Chapter 7

Chapter 7Olivia“You doing all right, sweetheart?” Anna asked me, brushing dark hair out of her eyes as she let me into her Cambridge apartment that was twice the size of my own. I felt a stab of jealousy, it must be nice to be married and have two incomes. But I pushed that thought aside as I stepped into her home. I wasn’t anything but happy for Anna for being in a good situation. I was just feeling some ugly self-pity towards the instability in my own life, since having a kid had drastically changed exactly what I could do with that big cash out I’d gotten all those years ago. But I had no wish to push that onto my friend.“Oh, I’ve just got another assessment up in Salem tomorrow,” I said as breezily as I could. “That drive’s always a pain in the butt.” She didn’t need to know about Viktor, or how much meeting him again tomorrow was worrying me. “Where’s my little man?”“Sleeping with Pookie again.” She had a little laugh in her voice.I followed her into her clean, blue-and-white tiled kitchen and saw the enormous doggie bed in one corner was doubly occupied. Pookie was a huge, brown dog with floppy ears, a close coat and wide doggie smile like a pit bull, and a tail that inexplicably had long feathery fur like a golden retriever’s. She adored Michael and was thumping her tail hello, while holding the rest of herself still for his sake.Michael was napping on top of her, hair askew, flopped there with his eyes closed, and his soft little face calm. He didn’t even twitch as I came over and bent down to look at him.“Michael,” I called softly. He stirred a little. Pookie whined excitedly and then started licking his forehead, turning his bangs into cowlicks.“Aaaa! Tickles!” His green eyes opened blearily as he pushed the dog away and wiped drool off his face, blinking in confusion, then beamed when he saw me. “Hi, Mommy!”I scooped him up into a hug. “Hey, kiddo. How was your afternoon? You didn’t give Anna too much trouble, did you?”“Nuh-uh! We did shapes.” He giggled as I bounced him a little, then set him down. I was going to have to start lifting weights if I was going to be strong enough to carry him in a few months, he just kept sprouting up more.“He was fine. There was drama, but it didn’t have anything to do with him.” Anna was pouring us glasses of lemonade from the pitcher in her fridge. Pookie ambled up to her and sat, whining until she slipped the big dog an ice cube to chew on.“What happened?” I felt my inner tension ramp up another notch, and prayed it wasn’t anything too bad. Nobody in the hospital, nobody in jail, nobody dead.“It’s Luis. He’s doing that thing again where his work’s stressing him out and he won’t tell me what’s going on. Says he doesn’t want to talk about it.” She handed me a glass and Michael his little purple straw cup. The whole time, Gina snoozed away obliviously.“Oh. Wow, I’m sorry.”“How am I supposed to be there for my brother if he won’t let me know what’s going on?” She sighed, rolling her eyes. “I worry about him getting stressed.”“Maybe he figures he’s sparing you something.”“Maybe. But when he leaves things out, my imagination always fills in the blanks and ends up worrying me more.” She put the pitcher away, then grabbed her glass and led us into her living room. Pookie followed, clearly hoping for more ice cubes.“Didn’t your dad used to do that?”“Yeah,” she grumbled. “That’s where Luis got it from. My mom was always complaining about it. He had a heart attack when he was in his early forties. I don’t want that happening to Luis, he needs to learn to relax.”Luis had always kept quiet about his work, which demanded long hours. Anna and I had always joked that we didn’t really know what he did, we knew it was something to do with security or alarm systems and involved a hell of a lot of callouts at unsociable hours, but that was about it. I tried to imagine growing up like that, with one parent always disappearing. In a way, it seemed worse than having no parents at all. “What does he do when you confront him about it?”“Walks out of the room, mostly, out of the apartment if I get too persistent. He’s so stubborn!” She shook her head as she settled on the couch. I sat on the far end, with Michael plopping himself down between us.“That’s ridiculous.” Being that secretive with your loved ones had to hurt. I hoped I didn’t have to start hiding things from her too, now that Viktor had walked back into my life.Not that I intended to start up with him or anything. But I owed him the truth about Michael, and about my leaving. His being Michael’s dad meant he might well be in the picture from now on. I looked around at Anna’s comfortable home once more, comparing it mentally to my cramped little space, and wondered if maybe, for Michael’s sake, that wouldn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing?If Viktor wanted to help with the finances, for example…Then I forcefully shoved those thoughts away. I was just being shallow, there was nothing wrong with my apartment or the life I’d so far been able to give my son. We were comfortable, and my work brought me good money, even if our city was expensive and getting more so by the day.We were fine without Viktor all these years. I didn’t need to invite danger into my son’s life, and there was nothing to suggest that Viktor would ever even know about Michael.“Maybe you should start doing the same to him and see how he likes it,” I said to Anna, if only to distract myself from my thoughts. “Just leave out a lot of important details about your life, see if he figures out how frustrating that is and how much it makes people worry.”“I don’t know, maybe.” Gina stirred, and Anna went from looking at me to gazing down at her and cooing. “Hi, baby. You gonna wake up?”Gina blinked her big, dark eyes open. She looked almost exactly like her mom in baby form, her fluffy black hair had a curl to it, their eyes were the same shade of brown, and when she woke up to realize what was going on, she let out a cheerful gurgle and reached out to touch her mother’s face.“There we go.” Anna smiled down at her daughter. “God, Max is going to feel so bad if he misses much more of her childhood. She’s gotten grabby.” She winced as Gina’s fist closed around one of her earrings, and gingerly extracted it, then took her earrings off. “Guess I shouldn’t have risked these things.”“Maybe not. Michael almost pulled mine out through my earlobe a dozen times when he was tiny.”Michael shot me a look that was worried and pouty. “I did? That’s bad!”“It’s okay, sweetie, babies just grab things.”“Yeah, I’m gonna start having to put my hair up from now on, and no more dangly earrings.” Anna gave a rueful smile. Gina gurgled and started making fussy noises. “Uh-oh. Somebody’s hungry.”“Babies are hard work,” Michael observed on the way home.“Yes, they are. Especially for one person. That’s why smart people think it over a lot before having them.” Michael didn’t know he was a surprise baby from a one-night stand. I didn’t want him to have any doubts that he was wanted from the beginning.I had told him I had gone to the doctor to get a treatment to make me pregnant. Most of my coworkers thought I’d used a sperm donor, or a volunteer. Fortunately, nobody in my life seemed to judge me for it, or Michael either. If they did, they kept it to themselves.But that brought up another worry. What in the world was I going to tell Michael about Viktor, if he did come into my boy’s life? I couldn’t just introduce them and tell him, “That’s your dad, by the way. He’s a Russian mobster, but don’t worry.” I think I owed it to Viktor to tell him about his son. Was it selfish to see him in person, possibly even have to actually introduce him to my boy, and then lie about it? Though could I lie about it, even if I wanted to? Michael was like a miniature mirror version of his father.It was one thing when he wasn’t in the picture, when neither of us ever talked or even thought about each other—well, maybe I thought about him a few times over the years, but I doubt the same was true for him.It had been like he wasn’t even real, like he was just some random sperm donor. But having him exist in my life again as a real person, not just a memory… It felt different. I didn’t know if I could, or should, keep the truth from him after all. But I was very worried about what tying myself to him through Michael was going to mean for all of us.It wasn’t just that he was an obvious career criminal. I didn’t even know what kind he was. He could be a drug kingpin, he could launder money, he could even be involved in human trafficking. He had claimed he had an import business, and it might even be above board, but it was certainly a front for something I didn’t want to know about.Even if he turned out to be the good person I had caught glimpses of in the bar, he was still in a dangerous line of work that could see him jailed or killed. Associating with him too closely might put us in danger too. And I couldn’t possibly tolerate someone doing that to my baby boy.I had to make sure that Michael grew up safe and secure. I hadn’t had that, growing up in that regimented, second-rate group home. Basically a filing cabinet for unwanted kids. I had never felt safe in that place, not with all the kids with behavioral problems, mental health issues, or gang ties. Michael’s childhood was going to be better than that. I would put everything I had into it.And if that meant I had to play hardball with a guy who scared me, I would do it, for the sake of my son.Our son.I only wished I knew how Viktor was going to take it. But as I drove back to our cozy little apartment, to evening chores, and dinner, I prayed he would care enough to help us instead of bringing problems into our lives. For Michael’s sake, if not for my own.***I made it to the hunting lodge ten minutes early, after sweating out another drive on that long, curvy stretch of highway. It wasn’t storming today, just windy as heck. My Prius was great on gas mileage and rode low enough that it was one of the easier cars I’d driven in high winds, but that didn’t help my nerves. I was going to carry that stormy evening with me for a while, especially that five-minute slow drive through what had felt like a hurricane.The hunting lodge was huge, one of those giant old Victorians you saw dotting mountains and filling small foothill villages from here down to Delaware. It was painted white, like most of them, with a green trim and roof, and huge stained-glass windows set into its north-facing wall and entryway. I stared at the windows, which featured Art Deco sylphs in trailing gowns, their hair flowing in an unseen wind. I parked in the driveway and just stared up at them for a bit, wondering how much money they had taken to install, the detail was amazing, right down to their faceted glass jewelry.I got out and had to hang onto my briefcase as a gust of wind tried to yank it out of my hand. Was the weather up here always this crazy? Maybe this was just a thing around this stretch of coastline. A price to pay for the awesome views.I turned back to the house, squared my shoulders, and headed for it, my black patent leather pumps clicking on the cobbled drive. I had spent an extra half hour today deciding on an outfit, wanting something that was feminine and businesslike but didn’t look too sexy. The problem was, with my curves, that was difficult.I had finally settled on a charcoal suit and crisp white blouse. I had tried for subtle makeup, but it hadn’t looked right, so I had gone for crimson lips and slightly smudgy eyes. I could wear chunky gold jewelry again now that Michael was older, so I went for it. Just the lightest spritz of Santal Blush to go with, florals mixed with dark suits didn’t make sense to me.Now my doubts about the ensemble, about the chignon I had put my hair up in, about the perfume, all came back to haunt me as I walked up the stairs to the expansive front porch. Not to mention my doubts about being here at all. I tried not to fidget as I pushed the intercom button next to the big, elaborately carved front door.There was a click, and a deep, unfamiliar voice said, “Yes?”“I’m Olivia, I’m Viktor Ivanov’s two o’clock,” I said, putting on my charming businesswoman voice.There was a buzz and a heavy clunk, and I tried the door to find it suddenly unlocked. Remote system. Nice, but a little scary. I didn’t like the idea of him being able to lock that door with the touch of a button. It would get in the way if I had to get out quickly.I stepped inside to take in an airy flagstone entryway, two stories tall and covered in splashes of colored light from the stained-glass windows. It was so beautiful that I didn’t realize for a moment that footsteps were clicking down the hall toward me.“You look even lovelier than I remembered.”