22. Maksim

22

MAKSIM

ONE WEEK LATER

E lira stares out the plane window with her spine straight like clouds are somehow interesting, but I wonder if she's actually studying them or if she's lost in her head.

The girl is an enigma to me. She claims I hide things from her because a week ago I didn't want to tell stories of my past, all the while sharing little of hers.

The week hasn't been bad, aside from the fact that Anya still hasn't come home. Things with Elira have even been, dare I say, pleasant.

We talk a bit, almost always about me or America or something that doesn't matter. She steers clear of Albania, like it isn't safe to mention. The woman has walls, but I can tell her trust for me is building.

It's … nice. Nice to come home to someone. Nice to have someone to worry about Anya alongside me, or better yet, to talk me down.

We eat together every night, mostly Elira's cooking, but we went out once. I felt her discomfort like I was transported back in time, and it was my own nerves set on fire. All the people, all the noise, the chaos of it all. I figured she wouldn't want to leave the house again for weeks.

Then yesterday, out of the blue, she asked me to take her to Chicago. To find her father.

I was going to say no. Opened my mouth with the word balanced on my tongue.

I know this is going to come as a surprise, but my job does not offer vacation days. Or sick days. Or a 401k. I have responsibilities that don't allow me to catch a flight to another city to take my foreign whore to see Daddy Deadbeat.

But her eyes… Her soft, caramel eyes pleaded with me, opening up a door she's never let me through before. This matters to her in a way I could never understand. When I left Russia, I had no plans to see my father again. No desire to make the effort. He did not love me, and that was something I accepted before the plane touched the ground.

Elira is a little behind.

But we've been here before. I've already crushed her by pointing out her unrequited love. If this is what she wants, what she really wants…

Well, we're sitting on a plane bound for Chicago, aren't we?

She's quiet the entire plane ride, but when we descend, I can feel her nerves. Her palms flatten on her knees, subtly patting away sweat.

I check my phone, unsurprised to see Anya hasn't returned any of my calls. The tracking app shows she's actually at school.

I type out a message.

Just landed. Should be back tomorrow morning. I love you.

Within seconds, it's marked as read, but I don't expect a reply. I'm about to put my phone away when it dings.

Can you bring back Piggly Pie?

In the middle of a busy airport, I'm so caught off guard that I freeze to reread the reply.

Finally, after a week, she speaks to me.

Piggly Pie. I'd all but forgotten about the little bakery around the corner from the one-bedroom, roach infested slump we lived in when we first left the farm. It was a time I only remember as miserable and terrifying, dragging around a three-year-old, trying to find work, sorting through the dark web and black market, anyone who could get me paperwork I'd never had to have.

Every night, I would stare out the window of our apartment we had sublet with a handgun behind my back and Anya in my arms, tensing every time I heard footsteps pass our door. I was eighteen, just a kid back then. It would take a year of petty crime as a way to survive before I'd be introduced to the Bratva. First as an associate, then as a soldier in Chicago before meeting Hugh and transferring to Vegas. Then finally, under Nikita's father, I became a lieutenant. If I'd known a man like Nikita would become Pakhan, I would've gladly stayed in Chicago, tainted memories or not.

That's all I thought the place was for me. Tainted. Struggle. Suffering. Those pastries Anya's talking about were pulled from the trash cans, I'm ashamed to admit. The owner used to throw away stale scones at the end of the day, and every morning, Anya would have one for breakfast.

Eventually, I was caught, with Anya in tow to make things worse. Instead of shooing us away, the woman smiled kindly and left the boxes on the curb the next day. And the next.

When I made enough money for us to move from the apartment, Anya still wanted her scones, so every Sunday, we stopped in for one, my head hung in shame, the woman smiling kindly.

Now when I think of it, I smile and send a reply.

Okay.

"Maksim?" Elira calls, sounding nervous, probably because people are getting irritated.

Thanks… Love you too.

I stare at my phone another second before putting it away and continuing through the airport.

Elira

I wonder what happens if you puke in a rental car.

Do you have to pay extra? Can they tell? Does it leave a smell?

I've never owned a car, but last year Bora got sick all over her bedspread, and it took multiple washes to get the smell out.

Glancing at the controls on the door, I press and pull on one until the window lowers, but the clean air doesn't quell my nausea. If anything, it worsens it.

It smells like flowers and money. We left the busy city my father used to describe to me a while ago. Now we're surrounded by towering houses with pristine lawns and long driveways to park SUVs I once heard dubbed, "mommy cars."

Maksim says he found my father's address, but there's no way he got it right because the car is slowing, and the line on the GPS is shrinking.

"This is it?" I ask. "This is the neighborhood?"

Maksim nods. "Just up ahead."

"That can't be right." I look around for an apartment complex, a side road, a guesthouse where they keep the peasants, something that would make more sense, but my mind can't think right now. I'm too wound up, too nervous.

It's been over a decade.

A decade .

What if he doesn't recognize me? I've grown so much, matured from the little girl I was back then. Do I look like the photos he keeps on his mantle? Would he know my voice or my eyes?

And what about Maksim? What if he's as abrasive as Maksim is with his sister's boyfriend? What if my father doesn't want me to leave?

It could be a problem, but I can't help but feel the tiniest bit giddy at the idea of it. At the idea of living here, being away from Las Vegas and instead living in Chicago with my father. Maksim offered me my freedom a week ago. There should be no reason he would rescind that offer today.

There are so many things I want to say. So much I want to know.

What happened?

So many things could've happened. People get put on no-fly lists for ludicrous reasons. People suffer financial hardships. He could've lost his phone then subsequently lost my mother's number and been unable to afford to fly. His family lives in another country as him, not a different state. It isn't as easy to come see us, there are more things that could go wrong.

I forgive him. That's the biggest thing I want to say, that I forgive him. I will get a job here that will pay enough to fly him to Albania to be with my sisters and mother who have missed him as dearly as I have.

At last, we will be together, and I will thank Maksim for that for the rest of my life.

When the car stops, I look over at Maksim, planning on telling him this, but when I spot pity, I look at the house instead.

It's similar to the houses on either side of it except it has a basketball hoop bolted to the top of the garage and a convertible in the driveway along with the mommy car.

A memory snaps to my mind, my hair whipping around crazily in the back of a red convertible with toddler Asher beside me and my parents kissing in the front seat. My father was spoiling us with a trip to Tirana for Mami's birthday. We were going to eat at a fancy steakhouse and stay in a hotel with a pool. It felt weird, like we were playing pretend or had won some lottery, but it's one of my favorite memories because my dad is in it.

I keep staring at the black convertible.

"We can go," Maksim says like he's reading the situation. Like he thinks my heart is about to break. "I know the city better than I let on before. I could show it to you."

Does my father really live here?

Why is there a basketball hoop?

"Elira?"

I climb out of the car, ignoring Maksim's offer, and walk toward the convertible. My lips numb when I read the ‘my kid is an honor's student' logo on the bumper.

This can't be his house, but I still run my finger over the decal, my heart pumping hard.

The front porch looks like something out of a spring catalogue … flowering plants, a welcome sign, a mat that says Home Sweet Home. It's perfect except for a set of muddy roller skates laying on their side.

I blink at them and ring the doorbell.

A girl, younger than me but older than Asher, probably seventeen or eighteen, opens the door wearing black shorts and a blue top, a uniform of sorts. Her chestnut hair the same shade as Bora's is up high in a ponytail, and when she speaks, braces shine.

"Hello, can I help you?"

"H-hi," I stumble, taking hold of my wrist. "I'm looking for Joshua Martin."

She turns her head to yell inside. "Dad!"

Dad .

My heart swells until it's in my throat. I don't say anything else, but she doesn't seem concerned anyway because she steps out of the way when the man I've looked up to my whole life steps to the door with a friendly smile.

"Hello." He holds the door open. "Can I help you?"

I blink at him, and in the silence, recognition registers on his face, twisting his familiar features from friendly to horrified.

The girl, his daughter, my half-sister, is back carrying a futbol as she slips past him out the door with a younger boy behind her. A woman scoots out the door next, pulling a purse onto her shoulder. She looks like she's in a hurry, but when she spots me, she strains a smile. "Hi there."

My father turns to her, his face instantly cooling. "Honey, do you have a twenty? One of the schools has a boy whose mother has ALS, and they're doing a fundraiser."

I die inside. I can feel it happening, feel the cells in my heart giving out one by one. He isn't breaking me, he's just slowly suffocating me, starving each cell of the love I've needed all these years. Love that he's had but given to these people instead.

He isn't on a no-fly list.

He hasn't suffered financial strain.

He just … doesn't want us anymore. He wants to stay in this big house, drive nice cars, and let his unwanted children in Albania struggle.

I whored myself to come to this country. To work for money to send back home.

And he just … bought fucking plants. And a convertible. And a big fucking house for a stupid fucking wife.

She digs in her purse. "Uhh."

"Oh, never mind, I've got it," he says, pulling out his wallet. "I'll be right there, honey."

"Okay, hurry. Bentley's soccer game is at six."

She smiles at me like it's obligatory but then hurries off toward the family car. The kids are already inside as she starts it up and waits on her husband to get rid of his bastard child she doesn't know exists.

"Here," he says, yanking all the cash from his wallet. He shoves it at me. I don't even look at it. "Take it," he urges.

My eyes stinging, I take the bills.

He nods, looks frantically at the car, then sighs. "Look, kid, I'm sorry you came all the way here, but that's all you're getting out of me. Your mom is in Albania. She isn't legally entitled to child support, and for all I know, I'm not even your biological father. So … don't come around here again, all right? If you do, I'll have to call the police and report you for trespassing."

More of my heart dies.

And more.

And more.

Who knew I had so much left?

He looks between me and the car, opens his mouth like he'll say something else, then gives it up and walks away.

I don't move. Just stay rooted in place while he gets in his family car and goes to his daughter's soccer game.

The daughter who, all her life, has mattered.

Not me. Not the Albanian girl with the toothy grin and dirty nails.

I am filth.

I am shlyukha.

Minutes pass after the car is gone. Eventually, Maksim comes up behind me without me hearing him, and he gently guides me to the car.

"Come on," he says. "I'm already sick of this city."

He mercifully doesn't ask me what was said or what I'm feeling, and I don't ask him if he knew all along this would happen. He probably did. He probably knew I was a fool for this the same way he knew I was a fool for believing my engagement to James/Daniel was real.

I never had a real father.

My memories, once pure and soothing, come up like acid and make me wrap my arms around my stomach to quell physical pain.

He doesn't love me.

He never did.

Worse . A deeper fear. A fear I've never spoken aloud, a fear realized over and over again.

I'm not lovable.

The city fades in the rearview, and the roads Maksim takes become increasingly rural. He stops at a small grocery store and comes out with a bouquet of lavender flowers.

I turn my head from him, thinking he's trying to cheer me up or something, but he doesn't give them to me. Instead, he sets them in the back seat and pulls back onto the road.

"Where are we going?" I ask, breaking the silence. My voice doesn't even sound sad. It just sounds empty. Like my father took the last of me.

Maksim takes a long time to answer. "There's something I want to show you."