Chapter 3: Olivia

I glance at the clock on the kitchen wall one more time and take a deep breath.

Gripping the blonde ends of my ponytail, I try to calm my nerves as I take note of how late it is.

It’s ten past eight.

My curfew starts at nine. If Amy doesn’t come in the next fifty minutes, I won’t be able to see her until tomorrow. Another day would have passed, and all I’ve had is a message from her letting me know she’s still checking things out.

That was this morning.

Honestly, I doubt I’ll hear from her again tonight. It’s too late, and Amy knows Jude’s rules.

Not only that, she has a husband and two kids under five to tend to.

If she’s at home taking care of her babies, that’s where she should be. Not doing God knows what to put herself in danger.

Amy has worked at the company for over fifteen years, so she is well versed in everything to do with Jude Kuzmin, but she was also a close friend of Eric’s. So, hearing he was alive and Jude had something to do with his disappearance made getting the truth personal for her too.

I’m just worried sick something will happen to her.

It was panic that made me confide in her in the first place.

Panic and desperation.

Those same feelings overwhelmed me the night I overheard Jude on the phone talking about Eric.

He was working late at the office. He didn’t know I was there.

It was while I was dropping off a file I heard him. He was assuring whoever he was speaking to that Igor Evanovich would have his tributary payment on our wedding day, and the shit he’d gone through staging Eric’s death to get him out of the picture was worth it. Then he added more fire to the flames of truth by saying keeping him alive had been a benefit to them all.

That is what I heard, and I got a name.

Like Jude, Igor is a powerful man in Russia.

The shock of what I heard made me jump into action.

Five long years have gone by, and I thought my brother was dead.

His car was found at the bottom of San Francisco Bay. The car had supposedly exploded. We were told both he and his best friend Robert were in the car, and their bodies were barely recognizable when the police dug them out.

We had a double funeral because Eric and Robert had been as close as brothers.

Fuck knows who it was we actually buried. And fuck everyone who was part of that plan to screw with us.

When Amy offered her help, I accepted because I knew I couldn’t look into the situation myself.

The only things I’d thought of doing were looking around Jude’s office and his computer. Two things which would surely bring Armageddon because I have eyes on me everywhere I go. Everything I do is reported back to Jude.

It’s a miracle no one saw me eavesdropping on his conversation.

Apart from Mom, it was a given I’d tell Amy what I’d heard because she’s the only person who’s stood by us, while Jude controlled everyone else like the puppet master.

Amy and I became friends after I graduated from Stanford and joined the web design team at the company. While I write the content, she deals with the technical aspects of running the site. Her technical skills, however, extend to a lot more and she has her ways of getting information.

Dare I say we probably wouldn’t need her to make use of those skills if my grandfather hadn’t made certain mistakes.

Mistakes like giving Jude so much power and control in the company, and worst of all, not just leaving the Bratva, but cutting all his connections with them.

He left the Bratva life behind in Russia when he moved to the States with my mother. That was after my grandmother’s death. She was killed in a crossfire when his enemies attacked their home.

It was because my grandfather was the Sovientrik to the Pakhan, and a good friend to him from childhood, that he was even allowed to leave.

I hate being mad at my grandfather because I understand why he left, and I know he just wanted to keep us safe.

What I don’t understand is why he’d come here, do business with criminals and assholes like Jude, and not expect them to turn on him the first chance they got.

I suppose, though, in those days, Markov Tech was under the care of the Syndicate. Grandfather couldn’t have foreseen what was going to happen if the day came that agreement went to hell.

I won’t deny the danger usually associated with the Bratva life would terrify me, but I’d rather live my life with the awareness of danger than be helpless when people like Jude come to conquer you.

Now I’m so drained with worry I don’t know whether knowing Eric’s alive feels like an opportunity to find him or a curse I might never.

Steadying my trembling hands, I place the cup of chamomile tea I made for my mother on the saucer and make my way to the sitting room.

Mom is sitting by the window, gazing out to the dark shadowy thicket of trees covering the grounds of our home.

We live in Petaluma, slightly north of San Francisco. It’s a little under an hour away from the city if you don’t get stuck in traffic. The rolling hills and scenic landscape, have always reminded me of the Altai Krai region in Russia, where my grandfather grew up.

He took us there a few times before he died. The last time we went was when I was sixteen. That was for him to return to his homeland to live out the last few weeks of his life.

Mom looks at me when I walk in. Those worried eyes greet me, tear-stained and blotchy.

Her appearance reminds me of how she used to look when she wasn’t sure if she would see my father again. Sometimes it was months before we next saw him. I was often guilty of the same worries, especially when I learned the truth of why we could never be a family and why I couldn’t have my father’s surname.

Her gaze drifts to the cup of tea in my hand, and her lips curl.

“Always taking care of me,” she mutters.

“I try.” I set the cup down on the little wooden side table beside her and sit in the matching chair in front.

“It’s me who should be taking care of you.”

“You do, Mom. I just wish we had more support. More muscle.” I let out a ragged sigh and bring my hands together. “I wish Grandfather never got involved with Jude.”

“My dear girl, he could never have foreseen Jude’s treachery. I can assure you anybody your grandfather worked with was always going to be for the company’s benefit. At the time, the Kuzmin’s were a good business decision, but Jude clearly had us all fooled.”

“I’m not so sure about that. I never liked him. I always had a bad feeling about him, and I don’t think I was the only one.” I nod with conviction, holding her gaze.

I know for a fact Eric was wary of Jude, and there were points when I am sure my grandfather was too. Dad never had much to do with him, so I don’t know what he would have thought.

“The mistakes of the past are affecting us now,” I add. “And we have no one to turn to. I know Grandfather wanted to keep us safe, but if he hadn’t closed the door on Russia, we’d at least have people to call on now. We wouldn’t be left open to attack.”

I know I sound bitter, and it’s because I am. I’m bitter about the situation. Our fate shouldn’t lie with Amy.

“The blame isn’t just his.” Mom shakes her head.

My lips part. “Mom, Jude wants to take the company and me. If Grandfather hadn’t given him so much power, this wouldn’t be happening.”

She looks away from me when I say that.

“The blame is mine,” she replies, silencing me because I know what she’s going to say next. And she would be right.

My family situation is a complicated secret in the sense that we shouldn’t exist. We are what people call the other family. The result of an affair that never should have happened and never ended. And that’s why we’re in this mess today.

“This is not about your grandfather’s choices to leave the Bratva,” Mom chokes out and dabs a tear away from her eye with the heel of her hand. “He aligned with the Syndicate because it was a foot in the door to success without the danger his former life had. They were all the protection we needed. Stronger than anybody we could have hoped to have from Russia. It’s my fault we don’t have that anymore. Every time I think about your father, I blame myself for everything. More so for getting involved with him. He was never mine.”

I never know what to say to her when she says things like this.

It’s hard to disagree when it’s true, so like always, I don’t say anything at all.

The truth of the matter is there are so many mistakes made by those who should have known better.

Mom got involved with my father, Phillipe Falcione, a married man who already had a family of his own.

Who can justify something like that when it can never be right?

Not only that. He was Grandfather’s best friend. He was the same age as him, so nearly thirty years older than Mom.

But he loved her, and she loved him. It was he who contracted my grandfather to work for the Syndicate when he first came to the States. That is how my mother and father began.

Dad had an arranged marriage for business purposes that benefited his family and his wife’s in relation to their membership in the Syndicate. It had been like that for generations, so he knew divorce would mean losing everything.

He started a secret relationship with my mother, and by the time I was seven, his wife found out about us. I’m sure she would have had her suspicions well before because, at the time, Mom and Dad would have been together for over twelve years.

I can’t imagine his wife, Persephone, not having an inkling her husband was having an affair.

I always thought she must have had some confirmation of those suspicions to make her act the way she did.

Because all Dad’s wealth came from his wife’s side of the family, she had power over him. I was too young to remember everything that happened, but I remember the arguments and the dark feeling of uncertainty.

The first thing she did was sever the contract Grandfather had with the Syndicate. Then she threatened Dad with a divorce if he didn’t stop seeing Mom. The effect would have made him useless to the Syndicate so that he would lose his position. Back then, they didn’t have a leader, but my father was the chairman, the closest thing they had to a person in charge.

The last threat was us.

Persephone threatened to destroy us and our company.

And that’s how we became the family everyone forgot.

The big secret.

“Mom, now’s not the time to worry about that,” I tell her because I don’t know what else to say.

“I know. It’s just that sometimes I believe this is payback for my sins. I thought losing my legs was enough, but there was so much more to come.”

Mom was driving at the time she found out Dad had been killed in the Syndicate bombing. She crashed her car. The damage to her spine and legs was so severe she was told she’d never walk again.

“I’m losing everything,” she rasps, and her words pull on my heart. “The man I loved, the kids we had, the company my father built for us. And I’m stuck in this helpless position, unable to do anything besides sit and watch everything fall apart.”

The click of the front door opening silences my next words.

Apart from Jude, the only other person with a key to the house is Amy.

My whole body sighs with relief when she rushes into the room, and I stand when I notice the foolscap folder tucked under her arm.

“Hi,” she says, looking from me to Mom.

“Are you okay?” I ask, giving her a quick hug.

“I’m fine. I’m so sorry it’s taken me all day to get back to you. I know it’s late, but I figured time was of the essence, so I came anyway.”

“God, of course, and thank you.”

“Is it safe to talk?”

“Yes,” Mom answers.

“You found something, didn’t you?” I cut in.

Hope sparks my heart when she nods.

“My God, what did you find?” Mom gasps.

“A lot. Most of which you’re not going to like.”

The knots in my stomach tighten. “Oh Jesus,” I mutter. “Where is he, Amy?”

“We don’t know where he is, but the problem might be bigger than what we thought,” she replies.

“In what ways?”

“It looks like Jude has allied with a group called the Order. Essentially, they’re a secret society of terrorists who do dirty work for corrupt governments and politicians. We’ve seen evidence suggesting Igor Evanovich has been working with them and that Eric was a member.”