His (Ties That Bind 2)

The shower switches off, but Lev is still singing.

“He doesn’t have a very good singing voice, does he?” I ask, wrinkling my nose while wiping syrup off his chin.

Josh shakes his head as the bathroom door opens.

“You guys making fun of my singing?” Lev asks with a faux-stern expression.

“You can’t sing, Daddy,” Josh says, then turns to watch the piece of waffle drop from his spoon onto the carpet. “Uh-oh.”

“I’ll clean it up. You keep eating. We have to go soon.”

“Can you grab me a clean shirt?” Lev asks.

I pull the duffel bag open and take out his last white T-shirt. This is signature Lev. I notice then that the envelope he’d carried out of here yesterday morning is back in the bag.

“You didn’t send it?” I ask, turning to find him towel dry his hair while watching the cartoon over Josh’s shoulder.

He turns to me. “That was a precaution. In case things went south.”

“I’m glad. Here.” I hand him the shirt and pick up the black one off the floor. “This isn’t yours, is it?” It’s the one he’d stripped off last night.

He glances at it, takes it from me, and drops it into a trash can. “I borrowed it.”

I consider this, remembering what he’d said about Andrei, but I let it go.

Once Lev is dressed, he combs his hair, then takes Josh into the bathroom to wash his hands. I watch them from the bedroom. He’s so natural, so relaxed, like he’s always been here, like he’s always been in our lives.

A ding signals a message on Lev’s phone which is on the table.

Gleb: Downstairs.

“He’s here.”

Lev takes the phone as Josh sits to put on his shoes.

“You ready for our ‘family day’?” Lev asks me.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I slip my hand into his, and we turn to Josh. He’s trying to tie his laces, which he can’t do just yet. “You’d think at least half the time he’d get them on the right foot,” I say, noting how Josh’s shoes are on the wrong feet.

Lev shrugs and goes to help Josh while I get our coats, the bag with the swim things, and my purse. Lev stops when we walk into the hallway, doubles back, then returns with the envelope in his hands a moment later, and soon, we’re heading down in the elevator, the three of us looking like a normal family on the mirrored walls.

The lobby is buzzing, much like the day before. I watch Lev as he casually—or at least giving the appearance of casual—scans the lobby when we cross it. I recognize Gleb’s entourage through the glass doors at the entrance even before we’re outside. Three hulking black SUVs all with windows tinted so dark they’re opaque.

“Oh, shoot.” I stop.

“What is it?” Lev asks.

“I forgot Josh’s suit. It’s still drying. I’ll run up.”

“I’ll go. You go outside.”

“No, it’s okay. I know where it is. I’ll just be a minute,” I say and walk quickly back to the elevators. One opens as soon as I get there, and I get on and push the button for our floor.

“Bye, Mommy,” calls Josh.

I hear him and look up from my purse where I’m searching for the key and manage to wave to his little smiling face just before the doors close. Holding the key in my hand, I look up at the numbers as they count up, feeling how quiet it is. How strange it feels without Lev and Josh with me.

In a very short amount of time, we’ve grown into a family. And I don’t like being away from them.

That feeling from last night comes over me again. That dread that sits like a knot in my belly.

When the elevator dings at our floor, I jump. Hurrying down the hall, I pass a housekeeper’s cart and hear the vacuum cleaner going. Life goes on like normal here while I’m about to go to my mob boss father’s house with my son and Lev and have some family time. So weird.

I’m thinking this as I slide my key into the lock. It doesn’t work at first, the light blinking red twice. I’m about to ask the housekeeper to let me in when, the third time, I hear it click and I open the door.

I go into the bathroom to grab the suit and hope it’s dry, or dry enough at least.

It’s then I feel it.

That skin-crawling sensation of someone watching.

I remember the man in the woods at the school back home. That was Lev. Josh had seen him too. It’s the same feeling now—but not quite.

This is more malicious.

And then I hear a sound that’s grown too familiar in the last days of my life.

The cocking or de-cocking of a gun.

And when I turn, I see a man I don’t know, but who looks horribly, terribly familiar all the same. Like Andrei’s face on an older man. It’s the gleam in the eyes, I think. The hate inside them.