helped Sasha up. “Speaking of food, let’s have lunch. Isabella, you can have breakfast if you prefer.”
I nodded but couldn’t help but stare at Alexei. It made me wonder. When my mother passed away, I had to go through all her possessions. There were so many secrets she harbored my entire life. But this… he couldn’t be. Her journal concluded the son she had with Vasili’s father was dead.
“How old are you, Alexei?”
He gave me a strange look, but didn’t answer right away. I felt like the air in the room stilled, tensed somehow.
“He’s thirty-five.” Sasha was the one that answered, the only one oblivious to the tension.
My chest squeezed. He was the right age. The son my mother had, that I never knew about till after I buried her. Alexei was around the right age.It is ridiculous, I tried to tell myself. There was no way.
“Let’s go and eat,” Sasha interrupted my silence. “I’m starving.”
“Yeah, me too.” Alexei and Sasha left the room, leaving Vasili and me alone. I was hungry but also worried about the nudging feeling in the back of my mind that I kept ignoring. There were too many coincidences. Did Vasili’s father take my mother’s son away from her? I never knew how much she suffered till I read through her journals. Her anguish and worry for her baby. But through her pages, she mentioned Vasili’s father, Nikola, looked for him too. Was he so cruel that he deceived her? Pretended he was helping when in fact he took her son.
“I had your clothes brought in this morning,” his voice startled me out of my thoughts.
“Oh.” I guess I wouldn’t have had to stop at the store after all… if I had the interview. “Thank you.”
“What’s on your mind, Isabella?”
My mother’s last few days flashed in my mind. The pain and suffering she was reliving while on pain medication, her thoughts of present and past blurring. Those last few days gave me a glimpse of how much she’d loved Vasili’s father. Nikola. She kept calling for him. It gnawed at my heart not being able to ease her pain. Without pain meds, her body suffered. With the pain meds, her mind was in agony. There wasn’t a winning situation.
If Vasili and I were going to do this, we had to talk. He was right when he said we needed to talk. About everything. I was just scared where it would all lead.
I opened my mouth to ask him about Alexei but his phone rang.
He glanced at it, as if he was ready to dismiss it, but when he saw who it was, his whole expression darkened.
