Chapter Twenty-four: Love Me Anyway

Georgie

LOVE ME ANYWAY

Performed by P!nk with Chris Stapleton

Mac surprised me, yet again, by being a dancer. I didn't see him—the tough, military man—as being a dancer, but he was. We'd twirled around the dance floor at the Chinese Embassy reception, but that hadn't been nightclub dancing. Here, he moved around with my sister and me like he was completely comfortable doing so. No awkwardness. No hesitation like many men I knew. Even the models in Jared's circle weren't all comfortable on a dance floor. Mac seemed to own it like he owned everything else he did. Strong. Full on. No doubts.

We were hot and sweaty by the time a slow song hit. Raisa quickly abandoned us for drinks and the bathroom, but I knew it was just to give us a chance to dance by ourselves.

Mac didn't waste time. He pulled me close. "Alone at last," he murmured.

"We're hardly alone," I said, referring to the bodies pushing against us.

"Alone enough for me to do this." He kissed me and ran a finger down along my collarbone, making me shiver even though the heat poured from me and around me with the crush of bodies surrounding us.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, surprising us both enough that we chuckled. He ignored it, but then it vibrated again and again. He sighed, resting his forehead on mine. "I think I better figure out who this is and why they keep texting."

I nodded. "I'm going to the restroom. I'll be right back," I hollered at him.

He reluctantly let me go.

When I came back to the table, he looked tense, upset.

"What is it?" I asked, trying to be heard but also not wanting to shout out his business to the world. He came close and talked into my ear.

"It's Dani. She's upset. I can barely understand her with all the noise, but she asked me to come get her."

We had Dani's car. She'd loaned it to us for the night as Mac didn't have his own. My brother had not liked squeezing into it, even though Raisa and I had crushed ourselves into the almost nonexistent backseat.

"Wasn't she meeting up with Russell?" I asked.

Mac nodded.

"Go," I said.

He looked at my brother and sister in the booth. "I don't want to leave you. Come with me," he said, eyes flicking to my brother again, and I wondered what that was about. He'd been perfectly fine with Raisa the night before. It had relaxed me in a way I hadn't been all week with thoughts of him meeting my siblings. I'd thought that maybe, just maybe, we'd be able to get over the hump of my family for now—enough for a relationship, at least. Dating. Not marriage. He'd teased about a ring the night before, but I would never tie him down to me and my family.

"It's fine, Mac. We can't fit five in the Mini Cooper. I'll make sure to leave with Raisa when she's done here."

His phone vibrated again, and he frowned, looking down at the text.

"Really, please. Go get Dani."

He kissed me. "Please be safe."

Then he left. I could see his broad shoulders and dark hair as he made his way to the door because he stood taller than most people in the room. I missed him as soon as he was gone.

"Everything okay?" Raisa asked when I sat down and drank the water from the bottle I'd ordered from the waitress the last time she'd come around.

"He had to go get his sister."

"It is a job that we always get stuck with," Malik said, not looking up from his phone.

"What?" I snipped.

He didn't even look up. "Do not get upset, Georgia. It is a truth. I am always having to bring ‘Isa with me or go pick her up from some place. I had to travel halfway around the world to bring her to college."

"You volunteered. Father would have brought me," Raisa said, her face flushing darkly—and not from the heat and sweat of the dance floor.

"Don't mind him. He's obviously in a mood," I said and then pulled Raisa back out to dance .

We danced several songs before Raisa asked to go back for more water. As soon as we sat down, Malik said he was going to the bathroom. I watched his back with a frown. He was almost at the hallway that led to the restrooms when he froze. He was looking toward the front of the club. He glanced back at us with fear skittering across his face.

I looked in the direction he'd glanced, and my heart thudded loudly as well. A group of cops―in SWAT gear―were slowly making their way through the club, obviously looking for someone. They deliberately took in each person they went by as the crowd parted around them. When I glanced back at Malik, he was gone.

My senses—that I hated to trust—were going haywire, heart pounding, body tightening, head swimming. The police were making their way nearer to where Raisa and I sat. And I knew, for some reason I couldn't quite explain, that they were looking for us. For Malik. His fear… Goddamn, what had he done?

When I glanced at Raisa, she'd gone so pale it was as if she was going to faint. I peeked back at the cops, and an entire fight-or-flight adrenaline rush hit me, flashing me back in time.

The noise of the club turned into the sound of my mom screaming at them.

Mom was being forcibly pulled from the doorway of my bedroom with words like warrant and arrest flitting in the air. Mom screamed and scratched and hit, and they flung her against the wall, pulling her arms behind her.

The fear hit me so hard I could smell it. And it smelled like pee because I'd wet the bed. I'd been scared. No, not just scared, terrified. There were guns and men in dark clothes and padded vests with some kind of face mask. And Mom was still screaming at them, now in Russian, as they yanked her viciously from the room. They filled my space. One of the men, a square bulky man, stepped toward me and my bed. And I wanted to cry, but I didn't. Not yet.

"It's okay," the man said in a smooth voice, as if I would trust him by just his tone. I was shaking now, not only because I was scared of him, but also because I was scared Mom was going to be angry when she saw I'd wet the bed again. I could see the disappointment on her face already, and my stomach lurched uncomfortably, vomit burning my throat, but I held it down, unwilling to add puke to the urine.

"Honey, your dad gave you a music box the other day," the man said, brushing a hand over my hair, causing me to jerk away.

My dad had given me a beautiful music box. How did the man know? I'd wondered. It was a colorful music box with a black and a white swan dancing to a tune that had made Mom get all teary-eyed and say something about Russia and the ballet.

"We need to borrow your music box. We'll get it back to you. But we need it for something really important," the man with the mask continued talking to me.

Dad had said to keep it safe. To not break it. And to not ever lose it, so I'd put it in my secret spot. The little cubby under my window seat.

"Do you know where it is?" the man asked.

I didn't move. It was impossible for me to do so, sitting in my own pee, but my eyes flitted to the window seat, and his eyes followed my look.

"Okay. I'll get it. Is it under the seat?"

I didn't say anything. I didn't move. I just sat, hugging the bear I'd had for as long as I could remember. It was tattered with the stuffing squeezed to weird angles from all the times I'd slept with him. My mom had threatened to throw him away if he got pee on him one more time. She was tired of washing him.

The man moved to the window seat while I listened to my mom sobbing in the other room. She was crying harder than I'd ever heard her cry before, even when Mom and Dad screamed at each other.

The man lifted the window seat, easily finding the music box. He removed it from the space and came back to me with a smile on his face. The smile made me angry. Angry that he was smiling while my mom was sobbing. All I was able to think was, "Where is Dad? Where?"

"You did good, kid."

My whole body shook as the man with the gun came closer to me. He reached out a hand like the bad man in the nightmares I'd had since I was little. And that was when I found my voice. I screamed. And screamed and screamed. And Mom called to me in Russian, and it made me remember what Mom would see if she came into the room.

I stopped screaming.

"It's okay," the man said as he backed away slowly. "I'm going to have one of my partners come in and help you. Okay?"

I just stared, the tears starting to roll down my face .

When a lady finally came into the room, I had my face buried in my bear with my arms wrapped around my knees of the soft velour nightgown Dad had bought me. Mom would be mad I'd ruined.

The lady touched my arm.

"Georgie." Raisa's gentle touch and panicked voice brought me abruptly back to the club. "Georgie. Shit, shit, shit. He left me holding his crap."

I shook myself out of my memories and turned to Raisa. "What? What are you talking about?"

Raisa whispered, hardly moving, but with fear on her face. "Malik. He gave me his goody bag because I had a purse, and he didn't have a place to keep it. He said he needed to give it to someone at the club."

Malik's sniffles and nose-pinching came rushing back to me. I'd thought it was odd. Out of character. Goddamn it. He'd been high. "Oh, hell," I breathed out.

I looked at my scared sister, sitting frozen like I'd sat frozen on my bed full of pee the night the cops had invaded our apartment in New York. I thought about her getting ready to start her academic career to change the world with the clean energy she wanted to develop. She wouldn't be able to do any of that if they arrested her for drugs. She'd be sent back to Russia—if they even let her go at all.

My brain flashed to Mac. To the last week we'd spent getting to know each other. Getting to know the visible curves of our bodies and the things inside of us that weren't so visible. The wants and desires. The way Mac had offered to get me a ring. His words about, whether or not he liked my siblings, he wouldn't like me less. But this just might make him like me less. Especially if I did what I thought I needed to do.

It would be over. All of it. The dream disappearing into a harsh reality.

Before I could stop myself, I leaned over to Raisa and whispered, "Have you touched it?"

Raisa shook her head.

"Okay. Slowly, use the napkin to put it in my bag," I told her.

"What? No. No. No. We will just dump it," Raisa said, shaking her head ever so slightly.

I risked looking back. The cops were close. Any minute, they'd be at the table. "With the cops heading toward us? That'll make us look more guilty. Put it in my bag."

"No." She pouted.

"Raisa. They'll send you home."

Raisa looked like she was going to vomit. Like I had twenty-two years ago when they'd searched our home for a music box that had held a thumb drive with all of Dad's business dealings.

"It's okay, malyshka . It will all be okay. Just do what I said."

Raisa's eyes were huge as she grabbed the cocktail napkin, bent, and pulled something from her bag, sliding it into mine.

I saw Mac's smiling face flicker before my eyes, and I wanted to scream and scream and scream like I had when I was six and they'd taken my parents, and my music box, and my life. Because I was giving everything up again. Political career or not, Mac couldn't be with me now. Not only because I was from a Russian gunrunner's family, not only because I was from a Ponzi-scheming jailbird's family, but now because I was from a drug family—with my own drug charge on my record. If I'd been worried about being admitted to the bar before, a drug charge was sure to prevent it. Drug charges didn't go away. How much drugs were there? Would I be charged with possession? Or distribution? I started sweating.

But I also started thinking, my research of the summer swimming in my head. Then, they were there. The cops were at the table and asking us to go with them. I didn't have a choice. I grabbed my sister's hand and followed the men from the building. My heart was still pounding as my future was swirling down a drain. There was a small…infinitesimally slim chance of being able to right it.

We weren't taken to a police station like I'd expected. Instead, we were taken to a nondescript building over the 14th Street Bridge where we were separated and led into different rooms. As they took my purse from my hand, I had the forethought to say, "I do not consent to the search of my bag."

The man taking it looked up at me with shock.

"Did you hear me?" I asked. "I am not consenting to the search."

He left me in the room at what could have almost been considered a cheap card table with a two-way mirror staring me in the face. I wished I had my old bear with me. A bear I could squeeze, push my head against its belly, and pretend that none of this was happening. I was angry and sad all at once. I wanted to kill Malik for leaving us at the club. For putting the drugs in Raisa's purse instead of keeping it himself and taking responsibility for his shit.

I wanted to cry because Mac and I had barely had a chance to be a couple. A week of tangled sheets and shared dinners.

Eventually, the door opened, and a man and a woman in suits entered. They weren't the beautifully tailored suits Dani and Mac wore. They were off-the-rack kind of suits. My heart hurt at thoughts of the Whittakers. At the thought of what was going to happen now.

"Can you tell me what this is all about?" I asked and was surprised my voice wasn't shaking.

The woman slid a picture across the table to me. It was of my purse and a plastic, brick-shaped bag that I'd never seen before. I assumed it was the drugs Raisa had put in it.

"You're in quite a lot of trouble, Ms. Astrella," the man said, sitting with his arms crossed, leaning back in the chair like the jocks in high school had.

I didn't say anything. I just sat there with my own hands on the table, crossed over each other so I wouldn't fidget with them or my hair, trying hard to model Mac's grandma's poker face.

"You do know you'll never be admitted to the bar with possession and distribution charges on your record?" he asked.

My stomach fell to my knees, Mac's gorgeous face and blue eyes winking before me again, disappearing like my career.

I wanted to repeat the fact that I hadn't consented to the search, and that if they didn't have a warrant, the charges wouldn't stick. But I also wasn't at a police station. I was at some unknown location. I wasn't sure if the normal rules applied. I was a U.S. citizen, but Raisa wasn't. I hoped beyond hope that she knew not to talk.

"I'd like to call my attorney," I said instead of all the other things that were going through my brain.

They exchanged a look.

"That's one way to play it. But we both know the drugs aren't yours. They're likely Malik Leskov's, or Raisa Leskov's, or both," the woman finally spoke, eyeing me like I was a yummy pizza she was ready to devour. I wasn't going to be her pizza.

I bit my tongue before I could spit out that Raisa didn't do drugs. Malik, I couldn't speak for anymore. The mood swings that Raisa had mentioned made sense now. His arguments with Petya, too. Because if Petya knew about the drugs, he'd be furious. He didn't want that kind of attention. Although, I had a feeling the people in front of me were hoping to use Malik's drugs as leverage to get him to turn on his dad.

"Sorry. I'm not sure I stuttered. Phone call. Lawyer," I told them again.

"That's all you have to say?"

"I will add this. I've never seen that plastic bag before." And I thanked God that I could say that truthfully. "We were at a club. We left our bags at the table."

"You left your bags unattended in a crowded nightclub?" the man scoffed.

I nodded. "Now, I'd like to speak with my lawyer."

"You're Ian Astrella's daughter, Petya Leskov's stepdaughter. You want us to believe that you didn't know anything about the cocaine?" The guy was almost snarling. The woman put a hand on his arm.

"All I have to say—and I'll spell it out so you don't have any doubts about it—is: L.A.W.Y.E.R."

The guy was pissed. I could see that he wanted to push me, but the lady stood, taking the picture with her. She got to the door, glancing back at the man who had leaned so far back in his chair that I hoped, ungraciously, that he fell over.

The woman said, "Let's go."

The guy eyed me, shoved off the table, and slammed his way out of the room.

A different woman brought me my phone and stood there, waiting for me to place my call. I looked down at it, debating with myself on which number to dial. Mac was the one I ached to see. But he'd gone to pick up an upset Dani, and I wasn't sure I was ready to see the disappointment in his eyes like the disappointment I'd seen in my mom's the day she and Dad had been arrested and I'd given up the music box.

With a sigh, I dialed a number I never thought I'd have to use for this reason. It rang several times before it was answered.

"Hello, Georgia?" the smooth female voice said groggily.

I looked at the clock on the wall above the mirror. One thirty in the morning.

"Theresa, I'm so sorry to call you like this. I need your help."

There was shuffling on the other end. "What's wrong?"

"My sister and I have been taken to the…" I looked at the woman who'd brought me my phone. I had no idea where I was at. I didn't know which agency was holding me. "We need a lawyer."

"Where are you?" she asked, awake now. Her voice was sharp and crisp. I didn't want to see her disappointment any more than I wanted to see Mac's, but she was a good lawyer. She was known in D.C. I could only hope for the best.

"Excuse me, where should I have my lawyer come?" I asked the woman.

She waved her hand for the phone, and I reluctantly gave it. She gave Theresa the address and then hung up. She left without another word, taking my phone with her.

I wanted to lay my head down and forget the whole evening. I wanted to go back a day and refuse to go to the club with Malik. I wanted to just believe it was all a dream and nowhere near my reality. Descartes' words, that Mac had repeated just this week, rang in my head. "How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?" I definitely didn't want this to be my reality.

It was almost an hour later before the door opened again. Theresa entered first, in a suit, hair up, makeup on. She looked like she was ready to kill the day, and it was only two thirty in the morning. The man and woman duo followed her inside.

"Did you ask why you were being taken?" Theresa asked.

"Yes."

"And they told you what?"

"They said they had questions for me. "

"And did they ask for your consent to search your bag?"

"No, but I told them I did not give them consent to search it," I told her.

Her eyes flashed at me. "Good girl."

She turned to the duo who had seated themselves across from me. Theresa wasn't sitting.

"We'll be leaving now," she told them.

"No, you won't. We have a brick of cocaine that was found in your client's purse. She's not leaving without telling us where she got it," the man spoke for the pair again.

"Did you have a warrant?"

They both shifted.

"No?" Theresa laughed. "Like I said, we'll be leaving."

"We'll have it tested. When it comes back with her prints on it, she'll be right back here," the woman spoke.

" If it comes back with my client's fingerprints, it will still have been obtained illegally, without cause, and will not be admissible in any proceedings you'd like to sling at her." She looked at me. "Stand up, Georgia, we're leaving."

She went to the door. I looked at the pair as I cautiously stood, uncertain whether they'd be hauling me back into the chair, or if I'd be free to go. I got to the door, and Theresa opened it. We walked out. The duo followed us but didn't make any attempt to stop us.

"Where's Raisa?" I asked to any and all of them at the same time .

"Raisa is your sister?" Theresa asked, and I nodded. She looked at the duo. "Did you have a warrant for the sister?"

They didn't speak.

"I didn't think so. We'll be taking her with us as well." Theresa eyed them like they were the lowest form of species on the planet. Worse than dung beetles.

"Wait right here," they said and disappeared down the hall—a nondescript hall in a nondescript building that made me feel like I was living in some spy novel.

"Theresa," I started, and she shushed me. "I was just going to say thank you for coming."

She nodded, but her eyes said stop talking , so I did.

When they came back, they had Raisa with them. She looked tired but calm, and a wave of pride surged over me. My eighteen-year-old sister had held herself together remarkably well for being taken away. I hugged her tightly to me, and she hugged me back.

"We're releasing both your clients, but we're asking them not to go anywhere," the woman said.

"My sister will be at Stanford. You can find her there," I told them and then grabbed Raisa's hand and started walking toward the doorway at the end of the hall. We left silently.

Outside, we got into Theresa's Jaguar. Theresa put her keys in the ignition and then looked at Raisa in the rearview mirror. "What did you tell them?"

"Nothing. I said nothing. I know better. When Father gets questioned, we all say nothing. I said I was at the club with Georgie and Malik. Malik did not feel well and left early. Georgie and I left our bags at the table, which was stupid, but we danced. We came back to the table as the cops came in and asked us to go with them. We know nothing."

"I'm your attorney. As of right now, you're both my clients, but I don't want you to tell me anything other than what you just told me. Do you understand?" Theresa asked, starting the car and backing out.

We both nodded.

We dropped Raisa off at the hotel first. I got out of the car and hugged her tightly again. "I'm so sorry, Georgie," she said quietly.

"This is not your fault," I told her, brushing her hair from her face.

"Malik is such an idiot. Father is going to be furious," Raisa said.

I nodded. Petya was going to bust a few things, maybe even something on Malik.

"You need to fly out to Stanford today. If you need me to take you to the airport, let me know."

"No, I will call the pilot tonight."

Petya's private jet had brought them to D.C. I was wondering if it was still at the airport, or if Malik was already winging his way back to Russia.

"I love you, malyshka ," I said, my voice shaky with the emotions and tears I'd been holding back.

"Love you too, moy dorogoy ," she said, squeezing me, wiping her eyes, and then leaving.

I got back into the car, gave Theresa my address, and then was silent while we drove. I sat, fidgeting, trying to work up the courage to speak.

"Theresa, I'm so sorry," I finally said, letting it out with a heavy breath.

"You did the right thing calling me," she said, reaching over and patting me on the hand.

"I just…"

"Was it yours?"

I knew she was talking about the drugs, and I shook my head.

"You told me about your stepdad. I had fair warning," she said with a small smile.

"They weren't mine. But they aren't Petya's either. He doesn't deal in drugs. He has no respect for it," I told her honestly, and I could see that she saw the honesty, because she nodded.

"I don't want to know any more."

We were quiet.

"Do you want me to stop working for you?" I asked as we pulled up to the apartment.

"God, no. I told you that you've been my most interesting student in years. Maybe decades." She almost laughed, and that lightened my heart ever so slightly.

"You've had someone more interesting than this?" It was hard to believe.

"Yes. Remind me to tell you about Mario Baretta on Monday. Now, go try to get some rest. I'll give you one final piece of advice, though." I looked at her. "Don't talk about this on your phone with Raisa. Don't talk about this in your apartment. Try not to talk about it at all. But if you do, do it in public, with lots of noise, and somewhere you've never been. Do you understand what I'm saying? "

I nodded. She thought we'd be bugged. My phone probably already had been. The apartment, if it hadn't been already, would probably be bugged when we were all gone from it. I felt sick. Bringing this to Dani and Mac. To the ties they had to the senator and Capitol Hill. To Mac's future.

I leaned over and hugged her.

"I'll see you Monday."

"Good. Bring me one of those black-and-white coffee things again."

I smiled weakly, stepped out of the car, and she took off.

When I looked across the street, there was a plain, black sedan sitting there. It was empty. But I had a feeling it hadn't been when we'd arrived. I let the anger I felt at Malik flow through me again. Anger at his stupidity. Anger at how he'd risked everything Raisa had worked for. Anger that turned to a tiny bit of fear because I wasn't sure what Petya would do when he found out. Anger that turned into sorrow as I headed toward the doors of the apartment and wondered how to explain this all to Mac and Dani.