Her Russian Brute: 50 Loving States, Idaho (31 page)

F
RESH grenades
of rage were still going off in Alexei’s chest by the time he got off his plane in Milan. How could Eva have done this to him? Left him because she was pregnant and didn’t want to be without her daddy’s money? And why had she let him believe Aaron was her boyfriend as opposed to telling him the truth?

It said something about how far he had come from his criminal roots that his first instinct hadn’t been to call his uncle and have her disposed of, as any self-respecting Rustanov would have done just a decade ago if crossed in such a way. However, he did spend the thirty minutes it took to get from the airport to the address in Milan concocting increasingly vicious revenge scenarios. Taking sole custody of Aaron wouldn’t be enough, he decided. He’d also make sure she never saw him again. He’d buy every judge from New York to Texas if that was what it took. Business ethics, be damned. He’d use every underhanded tactic he could to ensure she was robbed of Aaron the way she had robbed him of his son all these years.

The thirty minutes passed by fast in this manner, and before he knew it, the Bentley Emilio had secured to get him from the airport was coming to a stop in front of a mustard-yellow apartment building. He knew this must be the right place, even without looking at the address Emilio had given him, because Eva and her brother were outside the front door, so engrossed in conversation neither of them noticed the car pull up behind them.

“I will let myself out,” he told the driver. “Stay here.”

He exited the Bentley with grim determination pumping through his veins. When he returned to the car, it would be with his son in tow.

“I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I need to help Aaron get his bags packed and then we need you to get us some fake IDs,” he heard her say as he approached.

“Fake IDs? What?” A black man in glasses, and only a few inches taller than Eva, took her by the arm. This must be her brother, the Foreign Service officer. “Eva, you need to tell me what’s going on right now.”

“That is exactly what I was about to say,” he said, interrupting their conversation.

When Eva gasped and turned around, he saw real fear in her eyes. Good, he thought. He wanted her scared. No, he didn’t just want her scared, he wanted her to rue the day she’d decided to cross him for the rest of her life.

“Where is my son, Eva?” he said. “Take me to him. Now.”

Despite her previous moment of uncloaked fear, she stood her ground, folding her arms across her chest. “No, not like this.”

“You kept him from me for seven years and now you think you can just tell me ‘no?’” he roared, approaching her.

“Now calm down.” Her brother stepped in front of him and tried to stop his advance. “We don’t want to cause a scene.”

But Alexei shoved him aside and pointed at Eva. “You will take me to him. Now.”

“No!” she said, her voice quivering with her own anger. “Leave us alone. You’re a bully and a liar and you need to just go away now.”

“You call me a liar? You lied to me for seven years. You kept my son from me for
seven years
!”

Now Steve approached them again. “Wait a minute, Eva. You said he didn’t want anything to do with Aaron and that’s why you refused to seek him out for child support.”

Eva had the nerve to throw her brother an annoyed look. “He didn’t want anything to do with Aaron. He didn’t even want children back then. He still doesn’t.”

“I said I didn’t want children,” Alexei said through gritted teeth. “That does not mean you can’t tell me I have one.”

Her brother came to stand beside him, shaking his head at Eva. “You can’t not tell a man he has a son!” Steve pursed his lips together in obvious disappointment. “And here I was thinking you had grown up, that you’d finally gotten some sense in your head—“

She cut her brother off with a vicious glare. “I swear to heaven, Steve, if you take his side in this, I will never talk to you again. You don’t know anything about me. Neither of you do. You don’t know why I did what I did or what I’m willing to do to protect my son.”

Alexei once again stepped in front of her brother. “I do not care why you did it, because trust me in this, Eva, when my lawyers are done, you will not have a son to protect. I will have full custody and I will never again let you see him.”

Eva swung at him, a surprisingly adept, open-fist punch that connected with his face at just the right angle to send him stumbling a few steps. “You can go to hell, Alexei Rustanov! I will never, ever let you anywhere near him.” Her voice sounded as vicious as she looked.

He recovered from the punch with a shake of his large head. And he was just about to tell her exactly who could go to hell and whose lawyers would send her straight there, when small fists began pummeling his mid-section.

“Leave my mama alone!”

E
VA hadn’t been
able to sleep on the plane rides from Dallas to London and then on to Milan, which meant she hadn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours. She also hadn’t eaten, and that had probably been a mistake, because by the time Alexei showed up, the only things keeping her on her feet were adrenaline and fear. Perhaps because of this, when he’d started throwing around threats and accusations like she had known he would back when she was actually considering telling him the truth, she had shot past trying to reason with him to screaming at him before straight-up punching him.

At first it felt good, to finally be able to literally hit back at him after keeping her real emotions under lock and key for weeks. But then Aaron came out of nowhere and started throwing wild punches of his own at Alexei, and the world suddenly went into slow motion. Luckily for Aaron, Alexei was so stunned by his son’s sudden appearance that he froze, not responding to his physical attack in any way that could get Aaron hurt.

“Aaron, no!” Eva pulled him away from Alexei and said. “Run back to the apartment. He can’t go in there. That’s the only place you’ll be safe.”

“No!” Aaron said with a stubborn shake of his head. “I can’t let him hurt you.”

“He’s not—“ Flustered, she got down to her knees in front of him on the narrow stone sidewalk. “He’s not going to hurt me.”

“Then why did you yell at him and punch him?” Aaron asked, still breathing hard. “You never yell. Or hit.”

“Aaron, remember when we talked about how if something dangerous happened, you’d have to listen to and do everything I said, no questions asked?” She bit back the tears in her eyes, not wanting to scare him any more than she already had. “This is one of those times. Now, please go back into the apartment building.”

Aaron’s response was to throw his arms around her neck. “No, mama. I’m not leaving you.”

He began to cry, which destroyed what was left of her frayed nerves and made her cry, too, because she couldn’t figure any way out of this. Even if she managed to get Aaron back into the building, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep him safe from Alexei or his uncle. However, she was sure if she didn’t run with Aaron, she’d have to give Alexei the full custody he wanted. If she didn’t, either he or his uncle would have her taken care of and give Aaron some bullshit story about how she’d met with a tragic accident.

So she cried into her son’s soft curls, because she didn’t know how to protect him or how to keep him with her. And she was so tired and just sick to death of being confused and scared all the time. It felt like she was having a nervous breakdown. And she couldn’t even begin to make herself stop crying, even for Aaron’s sake.

Suddenly, strong arms wrapped around them, and the next thing she knew, both she and Aaron were pulled as a unit into Alexei’s lap. “Stop crying,” he whispered in that stern way of his. “Stop crying.”

God help her, his arms were like a blanket of comfort, and just like his embrace had quelled her panic attack in the hotel suite, she immediately began to calm down, sniffling like a baby against his shoulder, until she and Aaron both stopped.

As soon as they did, Steve came to stand above them, his mouth in a terse line. “Can we move this into the apartment now? All the neighbors are looking out their windows at us.”

A
lexei still wasn’t quite
sure what had happened. One minute he was determined to snatch Aaron away from his duplicitous witch of a mother, and the next moment he had them in his arms.

He’d seen Eva get angry. He’d seen her laugh uncontrollably. But he had never seen her cry before. Especially not like this, with huge sobs that just about ripped through his heart. He couldn’t take it, couldn’t stand to see both her and his son in pain, and the need to comfort them overwhelmed his desire to punish Eva.

Then somehow he’d ended up in the living room of Steven’s apartment, sitting in a wing-backed leather chair, with a plate of homemade pasta in red sauce on his lap. Across from him, on a beige couch, sat Eva, who he couldn’t help but notice was now sporting dark circles under her eyes and looking much more tired and withdrawn than the last time he saw her. He suppressed his immediate instinct to worry about her and wondered if he’d ever be able to reconcile all the opposing feelings she dredged up in him. Anger, pity, hate, love. She had him flipping back and forth seemingly every other minute. And at that moment, he wanted to both hurt and protect her.

“Here is your plate, Eva,” Maria told her sister-in-law. The small African-Italian woman had a round moon face and a heavy accent, which matched her overall nurturing demeanor. But most telling about her personality was the fact that despite what happened outside, her first order of business had been to get them set up with plates of pasta, even after Steve had explained he and Eva wouldn’t be joining them for lunch, because they “had to talk.”

“Really, you didn’t have to do this,” Eva said.

“Yes, of course I must do this. You are very hungry after all the crying, no?” Apparently, she had been one of the people watching the entire scene unfold from their window. But unlike Steve, who had made his embarrassment clear, Maria patted Eva on the shoulder. “I am Italiana. I have seen much worse. Do not listen to Steve. He is the one always insisting on being embarrassed. We Italianos are happy to make a show.”

Maria’s words were kind but did not seem to any way alleviate Eva’s own embarrassment. She changed the subject, leaning hard on her friendly Texas accent, when she said. “Well, I’m just going to apologize for all of that and say I’m happy to finally have a plate of this homemade pasta of yours. Aaron’s been going on and on about it for weeks.”

“If I had known he would be such big fan, I would have made it for him earlier in the summer. I am glad you are here with us to taste it.”

At the mention of Aaron’s name, Alexei’s eyes drifted back to the gangly boy with the café au lait skin, who was still standing in the doorway. Even if Alexei hadn’t been told of his existence before meeting him, he would have known this was his son. He had many of Eva’s features, but the green eyes and the way he carried himself—it was like interacting with a bi-racial version of himself at seven-years old. Pride swelled in Alexei’s chest, thinking about how the boy had come to his mother’s defense, and refused to leave, even when she begged him to. That alone told him everything he needed to know to love him.

“Are you my dad?” Aaron said, as if reading his mind.

Eva froze, but Alexei looked his son in the eye and said, “Yes.”

Aaron took a few steps toward him, stopping at the edge of the red and gold Tuscan area rug. “And you was mad because Mama didn’t tell you about me?”

Alexei welcomed the hot rage that question rekindled. It reminded him why he was here and why he had no business feeling anything but disdain for Eva St. James. “Yes, that is exactly why I was mad.”

“Maybe you wasn’t old enough to hear the story,” Aaron said, his voice thoughtful. “It’s a long one.”

To his consternation, he found himself having to fight the urge to laugh. “Oh, is it?”

Aaron nodded somberly. “That’s what Mama told me. How old are you?”

“Old enough to hear the story now, I believe.”

Maria chose this moment to walk over to Aaron and guide him toward the door by the shoulders. “We will let your parents talk now,
si
?”

But Aaron didn’t go without one last question, thrown over his shoulder, “You won’t hurt her, right?”

“No, I will not hurt her.”
Not physically, at least
, he thought to himself.

As soon as they were gone, he set aside his plate and said, “The only reason I am talking to you here, as opposed to in a room full of lawyers, is because I have just decided I do not want Aaron to grow up without a mother as I did.” He leaned forward in the chair. “I will have my lawyers draw up papers, which will grant me full custody and provide you with an apartment below my own. If you sign the papers, you will be allowed occasional access to him at my discretion. If you do not, then I will make sure you never see him again. This deal is only on the table for fifteen minutes, so you will need to decide now.”

Her response to this was to set her own plate down and quietly say, “Okay, you know what, I’m through with you and your threats and your blackmail. Just go on ahead and kill me already.”

“What?”

“Take out your gun or send over your hit-man or give me some poisoned tea or whatever ya’ll do in your family when you want to get rid of somebody. It’s obvious you only care about winning by stomping all over me so you can prove nobody can beat you. So I’m inviting you to either take your kill shot or stuff your custody agreement. I’m not going to play your business games anymore, and if you want to take my son away, you’re going to have to do it over my dead body.”

“I am not trying to win or prove anything,” he said, his old Russian accent actually invading his speech, she was getting him so riled up again. And it was all he could do to keep his voice level, so the others wouldn’t hear him in the dining room. “You are one who lied. You are one who left with my baby inside of you because I am not rich enough, and you are one who did not tell me about him, even when I asked you directly who he is.”

“I didn’t tell you because I knew you would react exactly this way,” she whisper-yelled back at him. “I knew you wouldn’t consider what was best for our son, only what was best for your ego. You think he’s some pawn in this argument between you and me, but he’s a little boy and he needs his mother! The fact that you’re even talking about full custody tells me you still don’t get that he’s a human being, not some extension of Rustanov Enterprises.”

He hated her at that moment. Hated her for keeping Aaron from him and hated her even more for being right about his ego coming before his son. It was true, he wanted Aaron in his life, and he wanted the boy to be happy, but he couldn’t stand the thought of Eva not suffering for what she’d done.

“Why?” he asked, still keeping his voice low, but coming to his feet. “Why did you not tell me you were pregnant? I know I said I do not want children, but did you really think I would not have taken care of my responsibility? I would have dropped out of school and gotten a second job if that was what it took. I would have not turned away from you and my son. I thought you knew me better than that.”

She also stood, her movement stiff with anger. “I thought I knew you, too. But then I found out I didn’t know you at all.”

He shook his head, confused. “I do not understand your meaning.”

“My meaning is you keep asking me why I did this and why I didn’t do that, but you don’t want to hold yourself to the same standards.” She paused, as if shoring up the courage to say what she said next: “Why didn’t you tell me back then you were supposed to be the next head of a Russian crime family and that you killed a man and only came to America for college to lay low?”

He shook his head in confusion. “So you read my Wikipedia page and now you think you can hold that against me? It will not hold up in a court of law. No judge will grant you full custody because of allegations of what I am only rumored to have done.”

She shook her head right back at him. “No, Alexei, I did not find out about it on your Wikipedia page—though trust me, that was an interesting bit of reading in itself. I discovered all of this back in grad school before you became famous and that’s why I left you.”

Alexei’s eyes narrowed. He had purposefully kept the truth from her back then, but now she was claiming she had somehow found out. “No,” he said. “You are lying. You will do anything to get me to let you have Aaron to yourself. “

Her mouth fell open in offended shock. “Are you out your dingdang mind. As much as I love being a mother, doing it by myself has been hard. Really hard. Even with a kid as great as Aaron. You know, my parents didn’t just immediately take me back after what I pulled. I was on my own for two years. And if you had ever had to deal with back-to-back ear infections, explosive poop, and figuring out how to pay for full-time daycare, which you could barely afford on a social worker’s starting salary, you would never accuse me of trying to keep Aaron to myself. Believe me, there were a lot of nights I had to stay up until the early morning with him crying because he was sick, and I’d start crying, too, because I was so tired and I need someone to come in and relieve me. But I couldn’t have that, could I, because you were his father.”

Alexei pushed aside the guilt that sprang up when he thought of her crying while dealing with a sick baby all by herself. “You could have contacted me, even in Russia. You could have. Or better yet, you could have come to me as soon as your parents denied you. I would have forgiven you if I had known you were carrying my child.”

She looked at him, her face more angry and bitter than he had ever seen it. “No, I couldn’t have. You want to know how I found out about all your interesting pre-college experiences in Russia? Your uncle told me all about them when he came to your apartment and threatened to kill me and make it look like an accident if I didn’t break-up with you.”

Then she spat out, “When I found out you had decided to break the news about our time in South Padre behind my back, I wasn’t just running away from you, I was trying to run away from your uncle, too.”