Page 46 of Bedazzled
The day on Lake Ladoga was perfect. It was unseasonably warm and the sun made the wind feel welcome on my sweaty skin. Maryia’s snarky comments aside, Konstantin was an excellent sailor and his father watched him proudly. Turning my head to look behind us, I grinned, seeing two boats following at a polite distance.
No body of water was safe as far as this group was concerned since a sniper tried to kill Ella by sending her under the ice of the Neva River.
Unfortunately, Lucya and Alexi’s youngest daughter Yana was the one who was hit and fell through the ice until Ella nearly gave up her own life to save her. Watching the two of them whisper and giggle about Konstantin made me so happy. Ella was going to be an amazing mother.
“You needn’t be concerned; they are well-protected.”
This time,I thought.
Oh,shitAlexi Turgenev wastalking to me. I had a mild freakout. The man was known as The Angel of Death, for fuck’s sake. He was the guy that would make you go all Old Testament and paint your front door with lamb’s blood to have him pass over your house.
“After what happened last winter? I’m surprised they’re not in full scuba suits or like one of those inflatable hamster balls, or-”
I was babbling. And he was staring at me, one brow raised.
“One of those boats is Morozov security,” he said. He had a scary deep voice and a very precise way of speaking that was unnerving.
“Oh, that makes sense,” I smiled awkwardly.
“And the drone above us…” he pointed upwards and my jaw dropped, there was a huge, military-looking drone hovering over the boat, “transmits data to the security team back at the marina.”
“I was about to call this overkill until I realized that was the wrong choice of words,” I tried to make a little joke. Alexi was not amused. So naturally, I had to make it worse. “So, um, is the lake a big dumping ground for people the Bratva wants to disappear?”
He actually seemed to consider my idiotic question. “It is possible, though I, of course, wouldn’t know for certain.”
“Of course…” I echo nervously.
“But Lake Baikal in Siberia…” Alexi, who looked like the offspring of a supermodel and a serial killer, was warming up. “That’s the deepest one in the world. It’s an ancient lake with massive underwater caverns and fissures in the bedrock that are impossible to map. Bodies thrown into Lake Baikal will never surface again.”
He paused, apparently enjoying my bulging eyes and terrified expression. If he’d said “boo!” at that moment I would have jumped, screaming, the hell out of the sailboat. I would have taken my chances swimming back to shore.
I was deeply relieved when he moved up to speak to his son.
Then Yuri and Maksim returned from Moscow. Ella and Maksim had to head back to New York. Ekaterina went back to college, and Mariya back to the family estate with her mother.
“I’m sorry, I wish we could stay longer,” Ella whispered, hugging me tight enough to cut off the circulation in my arms.
“Hey, you’ve got important medical stuff to do. Aren’t you assisting on surgery rotations with Dr. Gulianos next week?” I forced a smile; it wasn’t fair to expect her to stay just to be here for me. And if I’m honest, clinging to Ella is also a convenient excuse to keep me from having to interact with the man I married.
Yuri and I stood on the enormous front steps of the Morozov mansion, waving goodbye to everyone. When the cars pulled away from the curb and everything was quiet, he looked down at me.
“I have some work to attend to. I will see you at dinner.” He waited, I guess to see if I was going to answer.
So, I forced another smile, I was getting good at those. “Sure. See you then.” I headed back down the hall, refusing to look back.
Chapter Sixteen
In which Tania and Yuri try to navigate their painful inability to connect.
Tania…
One week later…
The only time I saw Yuri is at dinner, which we have in the obnoxiously huge dining room with the ten-foot table. He sat at one end. I sat at the other. He asked me some polite questions about my day, I asked him some. I ate the unfamiliar food that was magnificently prepared but I always wished there was just one meal where I recognized everything on my plate. The day I stopped putting off the inevitable and sent in my resignation - effective immediately - to Papachristodoulopoulos Equities, I didn’t come down to eat at all.
After an hour or so, I heard Yuri’s voice. “May I come in?”
I was lying in bed, staring out the window with my lovely, heavy quilt pulled up to my nose. “Sure,” I croaked.
