Page 22 of The Tsar's Obsession
Fear pulsated through my legs at the risky text, and I tuned back into the conversation about men and love, almost slamming the phone screen down on the table.
What the hell was I doing?! Openly flirting with a client? I just hadn’t been with anyone in too long, and he was objectively hot with his height, perfect face, and eyes that ruined all other men for me. But there was nothing linking us; we were from different worlds.
“…Mia should just give it a chance.” Carly’s motherly tone woke me up from my thoughts. I’d already guessed her next words. I knew Carly well. “You have to open up your heart tosomeone, Mia. You’re almost thirty!” Carly was petrified of missing the marriage-babies train and would often comment on our ‘biological clocks.’
“I–” I stuttered, feeling like I had to defend myself. “There’s nothing to give a chance to! He’s just a client, that’s all!” My phone buzzed again, and I urgently swiped it off the table.
Kirill: I’m into you. You can be whatever you want with me.
Blood rushed to my cheeks, my chest, and my entire body. This was crossing all lines now. I wasn’t drunk anymore. There was no excuse now.
“He’s a client for, like, one more week, until he buyssomething.” Viv brushed off my words, but I was about to regurgitate my breakfast from the nerves of what I let the texting turn into.
“I don’t want to be disappointed. I don’t want the headache.” I moved the conversation along with a lie. The truth was I didn’t want theheartache. I never wanted heartache again.
“Babes, please, a man like that won’t disappoint you between the sheets.” Viv took another sip of coffee and spoke louder, “Get that Russian dick, girl! And report back!”
I couldn’t stop the giggle, and Carly chuckled. “Conflicting feelings are allowed, Mia.” Carly turned to me fully, her eyes shining with encouragement. “Maybe he likes you too. What’s the worst that could happen?”
I didn’t want to answer that question.
“I don’t even know him,” I deflected again. “He has some woman hanging around him.” I still had no idea who Polina was to him, but I hated that she knew him. That she had access to a version of him I didn’t. That she belonged in his world. “I don’t want to be anyone’s maybe.”
The heaviness of my words hung between us, and neither Viv nor Carly interrupted my train of thought. “I want to be someone’s everything. I don’t want dick. I want a man who will bemy man,you know?” I took a swig of my coffee, the hot liquid burning my throat. “I don’t want mediocre. I want…what doesn’t exist. Magic, passion, chaos.” Every word confirmed it—Kirill fit the bill, but I shoved the thoughts away, irrevocably. “I want to drown in someone. I don’t want subtle.”
It was easy to bewanted, like Ari wanted me, but I wanted to bevalued. I wanted to know that the man I was with would sacrifice everything for me, the way I would for him.
“I think they call that an existential crisis.” Viv raised an eyebrow, her smile wide and self-assured. “Anyway. Let us know if the package matches the vibe when you find out, huh?” Viv cackled, her words easing the tension I’d created.
The ring of Carly’s phone interrupted the brunch, and for once, I was thankful she was always working. “Hi Mrs. Goldb-” but she was cut off by the person on the other line, her face slowly draining of all color. This was Ari’s mother, of all people.
“What?!” Carly’s voice shook, and both Viv and I sat up in our chairs. “Oh my God! Yes, yes, I’ll come now!” She hung up the phone just in time to cry out, “Ari’s in the hospital!”
I paused and repeated her words to myself. Ari was in the hospital?
“His mom j-just called!” Carly was already packing her things, and I looked on, my whole body blazing up in realization. “She said he wasmuggeda few nights ago and badly beaten!” She rushed to the front door, both Viv and I on her heels. “Apparently, he’s in very rough shape. I’ll text you later.”
“Wait! We’ll come with you,” Viv interjected and turned to me. “Right?!”
I was stupefied. Unable to fully process the barrage of information Carly unleashed on us, I put on a pair of sandals and followed, numb.
He was mugged a few nights ago.Ari was with me a few nights ago. Is that why he disappeared? Is that why he never texted me back? And I lived all this time blissfully unaware?
The white walls and fluorescent lighting of his hospital room were closing in on me. This wasn’t real. This was just a bad dream, a movie maybe. But that IV dripping into Ari’s arm was not a hallucination.
Ari wasn’t badly beaten; Ari was pummeled half to death. He wasunrecognizable.His handsome face, the one that always sported that boyish smile, was cut, blue, andraw. His eyes were closed shut, the swelling so extensive that it was hard to tell where the bridge of his nose started. His nose was broken, his ribs bandaged, his shoulder dislocated.
I felt sick. Guilt and anger swirled inside my stomach, affecting all of me. I should have looked for him that night. I should have done something,anything, to find him.
It all piled on in my head as Viv and I cried in each other’s hugs late at night outside the hospital. Maybe if I did hold hishand, he wouldn’t have disappeared. Maybe if I didn’t walk away from him, all of this could have been avoided. Maybe if I were a better friend, he wouldn’t be on morphine, fighting for his life.
Nothing added up in my head. Mugged? We were in fucking Tribeca. No one beats someone to this degree over a fucking wallet and gold chain. No, this was something else, something sinister, something way deeper.
With the Bahamas birthday trip cancelled, Carly updated us on his state of being. Night after night, she would send the same text—no change.
And yet, despite everything, despite the horror, the guilt, the rage burning through my veins…my mind did something I couldn’t understand.
It drifted. Away from Ari and straight to another man. The man whose green eyes I couldn’t forget, whose hoodie I slept in, who lived rent-free inside my head.
