My mother.
She must have been eighteen or nineteen when this was taken. She was so beautiful. I had a smaller one just like it a long time ago, but after I was taken in by the Georges, it disappeared. They denied having taken it, of course, and I lost that last piece of my mother.
Seeing it now, bigger, not wrinkled or worn, seeing her smiling like this, well, it makes my heart hurt.
“What are you doing, Katerina?”
I jump with an audible yelp, and the folder slips off my lap, pages scattering to the floor.
Lev stands there, leather jacket zipped up, two plastic bags in one hand and keys in the other. He looks at the papers on the floor, then at the trinket box, then at me.
Without a word, he walks to the bedroom, peeks inside, then closes the door.
That clicking makes me sit up a little taller as I turn to face him.
Lev walks back toward me, setting the bags on a chair and the keys on the table. His eyes move over the trinket box as he unzips his jacket and takes it off, then sets his gun on the table.
His is bigger than the one he gave me. It’s the one he used to kill Andrei, and he’s very well equipped to handle it.
“Where’s the pistol I gave you?” he asks, stepping closer.
I reach behind me to take it out of the waistband of my jeans and hand it to him.
He puts it beside his on the table, and all I can think is we’re quite the couple. Bonnie and Clyde.
“We should hide those. What if Josh—”
“Josh is asleep. I asked you a question.”
I look at the papers on the floor. “I have a right to know what’s going on.” I stand, then step to him to face-off. “I have a right to know what you’re doing with a file on my mother.”
He studies me, cocks his head to the side, and steps toward me, closing those last few feet of space.
“It’s my responsibility to keep you and our son safe. I will make the call on what you see when. I decide what information you need, when you need it.”
“I’m not the little woman you keep barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, Lev. I won’t ever be that. What are you doing with this? Why do you have it? And what does my mother have to do with any of this?”
“We’ll discuss it later. When you’re ready.”
“You don’t get to decide when I’m ready. My mother—”
“We will discuss it later when we can talk.” He rubs my arms, his touch not quite as gentle as he can be. “Our son is sleeping in the next room.”
“Our son that I’ve been raising on my own for three years. That I’ve kept safe for three years.”
“What are you saying?” He drops his arms.
“Nothing.” I shift my gaze.
“You think you were safe?” he asks.
“Well…” I falter.
When he takes another step, I match his, going backward. But I should know better because one more, and my back is to the wall. It’s exactly where he wants me because in the next instant, he has my arms stretched over my head and my wrists pinned to the wall.
“Lev—”
“You weren’t safe, Katerina. You were never safe. You hid well, I’ll give you that, but I found you and Vasily’s men followed the day we left. I’ve told you more than once that I will keep you safe. I’ve asked you to trust me, and I think my actions have proven that I have yours and Josh’s best interests at heart.”
“But—”
“You need to trust that I will tell you what I can when I can.”
“My mother—”
“You want me to tell you about your mother?”
Something in his eyes tells me I don’t want to know, but the thing is, I need to know. No matter how terrible it is, and it is terrible because there’s no other reason he’d have a file on my mother. I need to know.
“That accident that killed her, Kat, it doesn’t appear to have been an accident at all.”
“What?”
“Not what you expected or hoped to hear?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone wanted her dead, and the fact that she was on Vasily’s list tells me it was him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Fuck.”
He lets go of my wrists and walks away, running a hand through his hair.
“What does my mother have to do with Vasily or any of this?”
He turns back to me, looking me over. He comes toward me, and he’s so close I have to crane my neck to look up at him.
“I care about you, Kat. Do you know that?”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t have anything to tell you that won’t upset you. That’s why I haven’t said anything.”
“You can’t decide that for me.”
He steps backward and sits on the sofa, hands on his knees. “This is a goddamn shitshow.”