Page 13 of Bedazzled
In which Yuri is lost, and Yuri is found.
Tania…
Present day…
I have circled every room in the palatial Morozov penthouse maybe nineteen times in the last hour. Maksim got a call that gave him the first, actual emotion I had seen on his face since Yuri was taken, hope mixed with terror.
“We’ve found him,” he was striding down the hall while Ella and I were trotting after him.
“Let me come, please!” I begged, “I’ve already been in a shoot-out, you know I’m good for it, Maksim please!”
He turned to look at me just before the elevator doors closed. “I will call you as soon as I…” he swallowed, “as soon as I know.”
I turned to Ella, who had been crying for the last day and a half. “He means as soon as he knows if Yuri is dead, doesn’t he?” My knees turned into water and I sat down abruptly on the entryway floor. She sat down next to me and we hugged and cried and waited for news.
Ivan, Ella’s personal bodyguard and substitute father, hurried over to us a couple of hours later. “Come, I’ll take you to him.” I was already off the floor and hauling Ella up by the arm before he finished the sentence.
“C’mon c’mon c’mon…” I chanted, rocking back and forth in the back seat of one of the Morozov bulletproof SUVs.
“He’s alive,” Ella whispered, rubbing my back, “he’s alive, that’s good. That’s okay.”
I did not know that there was a VIP entrance at New York Presbyterian Hospital but apparently so because the bodyguards hustled us out of the car and into an elevator. I raced out as the doors opened ignoring Ivan, who yelled at me to slow down and I skidded to a stop when I saw Maksim.
“Wh- is he-” An ugly, convulsive sob broke loose and I slapped my hand over my mouth. The legendaryPakhanof the Morozov Bratva had blood all over his face and shirt.
“He’s in surgery,” Maksim said, “but they’ll be bringing him back here, so why don’t you both just sit down for a moment?”
I always joke with Ella that the Morozov family own everything in the tri-state area, and that must include New York Presbyterian because the entire floor looks deserted. There’s a lounge with dimmed lights and a spread of food on a table nearby.
“You catered your brother’s surgery?”
Maksim just stares at me, lips pinned tightly together.
“Hey, Tan, come sit down,” Ella saves me from a stare-down with her husband. “Ivan, could you get us some coffee, please? Tania takes hers with half coffee and half sugar.”
His sad, pit bull face lightened for half a second before settling into a droop again. “Of course, Mrs. Morozov.”
“God, Ivan! Just call me Ella.”
He walked down the hall but I still heard a faint, “No.” She looked pissed off at his insubordination.
“Ella honey, are you focusing on your tedious battle to get Ivan to call you by your first name so you won’t think about…” I take a deep breath but it is not at all cleansing in the way my yoga instructor always insists it will be.
She puts her arm around me, “Are you trying to psychoanalyze me so you don’t cry until you throw up?” I just slumped against her, and we gave up trying to distract each other.
About two hours later, I looked at the clock on the wall. “He’s been under for a really long time,” I whispered to Ella. “That’s a good sign, right? That he’s still fighting?”
“I think so,” she whispered back.
Ella?”
“Hmmm?”
“Do they…” I take a deep, shuddering breath. “Do they know what happened to him?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, “but…”
“What?” I whispered hoarsely.
