Page 15 of The Den of Sin
I gave her a wobbly smile at best. “I just don’t understand what happened.”
“He’s a jerk who doesn’t deserve you,” she spat angry. “Come to New Orleans with me. You could stay with me while you look for a job. It could be college all over again.”
Despite a heavy heart, I chuckled. “You really want to relive those years?”
“Fuck, yeah. Those were the best years of our lives.” There was wistfulness in her voice. “Don’t you think so?”
I nodded. They were simple years, till that last year. Then everything went up in flames thanks to her oldest brother. But she didn’t need to know about that. Nobody knew about it except for the two of us. The problem was that I didn’t want to see Vasili again. I had no idea where he lived, but the siblings usually remained in the close vicinity of each other.
“So, what do you say?” she asked eagerly.
Taking a deep breath, I met her hopeful expression. “I have to move, yes. But I don’t want to live with you while hunting for an apartment. Your brothers are there, and I don’t-”
“No, no, no,” she cut me off. “I have my own place and my brothers have their own. Besides, for the past few weeks they were in Russia and will slowly start spending more time there than here. In fact, that’s where they’ll be for the foreseeable future. It would be just the two of us. Well, Katerina is there too. She ensures the house runs smoothly.”
I shook my head. Our lives were so vastly different, it was mind boggling. Before I met her, I had never known a single person that had a cook, maid, and entire staff to run a household. But that was exactly how Tatiana and her family lived. When we first met, I heard whispers about her family being part of the criminal underworld, but it was so far-fetched, I never paid it any attention. Initially, I had no clue what her family did for a living, but I knew they owed extensive real estate and multiple businesses. During our college years, I never asked, more interested in her friendship than anything else, so we never discussed it.
But after that night with Vasili and my mother’s death, there were so many secrets revealed. I had never even fathomed my mother could have kept so many damn, dark secrets. How did I not know? How did I not see? My mother’s journal I found after her death was eye-opening, that was for sure.
Tatiana’s family was part of a mafia. Scratch that, theywerethe damn mafia. But I couldn’t cast the first stone, because among all my mother’s written words I found out my heritage, and my father was a much worse man than Vasili’s father.
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “I’m not exactly in the best frame of mind.”
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Both of us jumped at the doorbell sound.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered to myself. “I wish they would just go away.”
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Tatiana got up and strode to the intercom. “Yes?”
“Miss Taylor, I have a few questions that-”
“Stop harassing me, or I’m calling the police,” Tatiana threatened.
“Just one-”
“No.”
She cut the conversation and strode back to me, like she was on a runway show.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
“When was the last time you left the apartment?” she questioned me.
I thought back. It was the day that I was told not to come back to work. “A week ago.”
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
“That’s enough of this,” she exclaimed. “Spend October with me. If you don’t like it in New Orleans, we’ll find someplace you like. Just not in this forsaken city.”
“At least the surfing is good here,” I muttered.
She gave me a blank look. “That was very random, and I didn’t know you still surfed.”
I shrugged. “Occasionally, I do.” After all, I grew up in Florida, right on the ocean.
