HER RUSSIAN SURRENDER (16 page)

But Pavel quickly glanced up at Nikolai and answered, “No, that’s okay.”

And so the matter was settled. Or at least Nikolai thought it was. A soft knock sounded on his study door a couple of hours later.

“Come in,” he said, looking up from the work he’d brought home with him.

Sam stuck her head in. “Hey, got time to talk?” she asked.

Her voice was friendly and calm, like that scene in the kitchen hadn’t been awkward at all. He frowned. He was beginning to suspect friendly and calm was Samantha’s default for when she was anything but.

Nonetheless he took off his reading glasses and indicated she should sit down, which she did, looking around his study, a more somber affair than the rest of the house with dark wood paneling and a statesman like desk, so big, it had necessitated the interior designer and his crew break it down into pieces before rebuilding it inside the room.

“Wow,” she said. “This is… maybe fifty times bigger than my office at Ruth’s House. Sweet!”

A compliment, Nikolai realized after mulling her words over for a few moments. “Thank you,” he said.

“So,” she said, folding her hands on her lap. “How’s it going? Everything good with the job?”

“
Da
, it is fine,” he answered, knowing how Americans enjoyed their small talk. He awkwardly added, “I have much paperwork.”

“Paperwork is the worst, right? I always say I enjoy everything about my job, except the paperwork. It’s a real beast.”

“
Da
, it is beast,” he agreed, his voice stilted.

Why was it so hard to talk to this woman? He’d never had any problems talking with women before her. But everything about Samantha unsettled him, made him feel like he was once again the unacknowledged bastard of Sergei Rustanov. Not even good enough to warrant his parent’s marriage.

“I came in here to talk about Pavel…” Samantha introduced the new subject like it was a delicate object, one she carefully set down on the desk between them. “He really admires you. He’s very proud to have a hockey star for an uncle.”

Having no idea how to answer that, Nikolai remained quiet and let her finish.

“I think that’s a nice change of pace for him, because he’s been embarrassed by his living situations for so long, feeling like there was something he had to hide. And now he can be proud of where he’s living and who he’s living with. In many ways, it’s a dream come true for him.”

None of these emotional truths ever would have occurred to Nikolai, but he said, “Yes, if I were Pavel, I would think so, too.”

“And how about you? How do you think it’s going with Pavel?”

“How do I think it’s going with Pavel,” he repeated, not quite understanding her meaning.

She talked slowly, like the ESL tutor he’d been given when he first joined the Polar. “Do you like how your relationship is progressing?”

He thought about this question. “It progresses fine,” he answered. “Pavel is clean and fed and back in school. As you said, now he is very proud of his home and his family.”

“Yes, but…” She reset, putting on another one of her bright smiles. “I’m happy that you came home early. Really happy. And I want to apologize for not giving you positive feedback on that action earlier. I wish I had responded better, I was just so surprised to see you come in. And I wish I had known you were coming home earlier so we could’ve all eaten dinner together.”

Nikolai had to work hard to keep his face expressionless, to not let her see the pathetic soar of emotions her words sent off inside his chest. She was happy he’d come home early. Her vision about how she should have responded to it was nearly the same as his wish. Them all eating dinner together, like the happy families he’d only ever visited, but had never been a part of. The knowledge that she, too, wanted this, made the hot ache inside his chest gentle into a quiet warmth.

“It is okay,” he told her. “You did not know I would come home early. I should have told you.”

She leaned forward. “Is coming home earlier something you might be able to pull off more often?”

His heart nearly stopped beating. She wanted him to come home earlier more often.

“
Da
,” he answered, wondering if he was in the middle of some kind of dream, if he shouldn’t pinch himself to make sure. “I can come home earlier. Not on game nights or when I am on road with team, but other times, I can come home earlier and work here.”

Her face lit up. “Really? Because if that’s the case, maybe we could push dinner back an hour and you know… establish a family dinner routine with Pavel?”

A family routine. It was as if she knew his secret wants without having been told. And this time he couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he answered, “
Da
,
Da
. That is good idea. I will come home early and eat family dinner.”

She clapped her hands together, her genuine smile making him feel like he’d just won a trophy. She was beautiful when she was angry, but in that moment, he realized she was even more so when she was pleased.

“Okay, cool! Then I think we have a potentially good dynamic on our hands.”

He had no idea what she meant by that, but he agreed, “Cool.”

“And in the interest of your family dynamic, could you explain a little more about what’s made you so anti-birthday party?” she asked

He froze, not liking that the subject had come back around to his past. Not liking it at all.

“It is silly custom.”

“Yes, birthdays along with love,” she said, her tone dry. “And you don’t think that’s a hard stance to take on things? Maybe something you might want to reconsider now that you’ve been given custody of an eight-year-old?”

A bad feeling began to boil inside his chest. “You are counselor,” he realized out loud.

“Not my official title,” she answered carefully. “But yes, it’s one of the roles I serve at Ruth’s House.”

He gave her a heavy frown. “I did not ask for your counseling, but you have come here to shrink my head. Like I am hurt woman. Like I am child, same as Pavel.”

She went still in a way that let him know that this was exactly why she’d come in. Not because she’d been truly happy about him coming home from work, but because she’d had an agenda.

“I…” she stopped, took a deep breath, before quietly saying, “I don’t want to argue with you.”

“No, you want to be counselor to me,” Nikolai said, growing angrier by the second. “You think I am—how you say—traumatized. Like Pavel. Damaged.”

She shook her head, her lips setting in a defensive line. “Those aren’t the terms I would use for you or Pavel, but do I think you should maybe talk to somebody? Yes. You literally drove straight from the police station to get Pavel, but now you’re barely interacting with him. And the few interactions you’ve had with him always seem to end up with him feeling ashamed. Like when you told him men don’t cry, and tonight with the birthday party stuff.”

“How did I shame him?” Nikolai demanded. “All I said was—”

“All you said was that birthday parties are a silly custom.”

“They are silly customs,” Nikolai said, his voice full of icy derision. “You Americans and your sentimental, unnecessary customs.”

“Pavel’s American, too,” she reminded him. “And his birthday is in three months. Three months prior is around the time when regular kids start asking about what’s going to happen for their birthday.”

Nikolai hadn’t realized that and his surprise must have shown, because Samantha shook her head at him like she was dealing with the world’s biggest idiot.

“Pavel never asks for anything. Ever,” she said quietly. “But maybe he’s starting to trust that he’s in a stable environment now, because he was obviously using Mateo’s party to introduce the idea of having a birthday party of his own tonight. Until you made him feel like it was shameful for him, a little boy, to ask for something nearly every other little boy his age in America is getting. So yeah, fine, go ahead and think birthday parties are silly. But I don’t care what you say, Pavel deserves a party. Deserves it more than most after what he’s been through. And if you don’t throw him one, I will.”

That proclaimed, she stood up and slammed out of his office. Leaving Nikolai behind to feel like the opposite of a man on the verge of establishing a family. Despite the addition of a child to his household, and the eminent arrival of another one inside Samantha’s womb, that dream seemed even farther away than it had before Pavel and Samantha had come to live with him.

21

T
he next morning, Sam woke up, did a short yoga routine with Pavel before they walked Back Up around the block, and ate breakfast. A breakfast she soon regretted when she had to run out of the room to throw up. After that, she barely managed to get Pavel into the car with his security guard, Dirk, before she had to go lie down for a little bit, sweating from the exertion of her usual morning routine, though it was in the low thirties outside.

So far being pregnant with Nikolai Rustanov’s baby had caused her nothing but literal headaches with bouts of throwing up in-between. And by the time she got to work, and fished two Tylenol out of the Ruth’s House first aid kit, she was wondering how she was going to get through the next few weeks, much less eight more months.

And then Danny called her outside so he could put in his two weeks notice.

“Sorry about this, Ms. McKinley,” he told her. “But only being able to go inside to use the bathroom was tough, and when that big bruiser came by yesterday—”

“He wasn’t a threat,” Sam pointed out. “He’s actually Pavel’s uncle, and he was just checking in about a personal matter.”

“Sure, sure,” Danny said, waving off her explanation. “But my ticker got to racing just looking at that fellow. And the thought of taking him on… well, I’m thinking I might not be the best person for this job, and I’ve got friend who says he can get me in at the mall.”

So that happened, and Sam couldn’t say she blamed Danny. As much good as Ruth’s House did, they had to keep costs down if they wanted to continue doing that good. This meant they only had so much money to pay security minimum wage. Not nearly enough to make even the possibility of having to take on Nikolai Rustanov worth it.

The only thing that kept the day from being a total wash was that her morning sickness truly was contained to the mornings—not all day as some of the women in the internet comments she’d read on the subject had ominously warned. She was able to eat and keep down the Cubano sandwich Nyla brought her, which meant her stomach was full and happy when her cell went off with a text message from Nyla.

“Marco downstairs. Says he needs to talk to you.”

Her heart sank with apprehension. Apparently Marco hadn’t gotten the message the other day, which was upsetting because the last thing she felt like doing was dealing with someone who couldn’t take no for an answer.

She went downstairs anyway, knowing she’d have to figure out a way to make it clear this time. But when she stepped out onto the porch, she wasn’t met with Marco’s usual easygoing smile.

“Did you tell Nikolai Rustanov to have me transferred?” he demanded.

Sam blinked. “What? No!”

“Well, he did,” Marco bit out. “I’m off my beat. Do you know how many years I’ve spent in this neighborhood, getting to know the locals, earning their trust? And with one snap of his fingers, all that’s getting taken away from me.”

“But…” She shook her head. “How would Nikolai be able to pull that off?”

“I don’t know, Sammy,” Marco answered, shaking his head. “Maybe the same way he managed to keep his brother out of the system all these years. Maybe the same way he managed to make those Russians who came after you conveniently disappear never to be heard from again.”

“Wait, what?” Sam asked. She was having trouble keeping up with Marco.

“Oh yeah, you didn’t hear about that? The detectives on your case go to see about this small Russian gang working out of Jiggles to find out if they’ve got anything to do with coming after you and the kid. But they get there and they can’t find hide nor tail of the gang anywhere. Nobody at the club has seen them for days. In fact, the last time anybody’s seen them was the same night somebody tried to get you and the kid. And one of the strippers said she saw Nikolai getting out of his car in the parking lot as she was coming in for her shift. Was disappointed because she rushed to get ready, hoping he’d be a big tipper, but he never came out on the floor. And according to the security outside the VIP rooms, he never showed up there, either. Could be he went straight downstairs to confront the gang. He either killed them or convinced them to leave town.”

Now Sam really blinked. So that was where he’d gone the night he sent her to his home with Pavel! But a morbid gratitude filled her heart, as opposed to the horror Marco had probably been expecting. She’d been looking over her shoulder ever since what had happened, and this meant she wouldn’t have to worry about her or Pavel’s safety any longer, at least in that regard.

But the other matter of Marco’s job didn’t sit well with her.

“How do you know he has that kind of juice?” she asked him. “And even if he did, why would he use it to get you transferred off your beat?”

Marco looked at her like she was an idiot. “Because obviously he’s not just a hockey player, like he wants everybody to believe.” He looked around as if he were afraid someone might overhear them, before stepping closer to whisper, “You know his cousin is Alexei Rustanov, right?”

She shook her head. “Who’s that?”

“The Russian billionaire. Supposedly legit now, but his dad used to be the head of a powerful Russian mafia family. So that means Mount Nik’s got mafia in his blood, too,” Marco informed her with a bitter look. “And now he’s using it to make sure I stay far away from you.”

NIKOLAI KEPT HIS PROMISE. He once again left work early and got home just a little before six. But unlike the night before, most of the downstairs lights were off. And unlike the night before, Back Up was at the door to greet him as soon as he walked in. And also unlike the night before, Samantha was waiting for him on the foyer stairs.