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Ivan nodded, his throat tightening at his best friend’s solidarity.
Antonio sat back, the gears of his formidable mind clearly changing. “But what does all this have to do with Anastasia and her brother?”
Ivan sipped his cooling coffee before putting his cup down, buying himself time to rein in the memories of his family and the devastation of their betrayal.
“They come in seven years ago,” he finally said. “After five years out of The Organization’s prison, with only you and our brothers as my sole human connections, I’d resigned myself I’d never have anyone outside of you. Then one day, during the first conference I sponsored, I met a blast from my past. A man I recognized at once as my pre-Organization childhood best friend.
“Alexei Mikhailov left Russia with his parents just days before I was sent to The Organization. It was one of the reasons I was so eager to leave. His parents, prominent scientists in soviet Russia, defected to the States and changed identities, too, becoming the Shepherds. The father, Sergei, became Michael, the mother Ludmila, Grace, and Alexei, who’d followed in his father’s footsteps in the same branch of science in the States, became Alexander, or Alex. But because I’d changed too much...” They’d all made sure they did, so they’d be beyond recognition to their former captors even after they’d erased all evidence of their existence from their databases. “...Alex didn’t recognize me. And I intended he never would. But I was still compelled to get closer. To my delight, even without knowing me, we hit it off all over again, resuming our former rapport as if the intervening years hadn’t happened.”
He paused, savoring the agony of the sweet memories. Then he went on. “Later that same night, I met Anastasia, Alex’s younger sister, whom I remembered as a two-year-old child called Nastya, who used to be my youngest sister’s playmate. She’d been twenty three years old then, and the most stunning creature I’d ever seen.”
And the only woman he’d ever wanted, unstoppably, on sight.
From that first glance, the desire had been mutual and beyond either of them to resist...which they hadn’t.
“For the next few weeks, as Alex and I became close friends again, I plunged into a passionate but secret affair with her.” He leaned forward as echoes of this magical interlude that had never stopped haunting him deluged him again. Body hardening and heart thundering at the mere memories, he raked a hand through his hair, dragged himself back to the bleak reality. “I was overwhelmed by the ecstasy of being with her, not to mention by the delight of being with Alex again. Yet it haunted me that I might expose them to danger if one day the past caught up with me. And though that was my main fear, there was another problem.
“Through the escape and identity changes, not only had their family never lost contact with mine, they’d become like one family. My parents were like a second mother and father to them, with my sisters Anastasia’s best friends and Alex in love with my youngest sister, Katerina, Cathy now. I knew being involved with Anastasia and Alex would bring my family crashing back into my life. My dread was validated when Alex kept trying to suck me into their extended family. It all came to a head when he asked me to be his best man.”
He closed his eyes as memories of Alex, alive and in love and eager for his closeness, tore at him all over again.
His breath left him on a ragged hiss. “I considered putting the past behind me, for his sake, for Anastasia’s. But I couldn’t do it. I was unable to bear the thought of being around my family again. It was the shove I needed to leave them alone. So I told Anastasia and Alex that I had inescapable business on his wedding day and withdrew from both their lives.”
Silence lengthened in the wake of his last words.
Then Antonio asked, “Without explanation?”
He’d driven himself crazy ever since thinking how he could have handled it better. He’d always come to the same conclusion. “Any excuse I invented to explain my withdrawal would have only hurt more than letting them think I was just an unfeeling jerk.”
Antonio inclined his head. “So now you don’t want her going back to her life because you can’t walk away again and you’re worried your family might somehow recognize you when they eventually see you with her? Or are you afraid you’d change your mind about punishing them once you see them again?”
“Neither. The years haven’t lessened my aversion to being anywhere near them, but intensified it. If she goes back to her family, I won’t be able to be there for her anymore. And she still needs my support, my protection. She isn’t ready to face the world without them yet.” He leaned his elbows on his knees. “So now you have the reason you asked for.”
After another beat of silence, Antonio rose to his feet. “I will still discharge her, Ivan.”
Ivan heaved up to his feet, blood shooting to his head. “What? After what I just told you?”
“I actually now believe it’s even more imperative to let her go back to her life.”
“You bastard, you make me spill my guts—”
“Which you should have done ages ago. But what you told me only reinforces what I already decided.” An outstretched arm aborted Ivan’s outraged step forward. “When you first told me you’d be there for her during the hard journey back to her old self, I assumed she had no one else. But she has a family who loves her. She needs to go back to them, to bury her brother, so she’ll get closure and start the healing process. Keeping her isolated with only you hovering over her is keeping her in a limbo of unresolved tension and grief.”
“That’s only your opinion.”
“It’s the truth. And there’s also another reason why I will discharge her against your wishes.”
“Brilliant. You have more bloody reasons to screw me over?”
“You always turn into Richard when you’re frustrated.” Before Ivan could blast him for likening him to that pain-in-the-ass Brit partner and former jailor of theirs, Richard Graves, Antonio sighed. “But yes, I do have another reason. You.”
“Me?”
“Believe it or not, I’m stopping you from making a catastrophic mistake with the woman you care about.” Antonio waited a moment to let his words settle on Ivan before he went on. “No matter how justified you think you are, the day she discovers you kept her away from her loved ones when she most needed them for your own ends, you’ll find yourself in my same position with Liliana, with her feeling manipulated and betrayed, and with you unable to reach her again. And you already have a huge strike against you with her for the way you deserted her in the past. I don’t want you to meet my same fate.”
Ivan almost staggered back under the barrage of truths he hated to hear. “Dammit, Tonio. You were supposed to be too messed up to offer any resistance, let alone come up with a reasoned argument this ironclad.”
“Just your luck I have a separate compartment in my head for my inner Vulcan.” Antonio took him by the shoulders this time. “Let her go, Ivan. And after she’s done what she needs to do, find a way to be there for her, to help her become strong and whole again, while staying out of your family’s range.”
Ivan’s gaze held Antonio’s grim one, aversion and dread bubbling up to the surface. “Do I even have a choice here?”
Antonio’s attempted smile came out as a grimace. “None.”
* * *
Anastasia was sitting by the window overlooking the ocean—the Pacific, since Ivan had mentioned they were somewhere in Los Angeles—when he and Dr. Balducci walked in.
Apart from a couple of nurses and orderlies she’d barely seen, those two had been her only company for the past five weeks. It sometimes felt as if she’d see no one else for the rest of her life except for the two men who’d saved her.
She watched them approaching her, and thought that if the gods came down from Mount Olympus, they wouldn’t look that magnificent. She wondered again how they could look so much alike when one was one hundred percent Russian stock, like her, and the other was pure Italian. Their ethnicities were clear in their bone structure, but in their bodies, vibes and many other intangible things, they seemed to have been forged in the same higher-being manufacturing plant.
They stopped a couple of feet away, where the golden rays of a declining sun shining in through the window made them even more gorgeous. But though she mentally knew they were each other’s equal, it was Ivan who embodied male beauty in her book. Or in her ledger. It felt as if everything that made her a female with these kinds of appreciations was frozen. Even gone.
Dr. Balducci spoke first. “Good news, Anastasia. I’m discharging you. I only ask that you resume your activities gradually and come to me when you can for a checkup. Of course, if you have any unusual symptoms, which I don’t expect in the least, contact me at once. Ivan will provide you with every method to get hold of me day or night.”
She blinked. “You mean...I—I can go?”
“Medically speaking, you’re almost as good as new.”
She hadn’t even been considering her health. It wasn’t what dictated whether she could go back.
Her gaze moved to the other juggernaut towering above her. Ivan’s face was clamped in a disturbing expression.
“Is it okay for me to leave now?” She heard her voice wavering, imploring. “For my family to know...what happened?”
His eyes glittered a deeper green as a beat passed, and felt like an eternity, before he nodded. “Yes.”
And the tears came again. As if they’d never stopped.
In her blurred gaze, she saw Dr. Balducci’s image receding, and Ivan’s hovering a breath away. But he didn’t offer any comfort, just stood there, fists at his sides.
All she wanted was to throw herself at him, seek the shelter of his infinite strength, his encompassing protection. But she held back. She couldn’t need him or lean on him any more than she already had. Ivan, from devastating experience, didn’t stick around, and this time when he eventually left, it wouldn’t be like before.
Seven years ago she’d been young and resilient. She’d suffered an indelible scar when he’d walked away, but she’d survived, even thrived. This time, in her bereft and damaged state, if her dependence deepened even more, she feared she’d be unable to recover.
Finally, feeling too wrecked to shed another tear, she slumped back in her seat limply, looking up at him. His gaze flayed her with its intensity. Yet he still said nothing.
She finally pushed to her feet. “Can I have my things back now, please?” she asked him. “I need them so I can arrange my return to New York. As for—for...”
He took an urgent step forward as she choked, and for a second, she thought he’d take her in his arms. He didn’t.
Looking as if the words were being torn out of him, he said, “Don’t worry about anything. I will deliver you—and Alex—to your family.”
Three (#u33fc248c-492a-5333-b0bf-5875baa1c127)
“What will we tell my family?”
Ivan looked up from his laptop at her subdued question. Anastasia had been trying to get herself to ask it ever since they’d left Dr. Balducci’s secret medical installation and driven to a private airstrip to board Ivan’s jet.
Until now, all she’d managed had been monosyllabic answers to his constant questions whether she needed anything.
Not that she possibly could. As he’d been doing for the past five weeks, he’d kept anticipating her needs, and far beyond. He’d barely let her feet touch the ground all the way to this luxurious seat in his state-of-the-art jet, barely let her lift a hand. The most she’d gotten away with had been going to the bathroom under her own power and feeding herself.
To escape his persistent focus and care, she’d had to pretend to fall asleep. Even then, she’d felt his gaze on her, no doubt counting her breaths, as usual.
She’d ended up falling asleep for real, and had just awoken a minute ago to find him finally doing something other than watch her. She’d been tempted to leave him engrossed in whatever he was doing. But she’d had to ask that question. They had to be on the same page during the coming ordeal.
It hadn’t even occurred to her that he’d offer to take her home. But she’d still felt his aversion to the task and tried to convince him to let her go back alone. It had only made him more adamant that she was in no condition to deal with the upheaval ahead. Not to mention that only he could navigate the sensitive time until Alex was buried.
Now caught once more in his burning focus, she wished she’d kept silent. He closed the laptop, pushed aside the adjustable table and sat forward in the seat facing hers.
“Now that those responsible for Alex’s murder have paid—”
She had to interrupt, her sluggish heart starting to hammer. “How exactly did they pay?”
His gaze stilled on her face. “You’re sure you want details?”
She hadn’t before. But now she burned for them. “Yes.”
He didn’t answer at once, as if trying to gauge if it was prudent to give her more information that might disturb her.
But he must have seen the steel hardening her nerves, the fire licking through her veins, her need to have vengeance for Alex fueling her, overriding any aversion she might have previously had to learn what he was capable off, what he’d done.
He finally gave a nod of acknowledgment. “Your immediate boss at FuturEn and insiders within the International Energy Organization had been exposed. Not for the crime Alex discovered—that they’d made sure his results would be publicly falsified, discredited and never see application, while bribing all energy competitors with the threat that those results were indeed a breakthrough that could deprive them of a big percentage of the market within years. And not for what they’d done to him—and you—since that will always remain a secret for your protection. I exposed every other crime they’d ever committed, which were many and equally as heinous. They’ll never know who exposed them, but the evidence I made available to the authorities is copious and conclusive. They’ve been arrested and the dates of their expedited trials set. They’ve lost everything and won’t see the outside of a maximum-security prison in this life.”
“That’s all?”
A chilling smile touched his lips as if he recognized and approved of her lust for a harsher punishment. “No. Those who gave the order to end your and Alex’s lives will be locked up with their worst nightmares—those who owe them pain and suffering, and others who’ll contribute imaginative punishments for one price or another. Those men will either meet their demise after protracted abuse or, worse, be deprived of its mercy.”
She closed her eyes, struggling to suppress the vicious satisfaction that charred her blood. She was ferociously glad those monsters would pay, and that their punishment would be long and agonizing, and preferably unending.
It amazed her all over again that she was capable of such ruthlessness, that she would have exacted that punishment herself if she could have. She knew if Ivan hadn’t taken action, she would have done anything to avenge Alex’s death. But relying on the law wouldn’t have done her any good. As a weak adversary with flimsy evidence, she would have gotten nowhere and ultimately would have been forced to resort to reckless measures. Which would have proven as ineffective and probably ended up in disaster for her and for her family, too.
So Ivan had saved her yet again, this time from the consequences of the vengeance she would have done anything to get, but wasn’t equipped to enact. He’d given it to her, full and final, without a price for her or her loved ones.
Gratitude flooded her, along with so many other emotions that she felt she’d burst with it all. Needing an outlet, she reached a shaky hand to cover both of his as they interlaced loosely between his knees.
It was the first time she’d touched him in over seven years. And though it was nothing like that first touch that had changed her forever, that had told her this was the only man she’d ever crave, it was still as potent in its own way. The powerful hands that were capable of so much passion, skill and damage seemed to buzz beneath her trembling touch. His gaze crowded with so much she couldn’t fathom.
She let out all her emotions on a quivering breath. “Thank you.”
The stiffening of his body and face was an admonition, reminding her he’d demanded she never thank him.
“But I need to far more than thank you,” she persisted. “For this. For everything you’ve done. And now for taking me—taking us—home.” She shied away from thinking of Alex’s body in the belly of the plane so she could go on. “Especially when I feel how much you’d rather not.”
Sitting back, he moved his hands out of reach, a startled look coming into his eyes. No doubt he was surprised that she picked up on his reluctance.
He only said, “Alex was my friend, Anastasia.”
The barely checked emotions that radiated from him whenever Alex was mentioned hit her full force again. Was that the reason for his reluctance? He hated that they were taking Alex home in a casket, to bury him? Did he feel, like her, that goodbye would feel real only then? Did it hurt him, too?
If it hurt him a fraction of how it hurt her, then it made sense. And it again rewrote everything she’d thought she’d known for the past seven years.
Ivan’s friendship with Alex had lasted as long as their own relationship had. Exactly ten weeks. At the time, she’d believed the two men had shared a deep connection. Then his desertion had forced her to revise her opinion.
Though their liaisons had been brief, Ivan had left a gaping void in both their lives. Each had mourned his loss, had struggled with their own interpretation of its causes.
Alex had been resigned that someone of Ivan’s caliber would surely not find him worthy of more than a passing acquaintance, that he’d been delusional to think they’d built the foundation of a lifelong friendship. As for herself, she thought she’d been nothing but another notch on his bedpost. Why else would he have simply walked away?
But after everything that had happened in the last weeks, after realizing he’d kept such close tabs on them, she was forced to reconsider everything. It was clear there was far more to this whole thing than she’d thought. Far, far more to Ivan. What, she couldn’t even guess at. And if he never told her, she’d never know.
But for now, she had to tell him what Alex hadn’t had the chance to.
“He was your friend, too, Ivan. He never got over your sudden disappearance from his life, yet always treasured the time he had with you.”
It was agony to talk about Alex in the past tense, as she would from now on. And equally painful to reveal an intensely personal secret of his that only she’d known.
But Ivan had to know it. It was about him, and after all he’d done, she couldn’t withhold it from him.
The next moment she wished she had. That look in his eyes as he met hers was filled with unbearable pain. The same look she’d seen before he’d declared he would deliver her and Alex to their family.
What did it all mean? How did his behavior, past and present, add up? Because it simply didn’t.
Or maybe it did. Maybe he felt bad about the way he’d exited their lives, the remorse compounded by what had happened to them, by what he’d been unable to stop. Maybe he was appeasing his guilt by trying to put right as much as he could of this mess.
Not that it mattered what he felt or why he was doing this. For reasons he kept to himself, Ivan was hell-bent on seeing this tragedy to its resolution.
And though having him so near was like a dull scalpel opening old scars and new wounds, she was more grateful than she could ever express. She couldn’t have survived without him. And once they broke the tragic news to their family, only his presence would get her through their grief.
After an oppressive silence, Ivan made no comment on her revelation and answered her original question. “I advise against taking anyone into your confidence about what happened, no matter how tempted you are. Not now, not ever. I’ve erased all evidence of the crime so I could deal with its perpetrators without repercussions. Any knowledge of it outside of us can someday cause untold trouble. I’ve constructed an airtight scenario to be told to the world, starting with your families, and I need you to always be consistent in telling it.”
She nodded, hit again by how sinister this all was, how much larger than anything she’d ever thought she’d encounter in her life.
His eyes filled with approval of her unquestioning acceptance. Then he went on. “You’ll say neither you nor Alex knew which arm of the government recruited you for the top secret project, that all had gone smoothly, that you were supposed to go home when you were involved in a helicopter crash two weeks ago. The pilot died at once, Alex was gravely injured, while you had the least injuries.”
She gave another nod as she absorbed the details that mixed reality with fiction. “How will I explain your role in all this?”
“You’ll say I’m a previous acquaintance you contacted because I’m Dr. Balducci’s partner, who transported you to his facility. But it was those in charge of your mission who didn’t clear you to contact your family before now. You’ll tell the truth, that Antonio operated on both of you, but could only save you, downplaying your injuries so you could be in this condition after two weeks. Part of the misdirection to the culprits is creating a different time line.”
