Page 84 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
Head cocked, he looks at me intently, u
ndisturbed by my sarcastic outburst. “Are you . . . jealous?”
My face flushes. I look down at the bird in my hand. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the strength for evasion at the moment, but I tell him the truth. “All those girls or women you call friends probably know a lot more about you than I ever will. So yes, I’m jealous. I’m so jealous if you cut me open I’d bleed green.”
There’s a moment of tense silence. A.J. finally breaks it by saying flatly, “Don’t be. Every single one of them is dead.”
The bird falls from my hand.
I think of the white roses he sent to the cemetery in Saint Petersburg. I think of the flower tattoo on his knuckle, the petals with the twelve initials of everyone he’s “lost.” I think about how he told my father he had a few tricks up his sleeve, and if Eric ever found out where I was and showed up here, he’d never be seen again. I think of how A.J. said he’d done terrible, unforgiveable things.
I think of how I told him I didn’t care.
I’m shaking. I feel like I might throw up. When I look at him, he’s watching me with narrowed eyes.
“What’s going on in your head right now, Chloe?”
What’s going on is chaos. The bells of intuition clang loud and insistent against the lazy, comforting reluctance of denial, and all I hear is ringing and buzzing, a relentless, rising noise, like a swarm of angry bees.
I swallow. My mouth is as dry as bone. “You’re not from Las Vegas, are you.”
It’s not a question. He holds my gaze for what feels like forever. I’m not sure he’ll answer, but then, slowly, he shakes his head.
Starting at my spine and working its way outward, coldness runs through my body. I can’t move. I can barely breathe. “And your parents, the homemaker and the pastor? Were they a lie, too?”
I expect a denial or silence, but he answers immediately. “No.” Then he closes his eyes. “And yes, sort of. They weren’t my birth parents, but they raised me, gave me a new name, a new life. They adopted me.” He opens his eyes. In them I see nothing but darkness.
“When you were a baby?”
Once again, he answers without hesitation. “When I came to this country when I was sixteen.”
The noise in my head grows louder. The stitches in my cheek throb. I want to scratch at them. I want to rip them out. “From where?”
He’s still as stone. He whispers, “You already know.”
He’s right; I do. Maybe I’ve known it all along. “Russia.”
When he nods, relief overwhelms me. At last. I close my eyes. The terrible noise subsides, until there’s only silence, clear and cold. “And your birth mother’s name is Aleksandra Zimnyokov.”
When I look at him again, A.J.’s face is a study in misery. His eyes glitter with tears. “She died when I was ten.” His voice cracks. “She was a prostitute.”
Oh God. Everything I’ve been missing begins to knit together with a swift, effortless clarity, like fingers interlocking. All the questions I have, all the mysteries about the man kneeling in front of me, hover around us, whispering, weighting the air.
With surprising strength in my voice I demand, “Tell me your real name.”
A.J.’s face crumples. It’s like watching a building burn to the ground.
“Alexei. My name is Alexei Janic Zimnyokov.” A sob breaks from his chest. “I haven’t said that out loud in twelve years.”
My heart is going to burst. I can feel it, expanding inside my chest, stretching so wide it will explode and kill me.
Then he shoots to his feet and bolts from the room.
I follow him. Slowly, because I’m still weak, I make my way from room number twenty-seven down the long corridor, Bella trotting by my side. I take the stairs to the main floor. A.J. is nowhere to be seen.
At my feet, Bella huffs. I look down at her, and she’s staring in the direction of the corridor that leads to the rear of the hotel. “Show me, Bella. Where’s Daddy?”
She yips and trots away. I follow behind, my heart pounding, my knees like Jell-O.
