Watch Me

“You said you wanted to talk to me about something.”

I looked up at Cliff. It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. I had been interested in talking to him. Specifically, about the possibility of a job transfer, preferably to somewhere that was as far from New York City as I could get.

“No,” I said. “I was mistaken.”

Cliff eyed me knowingly and nodded his head.

“Why do I feel like I’ve been played?” I asked.

Cliff merely shrugged his shoulders. “No idea, my boy,” he said simply before he returned his attention to the rose. I began to walk past him but then thought better of it and stopped next to him.

“I know this might be against the rules but life’s too damn short,” I whispered and then I wrapped my arms around an unsuspecting Cliff.

The poor man stood stock-still for several long seconds. I was sure he was going to push me away but to my surprise, his arms went around me and he patted me on the back.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” I whispered.

“You did it yourself, my boy. Patricia would be so proud of you.”

“I miss her so much,” I admitted.

“Me too, son.”

I pulled back and said, “You know, she never told me how you two knew each other.”

“Didn’t you have your ears open just now, son?” Cliff asked. “I just told you how we knew each other.”

I shook my head in confusion. “No, you didn’t. You were telling me about Cassie—” I stopped abruptly. “Oh god,” I said as it came to me. “She was Cassie’s sister, wasn’t she?”

“That she was,” Cliff acknowledged. “Patricia was how I met Cassie. Patricia and I were in the same class. One of our teachers convinced Patricia to tutor me… offered her extra credit. After Cassie passed, Patricia and I kept in touch. I never wanted any of this craziness to touch Patty, so no one knew about her or Cassie.”

I was still reeling from the information when Cliff reached up to pat my cheek. “Now go get your man, my boy. Cassie and I will be here when you get back,” he said as he turned his attention back to his roses.

I didn’t know what moved me more… Nikolai being referred to as mine or the knowledge that when I got him back, I’d have a family to bring him home to.

Chapter 27

Nikolai

“Nikolai.”

The sound of my sister’s tear-filled voice broke through the numbness that had pervaded my entire body from the moment I’d gotten the call from my father that Maks was in the ER again.

“He’ll be okay, Elena,” I whispered as I reached out to cover her hand where it was fisted on the table. “He’s a fighter,” I said firmly.

Elena nodded and fell silent again. I could only stare at the glass window of the small conference room the nurse had led me and Elena to. Wasn’t a room like this only for when they had bad news?

He’s fine. He’s going to be fucking fine.

Even as I repeated the words to myself, I felt tears pricking the backs of my eyes. What if it weren’t true? What if Maks couldn’t fight off the infection this time? His doctors had said the antibiotics were working but what if they’d found something else? Yeah, we’d left Maks playing a board game with Nattie and our parents in his hospital room and he’d seemed okay, but then why were we here?

I dropped my eyes and stared at my phone which had died sometime the night before. It had been my only lifeline to Jude and now even that was gone. I knew that no matter what the outcome of this meeting would be, I’d given up the pretense that I could be patient enough for Jude to find his way back to me. After a week of unanswered texts and unreturned calls, I’d been on the verge of trekking out to Clifton Hayes’s fancy estate and beating the shit out of anyone who tried to keep Jude from me.

The door to the room flew open. I automatically jumped to my feet, though it was more force of habit than anything else. Several men and women in white coats entered.

“Ms. Falkov? Mr. Falkov?” one of the older women in a long white coat said as she held out her hand across the table. “I’m Ellen Riggs. I’ve been consulting on Maks’s case,” she said with a smile.

I might have responded, I wasn’t sure. Since I wasn’t interested in idle chitchat or a lot of bullshit medical jargon I said, “Did you find something?”

If the doctor was surprised by my bluntness, she didn’t show it.

“Yes,” she said, which immediately elicited a gasp from my sister and had me so weak-kneed that I practically fell into my chair. “But, but,” the woman quickly added as she leaned across the table and covered Elena’s and my joined hands with her own, “it’s treatable.”