33. Anna

33

ANNA

T he Russian voice on the other end of the phone is one I haven’t heard for a year, possibly longer.

“Hello, my little one.”

My breath lodges in my chest. “Konstantin.” I try to keep my tone level but it cracks nonetheless.

“You are doing well, lyubov moya ?”

I press my lips together at the endearment. “Can’t complain.”

“You bring credit to the whole academy, Anna. You were always a good girl for Uncle Konstantin.”

Cold fingers of ice creep down my neck. “Can I help you with something?”

“It is kind of you to offer,” I can almost see his head incline as he says it. I wasn’t offering, and he’s well aware of that, of course.

“We have an event planned this Saturday,” he carries on, “coaching, a tournament. For the hopefuls, you understand. I thought it would be …” He pauses. “ … beneficial if you came here and coached. To have someone with your profile there, a member of the academy, would be most favorably received, I think. ”

Go to Russia ? “This weekend? That’s … that’s … very short notice.” I stammer out. It’s Wednesday now.

Silence. Oh God. What is his game here? And what does he mean, favorably received ?

“You have a gap in your schedule at the moment, no?”

Crap, what do I say to that? “Well, I have a lot of preparation and practice to do for the Australian Open. I leave after Christmas in two weeks. I’ve got a set program that I …”

“But you can train here, and this will be an opportunity to visit your parents. I will send a jet for you.”

I’ve finally persuaded my parents to come to the US for Christmas, but I don’t want to tell him that in case he interferes somehow.

“I wasn’t planning on coming to Russia. I don’t normally come back for …”

He clears his throat. It’s a sound of annoyance that I know only too well that in the past would lead to … My chest constricts.

“There’s some people you want to impress?” I hurry on.

“Some influential people will be there. It would be beneficial to you to make the connections. It is time you came home and saw your Uncle Konstantin. We will talk. You have people making trouble for you, I think. Arty Maroz. His father causes problems for me also.”

I let out a brittle little laugh. Home . Interesting word choice. “Arty’s a publicity hound. The media are always diving into my business these days. I think Arty has sponsors he needs to keep happy. As have I.”

Breathing in my ear, hot and tight. “I hope that wasn’t a threat, little one?” His voice has a familiar mean tilt to it.

“A threat? What do you mean?”

“The press, Anna. You wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Uncle Konstantin, would you?”

“Why would the press be a threat? Building a higher profile for your academies could be amazing. My PR team would be delighted.” Perhaps the media provides more of a buffer than I thought.

“I took your parents out to dinner last time I was in St. Petersburg. They were pleased with how well your tennis is going, Anna.”

My parents? My father wasn’t impressed at how I played in the Billie Jean Cup, and he wouldn’t say anything to Konstantin even if he was thrilled. If they went out to eat with him, he must have threatened them.

“It is a shame he had to give up his game,” he adds.

Why is he talking about my dad’s tennis career? Shit. This is a typical Konstantin conversation. He just wants to remind me he could go after my parents. Dammit, I would love to get them permanently out of Russia. But the reality is, I’m probably going to have to suck this up.

“When would I need to be there?” I say.

“Friday.”

Two days away. Christ. “Let me think about it.”

And he explodes, spitting fury about how I need to watch my step. Eventually, I manage to get off the phone but it’s clear that not going is not really an option. I’m shaking when I hang up. I’ve seen him do this before. It starts with the threats, then someone returns bruised or has some strange, unexplained accident. My stomach turns over. Russia. Every time I go, I have a gut wrench that I might never get out again.

I pace around the apartment, staring out of the window across the rooftops of the other tower blocks close to mine. How far does Konstantin’s reach extend? Is this building being watched? Adam talked to me about my getting some personal security and l haven’t bitten the bullet. I should have listened to him. The only thing between me and someone getting in here is the doorman downstairs. Stupid, Anna.

I pad over to the system and lock the elevator.

Then I walk over to the cupboard and grab some tea. Ginseng and chamomile. Perhaps watching a movie tonight would be a good distraction. Something light and fluffy. I pull up Netflix and browse through the options, choosing a romantic comedy and settling in. But ten minutes in, the male character has already knocked a gorgeous woman off her bike and sworn to his guy friends that he’s not interested because he’s committed to being single forever. It’s so unrealistic it makes my eyes roll .

I pause the movie, head back to the kitchen, and take my snacks out of the fridge. Konstantin keeps an eye on what I do, but he hasn’t called me in such a long time. I was hoping I’d thrown off that period of my life, but how naive is that? From thirteen to twenty-five—haven’t I given them enough of me? My gut is churning with the idea I might never leave it behind.

I want company and a chat, something to take my mind off that call, but who do I have who’d understand? My parents would worry if they knew. Mila? At least she’ll get it.

I press her number on my phone, and her throaty voice answers: “ Privet .”

“Hey, Mila. It’s Anna.” I say, dropping into Russian.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Konstantin just called me. He wants me to go to Russia this weekend to coach.” No point in beating around the bush.

“Eh, he’s dragged me back a few times. Is it a problem?”

Yes, it’s a problem, Mila! He’s a monster. But she’s always been more involved with Konstantin than I have, and feels she has a duty to him in some twisted way.

“Was it okay when you went back?”

“It was fine.” Her voice is flat.

She never talks about anything between her and Konstantin. Maybe …

“Did he …?”

“Anna!” she interrupts. “Enough! We don’t talk about it!”

Ugh. Maybe we should.

“You’re thinking of not going?” she hurries on.

I sigh. “He always makes these threats.”

She huffs. “Control is his thing. He will put you in your place, for sure. I wouldn’t cross him, Anna. Just don’t, okay? He’s a difficult man but he’s okay if you keep him happy. And we owe him, remember? He gave us this life.”

Ugh. We’ve never seen eye to eye on this. I shouldn’t have called her. She’s not going to be sympathetic, and if I tried to brainstorm ways to wriggle out of this, I think she’d rat on me.

“We can’t ever let it come out, Anna. Remember that,” she says. “How great we were at tennis will be forgotten. All our accomplishments will go down the drain; we’ll just be victims. Every achievement we make forever will have that tacked onto the end of it. Do you want that? I don’t. I am great at tennis—that is what I want my legacy to be.”

God, is she right? I say the only thing I can. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Let me know if you need anything. I’m happy to help, Anna, always.”

“Thanks, Mila. I appreciate it.”

And she hangs up. Ugh. That was not the conversation I was hoping for.

There’s always Adam? A little voice worms into my head. I chew my lip as I stare at the dark windows and the city lights beyond. I should explain to him how it all works in Russia. It might help him understand and make him more cautious about both the friends-with-benefits thing and whatever he’s trying to do now. Be your friend, Anna? My heart sinks. I want us to be friends, but even as my friend he’d be in the line of fire, completely negating the purpose of ending things with him. I don’t want him sucked into the life Mila and I have, forever looking over our shoulders. I glance at my wrist. 7 p.m.

I chew my lip as I tap out:

Are you busy tonight?

My finger hovers over the button before I close my eyes and press send. There’s no response for a full ten minutes, and I’m just giving up on the whole idea when a message pops up:

You feel like going out? Dog walk? Pizza? Skydiving?

I snort into my tea.

Not sure my insurance would cover skydiving.

Then I add:

Is the press still hanging around your place?

Only one or two during the day.

Can I come over?

For some reason, I want to escape this apartment and the idea that I’m being watched, and I want to see Adam’s Meatpacking place. Nothing comes back for another five minutes.

My apartment is tiny and rundown.

I don’t mind if you don’t.

Another extended pause, during which I second-guess myself and what I’m doing about sixteen times.

Come over then.

See you in thirty minutes.

I grab all the things I might want—treats for Pepper, a bottle of wine—shove them in a shoulder bag, and put Pepper in her coat. Then I call the car service, and ten minutes later my doorman buzzes up and I’m out the door and into the car breathing a sigh of relief. When did I stop feeling safe here? Arty Maroz. I make a face. And the paparazzi .

I text Adam when I’m close, and he’s right, his building is old and dilapidated. He appears in the lobby and holds the front door open as I step out of the car. He’s wearing jeans and an old soft flannel shirt, as well as some glasses I’ve never seen before.

I gesture at them as I walk into the small area by the elevator. “Very nice.”

“Oh!” he says, touching his face. “I forgot I had them on.”

“I’m surprised I haven’t seen you in them before, at Janus’s or …”

“They’ve got high-magnification lenses. Sometimes I wear them if I’ve been doing a lot of close work, I need them to be able to see electronic components. They’re tiny these days.” He takes them off and folds them into his hand.

As the rickety old elevator creaks up past several floors, he says, “You’ll have to excuse the state of this building”—he makes a face and gives me a rueful smile—“ and my apartment.”

I flap my hand at him. I understand he’s embarrassed, but I lived in some terrible places myself as I was fighting my way around the tennis circuit. I know how hard it is. And he’s trying to build a business. None of this stuff is easy.

We shudder to a halt and step out into a corridor with scuffed walls and a badly worn wooden floor. I follow Adam to a door at the far end which he unlocks to reveal a tiny foyer.

I toe off my shoes, he hangs my coat up in a hidden closet, and we head into the main room, which houses a small gray kitchen of four or five cupboards against one wall, a couch, and two armchairs perpendicular to two large windows that look out over the building behind. There’s a thick rug on the floor and fluffy blankets on each of the chairs. Two warm lamps cast a golden glow over the whole space. A staircase spirals down from a platform above.

“That’s my bedroom up there,” Adam says, gesturing upward and shifting from one foot to another. “The bathroom is here.” He indicates a door tucked in behind the winding staircase. It’s all immaculate.

I grin at him. “It’s lovely and cozy,” I say, and he laughs. “You’re very tidy.”

“Janus thinks I have OCD,” he says, shaking his head.

I put my bag on his kitchen counter and pull out the wine. “I thought I might have a glass.”

He bends sideways and says in a low rumble, “Who are you and what have you done with Anna Talanova?”

I shove his shoulder, fingers connecting into hard muscle, and I’m not sure I needed the reminder of his body or his ability to pin me down.

“Have you eaten?” he adds, and I shake my head and he raises his eyebrows. “No preprepared meal?”

I give him another small push. “Don’t give me the sarcasm. They’re not that bad. ”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s order something. If I remember correctly, you have a bit of an obsession with Indian?”

“Oh, that sounds like the best idea.”

Once we’ve chosen our dishes and ordered our food, Adam finds a bottle opener in a drawer and starts cutting the foil off the top of the wine. “What’s got you drinking alcohol tonight?”

“I had a call.”

He glances at me as I rest against the countertop next to him.

“A bad call,” I add.

“Ah,” he says. “Work related?”

A long sigh seeps out. “When I was a young hopeful in Russia, I attended a lot of tennis camps. It’s a strange situation. All the training in Russia is run by this guy named …”

“Konstantin Lebedev,” he says, and my mouth drops open as I stare up at him.

“How do you know that?” My hand flaps. He’s been looking into me? Into this? Jesus Christ. My veins turn to ice. What does he know?

“Fabian came across him when he was digging into Maroz,” he says, pursing his lips, oblivious to my internal meltdown.

Okay. Okay. I let out a long, controlled breath, but my heart is still thumping in my chest. How thorough is this Fabian guy? How much did he find out? I pace over to look out of the window. Adam or this Fabian guy could blackmail me. No. No, Anna. Don’t be a lunatic.

When I turn around, Adam is watching me quietly with a soft expression on his face. “Anna. There’s no obligation to say anything about your life or your past, to anyone.”

“How much do you know?”

“Very little for certain. Fabian had some questions about it, but I didn’t ask him to dig any deeper.”

I sink down on the couch and put my head in my hands.

The seat indents beside me as Adam sits down. He places a warm arm over my shoulders and pulls me into him, kissing the top of my head. “You’re safe with me. You know that, right?”

“Konstantin has asked me to go to Russia to coach,” I mumble, and when I say it out loud it sounds so innocuous.

“What, permanently?”

I shake my head. “This weekend. He’s invited some of his associates”—I shiver at the word—“to a tennis tournament. They’ll be important people he wants to impress. VIPs in Russia.”

Adam doesn’t say anything, but just runs his hand up and down my back, and I turn my head toward him.

“We don’t talk about this ever.”

“Talk about what?”

“What happened to us.”

He inclines his head. “You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to, but I’m happy to listen.” His hand is still running up and down my back.

How fast has Adam Miller become my safe port in a storm? There’s no one else I trust like him, and as soon as the thought flits through my mind, my stomach drops out. My whole life and so few trustworthy friends. But if he’s found out some of it, I should tell him all of it. I don’t know what to do about this supposed invite, or what it all means, but perhaps he or Fabian could help. I suck in a deep breath.

“Konstantin Lebedev has legitimate business interests in Russia, but he has illegitimate ones, too. The tennis clubs are real but also a front. He uses the young people who come into his academies in other ways, especially if they’re not going to make it in tennis. Or maybe it’s so rare to make it to the top, that it’s all a pretense anyway. A lot of shady characters act as so-called sponsors in his tennis clubs.”

“Is Pietr Petrov one of those characters?”

Of course he knows Pietr by name. I talked about that relationship, but I never told Adam the whole story, but I guess it’s easy enough to put two and two together. “Yes. But …” I sigh. “For me, he was a better option than Konstantin to be close to.” I pick some hard skin off the finger where it fits around my racket. “I thought he was looking out for me,” I whisper .

“Christ, Anna. What did he do? How did he look out for you, exactly?” Adam stands and walks across the small space to the windows.

And I don’t want to answer those questions. “I’m not sure why Konstantin let Pietr have me. There was something between them that I never understood.”

“Have you?” His shoulders hunch as he stares out of the window, his face reflected in the glass.

For a second, I can hardly breathe or open my mouth. “It was all consensual.” It comes out choked, and I have to cough to clear my throat. “That’s what makes it worse. It’s implicit that, if you want to progress in the tennis academy, sponsors are a part of it. The worst of it is that the young girls are eager. They know that, if they want to get out of Russia, have any kind of opportunities, then they have to have a sponsor and keep him happy.” My hand shakes as I bring it to my lips. How can I say the next words I need to say? “I was a prostitute, basically.”

He turns around and walks back to where I’m sitting, settling back down and putting his arm around me again. “It’s appalling that these men think they can ‘have you,’ Anna, but please don’t think of it as prostitution. You were coerced at best. You did what you had to do. You muddled through in a desperate situation. You should congratulate yourself on being brave enough to do it. To make a difficult choice when all the choices were bad.”

I snort. “Yeah, but if it happened in this country, something would be done about it.”

“Maybe. But there are scandals in sport here, too.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Anna, you got out.”

How is he so calm? I think it’s Adam Miller’s superpower. He’d be unruffled during a nuclear holocaust: dealing with problems, working out solutions.

Adam blows out a long breath. “Maybe I should tell you something about my own history, too. Would it help if I shared as well?” He gives me a small smile. When I nod, he takes hold of my hand and weaves his fingers through mine. “When you broke up with me, I accused you of turning on me like someone else once did, and I want to apologize for that before I tell you the full story. It wasn’t true. You’re nothing like Celine. ”

“Okay.”

“Anyway …” He purses his lips. “You know that thing about boiling a frog?”

“Boiling a frog?”

“Well, if you drop a frog into boiling water, it will leap straight out. Whereas if you put the frog in water and heat the water up slowly, it doesn’t jump out and boils to death. That’s what happened to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

He sighs. “You of all people probably get how relationships can appear to be so good in the beginning.” He gives me a wry smile. “I sat next to Celine in one of my first math classes. Janus and Fabian had taken the last two seats in the row behind her, so I took the seat in front of them. Then I realized I was sitting next to a beautiful woman.” He huffs. “Even now I hesitate to say that because she wasn’t beautiful, not in all the ways that matter.”

He turns to look at me, and his eyes are sad and crimped.

“Celine seemed lovely and kind, and she did lots of things for me. My family isn’t like that: My mom is judgmental, my father as quiet as the grave. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to make stuff happen for myself. If that sounds like I’m whining, it isn’t meant to; it made me resilient, but perhaps it explains why I got so sucked in.” He sighs. “I’ve spent ten years trying to justify this.”

Oh Jesus. I squeeze his forearm.

“After a while, I felt like I’d hit the jackpot with Celine, and I was all in. I could see my future with her mapped out, and would have done anything to protect it and make it work. But looking back now, there were signs even at the beginning that something wasn’t right. Celine would become agitated, and I would calm her down. She was angry sometimes. But everyone has stuff that pushes their buttons, right? So, I didn’t think much of it.

“As I got to know her better, the times when she was troubled became more frequent. She’d freak out about random stuff, often other people’s behavior. Not mine at first. The oddest thing was that she’d be bent on getting revenge, and I …” Adam runs his long fingers through his hair. “I thought it was silly, you know? The incidents were trivial. They weren’t things people had done de liberately; they were just someone being busy or thoughtless. But she took them as a personal slight, and I would reason with her, explain a different point of view, and she responded to that. But then there were a few occurrences …”

“Like what?”

“Her roommate, Ali, turned up one evening at my dorm saying Celine had killed her cat. She was in floods of tears. She told me that Celine was dangerous, and I’m ashamed to say, I laughed. I thought it was some stupid fight they’d had. No one kills someone else’s cat, right? Afterward, I realized some people are capable of that, and Ali had been trying to warn me.”

“She killed her cat?”

Adam runs his hand through his hair again. “Given what happened later, I’m almost sure she did. After we broke up, I had a conversation with people she’d mistreated in the past.” He examines his hands. “Boy, I wish I’d done that sooner.”

“God, killing an animal … That’s just …”

“I know.” He reaches out and squeezes my hand. “So, I asked Celine about it, and she said Ali was crazy and obsessed with her cat. She said it was always catching rodents and eating bad stuff from the trash can outside and she assumed that’s what had killed it.” He gives me a wan smile. “I feel like such an idiot telling this story.”

“Don’t. Really. Don’t. I understand. People can be so convincing.”

“After the cat incident, things took an even more unsettling turn. Increasingly, she wanted me by her side and to spend every evening with her. I even accompanied her to her classes sometimes, and she’d show up for my classes too, even though they were for courses she wasn’t taking. It was like some weird reverse kind of stalking with my consent. When I tried to talk to her about it, she said she was anxious and kept dreaming I’d be killed if she didn’t keep an eye on me. It’s one of the reasons I stopped competing in jujitsu. She was agitated whenever I had a match and then … one time when someone defeated me, she squeezed my arm and said, ‘Don’t worry, Adam, I’ll get them back. They don’t beat you and get away with it.’ I laughed it off at first, but I caught a glimpse of fury in her face and I … I didn’t know what to make of it. ”

“Did something happen to them?”

“No, thank fuck. After we split up, I went back to people because I wanted to check. You must understand that, at first, I didn’t think the incidents were anything to do with her. She was always as surprised and as horrified as I was.”

“What do you mean by incidents ? What else did she do?”

“Sometimes it was a small thing like letting the air out of the tires on somebody’s car. She also spray-painted bitch on someone’s parents’ front door.”

“She did that?”

He nods. “There was a pattern. She’d complain about a person, or I would, and the next time I saw them something would have happened to them or their family. Sometimes they got sick. I just didn’t connect the dots.” He tips his head back. “I can never forgive myself for how long it took me to see it.”

“Adam, it wasn’t your fault.”

He just shrugs and studies his hands again.

“People got sick! Jesus. What kinds of things?”

“Stomach upsets, joint pains. Something they’d attribute to a virus or an allergy. I’ve no idea where it would have ended up, but then I started to feel sick, too.”

My whole body locks up. I don’t know what the expression on my face is saying, but Adam’s is ashen. “Oh my God, Adam.”

“I still didn’t put two and two together. I mean when friends tell you they’re unwell and then you get sick, you just think there’s a bug going around. And she looked after me when I was sick. She was kind and caring. I didn’t think she was doing these things. She seemed like a lovely person. She was always helping her neighbors and friends.

“I was sick for months, off and on. I’d have bad pains and feel lethargic and then it would clear up. Just for long enough to convince myself it was nothing to worry about. But Celine kept telling me it was odd and that I should see a doctor!” He lets out a harsh laugh. “I was raised in a household where you didn’t complain, you soldiered on through if things weren’t too awful.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Then I found some pills in her purse—it was on the kitchen counter, and I saw a white packet in there. When I pulled them out, the label said digoxin. I was immediately concerned. Was she sick? Was this why she was anxious all the time? But she was so sensitive, so liable to fly off the handle, that I couldn’t ask her before I knew what I was dealing with. So, I took a photograph and asked a friend who was a med student what they were. She said they were a treatment for heart problems, and they had some difficult side effects depending on how you responded to the medication and the dose, and then she described them, and they were exactly my own symptoms.

“I thought this explained everything. Celine had a heart complaint, and I’d somehow ingested her medicine by mistake, like she’d mixed it with food or a drink and I’d unwittingly picked up her food or drink. She was sick, and she hadn’t said anything.” Adam laughs. “I still thought it was a mistake.”

“Adam, this is horrific.”

“Can you understand why I don’t talk about it?”

“Absolutely. God.”

“Anyway, I talked to Fabian. Best thing I ever did. He immediately saw what I couldn’t admit to myself. His brother was a drug addict, and he’s come across a lot of strange behavior and paranoid people. He told me he always thought something wasn’t quite right about Celine. He said she set all his alarm bells clanging, but he could never put his finger on what was off. This behavior made all kinds of sense to him. Control. Power.” Adam laughs. “I was dubious. I’d never met anyone who’d do such a thing, and Celine didn’t seem unbalanced at all, just a little overwrought.

“Fabian being Fabian, he hacked into her computer and found nothing except a few encrypted files he couldn’t access, which was odd. He can get into most things. But there was also no search history and oddly little personal stuff. He wondered whether she might have other records or another PC.

“I decided it was all ridiculous, so I asked her about the pills, and she flew right off the handle. She said they were for problems she’d had for a long time, and it was nothing to worry about. But something seemed off about her explanation. It lacked detail, a medical history. So, I accepted it, but I told her, if anything was troubling her, she could always talk to me and that I’d understand. Perhaps she knew that I was starting to wonder what was going on.

“And that seemed to be it. Nothing happened for weeks. I stopped feeling sick. Fabian couldn’t let it rest, though; he was worried she’d flip and do something more dangerous, administer a more potent drug. He said people like this always escalate things because they need a bigger and bigger buzz from what they’re doing and it plays on their mind. I told him not to be so stupid, but his suspicions about her made me more wary. He and I argued: I hated that he’d placed these doubts in my head. Then Fabian got into her phone one day when she’d left it on his kitchen counter and downloaded all her contacts. He painstakingly went through all the people on the list and went to talk to the people she knew. He put together everything they said to him. When he decides to do something, Fabian’s thorough.

“When I looked at it, the pattern was so obvious. Dead pets, odd illnesses, anonymous threatening letters, random acts of vandalism. There were even people who had suspected her and taken out a restraining order. I didn’t know what to do with what he’d found. And then she took the decision right out of my hands.”

“Oh God,” I say, but he shakes his head.

“She split up with me. She said it wasn’t working out and that she didn’t think I trusted her, and she wasn’t wrong. Perhaps it got back to her that Fabian was asking around and she was spooked. I didn’t know how I felt, but by now I was convinced that she was doing these things and there was something wrong with her. I thought Fabian had threatened her or told her to leave me alone, but he swore he hadn’t.” Adam gives a half smile. “And I believed him. We have a pact of honesty between us, Fabian, Janus, and me, ever since Fabian got admitted to the ER and lied about what he’d taken. They gave him the wrong drug and he nearly died. Janus lost his shit. But that’s another story.” He lets out a long sigh.

“What happened then? Did you talk to the police?”

“Janus had a lawyer because he was already working on his business, and he took a look at it and said it was complicated given the number of people and what legal action I might be able to take against her. He said I’d need solid evidence. Everything we had was circumstantial, and the best he felt we could do was to file for a restraining order, like some of the other people she’d known.”

“So, she’s still out there? Holy shit, Adam, that’s insane. Where did she go?”

“I’ve no idea. She disappeared. She left college without finishing her degree, and I never heard from her again. I sometimes wonder whether she changed her name.”

“Christ, I can’t believe it.”

He laughs roughly. “So perhaps that explains all my strange behavior when we met. I’m pretty broken now, I think. It has played on my mind over the years, conversations we had, how slow I was to realize, why I didn’t do something sooner, all the signs I ignored, and her friend Ali and the dead cat.” He shakes his head. “It left me deeply wary of relationships with women.”

My heart aches for him. How can he still feel he was somehow at fault? One thing is for sure: He isn’t broken. “I take back what I said when we were arguing about how you don’t understand.”

He screws up his face. “It’s very different from your situation, I think.”

“Not so different.”

He laughs at this. “I think the idea of closure is a fallacy. Some things are too bad for that.”

“Have you ever thought of trying to find her?” He makes a face, and then I laugh. “Yeah, I can see why you wouldn’t want to do that.”

“I wanted to put it behind me. Maybe that was wrong. It took me years to feel right in myself, and I couldn’t bring myself to rake over it again. I’ve felt so ashamed.”

“Oh God, me too.” I suck in a deep breath.

“Do you want to talk now about what happened to you?”

And somehow now I do. “Konstantin had his favorites in the tennis camps. No one ever talked about it. You got taken to places, you met people. I was one, and Mila was another. He liked bestowing favors on the young girls who worked hard. I’m not sure when I became aware that something worse was going on. He’d touch you, you know? A hand around your waist, a finger on your arm.

“One night Mila disappeared from a camp. She came back pale and shaking, and even though we were competitors, we were friends of a kind. She wouldn’t tell me what had happened, but she did tell me not to go anywhere with him on my own.”

He presses his fingers to his lips. “God, Anna.”

“I was fifteen when I was invited on a trip, one of Konstantin’s yachts that he liked to take people out on as a treat, as he put it. But as soon as I stepped onto that boat, I realized what was coming my way was anything but a treat. It was full of older men—some sponsors I recognized, some I hadn’t come across before—and the atmosphere was creepy. One of those men was Pietr. I hadn’t met him before, but he said he wanted to talk to me, and when I look back now, I think he was staking a claim. But I asked him questions and he talked, and he didn’t do anything else, and it seemed better than the other options I had, so I kept on talking—as much as I could. I was terrified. Trapped and scared about what was happening on that boat, what I might have to do. People had disappeared, I suspected into the cabins below, though I wasn’t sure. Pietr looked at me at one point and said, ‘You are frightened I think, little one?’ And I nodded. He leaned forward and smiled and said, ‘You don’t need to be scared with me. Uncle Pietr will look after you.’

“Oh, fucking hell, Anna.”

“I was ballsy enough to ask him what that protection would cost me, and he laughed and laughed. He told me how much he liked my spirit and how he would hate to see it broken. He said he thought the reason they’d not had a champion from the academy was because what happened there broke young people’s spirit and he was tired of it.

“He said that, if I kept him happy, then I wouldn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to, and after what Mila had said, that seemed amazing. So, I grabbed at it with both hands and we even shook on it, and to keep him happy I slept with him—not immediately, but later. I still think I got unbelievably lucky. How twisted is that? In many ways, he’s an awful man, but he also probably rescued me from something much worse, so my feelings about him are complicated.”

“Did you love him?”

“What? Christ, no.”

Adam squeezes my hand. “Sorry to ask, I …”

I shake my head. “He liked getting one up on people, particularly Konstantin. That was a large part of his motivation. It was all about power and control. He was obsessed with it, with controlling me. I think I talked to you about it that day we met for coffee.” That day seems so long ago now.

He nods. “Christ, Anna, this is so much worse than what happened to me. I can hardly believe it.”

I huff out a breath. “If Pietr could have kept me locked up in his estate outside St. Petersburg, he would have done. But, of course, I had to go to tournaments. I think he wanted to prove to Konstantin that he could create a champion, and Konstantin couldn’t.” I shake my head. “He hated seeing the tennis fans; the idea that he didn’t own me entirely drove him mad. He’d put me in the public eye and now he couldn’t take it back because people would notice and ask questions, and I realized that made me powerful.”

“God, that’s why you don’t mind the publicity—it kept you safe,” he says.

“Yes.”

“How did you get away from him?”

“I realized something that he kept a secret from everyone. For all that he wanted to control me, he preferred boys. Maybe he was gay, most likely he was bisexual—I mean he slept with me. But it was unacceptable for him to be with men in Russia. So, another reason he came to the junior tournaments with me was because he wanted to watch the boys play tennis.”

“How did you find out?”

“He was always so careful, but we came to the US a few times, and New York was … Well, you know what it’s like here. It’s the gay capital of the world, and it was a revelation for him. So many men who are out and proud when you come from a country like Russia … He fell in love with a young man and, seeing them together, even though he was meticulous about behaving platonically toward him … By then, I could read his moods very well, and he struggled to hide h is feelings. There was a real connection there. This man was thirty years younger than him, but something slotted into place inside me. Like a piece of the jigsaw I’d been missing. Why he made that promise to me.”

“Did you confront him?”

“Not in so many words. I told him our relationship, such as it was, was over and that I needed to be free, and he should leave Russia and try and be happy himself. He didn’t take it well.”

“What happened to the young man?”

“He was never going to be with Pietr. Pietr knew it. He was a young tennis player and would never feel that way about a man like Pietr. He viewed him like a father, an older adviser. Not sexually at all.”

“Christ, Anna, these men are monsters.”

“I know … Part of me has some understanding for Pietr, I guess, but mostly I can’t forget what he did to the teenagers from the tennis camps … what an awful man he was and still is.”

“Does he keep in touch with you?”

“Occasionally. But he doesn’t like that I know what I do about him. He’s concerned I could use it against him, and he hates that. He likes to have the upper hand. Always.”

Adam studies his hands again. “Although Fabian didn’t gather all the hard evidence, he speculated about the camps and what might happen there.” He shrugs. “He’s an extremely talented hacker. It’s rare that there’s no digital trail. Almost impossible nowadays, even just locations can give you away … It might be a lot of work to collect all the proof, but I suspect he could do it if you wanted.”

I nod. I’m not sure I’m brave enough, but … Adam leans in and pulls me into his side and I slump into him. He kisses my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Anna, so sorry that happened to you. I can’t believe you went through all that.”

We both jump as the buzzer to Adam’s apartment goes, and I press my hand to my chest with a laugh. I forgot about the food ages ago. Adam disappears downstairs to fetch it, and I’m exhausted from all the grand revelations about something I’ve held close to my chest for far too long. I hate admitting what happened to me, and I feel numb, but undeniably lighter. I hope Adam feels better, too. To be lured into a deceptive relationship like that …

As we tuck into naan bread and tandoori chicken, he turns on the television and Jimmy Fallon is interviewing some actress neither of us have heard of. Pepper sits at our feet, sniffing the air, and I shake my head at her.

“I think she’s in some teen vampire thing,” Adam says, nodding at the screen. “Susie, my marketing lady, is a big vampire reader and watcher.” And the normality of all this—sitting in a warm apartment on the couch with him chatting and watching TV and talking about it—makes my eyes prickle.

“Does she need feeding?” He gestures at Pepper with his fork.

I grunt. “She ate tonight. She’s just being greedy.”

He puts his plate on the coffee table and heads over to the kitchen, opening a cupboard and coming back with … dog treats ?

I laugh. “I don’t know who spoils her more, you or me.”

He laughs and says, “Pepper, turn,” and does a circular motion with his hand. To my amazement, she does a circle on his rug, and he holds a treat out for her.

“You taught her to do a turn?”

His ears go a bit red. “Is that okay? I’ve got plans to enter her in the next Kennel Club event. She’s way cuter than the dogs that were there.” He winks at me, and I burst out laughing.

“Lie down,” he says, and she goes straight down onto her tummy, wagging her tail as he holds out another reward.

“Roll.”

And she rolls onto her side.

“Still trying to persuade her to go all the way over on that one,” he adds as he gives her another treat.

“Whoa, Adam, that’s amazing! How long have you been training her?”

“Since I met you really. That first event we went to, she brought me her pink rabbit when I was waiting for you, and she was so eager to play fetch, I thought I’d see what else she could do. The Kennel Club just gave me more grandiose ideas. ”

I laugh at this, but it turns into a yawn as I glance at my watch. “Oh dear, it’s midnight! My practice is going to be shot to pieces tomorrow.” Like it hasn’t been terrible for a while now.

“Do you want to stay over?”

The thought of going home … Ugh. Could I weather a night with Adam? He’s so genuinely good and … that woman, Celine … How could someone do that to him?

But has anything really changed? I’m still putting a target on his back, aren’t I? I can’t seem to keep away. Even coming here … Oh shit, I shouldn’t have come here and told him all that.

I’ve been silent too long because he says, “Just as friends, Anna.”

“Because that always goes so well for us.”

He laughs. “I swear. After talking about all that stuff, sex is the last thing on my mind.”

Okay, then. “You only have one bed, right?” I gesture up to the top floor above his kitchen.

“I could easily sleep on the couch.”

I sweep my eyes over it. “It looks way too short for you.”

The thought of sharing a bed with him, and how well I slept, with Pepper curled up either at my back or his, makes my heart ache for the time we spent at Janus’s. I want this ordinary life of couch chats and takeouts so badly—where the biggest problem of the evening is getting Pepper to do a full rollover—that my chest aches.

“We can share a bed, can’t we?” I say.

“Absolutely. I promise I won’t jump you.”

“Me, too,” I say, crossing my fingers behind my back.

He takes our plates over to the kitchen and puts them on the countertop.

“Let me show you where everything is.”

He leads me up the spiral staircase to a large double bed sitting inches off the floor. Two warm sidelights illuminate the space and a row of built-in closets sit along one wall with a door in the middle.

“The bathroom you saw earlier,” he says, pointing back down the stairs. “ Have a look in the cabinet above the sink. There should be a toothbrush, makeup remover, cleanser, and other things.”

My stomach plummets. He has all this stuff for women in his cabinet? But … but … he said he hadn’t had sex in a long time? I tune back into what he’s saying.

“… My sister stays over every so often. She’s an accountant and occasionally works in the city.”

He heads over to the closet and opens a door to perhaps the tidiest set of shelves I’ve ever seen.

“Wow.”

“What?” He turns around with a T-shirt in his hand and then looks back at the shelves. A reluctant smile curls over his mouth.

“Yeah, fighting against the compulsive tidiness and the desire to sort everything is an ongoing struggle.”

“All your T-shirts are in color order.”

“You see, you say that, but what other way would you arrange them?”

“As a heap at the bottom of the closet?”

He laughs. “I’m sure you don’t have them in a heap, do you?”

“No, but only because my housekeeper does all my washing and ironing and tidies everything away.”

“That sounds pretty amazing,” he says, holding out the T-shirt to me.

I shoot downstairs and do my business in the bathroom, and when I come out again he’s puttering around in the kitchen and putting the dishwasher on. As I head back upstairs, Pepper’s claws click on the wooden floor, no doubt following him in the hope of another treat. Bribery, ha! Then his steps hit the stairs, and he appears with Pepper tucked under one arm, chuckling when he finds me cocooned under the duvet.

“You look very cozy.”

Normally, I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, and as he puts Pepper down, I let out a huge yawn and he chuckles again before shucking his jeans and T-shirt and folding them neatly on a chair in the corner.

And now he’s just in his boxers, and I try very hard, and fail, not to peek at his chest and his abs. What am I doing here, despite everything? It’s like my head says one thing but my body does another. He slides under the duvet, reaches out and turns off the lamp on his nightstand and plunges us into darkness. I can dimly make out his jaw and his hair on the pillow next to me from the light drifting up from the living-room windows downstairs.

“Is everything okay for you?” I whisper. “I just turned up here in a panic and didn’t ask about your company and …”

His fingers wrap around mine, squeezing my hand. “It’s all good, Anna. The business is fine. The numbers are ticking up nicely. I might want to borrow Pepper again sometime.”

“Anytime.”

We’re quiet for a little longer, before he rubs his thumb over my knuckles. “What are you going to do about Konstantin?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t really give me a choice.”

He turns on his side, and I can tell he’s looking at my face, so I turn my head toward him.

“Is he dangerous?” he asks.

“Probably. He has this way of threatening people that’s very effective. I suspect there’d be reprisals of some sort. I just don’t know what they would be.”

“How about I talk to Fabian?” he says.

“Oh God. I’ve never gone against Konstantin. I don’t know what would happen.”

“If I know Fabian, he’ll already have been digging into it. I didn’t ask him to do that, but he can’t stand crooks or people getting away with things. At the very least we could talk to him, then decide.”

“Okay.”

“Would you rest easier if I called him now?”

“It’s late.”

Adam laughs. “It’s not late for him—he’s a night owl. He won’t be in bed. Unless he’s with Kate—and if that’s the case, he’ll just tell me.”

He rolls over and unplugs his phone from the nightstand, propping himself up on one elbow. I watch all the defined muscles shift in his back .

“Hey,” he says, “I’ve got Anna with me. She turned up tonight, and Konstantin has insisted she goes back to Russia.”

I can hear Fabian’s raised voice on the other end of the line.

“Let me put you on speaker,” Adam says, and he turns toward me and puts the phone on the bedcover between us. Dammit that’s worse—now I can see the smattering of blond hair across his chest.

“Don’t go, Anna. Seriously, that guy is dangerous. If shit went down, I don’t know how we’d get you out,” Fabian says.

“I know.”

“I’ve been digging into him,” Fabian adds, and Adam meets my eyes with a smirk. “I’ve gathered a lot of information. We could meet tomorrow and go through it if you like?”

The very idea I might find out more about this, after all these years. My heart flutters in my chest. “How about after practice, at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center? Does that work?”

“Perfect. I can run there from my place—it’s about nine miles,” he says.

“I’ll come, too,” Adam says. “But not on a run.”

“You don’t have to …” I start but he presses his fingers to my lips just as Fabian says, “Wimp.”

Adam laughs. “Thanks, Fab,” he says.

“No problem, I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

Adam plugs his phone back in and settles back down. I shuffle over to him and curl into his side, and he shifts his arm to wrap it around me.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

He gives me a squeeze and kisses my hair.

“Let’s see if we can make Konstantin Lebedev go away,” he says.