“If you knew how crazy in love with you I am,” I say into her neck, “you would be scared shitless, Bianca.”
She pulls away a little, so she can look me in the eyes, smiles, and nudges my nose with hers. “Never,” she mouths then crashes her lips to mine.
Chapter 18
The phone has been on the counter in front of me, with a message window open, for five minutes. I exchanged numbers with Nina when we went to the pakhan’s place the other night, and I’ve been planning on messaging her for several days now, but I’m not sure if she’ll want to answer my questions. We’re not friends or anything like that, but I have no one else to ask, other than Mikhail. I’m pretty sure he’d tell me if I asked him directly, but if my suspicions are correct, I don’t want to make him talk about it. I take the phone and start typing.
19:09 Bianca: Hey. It’s Bianca. Are you busy?
19:11 Nina: Well, I don’t think that keeping my head above the toilet since 6 am constitutes as being busy. Lol. It’s no fun, that’s for sure. You know how they say the morning sickness lasts only for 2 months? THEY LIED! I’ve been puking since the 3rd week, and that “morning” part is not true either. You two want to come over for a coffee or something? How’s Grumpy doing?
I look at the last line and snort.
19:14 Bianca: Mikhail is still at work. Does he know you call him Grumpy?
19:14 Nina: Of course, he does. He doesn’t come here often but when he does, he usually sits in the corner and broods.
19:15 Bianca: Yeah, he does that a lot. I wanted to ask you something. It’s about Mikhail. But if you are not comfortable answering just tell me, it’s ok.
19:16 Nina: Sure. Shoot.
19:16 Bianca: Do you know what happened to him?
A couple of minutes go by until Nina responds
19:18 Nina: Yes. Roman told me.
19:18 Bianca: He was tortured, wasn’t he? I saw the scars, and those are not a result of an accident or something, they are too precise, almost clinical. His back is covered with whip marks. Can you please tell me who tortured my husband? And why?
19:20 Nina: It was the old pakhan. Roman’s father.
I stare at her answer, shocked. Roman’s father did that? The phone in my hand starts ringing. It’s Nina. I take the call.
“I know you can’t reply, but I think it’s better if I tell you than type. It’s . . . it’s a really bad story, Bianca.”
Nina’s voice is low and strangled, so different than her usual cheerful tone, which tells me that whatever she’s going to say will probably be worse than I could have imagined.
“I only know what Roman told me, and he didn’t go into details. I’ll tell you what I know. You can tap the phone for ‘yes,’ okay?”
I tap the microphone with my nail.
“Promise me you won’t ask Mikhail to talk about it. Ever. Please.”
Yes, it’s definitely worse than what I thought. I tap the phone again.
“Mikhail’s father handled the finances for the old pakhan. One day a lot of money went missing, just vanished from the pakhan’s account. A couple of million. He concluded that Mikhail’s father had something to do with that, so he took his whole family into one of the old warehouses. He killed Mikhail’s mother. Then he ordered his man to . . . to rape his sister. Mikhail and his father watched.”
Dear God. My legs are shaking, and I feel like I’m going to be sick, so I sit down on the kitchen floor and put my forehead on my knees.
“So, when Mikhail’s father still couldn’t say where the money was, the pakhan decided he needed a better incentive,” Nina says, and from the sound of her voice, I know she’s crying. “I don’t know what he did to Mikhail to make his father talk, but based on what you told me, I can assume. Roman said he and Maxim found Mikhail and his family the next day. Everybody except Mikhail was dead. He was only nineteen, Bianca.”
There is a buzzing sound in my ears, like a TV without a signal, that cancels all other sounds around me. My vision blurs with tears, so when I stand up, I hit my hip on the counter, but I ignore the pain and rush to the guest room. I’m feeling impossibly cold, so I get in the bed under the thick blanket, still clutching the phone to my ear.
“Roman killed his father earlier that day, when he found him trying to choke Varya,” she continues. “Roman got the details from the two men who were at the warehouse with the old pakhan. He killed them both, too. Even after all those years, he can’t forgive himself for killing them and robbing Mikhail of the opportunity to do it himself.”