Page 16 of Nurse for the Russian Mafia

At first, a smile touches his lips, but then I realize he’s exploding into bemused laughter. He shakes his head, slaps his knee. “Is it April first?” he cackles. “Because this has got to be some sort of a joke, right?”

“Look at me,” I bark. “Do I look like I’m joking? I would never make light of what I feel for Samantha.”

“She’s my daughter, Alex!” Virgil yells, leaping to his feet. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

Samantha jumps to her feet, standing between us. “Don’t yell at him, Dad!” she snaps. “I feel the same way. Don’t talk like I have no say in this.”

“This is a joke,” Virgil says, grabbing his glass of whiskey and knocking it back in one go. “It has to be. Or this a cruel trick and you’re just trying to hurt me. After everything I’ve been through, losing your mother…and you’re going to come to me with this.”

I watch coldly, letting him rant. He needs to get this out of his system before he accepts the inevitable.

“Samantha, I always dreamt you’d end up with a doctor, a lawyer, somebody like that. Do you have any idea what Alexander does for a living?”

“Of course I do,” Samantha snaps. “We’ve talked about it. And you told me that he’s a good man, Dad!”

“That was before I knew you wanted to humiliate me like this. He’s in the Bratva, for fuck’s sake…”

“Careful, Virgil,” I tell him.

“Or what?” He walks over to me. “Are you gonna have me whacked?”

I sigh, shaking my head as I stand up. I look down at him, my oldest friend. “I would never hurt you, you know that. And you know that’s not how we work, anyway. But be careful. You know what I’m talking about.”

He flinches. “Oh, I get it. That’s your grand scheme, huh? To make it seem like the world isn’t so black-and-white?”

“What are you two talking about?” Samantha says, glancing between us.

“Just the fact that I was the one who got Alexander involved in the Bratva to begin with,” Virgil says. “I thought he forgave me for it, but clearly not!”

“I have forgiven you,” I say. “But when you try and twist the truth, you embarrass yourself. I’m not saying I want Samantha for a quick fling. My queen deserves so much better than that.”

“Okay, will somebody please explain?” Samantha mutters, moving between us. She stares at her father. “What the heck do you mean, you got Alexander into the Bratva?”

Chapter Twelve

Samantha

For a few crazy seconds, I think I can feel the room spinning beneath my feet, around and around like a freaking fair ride. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Dad and Virgil are best friends, and now I feel like I’ve ruined it.

“What’s going on?” I snap again.

Dad sighs and slumps down into his chair. He pours himself another shot of whiskey and takes a small sip, and then places it aside. “You know that Alexander and I were friends as children?”

I nod. “You grew up together. I’ve seen the photos.”

“Well, there’s something I haven’t told you before, that I haven’t really told anyone before. When I was fourteen years old, I got myself into some trouble. I was hanging out with a bad crowd and I got roped into being their getaway driver for an armed robbery.”

I suddenly feel wobbly on my feet. Alexander steps forward and steadies me, his firm grip like a life line in these turbulent waters my life has drifted into. He helps me into a chair and clutches my hand. I smile at him, and he nods shortly at me, as though that’s all the support he can give right now.

“Anyway,” Dad goes on. “The robbery was successful…I mean, as successful as crimes like that can be. Nobody was killed, but somebody was hurt. There was this teller and she decided to play the hero, so one of the men hit her. She was okay. She needed surgery but, thank God, she lived, and she recovered, and now she’s completely healthy. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was involved in it. And soon, the police came looking.”

“Wait, you went to jail?” I mutter in disbelief.

“No,” Alexander says. “I did.”

“What?”

Dad looks at Alexander, as though giving him permission to tell the rest of the story.

“When the police started looking into your father, I decided I couldn’t just stand by and watch my friend go to prison. So I stepped forward and told them that I was the getaway driver. We were about the same height back then, we had the same color hair. Nobody argued it. So I went to prison.”

“And Dad didn’t,” I whisper, tears pricking my eyes. “Oh, God. How could you let him do that, Dad?”

Dad bows his head. “I was scared. I was young.”

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