I don’t stop. Nodding, I walk fast through the service area, and I don’t know if anyone notices us as we come out on the other side. I hurry across the lot to the pumps and to our SUV. I notice another one behind ours with its blacked-out windows. I see the bowed head of the driver, and I turn away.
Opening the back door, I situate Josh inside.
“Mommy?”
“Wasn’t that funny to run into them again?” I ask him, my voice higher than usual and probably sounding like that of a crazed woman.
“What’s happening?” He’s confused.
Once he’s strapped in, I hand him Wally, move my right hand up but stop and keep it out of sight when I spot the splatters of blood. I kiss the top of his head. I’m going to lose it in a second, so when Lev comes to take over, I let him.
“All set, kiddo?” he asks Josh, handing him a candy bar. “Hope you like Twix.”
“Thank you,” Josh says, still not quite sure what’s going on.
Lev closes his door and turns to me. He looks me over, then nods. “Okay?”
I nod, although I’m nowhere near okay.
“You did good. We need to go. Now.” He’s all business and no emotion at all as he opens my door and lifts me in, strapping my belt in a matter of seconds before he’s walking around the front of the SUV, in the driver’s seat, and we’re driving off, not speeding away, just heading toward the on-ramp to the highway. I glance at the back of the service center and see the parked SUV there.
“They were at Dairy Queen too,” Josh says from the back seat as I hear the unwrapping of his candy bar.
“Were they?” Lev asks. “Didn’t realize you’d gone to Dairy Queen without me,” he adds on, eyes hard when they meet mine.
“We just—”
He closes his hand around my knee and squeezes, but this time, it’s not just to reassure. “We’ll discuss it later.” He gestures to the glove compartment. “Clean up.”
10
Lev
The drive to Maxim’s house is quiet and filled with tension. Beside me, Kat stares out the window while Josh falls asleep in the back seat. We’re going to have to talk about what happened today, but right now, all I can focus on is the fact that Vasily’s men have already found us. The burning question in my mind is how.
More importantly, this means that there isn’t a lot of time left for us in Providence. As soon as Vasily’s men fail to check in with him, he’ll know that we were here. But I can’t leave without speaking to Maxim at least one more time. If he has information that might help us, I’m not going anywhere without it. I’m only hoping that he’ll be more forthcoming once he meets Kat and Josh.
When we pull up to the driveway, Kat frowns at the state of the place. She still isn’t sure about this, but I’m hoping once she meets Maxim, she’ll be more at ease too.
I shut off the car and remove Josh from the car seat, draping his sleeping body against my chest. Kat fidgets beside me as I ring the doorbell. The house is quiet inside, and the blinds move before Maxim comes to the door a minute later.
When he sees Kat standing there beside me, his eyebrows shoot up his forehead and he releases an audible gasp.
“Holy shit, kid.” He shakes his head. “You weren’t kidding. She looks exactly like her.”
Kat offers him a nervous smile, and Maxim gestures us all inside.
“Have a seat.” He points at the sofa. “It’s not the Ritz, but I can offer you a glass of water if any of you are thirsty.”
“We’re okay,” Kat answers. “But thank you.”
Maxim nods, and for a moment, the two of them just study each other. Kat is the first to break the silence, reluctantly eager for information.
“Lev tells me you knew my mother?”
“I knew of her,” Maxim says. “We weren’t exactly friends. At least not at first anyway.”
“What does that mean?” Kat squeezes my hand in hers, and I don’t even think she realizes she’s doing it.
Maxim looks at me, and I give him a subtle nod. I want Kat to know the truth. After today, she’s proved that she’s tougher than I ever wanted to believe. If she can handle Vasily’s men coming at her, she can handle some hard realities too.
“I used to work for Vasily,” Maxim explains. “That’s the first I ever heard of your mother. She’d come into the club about once a week. It was always after we closed, but she’d sit at the bar and fidget with her keys. I always thought she looked out of place in that club. She was too pretty to be sitting there alone.”
Kat swallows her emotion and smiles. “She was pretty.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, you look just like her. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought I’d seen a ghost on my doorstep this morning.”
Kat nods, too choked up to speak.
“Anyway, I used to see her there every week. Vasily would come down and talk to her, and then she’d leave. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until I saw her at a Vory gathering on Gleb’s arm that I started to piece shit together for myself.”
“Gleb, the boss?” Kat looks at me.
“Yes.” I nod.
“Vasily was using her. I don’t know how she got wrapped up with him in the first place, but I figured maybe he had something on her. That’s how he got her to do his bidding.”
“What do you mean?” Kat asks. “What was she doing?”
“She was running information about Gleb back to Vasily,” I reply. “Vasily used her as a pawn. He wanted to take down Gleb.”
“But things got complicated when your mother got pregnant,” Maxim adds.
Kat’s face pales, and she looks at me for confirmation of her silent thoughts. “Are you telling me that Gleb, the Russian mafia boss, is my father?”
“There’s a strong possibility.” I wrap my arm around her, brushing the hair off her shoulders as I do.
Kat seems to process that reality for a long time. “But why would she do that? Why would she help Vasily with anything?”
“She never told me.” Maxim shrugs. “And I didn’t ask. I figured that was her business, and in the end, she was so spooked, she wasn’t going to tell anyone anything that wasn’t necessary.”
“Did she love Gleb?” Kat’s voice fractures.
“It’s hard to say.” Maxim looks at me. “But if you’re asking my two cents, I think she did. I think, in the end, it was really hard for her to know which way was up. By that point, it didn’t matter what she did because the walls were closing in on her. If she came clean to Gleb, that was a big risk. And by turning her back on Vasily, she knew she was starting a war. But she did what she thought was best. For you.”
Kat swipes away a few silent tears that have leaked from the edges of her eyes and shakes her head as she tries to process everything. It’s a lot. But I know now that it was the right thing to do. She deserves to know her truth. Her backstory. Even if it’s difficult.
“When I saw the name Kieran on the disk, I never even looked twice. I just assumed it was someone else.”