Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
His muscles were like tire rubber, barely giving at all. I went to work, pressing my thumbs deep as I pulled with my fingers, kneading him like dough. As I dug deeper, I started to find the knots and work each one free. The room went quiet except for our breathing. He’d tense under me, then grunt as I bore down on the knot, then sigh as the hard fibers melted to taffy. “Blyat’. Ty obuchen koldovstvu, zhenshchina.” he muttered at last.
“What does that mean?”
“You’re schooled in witchcraft, woman.”
I continued all the way down his back, helping work the tension out of him. “Now roll over on your back,” I told him.
He rolled over, and I started on the fronts of his shoulders. Now we were staring into each other’s eyes, and it was intimate...but not sexual, even if his eyes did keep dropping to the neck of my robe. This was about helping him, healing him. I moved down to his pecs, smoothing my hands over the wide slabs of his muscles and working the tension loose. I could feel his body changing, like a coiled spring slowly unwinding. His breathing slowed and eased, becoming deeper and more regular. He was relaxing, letting go. And then I started to hear a hitch in his breathing, a judder where there’d been smoothness. Things were coming to the surface.
I kept going, kneading the big knots and then the small knots and then the tiny ones, breaking down the walls all his tension had put up. And then…
“Yakov always remembered my birthday,” he said. “Even though I never remembered his. He bought me these dumb fucking gifts. A hat that holds beer cans. A backscratcher.”
I didn’t say anything, just kept going. My job was just to help him get it out.
“Before I opened the casino, I had to do research.” His voice was rough with pain. “Yakov and I took a car, and we drove all the way to Vegas. Three days in a car with him, and then back again! And a week of getting drunk every night and losing all our money. I fell in the pool and ruined my suit.” He paused. “Best week of my life.”
I was just smoothing my hands over him, now, calming him as the enormity of the loss hit him.
“He was always pleased to see me, you know?” Gennadiy whispered. “He was always—”
He closed his eyes, and I threw my arms around his neck and pressed myself close. I held him like that for a long time, his head on my shoulder.
“Thank you,” he managed.
I nodded. I knew it wasn’t over: he’d be grieving for a long time. But at least I’d helped him start.
Even now, though, I could feel that he hadn’t let go all the way. Touching him like this, I felt so close to him, so entirely in tune with him, that I could feel the anger, rushing like a river, just under the surface.
I knew what it was like to feel that non-stop. To have it driving you, demanding that you keep working, keep pushing. The difference was, I’d found something to stop mine: him. I hadn’t been aware of it until now, but my anger had dropped away when I’d felt the warmth of his protection. I’d been angry at the world for taking my parents and leaving me alone, but I wasn’t alone anymore. Gennadiy’s anger was still there, and still building every day. “Why do you carry all this...rage?” I whispered.
Any other time, I think he would have pushed the question away or changed the subject. But right then, with us staring at each other in that safe, silent room, it was impossible to lie. “Because it protects me from something worse,” he said softly.
I stared down into his eyes, feeling my heart cracking. He wanted to tell me. He just couldn’t.
I lay down, putting my head on his chest, and cuddled in beside him. I could already hear his breathing changing. He would sleep, now, and that was good.
But—my stomach knotted—unless he let me help him, I wasn’t sure I could save him.
51
ALISON
Early the next morning, while the rest of the mansion slept, I left Gennadiy slumbering peacefully and went to work. I found a map of the lake and started narrowing down where Grushin could bring his merchandise ashore: somewhere out of the way enough that it wouldn’t be seen, but not so out of the way that trucks and deliveries would stand out. It took me back to my early days in the FBI, in New York, when Calahan had first taught me this stuff. I wish you were here now, Sam.
The house’s staff gradually appeared and seemed a little thrown that someone was up before them. They were followed by Mikhail, who was up early to walk the dogs. “I hope I didn’t overstep last night,” I said. “Taking Gennadiy away from his Pakhan.”