“But you like her? You trust her?” Why did that matter?
“Sure, I guess,” Sofiya answered, beginning to sound suspicious. “But I haven’t seen her in a year, and that was a very short lunch.”
“Just catching up? Nothing suspicious?”
“She talked about her job, and I talked about dodging the latest man you were trying to marry me off to.”
I grumbled, but stayed on track. “So she spoke about her apprenticeship at the textile mill? Is that why she dropped out of college?”
There was a long pause. My wily daughter was definitely suspicious now. “I don’t really know why she dropped out of college, but yes, she got that job shortly after and seems to love it. Why are you so interested in Tatiana all of a sudden?Surely you don’t think she’s got something to do with Grigor’s disappearance.”
The reason could have been nothing, exactly what was on the surface. But it could also mean she’d been roped into working for her father in some kind of secretive capacity. If that was the case, it meant Grigor had been lying to me for a very long time, which was a punch in the gut, but at least it meant I could stop being so damn guilty about sleeping with his only daughter.
Not that I had reason to anyway. She made her own decisions.
What if that particular decision was part of the plan? To gain my trust or get on the inside? Another punch to the gut, but I couldn’t bring myself to consider it a mistake. I still hoped she was innocent. And if she wasn’t? I had been fooled once before. That was why I normally kept my relationships short and meaningless.
Damn it. Now I was thinking of what Tati and I had as a relationship. It certainly wasn’t, so it didn’t matter.
Sofiya prodded me when I remained silent for too long, and I cast back to her question about my sudden interest in Tati’s past.
“I just don’t get why someone so bright would quit school after only one semester. She was an academic star.”
Sofiya sniffed. “Yes, so I heard all the time in secondary school. Perhaps the pressure got to be too much. And she wasn’t very social, but I never considered that too weird. Maybe she really likes weaving, she did say it was peaceful.”
I finally decided to spill my guts. “The truth is,” I started, hearing her long sigh. “I’ve got Tati here now, under my protection.”
“In Los Angeles? How did that happen?” she yelped.
Yeah, I wasn’t spilling that much. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just trying to keep her safe until this is over.”
“Well, I don’t remember you ever grilling me about anyone else you’ve had to hide from an enemy.” She paused, and I heard a loud clink, as if she forcefully set something down. “Are you getting…”
“Thanks for the info, Sof, I’ll call you in a few days.”
I hung up, shaking my head and reaching for the cold drink the waitress had set before me while I was on the phone. There was no way I was going to admit my obsession to Sofiya of all people, who was much too astute for her own good.
What the hell would my daughter think of what was going on with Tati and me? That was a thought I was in no mood to handle, and I went back over what little I learned.
Sofiya didn’t find it odd that such a brilliant young woman with all the opportunities and potential in the world would give it up to sit in a studio and play with a string all day.
I did, though.
Weaving? In this modern day and age, where everything is made by machines? When her father ran multiple lucrative businesses, and she could have had a cushy position in any of them? Pulling up a search engine, I did a little digging around and then ordered her a loom. It was supposedly one of the best available, and the website helped me add everything someone would need to create a project with it. If that person knew how to use it in the first place.
If Tati had truly been working as an apprentice under a master weaver for the last few years, I’d know it soon enough.
Chapter 27 - Tatiana
I looked down at the collection of pins, wires, and other implements I had gathered and carefully began jiggling a wire into the lock. Now that I was welcome in Kon’s bedroom, he kept his laptop and anything else he deemed unnecessary for my eyes in this spare room. If I could get in, I’d hit the motherlode of secrets, but all I was focused on was finding my phone.
Casting back to the lessons my nanny gave me long ago, I switched out the wire and began wedging the thin metal edge of a spatula in between the door frame. It was probably a lesson most children didn’t learn, but while Papa kept me far from his business dealings, there were basics he thought I should know.
I had to make him proud. The lock finally clicked, and I was able to turn the handle, but I was frozen in place. Once I crossed that threshold, I might find out things I didn’t want to know. Things there would be no coming back from. No matter how hard I tried to work up the same hatred and fury I felt when I realized it was Kon who had kidnapped me, it just wasn’t there anymore.
He was infuriating, but some part of me believed he wanted to find my father and would keep his word about listening to him. But what if he didn’t? What if my faith was misplaced? It was easier to trust Kon than to do things I’d never done before. Was I just being a coward by not immediately going into that off-limits room?
As I began to turn the handle and ease the door open, I heard a loud thump from the entry hall, then two of the guard’s voices, raised as if they were arguing with one another. They were coming into the apartment, and it would only be a fewseconds until they had a view straight down the hallway I was standing in.