Chapter 24

Kimberly

I ’ve been tossing and turning all night, unable to sleep, my restless mind filled with questions. Does Yaroslav want me to stay just for David, or for him? He said I’m not a toy to him, but why does he keep shutting me out? If he really sees me as more than just a fuck buddy, why doesn’t he ever sleep in the same bed as me?

As if proving a point, he was the perfect gentleman this evening, we enjoyed dinner together but then he politely walked me to my room, bidding me goodnight with a chaste kiss on the cheek, leaving me even more confused. I wanted him, wanted to lose myself in the bliss of sex with him. It’s not that I want him to not have sex with me to show me I’m not a toy. I guess I just want… more.

Do I want more than he can give?

If I stay, what does that mean? Surely I’ll lose my job, I have to be realistic, I can’t live in a bubble forever. Yaroslav wants me to stay but he hasn’t considered these realities, my world is different from his. He probably thinks I can just stay until he’s bored of me and then that’s it. He’ll stay living his life of luxury while my life will be in tatters.

I lie there in the darkness of the guest room I’ve been moved into, staring at the ceiling. Perhaps I should go see Gran tomorrow, if she’s coherent, she’ll be able to advise me and help me decide what to do. If not, being with her still helps me to clear my thoughts. I glance at my phone, the bright light of the screen casting the room in eerie shadows, the display shows it’s 3:42 am. I sigh, there’s still hours left until I can reasonably get up, and even longer until visiting hours.

A moment later, there’s a knock at my door. Immediately I sit up, on high alert, who would be knocking at this time? And why?

I pad over to the door, and open it, wincing at the bright light of the corridor. It’s Yaroslav, his handsome face stricken.

“Kimberly, I’m sorry to wake you up in the middle of the night…” he starts before trailing off, seeming at a loss for words.

“It’s okay, I was awake. What is it? Is everything alright? Is it Gran? David?” I ask, immediately fearing the worst.

He shakes his head, running a hand through his hair, “No, no. Your grandmother and David are both fine.”

“Then what is it?” I ask, confused.

“Can I come in? I think we’d better sit down,” he asks, his voice level and giving nothing away though I can tell something terrible must have happened.

I nod, stepping aside to let him in and flicking the light switch. The smaller but still beautiful room I’m in is flooded with light, unlike the suite, there’s only a bed in here, no chairs, so we move to perch on the edge of the unmade bed. The foam mattress sags under Yaroslav’s impressive weight as we sit, and I’m involuntarily pushed closer to him. I can feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt. It’s then that I realize he’s fully dressed.

Has he been up all night?

“Kimberly, there’s no easy way to tell you this… It’s your apartment. I’m afraid there’s been a fire. Kimberly, your apartment was completely destroyed,” he tells me, looking at me closely as I try to comprehend what he’s telling me.

My hand flies to my mouth in shock. “Oh my god, did everyone in the building get out okay? Is Abigail alright?” I ask, worried for my dear friend.

“Everyone’s fine, Abigail is being treated for smoke inhalation but she’s going to be fine. She’s the one who called the fire department,” he replies.

“Good, that’s good, do you know what hospital she’s in? I’d like to go visit her. It’s a miracle everyone’s alright. Do they know what caused it? I’ve been saying for years that the landlord needs to deal with the wiring in that place, there’s issues with the lights in the corridors all the time and the elevator is always breaking down. Or was it the junkies upstairs, did someone pass out with a lit cigarette? You hear about that all the time,” I ask, rambling slightly as the shock of the information starts to set in.

Yaroslav shakes his head slowly and places a comforting hand on my knee. “You misunderstood me, Kim, it’s not the apartment building that’s burned down, it’s just your apartment.”

I blink at him slowly, my brain taking a moment to catch up with the information. “Wait, what? How is that possible? I’ve not been there in three weeks, all the appliances are turned off.”

Yaroslav takes a deep breath, steeling himself for what he’s about to say, “They think it was a targeted arson attack.”

A cold shiver runs through me, “An attack? Against me? Who would want to do that?”

I don’t allow myself to think how different things could have turned out if Gran and I were home as usual if I hadn’t met Yaroslav.

“The police are looking into it now, they want to speak with you, of course, to see if there’s anyone you can think of,” he explains, still looking at me intently as though expecting me to break down at any moment.

I rack my brains and shake my head, “There’s no one. I’m a nobody. Unless it’s some racist hate crime against Gran, she used to be a well-known figure in civil rights debates. But she’s an old, sick woman now. Who would do such a thing?” I ask horrified at the thought.

“That’s for the police to look into, are you sure it couldn’t be anyone else? There’s no disgruntled ex? Some guy who took a rejection badly?” he asks, his eyes searching my face, his hand still warm and solid on my leg, grounding me.

“No, nothing like that.”

“Could Noah be capable of doing something like this?” he asks gently.

The thought hadn’t occurred to me but suddenly I’m asking myself if he could be. “After what he did to Gran I’ve no idea what he’s capable of. It’s possible, I guess. If he thought he’d get some money from it. But the meager insurance policy we have is in Gran’s name, we wouldn’t get a penny of it unless something happened to her,” my eyes widen in horror, and I jump up frantically. “Oh my god, Gran! We have to get to my grandmother, if she’s the target and not me, she could be in danger!”

Yaroslav stands up and gently takes my hand, “It’s alright, I already sent some of my men there to keep an eye on the place, the police will be sending a protective detail too. The care facility is incredibly secure, no one gets in or out who isn’t on their list. She’s safe,” he says soothingly, guiding me to sit back down.

I breathe a sigh of relief. My hands are shaking, and I feel faint. Yaroslav must sense I’m on the verge of breaking down, he wraps his arm around my shoulders guiding me to rest my head on his chest. I let the tears come.

“Shh, it’s okay, it will be okay. You can stay here for as long as you need to, and I’ll make sure your grandmother is taken care of at the care home. I’ll make sure no one hurts either of you, I promise. You don’t need to worry,” he says, gently stroking my hair, “Besides, it’s possible this isn’t about you at all,” he adds.

“What do you mean? How can it not be if it was only our home targeted?” I ask, my voice thick from sobbing.

“The police are exploring the option that perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity, that the target was someone else and your apartment was hit by mistake. It could be that those junkie neighbors you mention ripped off the wrong dealer,” he says with conviction, it’s clear he seems to believe that perhaps we weren’t the intended target.

Although the thought of someone else being hurt isn’t a nice one, it is comforting to know this could all be a big mistake, that there isn’t someone out there trying to hurt me or my gran. It’s only now that a thought occurs to me.

“Yaroslav, how did you find out about this? Surely the police would have called me first?” I ask, tilting my chin up to look at him.

“I’m friends with the chief of police, I asked him to notify me should anything untoward happen in your apartment block while you’re staying with me,” he says before adding, “I just wanted to make sure no one tried to break in, your apartment block isn’t the safest and if people noticed it was vacant for a long time they might try to.”

It’s a reasonable enough explanation, thoughtful even, so why do I get the impression he’s lying to me? All of David’s wild claims about Yaroslav being an organized crime boss suddenly don’t feel too far-fetched. Could it have been someone trying to get to Yaroslav through me? I dismiss the thought almost immediately, why would anyone do that? I’m a nobody, and certainly not someone important enough to hurt Yaroslav with.

I keep my thoughts to myself, allowing Yaroslav to comfort me and enjoying his solid presence. I shouldn’t let myself think such crazy things.

“The police are waiting downstairs to speak with you, I thought it would be better for you to do it here than at the station. Do you feel up to talking with them now? I can send them away and tell them you’ll come to them tomorrow?” he asks, his eyes full of concern.

I shake my head, getting up slowly as I reply, “No. I want to help, the quicker we catch the person responsible the better.”

***

It’s been a long, emotionally draining day. After speaking with the police, who didn’t offer any further information than what Yaroslav had already told me, we went to visit Gran followed by Abigail at the hospital. Thankfully they both seemed well. Abigail was her usual self, seeing the bright side of things and simply commenting that she was just happy we weren’t home. Gran wasn’t having the best of days, so I don’t think she really understood what happened. At least with her illness, her long-term memory is excellent, the past is more tangible to her than the present, so she was able to provide the police with a list of names of people who may hold a grudge against our family.

Yaroslav has remained by my side all day, supporting me through this in his calm, stoic way. He reluctantly left me about half an hour ago to go do some work and I’ve been trying to distract myself by sketching. I can’t say it’s working. I keep thinking of all of the things I’ve lost. The only photos I have of my parents, all of Gran’s beloved records, my artwork. We may not have been rich or had much, but the sentimental value of what was in that apartment is immeasurable.

Almost without thinking about it, I start to draw our apartment. I lose myself in my work, trying to bring back to life everything I’ve lost. I used to hate living there, I felt it represented how badly things had changed for us since Gran’s diagnosis, but now I realize it isn’t the building itself that makes somewhere a home, it’s the people and the atmosphere you create there. Somewhere along the way, that crappy little apartment had become a sanctuary.

I add myself and Gran to the sketch, placing Gran in the kitchen, rolling out dough to make festivals—sweet cornbread dumplings from back home—something I recall her often doing when I was young before the illness took the joy of cooking away from her. It isn’t safe for her to be in the kitchen now in case she forgets to turn off the stove and starts a fire. The irony that the apartment burned down anyway isn’t lost on me. In this imaginary apartment, I want the Gran I remember to be there.

I draw myself in my room, working on a pot. On impulse, I add in more rooms. Noah’s bedroom from our home in Charleston, with him in there playing music, the dining room we never used but that I’m told Mom and Dad loved to host parties in. I add them in too, dancing and laughing surrounded by friends, the parents I know only through stories. I draw the big yard our old home had, with the tire swing in the big tree that Noah and I would spend hours playing on. The tire swing is long gone, Gran wouldn’t let us put it back up after the rope snapped and Noah broke his arm playing on it.

I’m so absorbed in my work that I don’t hear David come into the room.

“What are you drawing?” he asks, making me jump.

“David, you startled me!” I say, turning to face him, “To be honest, I don’t know. I started to draw the apartment but then it sort of become more than that, almost like a memory log of rooms in my life,” I explain, talking him through the various rooms I’ve drawn.

“I’m sorry about your apartment, but at least now you can stay with us longer,” he says with a smile. “Our house is much nicer than a small apartment,” he adds confidently.

I’m not surprised that David’s being a little insensitive, it’s not like I’ve expressed any particular fondness for my apartment, if anything when I have mentioned it, I’ve bemoaned it. I also know that David struggles to fully comprehend the gravity of things, to him, my house burning down is a good thing since I will be staying longer, he won’t have considered the fact that it means all my worldly possessions are gone, that I no longer have a home to go back to. I’m officially homeless.

“Yes, though I have no idea what I’ll do once your brother gets bored of me and kicks me out,” I say, mortified to find tears welling up at the thought.

How I will survive once that happens?

David shakes his head fiercely, a frown furrowing his face, “No. I won’t let that happen.”

“You’re sweet David, but it’s Yaroslav’s house, if he wants me to go I don’t think either of us will have much say in the matter,” I respond gently.

I continue to work as we talk, adding paint to the drawing, the color bringing it to life. I know David finds it calming to watch me, and he’s more relaxed when I’m not looking at him constantly.

“Well then, I’ll come with you, we’ll get our own place and fill it with fun stuff,” he says animatedly, “Yaroslav would be pleased to get rid of me anyway,” he adds.

“I’m sure that’s not true, your brother loves you,” I reply.

“He thinks I’m a burden,” he says, his voice flat.

“What makes you say that?” From what I can tell, Yaroslav loves his brother very much, so I’m surprised to hear he thinks that.

David shrugs, “I’m not… normal. I should have been his second in command, running the family business together, but instead, he treats me like a child. I’m not trusted to make decisions or work. I just sit around all day, cooped up in here and hidden away like the family’s dirty secret.”

“David, from what I can tell, your brother loves you very much, even if he isn’t the best at showing it. I’m sure he’s just trying to do what’s best for you.”

David glances at me sidelong, “You don’t know my brother very well yet. You’ve only seen his nice side. He can be ruthless when it comes to protecting the business. He cut our sister out of his life, he’d do the same to me if I become too much of a burden, or if I step out of line.”

“What happened between him and your sister?” I ask curiously, glancing at him.

He ponders the question for a moment, “To be honest, I don’t really know, I was too young. I just know that she moved away, and Yaroslav stopped wanting to talk to her. I think my Uncle Innokentiy probably had something to do with it.”

I want to know why, but I don’t want to push him, so I stay silent. If he wants to elaborate he will.

“I don’t like my uncle, he’s not a good man. Yaroslav thinks he’s great, but I don’t trust him, he treats me like a crazy person, and I think he’s jealous of my brother.”

I’m surprised to hear that, I know Yaroslav is fond of his uncle, seeing him as a father figure, so I’d assumed David would feel the same way.

I’m about to ask David some more questions, to try to find out more about Yaroslav, he’s so mysterious and closed off half the time that it’s hard to know what he’s thinking or feeling. Just as I’m about to speak, the man himself walks in.

“David, I hope you’re not bothering Kimberly, she’s had a long and traumatic day,” Yaroslav chides gently.

David scowls and I can tell he’s hurt by his brother’s insinuation, sensing a potential row, I speak up. “Not at all, he’s been helping to take my mind off it and keeping me company.”

Yaroslav looks between us both, I sense he doesn’t quite buy it, but he nods, “Good. Kimberly, would you feel up to having some company for dinner or are you too tired?”

“I’m exhausted but I know there’s no way I can sleep yet, not after everything that’s happened today, dinner would be lovely,” I reply truthfully.

“I want to join,” David chips in eagerly.

“No,” Yaroslav cuts him off abruptly, “You and I will have a little chat later brother, but for now, I want Kimberly to myself,” he says sternly.

David doesn’t argue, he searches his brother’s face and there seems to be some sort of silent conversation between the two. David nods sadly and gets up to leave, “Bye Kimmy, I really am sorry about your apartment.”

“Thanks, David,” I reply as he leaves, “Your brother is so sweet,” I say with a small smile to Yaroslav.

The muscle in his jaw twitches, “He’s good at pretending to be, but you should be careful around David. He might seem harmless, but he can be dangerous too.”

“Funny, he says the same thing about you,” I retort.