Chapter 25 - Clem
Left to my own devices and unable to sleep, the way that Erina had danced around asking me questions about Rurik’s family came back to further haunt me. She barely said anything at all, but it was the way she looked. And the way she’d wanted to make doubly sure that Gavrik Imports wasn’t connected to any of his cousins.
What was that about? And why had she looked both embarrassed to bring it up and fearful of what I might say about it? Was it only because she didn’t want to risk offending me? Or was it because she didn’t really want what she already knew to be confirmed?
My urge to dive into a research project kept sleep at bay, but was I really going to snoop into Rurik’s family? Damn straight I was. He had practically run as soon as that Russian man came up to him, and without so much as an introduction. Just left me on the street to take a taxi back to the villa, alone. And I was still alone, two hours later.
Was the man another cousin? Rurik definitely knew him, and while he didn’t look excited or happy to see him, he looked… resigned. The same way he looked when he left late at night with no explanations.
I had a reason to start snooping, but did I have a right? Was I starting to think like a scorned wife, or was I only being a curious assistant? If I were in the office right now and some stranger came in and whisked Rurik away, would I be searching for answers?
Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I should mind my own business and not rock the boat. What if I learned something I didn’t want to know, and couldn’t unlearn?
Feeling suffocated by the thin silk coverlet on the bed, I tossed it aside and got up to pace. My tablet was calling to me from the desk in the other room, and the way my heart was pounding with anger I didn’t understand—or rather, didn’t want to understand because it felt too much like something a wife who was left out in the cold would feel—I wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep until I had some answers.
Finally sitting down at the desk, I swiped to the search engine and entered in Rurik’s name. Nothing unexpected came up. Gavrik Imports was at the top of the search, along with a few pictures of him with his cousin Aleks and Aleks’s wife Katie at a charity gala. Some Russian information that, even after I translated it, was nothing but a few business listings.
When I moved on to Aleks and his wife, there were pages and pages about their charity work, linked to their upscale restaurant or Katie’s catering business. Gavril wasn’t really related by blood, but I searched for him next since he was our silent partner.
More charity ties, a picture of him and Lilia promoting the animal shelter she championed, and then a headline that sparked my curiosity.
Gavril Bocharov rumored to be connected to…
It was cut off in the search engine, and when I clicked, it led to a broken page on a website that appeared to have been abandoned more than a year before. With a shrug, I gave up. All of the Fokins were connected to some charity or other. It was probably nothing.
I had to be mistaken about whatever Erina might have been hinting about; certain, she must have heard some idle gossip that might be much more scandalous in conservative Japan than it was in LA. Maybe she saw some pictures ofRurik’s cousins with celebrities who frequented their clubs or restaurants and got the wrong idea about them somehow.
Still not the least bit tired, my fingers hovered over the tablet for a moment before I tapped in a completely unrelated name. It was one I never wanted to see or hear or be connected with again, but I couldn’t shake the certainty that I had seen him a few weeks ago.
There wasn’t much. Nothing I didn’t already know. Jordie hadn’t had a job in years. He didn’t need one when he could leach off his current girlfriend. Stay at home, play video games… I guess I had to be grateful to him for teaching me how passionate gamers could be about their consoles, their downloads, their high scores.
God forbid he had to get up and order his own pizza. Heaven forbid if I were late getting home from class or work, and he couldn’t use the car to meet up with his few friends that he’d already been hanging out with online all day.
The only picture of the man I’d wasted too much of my life on was from when he was on his high school baseball team, standing tall and proud. The echo of that boy was in the scruffy college junior that I met on my first day on campus. All I could cling to to erase the humiliation and anger for falling for him was in the memories of those early days. He’d been a pro at hiding his true self. Handsome, charming, fun.
All a trap.
Surely anyone would have fallen for it. It was how he had managed to go his entire life without paying a single bill, or for a phone, or even having a single record of leasing an apartment. Glom onto some unsuspecting woman. Some stupid, overly trusting woman who didn’t see until it was too late.
I shook myself and clicked off the old yearbook picture. He had been getting out of a relationship when we became friendly. I was so enamored by his attention that I believed it when he told me she was crazy, obsessive… a liar.
I believed she was lying when she told me to stay away from him, certain she was jealous of our budding friendship. Exactly what Jordie wanted me to believe. Guilt smacked me in the face when I wished for the hundredth time that he would have lined up a new mark when I started to see his true self and began to pull away.
Maybe I would have been able to graduate, or still live with my aunt. But then another woman would have stepped into my shoes and suffered as much as I had, or worse. Because he kept getting worse. And unlike the girl before me, he refused to let go.
There’s no one else for me. Might have been a swoony thing to hear if it wasn’t coming from the man who just hit me so hard I could barely hear it past the ringing in my ears.
You can’t leave me.Not a plea. A threat.
I rubbed my wrist absently. Fine now, but it was so swollen I could barely use that hand to steer as I drove away in the middle of the night, leaving almost everything behind. Not even now that my bruises were long healed could I dismiss the fear that had me running. Forget the look in his eyes before he finally passed out, the baseball bat falling from his grip. Those eyes that had locked me in place finally drooped shut, and I took off, barely breathing until I was in the next state. He would have killed me. Another year, maybe more, of flinching, cowering, hiding the truth. Or maybe I’d already be dead.
Maybe if I had died, he could have moved on. But I didn’t, and now he was still out there, looking for me. Did he find me?
There was absolutely nothing to prove he made his way to LA, and I had to forcefully calm my breathing and make myself believe he was still sitting on our old couch playing video games, far, far from me.
Even if he was in LA, I was in Tokyo, and that asshole sure wouldn’t be able to get his broke, lazy self a passport. I was safe here, safe with Rurik.
Who still wasn’t back.