No, not going to happen. Not even a message.
Over the next couple of days, Tati was coldly polite, tucked away with her weaving loom, and no longer asking to use her phone. There was no reason, and she knew it. I still checked it twice a day, but there was nothing. Not a single response.
Things were tense, and that was being mild about it. I missed the few idyllic days when we were planning and working together as a team. It was easy to imagine continuing after her father was found, but those thoughts always came to a crashing halt.
If her father were found and I had to punish him, she’d hate me forever. If he were innocent, he’d rip my intestines out and strangle me with them for allowing myself to fall into bed with his only daughter. The fact that I didn’t see her that way, but as an equal, a woman I could spend my life with, wouldn’t appease him.
And there was no damn way I’d apologize for it, either. So, neither outcome had a happy ending for me. Why was I still trying?
There was one thing I could concentrate on that didn’t make me want to tear my hair out, and that was tracking down and finding the college students who had tormented Tati. The bullying seemed to originate in a club that she mentioned being in. One of the girls who started sending her the threatening notes had also been in it, as well as some of the fraternity members. It was a start, and I meant to make sure they learned a valuable lesson.
Don’t mess with kind, quiet people. They weren’t always weak, or at least those who cared about them might not be.
After another week, Tati was only picking at her food, barely going outside to get any sun or fresh air, and only shrugging off the olive branches I offered in the form of another day out on the town. The stress and fear were wearing her down, and I couldn’t bear watching her wither away.
I was supposed to keep her safe from harm, and I was the one ultimately harming her. There were still no verified sightings of Riku or any of his cohorts, and eventually I had to consider her plan again.
But let her contact Riku? Everything in me raged against it, even though she was in a house surrounded by guards, and me, who’d jump in front of a tank to save her.
She was listlessly reading a book in the living room when I unlocked the safe and held her phone in my hand. What real danger was there in letting her reach out and make her fake offer? Or better yet, why didn’t I send the message myself, under the guise that it was from her?
The need to protect her burned me up, but was it hot enough to make me forget my promise to her? Was I making excuses to keep her out of the loop in order to keep her safe?
Yes, absolutely. But was it also because her brilliant plan came too easily to her mind? It could very well be that she wasn’t only pretending to betray my family and me. The offer to Riku could be very real.
Not Tati. My heart wouldn’t let me believe that of her. But my mind still wasn’t sure.
Chapter 35 - Tatiana
I couldn’t carry my plan out on my own, not with Kon supervising my phone usage like a hawk. Ever since he flat-out refused to entertain my plan to contact Riku, he’d been closed off, and I gave up asking to use the phone at all, even during the allotted times.
A melancholy settled over me, growing heavier by the day. I’d been through dark times before, but I had never felt so low, or so completely swamped by sorrow. I was always able to shake it off and face the world with optimism, or at least find a way to distract myself.
Most of those distractions came from Papa in the past. He always had a joke ready when I called. He always answered. Now, nothing. Now I realized I had begun to see Kon as a source of strength and encouragement. Not a replacement. Something new.
Something I had begun to value too much if I missed it this sorely now that it was gone.
Kon’s cousin’s cook wasn’t quite as fancy as the one in LA, but left delicious and hearty Russian meals that should have had me rushing to the table at dinner times. Kon was seldom there anymore, and when he was, he was reserved. My loneliness and increasing despair made the food seem as appetizing as old cardboard, and I found it difficult to get a few bites down to keep up my strength.
When I hit a snag in the yarn on my weaving project, well into this week of isolation, it almost made me burst into tears. Tears over a knot that would take less than a minute to pick out and splice together again? Since it was an abstract piece with noreal plan to it, I could have just as easily left the knot there for an interesting focal point.
Instead, I was sniveling like a lost child. Oh hell, was this heartsickness I was feeling? Over a man who had kidnapped me?
Over a man whose bed you spent a whole load of enjoyable time in. A man who’d die before he let anyone hurt you.
“Oh, shut up,” I said aloud to my intrusive thoughts. There was no way I was going to lapse into a daydream about all that time Kon and I spent in bed together. It would only make things worse, and I might weaken. He didn’t trust Papa or me, and his refusal to go down the one road that might help find him stoked my fury, which was actually better than feeling so low.
My only consolation was that he seemed equally as miserable as I was, and the night before, I caught him looking at me, his mouth open like he was going to say something meaningful. Maybe that was wishful thinking, because when our eyes met, he only scowled and looked away.
So, no, he wasn’t about to admit my idea was a good one and that we should go through with it. Did I think he would declare that together we were unstoppable? I was delirious if that was the case.
It was time I shook off this torpor and did something, with or without Kon’s help or approval.
Another good thing, besides Kon’s obvious misery that we were no longer as close as we had started to become, was that he was less diligent about keeping me out of his private office. There was nothing in there that he didn’t lock up in the safe when he wasn’t around.
I had taken to sitting by the sunny window in there to read, hardly looking up when he entered. The first time I made a show of getting up to give him privacy, he waved me back to the chair, casually mentioning it was the best view in the house.
All the views were amazing, but I agreed with a nod, and after that, he seemed to forget I was there while he worked. Maybe he liked my quiet presence. Maybe that was me projecting. Either way, I finally managed to see him punch in the code to the safe.