Page 120 of Wrapped in Perfection

I don't see how you will be able to, kotik.

Don't be a coward. There's no getting out of it. Just tell her.

I stroke her hair. "When my parents fled Russia, they came to the US but didn't speak any English. Maksim was ten. I was eight. Boris was three. Sergey wasn't even born yet. My mother and father were always working three or four jobs. Anything they could find to support us they took. The Russian community was full of people in the same position, so everyone helped everyone out."

"And that's why you try to hire Russians and other immigrants?" Anna asks.

"Yes. But there's another reason."

"What?"

My pulse beats in my neck. "It is also to try and keep them away."

"Who's them?"

"Not everyone in the community is there to help. Some are there to profit off those who are hurting. And they still are."

She stays quiet.

My stomach flips. I inhale her scent, but it doesn't calm me how it usually does. "My parents struggled to give us everything we needed. My father was the equivalent of an engineer in Russia, and my mother was a nurse, but since they couldn't speak English, and they weren't educated here, it's like they had no specialized skills. The jobs they took were often under the table and below minimum wage. It didn't go very far with four boys. And the vultures were always there, waiting to prey on my father's hardship."

Anna traces the no past, no future tattoo on my chest. She softly asks, "Did your father get involved with bad people?"

My father's face, the last time I ever saw him, pops in my head. I blink hard. "No. He and my mother often fought about this. She thought the jobs they offered them were harmless. But my father knew. He warned her about the danger of taking any job from them. He forbade her from associating with them and made it clear to my brothers and me who to stay away from. But he got sick, and everything changed."

Anna strokes my cheek, and my jaw twitches under her fingers.

Stop now. She doesn't need to know.

She'll leave me.

She's going to leave me regardless after this.

I tighten my arm around her and palm her ass. It's a comfort, as if holding her will ease the blow of my truth. But it won't.

"What happened, Dmitri?"

"We didn't have insurance and could barely put food on the table. I was fourteen. Maksim was sixteen. We tried to find jobs to help, but my mother insisted we stay in school. My father made us promise to get our education."

I close my eyes. The flashback of my father reduced to skin and bones, barely able to sit in the chair, lecturing my brothers and me about staying in school is as clear as when it happened thirty years ago.

"When my father died, the community helped us as much as they could. But they were struggling, too. Four boys were too much for my mother to support on her own. Maksim quit school to work. My mother reminded him we promised my father to stay in school. They had a horrible argument, but he wouldn't return, insisting he needed to step into my father's role. Several weeks later, my mother came home. She slapped cash on the table and informed us she got hired full time to be a secretary for a good friend of my father's. He was a Russian man with several businesses. My mother insisted Maksim was to return to school."

"Did he?"

"Yes. When he graduated, my mother had the money for him to go to community college. He wanted to get a full-time job to help out. She stood her ground that she was making enough, and he needed to continue with his schooling. So he found part-time work and went to classes. I followed in his footsteps, and for several years, everything seemed okay."

Anna slides her hand in my shirt. "Your heart is racing. Do you want to take a break?"

My mouth is dry, and I swallow the lump in my throat. "If I stop, I won't finish."

Tell me to stop.

She nods. "Okay. Keep going, then."

The breath I exhale tastes stale. "Maksim finished college. I was in my last year when Boris found out."

"What did he discover?"

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