“Because she left the note for me. It was not forgiveness she wanted. It was revenge.”
“But Anna,” I breathed. “She didn’t deserve this.”
He watched me. “What about Levan?” Did he deserve to lose his mother in such a gruesome and humiliating way? Levan and my father and I were forced to live with our loss, Anna chose to take the easy way out. I’m sorry she took her life but this was never about her.”
“You used her.”
“I saw my chance and took it.”
I didn’t know how I felt. Part of me was numb. I still hated him, of course, but I also didn’t feel I had the right to. What he did was wrong, but at the same time, to a certain extent, I could now understand why he did what he did. Anna wasn’t faultless either for taking her life in that way. Neither was her father for destroying his mother and hurting his family the way he did. While I was staring at him, there was a knock on the door and Gary came in. He had my sandwich to go.
“I’m not hungry. You have it, Gary,” I said, wheeling myself quickly out of Maxim’s office in the sky.
Chapter Eighteen
Freya
“You left without the gold sandwich?” Britney asked in disbelief.
I looked up from my computer screen. “Yeah, so?”
“Hell, Freya! Where’s your mind? The bread was baked with 23-karat gold. You know how much I love gold. You could have brought the sandwich back for me. Now I will have to wonder about it for the rest of my life.”
“Daylight is dying and we need to send those photos first thing tomorrow morning,” I reminded.
“I know, I know,” she said, and went back to snapping photos of our range of white gold rings, and half-moon charm bracelets inside the makeshift studio she had set up on her table with a cardboard box, rolls of white paper, and some spotlights.”
“When are you resuming at the bar?” she asked strategically placing one of the rings on a strawberry that she had misted with a spray bottle.
“Today,” I sighed. “We need the money and pronto.”
She looked back, her face concerned. “We don’t need it that badly. Your wound …”
“I’ll be fine,”
“Just don’t get into any fights,” she cautioned.
I laughed. “I’m Igor Fedorov’s daughter. It’s going to take more than a one week old stab wound to stop me from defending myself.”
“I meant don’t start one.” She rolled her eyes and went back to clicking away on her camera.
“I’ll be as good as gold.”
“Don’t remind me of that sandwich.”
I laughed.
“Anyway, you still haven’t told me why you got so mad and stormed out of Maxim’s office.”
“He told me that he went after Anna because her father was responsible for his mother committing suicide.”
The camera almost fell from her hands. “Good God! You guys seem very casual about taking your own lives, or killing other people. Is it a Russian thing?”
“Not a Russian thing,” I said. “But it’s our reality, my family’s and Maxim’s.”
My phone began to ring then, so I quickly searched for it under the clutter of files and photos on my desk.
“Hold on,” I said to her when I found the phone and saw that it was my father.
“Papa,” I answered, my stomach in knots.
His cool voice came through. “How do you feel Printsessa?”
I immediately weakened my voice. “Still very weak, but I’m getting better.”
“Yes, I heard you went to see Maxim in a wheelchair.” There was amusement in his voice.
“I was feeling particularly bad that day.”
“Well, come home then. So you can recuperate in a nice house instead of that flea infested place you live in.”
“Uh…” The strength came back into my voice. “I’m a little busy right now, papa, so I can’t. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine here, and—”
“There’ll be a plane waiting for you this evening. You can return next week.”
He ended the call and I was left staring ahead and seeing nothing. There was so much to do, but nothing was more important than somehow getting him to change his mind.
“You alright?” Britney asked.
I blinked and turned to her. “Want to go to Russia for a week?”
Britney wanted to come, but of course, she couldn’t. It was bad enough I had to leave.
That evening I was picked up in a town car in front of my apartment building and driven to the private charter grounds of Teterboro airport.
I didn’t recognize the jet but what I did recognize was Nikita, my father’s secretary of fifteen years. She greeted me with her gorgeously fruity voice. I embraced her. It had been too long.
“Doing okay love?” she asked, her blonde curls bobbing around her cheeks.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Dad wants to ruin it, though.”
She laughed out loud and it was contagious and I joined her.
After a while I settled into a truly wonderful menu of steaming cabbage soup and beef stroganoff that my father’s cook used to cook from the time of my childhood. I had to admit her food still tasted the best. With my stomach full, I dozed off for the remaining eight-and-a-half hours until we landed in Moscow.
For the sake of caution, my father always sent me what I could recognize truly came from him, be it a person like Nikita, or his familiar Soviet limo Gaz-13 with his special number plate that was waiting for me a little distance away from the plane. I got in and didn’t recognize the driver or the guard in front but I did instantly recognize my father’s scent of Ghurka Black dragon cigars.
When I was a young girl I could remember wishing he would stop smoking because I was worried about what something that smelt that foul would do internally to him. How silly I was. I should have worried about what he could do to the poor cigars.
When we arrived at the house, I got out and took in the white mansion I had called home for most of my life. Now my home was a cramped two-bedroom in a neighborhood that Britney called the ass end of the big apple. Nevertheless, I knew which one I preferred.
I was greeted by Elena, my father’s housekeeper. She was a good woman and I had great affection for her, but she only nodded formally. After rejecting her offer of a meal or a drink I headed straight up the golden balustrade and red-carpeted flight of stairs to my room. I crossed the massive gilded space and jumped into my old king size bed with its silk sheets and goose down pillows. Compared to the bed I had in my apartment it was like falling into clouds.
I was asleep in minutes.
Chapter Nineteen
Freya
I came awake to the sense of a presence by my side. It was my father and he was seated comfortably on my bed as he watched me sleep.
“Papa,” I mumbled sleepily.
He chuckled affectionately. “Why did you not eat?” he asked in Russian.
“I wasn’t hungry. I had a massive meal on the plane,” I replied.