HER RUSSIAN SURRENDER Page 6

  But more likely, he decided Fedya hadn’t told him because he knew what would have happened if Nikolai had known his addict brother had full custody of a child. Nikolai not only would have taken the boy away from his brother, but he also would have made sure his brother didn’t see the child again until he got clean. So of course Fedya decided to keep the boy’s existence from him rather than risk losing his son.

  But still, for a man-child like Fedya to insist on raising his son on his own? Stupid, Nikolai thought to himself. Stupid and unbelievably selfish. But of course, being stupid and unbelievably selfish was something his brother had excelled at, along with an uncanny ability to make the exact wrong decision at every one of his short life’s turns.

  “Here you go, man.” The officer handed Nikolai a piece of paper with the name “Samantha McKinley” on it and an address. “And thanks. Not that I don’t appreciate her commitment. I know it will come in handy if we end up having kids of our own. But it’s kind of hard for us to spend quality time together when there’s a kid in the background taking up all her attention. Know what I mean?”

  No, Nikolai didn’t know what he meant, and it sounded to him like the police officer’s girlfriend would have more than one child on her hands, demanding all her attention, if she decided to marry him.

  But Nikolai took the piece of paper, forcing himself to set his irritation aside. As bad as the situation was, it was something that could be corrected. Right now. He’d go get the boy from the policeman’s girlfriend and by tonight, his nephew would be exactly where he should have been from the beginning: under Nikolai’s roof.

  9

  “I can’t believe you, Marco! I can’t believe you!”

  “Sammy, don’t be mad at me,” Marco said on the other side of the line. “I’m only trying to do what’s best here.”

  “What’s best?” she repeated, her voice full of derision. “For who? Your favorite hockey player? I can only assume that’s why you’d give this guy our home address.”

  “I gave him your home address. It’s just yours. You only have temporary custody, and you’re not the kid’s blood,” Marco answered. “Rustanov is.”

  “Maybe not. But I could have stalled, given Pavel the time and counseling he needed to properly process what happened to him before I sent him off with some guy who didn’t even know he was alive until a few hours ago!”

  “You’re acting like it’s his fault his druggie brother didn’t tell him he had a kid. The point is now he knows, and he’s trying to make it right.”

  “Trying to claim Pavel like a piece of luggage, you mean. And you just made it that much easier for him!”

  Just thinking about how Marco had betrayed her and Pavel in favor of his hockey hero made her want to scream. But Pavel was in the front room with Back Up and she worked hard to keep her voice down so he wouldn’t hear her in the back bedroom when she all but hissed, “Pavel doesn’t need a hockey star who will hand him off to a nanny to raise. He needs counseling. He needs guidance. He needs love.”

  Sam thought about Nikolai Rustanov’s derisive dismissal of love as a silly custom at the party and said, “He needs all the love he can get.”

  “Sam, I like you, I really like you, but you have got to start seeing reason here. You are one person and you said it yourself, you’ll be stretched thin again as soon as the shelter fills back up. Rustanov can hire a battalion of yous to give Pavel whatever he needs. You should—”

  “Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, Marco,” Sam said through clenched teeth. “I don’t care who he is, I’m not going to hand a traumatized little boy over to him just because they have some tenuous family connection. You have no idea what Pavel has been through. No idea!”

  “And you do?” Marco asked, sounding both confused and skeptical.

  Sam paused, then paused some more, her mind buffering, because how could she explain it to Marco? Her reasons for feeling so connected to Pavel were secret, and she hadn’t told anyone but Josie.

  “Yes, I do,” she eventually said. “More than whatever therapist this hockey player’s assistant picks out for him. So please, if you really like me, if you ever cared about me at all, call him off. Call him and tell him not to bother coming over here. Tell him that he’ll have to go through Child Services if he wants custody of Pavel, just like anyone else would.”

  “Sammy…”

  “Please, Marco. I know what I’m doing and I know what’s best for Pavel right now. You’ve got to trust me.”

  “I do trust you, but in this case, I think you’re being a little… I don’t know a nice way to say this—but you’re being kinda crazy, Sammy. I mean, don’t you want us to get back on track with dating? See where the relationship goes? All the places it could go?”

  The stress he put on “all” left no doubt of his real meaning. During their last date, he’d hinted that the next order of takeout should include an overnight stay. Obviously he was fed up with waiting to take their relationship to the next level.

  Sam’s heart hardened with bitter disappointment. Marco might think she’s cute, she realized, but apparently that was all he thought of her.

  You’re just a piece of ass, far as any of these boys concerned, and that’s all you ever going to be to them.

  Her stepfather’s ugly words rang in her ears as she realized the truth about Marco. He wasn’t a potential love connection. Not someone she could eventually marry and trust. At the end of the day, the only thing he cared about was getting her into bed.

  “You’re right, Marco. Obviously, I’m not thinking clearly,” she said. “I mean, Nikolai Rustanov knows how to hit a ball with a bent stick really well, and all I am is a grown woman with two degrees who works with children in crisis on a day-to-day basis. What could I possibly know better than Nikolai Rustanov about what’s best for Pavel? Thank you for interfering. I’m not sure how I ever got this far without your clearly superior expertise and advice.”

  “Now you’re just being mean, Sammy.”

  “Don’t call me, Sammy. In fact, don’t ever call me again.”

  “C’mon, Sam—”

  Sam hung up on him, and then threw her phone across the room in disgust. How dare he? How dare he?

  She clenched and unclenched her fist, so frustrated it made her feel violent inside. She’d thought Marco was different from all the other guys who’d only stepped to her because she’d inherited her mother’s good looks. But as it turned out, he was just like the rest. In it purely for the cookie. It was so obvious why Marco had suddenly decided she wasn’t thinking clearly. Because she took a child into her home, one that would temporarily stall their fledgling relationship and disrupt any chance of sex happening in the near future.

  But the joke was on him. There was nothing Sam despised more than disloyalty. From the well-meaning relatives who told an abusive husband where his wife was hiding to the cop who sent a hockey player straight to her front door. Nothing could have been a bigger turn off for Sam. Nothing.

  There came the sound of knocking so loud, she could hear it all the way in the back of the house.

  Sam let out an irritated sigh. Apparently the hockey player had arrived.

  She walked to the front room, already rehearsing her speech about how he’d need to go through Child Services, just like any other adult seeking custody of a child they’d never met before. She’d need to send Pavel to wait in the second bedroom while she dealt with his uncle, and that might be a little hard considering Pavel had a bad case of hero worship where Mount Nik was concerned.

  However the question of sending him away became moot when she reached the front room and found the table Pavel had been sitting at empty. He was supposed to be filling out a battery of tests so she could assess his skills and know how to properly advocate for him when she went to enroll him at the local elementary school next week, but he was nowhere to be found.

  Back Up, on the other hand, was already at the door, muzzle up, mouth open, tongue primed to lick
whoever was knocking.

  “Pavel?” she called out, wondering if she’d not noticed that the bathroom door was closed when she walked past.

  More loud knocking and someone on the other side shouted, “Pizza delivery!”

  A temporary relief replaced the dread she’d carried into the living room. Oh good, it was just the pizza she’d ordered. She could take it and Pavel into the back room and turn on the TV for him while she dealt with his uncle—

  “Don’t answer the door, Mama,” a voice said.

  Sam frowned. It was Pavel’s voice, coming from under the table.

  She bent down to find him crouched beneath it, much like he’d been crouched inside the cabinet when she’d come to get him a few days ago.

  The knocking must have triggered him somehow, she realized. Made him think he was back in the house where his father’s horrific death had gone down.

  She held her hand out to him. “Pavel, it’s okay, it’s just the pizza I ordered. From the same place as two days ago. You said you liked it, remember?”

  But Pavel shook his head. “No, it’s not. It’s one of the bad guys.”

  More knocking. “Tony’s delivery! I got the pizza you ordered right here, ma’am.”

  “Hold on,” Sam called back. She wished the pizza guy had been considerate enough to ring the doorbell instead of knocking. The sound had probably been enough to send Pavel into a post-traumatic episode.

  “You think the pizza guy hurt your dad?”

  Pavel shook his head, his voice frantic as he answered. “He’s not a pizza guy. He’s a Russian. He’s one of them.”

  Sam hesitated, not sure how to handle this situation. There was a lot of stuff to parse out with Pavel and she wanted to help him through this, show him how to manage his emotions when he’d been triggered. But she also needed to answer the door and hide him away in the guest bedroom before his uncle showed up.

  Now the guy on the other side of the door was pounding. “Are you coming out to pay for this pizza or what?”

  “I’ve got to pay for the pizza,” Sam explained to Pavel in a low, calming voice. “I know this situation makes you feel scared and anxious, but it will be all right.”

  Pavel leaned forward and grabbed her forearm with both of his hands, tears springing to his eyes. “No, it won’t. Mama, please don’t answer that door. Please!”

  She knew Pavel was having a post-traumatic episode. And she knew she’d really regret this when it came time to figure out how to get a hungry little boy to stay in his room while she talked to his uncle. But in the end, she gave in.

  “It’s okay. Don’t cry,” she told Pavel. Then she called out to the guy on the other side of the door, “I’m sorry. We won’t be needing that pizza any longer. Just charge the credit card I gave you and, I guess, donate it to the next homeless person you see.”

  “Are you serious, lady?” the voice on the other side of the door asked.

  “Yes, completely serious,” Sam answered, feeling both guilty and silly as Pavel clung to her forearm, his thin fingers digging in like a tiny bear trap.

  “How about my tip?” the delivery guy asked.

  “I’m really sorry, but I won’t be able to tip you right now. I can’t come to the door,” Sam said. “But if you leave me your name, I’ll stop by Tony’s later and make sure you get a generous tip for your trouble.”

  Silence. A long silence, while Sam waited for the guy on the other side of the door to give up and go away.

  But there were no receding footsteps. Instead, there came more loud pounding on the door, so heavy it shook the whole frame.

  “Open the door. Open the door and pay for this pizza. NOW!” The easygoing pizza guy was gone, his voice deeper and carrying the trace of a faint accent. “Open this door now, bitch!”

  Sam went still as her instincts came online. Thanks to her training at the shelter, she knew when to confront an angry man at the door and when that man was high-risk enough for her to immediately involve the police. She knew exactly where she and Pavel stood with this guy.

  “Pavel,” she whispered, tugging at the little boy’s arm now instead of vice versa. “Let’s go. We need to—”

  A gloved hand smashed through the thin side window to the right of the door, and went straight for the deadbolt. It was one of three locks on the door, but in this case, it was the only one that she’d locked.

  Sam’s heart went cold with fear. Yeah, there was no way the man on the other side of the door was the local delivery guy.

  “Back Up, here girl!” she called while pulling Pavel from underneath the table.

  Back Up trotted over and Sam managed to get the little boy out, just as the door came crashing open.

  “C’mon!” she yelled, picking up Pavel and running into her bedroom with Back Up on their heels. She slammed the door behind all of them, looking around for a phone. She needed help, but her phone…

  She cursed, the memory of it bouncing off the bed to places unknown when she’d thrown it in frustration coming back to her.

  Did she have time to look for it? No, she decided. Better to put as many doors between them and the bad guy as she could. With frantic breaths, she ran into the bathroom with Pavel in her arms. Slammed that door behind her and placed him in the tub.

  Pavel was crying now. “He’s going to kill us!”

  “No, I won’t let him hurt you!” Sam said, her eyes scanning the bathroom for something she could use to defend them against the maniac at the door.

  There was a metal towel rack was bolted solidly to the wall but no amount of her frantic tugging pulled it off. Sam soon gave up, her eyes once again scanning until they landed on the small window right above the tub. It was too small for her to fit through.

  But maybe Pavel could.

  She bent down to talk to the little boy crouched in her empty bathtub.

  “Pavel, I’m going to push you through the window. Go around the cottage, and run as fast as you can to Ruth’s House.” She gave him six numbers, the date of her mother’s death, then said, “That’s the code to get in. Climb out the window and don’t look back, no matter what. Just get to the shelter’s back door, okay? Then call 9-1-1.” Sam put her hands on both sides of the boy’s frightened face. “Okay?”

  Pavel nodded, solemn as a tomb. “Okay, I’ll go, but I don’t want you to get hurt like Papa.”

  She wished she could tell him she wouldn’t, wished she could reassure him, but it wasn’t true and there wasn’t enough time. She settled on not letting her terror show as she bent down further and helped Pavel climb up on her shoulders and out the window.

  His feet disappeared just as the bathroom door rattled with the force of someone banging his shoulder against it. The sound of someone trying to get in.

  Back Up once again went to the door the bad guy was trying to bash through, sniffing at the crack beneath it with more curiosity than anything else. Sam loved her bullie, but this was one of the times it might have come in handy not to have a total sweetheart of a dog.

  “Go away!” Sam yelled. “I have a rabid pit bull in here and she will tear you from limb to limb if you don’t go away now!”

  Back Up looked over her shoulder at Sam and snuffed like, “Who me? I’d do no such thing! In fact, dogs of my breed are way more likely to be kidnapped because we’re so ridiculously friendly and trusting!”

  Seriously, she’d seen teacup poodles show more menace than Back Up was displaying now. But maybe the guy on the other side of the door believed her because the rattling came to an abrupt stop.

  With her heart in her throat, Sam waited. But no sound came. Minutes passed that felt like hours. And soon the fearful anticipation was replaced with dread. What if he hadn’t been scared… what if he’d left? Left because he’d gotten what they’d come for?

  Sam’s heart seized with those thoughts and without thinking, she opened the bathroom door. She had to be sure, she just had to be…

  The bedroom was now empty. Its door standing
open, knocked off one hinge in ominous testament to the fact that someone had aggressively barged inside. Before leaving.

  No, Sam thought to herself. No! No! No!

  She ran through the broken door, down the narrow hallway, and into the living room, her shoes crunching over the broken glass as she rushed outside onto the wide expanse of lawn that sat between her and the shelter.

  Only to stop short.

  Pavel was standing in front of the back entrance to Ruth’s House… having what looked like a solemn conversation with Nikolai Rustanov. At least she thought it was Nikolai Rustanov. He was turned to the side and had swapped his tuxedo for a black pea coat and skull cap. In fact, he was dressed all in black as if he’d set out to match the large black Escalade parked, not in one of the special parking spots for Ruth’s House, but on the lawn itself with the passenger door hanging open, as if he’d skidded to a stop and leapt out.

  But even turned sideways, she knew it was him, if only by the sharp planes of his face, like a gargoyle come to life.

  She stood there, mouth unhinged, trying to figure out what was going on before she approached the unexpected scene. Back Up, though, wasn’t nearly as wary. She barked happily and ran over to Pavel, nearly knocking the poor boy down in her eagerness to lick him after a whole five, possibly ten, minutes apart.

  Nikolai watched the scene with narrow eyes, his body tense as if he were trying to figure out if Back Up was a danger to Pavel. He must have decided she wasn’t, because his head swiveled towards Sam as she also came running across the lawn toward them.

  The only evidence that he recognized her was a slight widening of his hooded eyes, before his face went to another setting, one that rearranged the harsh planes of his face into an expression of angry accusation.

  “This,” he said, his voice dangerous and low. “This is what you call taking care of my nephew?”

  10