“Alexei did you a disservice,” Michael continued, picking up as if they hadn’t had the silent exchange behind Sergei’s back. “He should have told you about me, about his family. The reason we argue every week is because Alexei is supposed to be the head of our family now that his father has died. He wastes his time with unnecessary schooling when he should be back in Russia taking his rightful place. Another reason we have been arguing is because he says he would like to stay on in America after he graduates. He says he would like to work for a regular business as an executive. He says instead of serving his family as he was raised to do, he now wishes to live a normal life. I will not let this happen.”
Despite how weirded out she was by this entire situation, Eva’s heart soared. She had been worried about how they were going to make it work after Alexei graduated next year and she was delighted to hear Alexei had already started making plans.
She had half a mind to disobey his edict to stay quiet and tell him Alexei was a grown man and he couldn’t stop him from going down his own path or being with her. But that was when Michael brought out a laptop and flipped it open. “He wants me to show you this.”
The screen lit up to a picture of a man in a dripping wet suit, skin bloated, eyes glassy with death. It was obvious his throat had been slit and from the looks of his chest, someone had put a bullet or two into him as well. Seeing one picture of a dead body was horrifying enough, but then Michael pushed a button and a whole slideshow of dead bodies started. There were pictures of men ranging in age from eighteen to sixty, all dead. Not all of them had been dumped in water, but they all had slit throats and chest wounds, and there were a few full body shots that also revealed blown out kneecaps. The slideshow went on for several minutes with at least fifty pictures flashing across the screen until it finally, mercifully stopped on a picture of a young, blond businessman, his eyes still wide with horror, his neck slit with two distinct bullet wounds in his chest.
Sergei began speaking again with Michael translating. “Because you are keeping our dear Alexei from fulfilling his duties, the Rustanovs now consider you our enemy. This is what our family does to our enemies, what we’re known for. And these are only the most blatant things we do. Sometimes our enemies die quietly, in car accidents, or they have falls from windows, or maybe drink a cup of tea, only to find out it has been poisoned.”
Eva froze in abject fear. It was her habit to drink tea as opposed to coffee. Sergei said something else in Russian. Michael nodded and looked up at her. “Now he says you can speak.”
She shook her head. “This isn’t Alexei. I might not have known where he came from, but I know he would never do something like this.”
Michael translated and to her surprise, Sergei chuckled. He pointed to the picture of the blond businessman and said something in Russian, his eyes twinkling like a proud papa.
Michael translated, “This is Alexei’s handiwork. He hunted this man down and killed him. When he was only eighteen.”
“Eva,” Alexei said.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, not wanting to believe but seeing in his uncle’s eyes that it was true.
“Here is what you will do,” Michael said, translating for Sergei. “You will leave Alexei. You will do it tonight before he gets home. You will leave him a note. Make it convincing or there will be severe repercussions.”
“Eva,” Alexei said again.
“No,” Eva said, “I can’t. I can’t.”
Michael leaned forward. “I am speaking as myself now. Everything Sergei has told you is true. If you lived in Russia, you’d know about the Rustanov Family. You do not want to cross this man. Even if you tell Alexei, he won’t be able to protect you from his uncle. Sergei is too powerful and he wants his nephew back in the fold. Don’t be a fool. Alexei may be fantasizing about leading a normal life with you, but he killed a man in this way when he was just eighteen. He obviously belongs with his family.”
Eva’s eyes went back to the picture of the dead man.
“Eva!” Hands grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
She came awake, for real this time, only to find Alexei Rustanov himself standing above her.
Chapter Fourteen
EVA shrieked and shot up in bed, scrambling to the other side to put distance between her and the man she’d just found out was a cold-blooded killer. But then she slowly realized….It had been a dream. She hadn’t just found out Alexei was the soon-to-be head of the Rustanov family. No, that had happened eight years ago.
She put her hand over her racing heart, willing it to calm down. Wow, she hadn’t had that dream in a while. It had paid her a weekly visit for the first few months after she broke up with Alexei, and then it had kicked in daily after she gave birth to Aaron. For a while, she had been constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering if every unmarked car was following her, refusing to drink tea for fear Sergei Rustanov would figure out a way to poison her despite acquiescing to his demands, just because she existed, just because she had dared to get involved with his nephew and had then not taken the abortion option when she found out she was pregnant.
It had almost been a relief when her father called two years after Aaron’s birth and said her mother was ready to retire and she could have the job if she wanted it. No, her parents hadn’t exactly completely forgiven her, but at least she knew just about everyone in Drummond. It would be easier for Sergei Rustanov to track her there if he wanted to, but it would take an awful lot of work to kill or have her killed without anyone noticing. In a high-density city like Dallas, it would have been easy to pick her off and make it look like an accident. But in a small town like Drummond, you couldn’t leave a glob of spit on the sidewalk without everyone knowing it was you who’d done it. And all strangers were duly noted, which would make it hard for even a Russian mafia boss to get rid of her without raising suspicions.
But Sergei hadn’t found her. From what she could tell after having his people clean her stuff out of Alexei’s apartment and deliver it to Layla’s, he hadn’t even bothered to keep tabs on her. Alexei returned to Russia and became the head of the Rustanov empire, just as his uncle had wanted. Years passed and she started to believe maybe everything would be okay. Then more years passed and she began to believe everything was okay.
And it had been, until she ran into Alexei at Layla’s wedding. Who knew he’d still be so angry at her for dumping him the way she had? Who knew he’d still have the exact same effect on her, as if eight years and one son hadn’t happened since the last time they seen each other?
Now he stood on the opposite side of the bed, already dressed in a linen suit with an unreadable expression on his face. “You are scared of me now,” he said. It was a statement not a question.
“No, I just…” She scrambled to shore up her nerves and become the person she needed to be for the next two weeks in order to get Drummond, Aaron, and herself out of this mess. “I’m just not used to being shaken awake. I was surprised.”
“You were saying, ‘no, no,’ and you were crying. That is why I shook you.”
“Was I?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light. “I must have been having a nightmare.”
“But you do not remember it?”
She didn’t have to remember it, she’d lived it. “Not exactly,” she said.
“Did it have anything to do with last night?”
She finally got where this line of conversation was leading. “Oh, you think, because we—“ She broke off not quite knowing how to describe what they had done last night. “No, I told you. That was closure.”
She peeped up at him, hating that she actually cared about the answer to her next question. “Did it help? Do you feel better?”
He gave her a short nod. “How did you know to use that tactic with me?”
“You make it sound like we’re two business opponents. It wasn’t a tactic. Closure is what I do for a living.”
She settled back on her knees. “One of my first big cases after I moved back to Drummond was writing up a Red Cross report for this one man whose deli had mysteriously burned down one night. This guy was a nightmare, up in my office every day, demanding I have the electrician double-check all the outlets to make sure they hadn’t caused the fire. Then the next day he’d want me to go interview Mr. Peterson—he owns a small grocery store down the street from the deli—to see if maybe it was foul play, like I was one of those TV detectives or something. Then he’d be back in my office again, talking about how the landlord’s wife looked at him funny in Bible Study, and now he thinks they might have done it in order to get the insurance payout. I interviewed everybody and checked and rechecked. And finally we got the report back. I called him to my office to tell him it was definitely faulty wiring. I thought he’d be upset it was such a little thing, but instead he starts crying. This guy hunts with my daddy, and he was sitting in my office, blubbering like a baby. And then he thanked me like I had saved his life or something. Believe it or not, I’m still on his Christmas card list. You see, the thing was, I thought he wanted somebody to blame for the fire, but all he really wanted was an explanation. That’s all he needed to let what happened go. And that’s kind of the main point of my job, giving people closure, even when they don’t realize they need it.”