Chapter 39 THIRTY NINE

Chapter 39 THIRTY NINE
ANYA'S POV.

The tires shrieked like banshees as the driver took a hard turn, almost sending me smashing against the window.

Even though the realisation that we were leaving came with some sort of relief, my eyes were still wide staring at Sergei.

"Wh- why are we going back?"

He pocketed his phone back smoothly, dismissing me with a few words. "Something came up."

"What came up?"

"Something."

"We're here Sergei, just a few minutes drive from my parents–"

He scooted to the edge of the chair. "I said… something came up. We would have seen your mother. We should have seen your mother. In fact, I want you to see her.. Even if it was once, I wanted you to see her again. But now that there's an emergency—"

"Who's Cheryl?" The question slipped before I could catch it.

Sergei looked taken aback. A little disoriented.

"Who..."

"That has nothing to do with you."

"Don't get all defensive on me." I shot back. "I want to know who she is because you kept repeating her name like she knows something I should be knowing about the sudden pivot from getting to my father's house…."

"Fine, she works for me. Is that okay—"

"Why had she gone there?"

"Anya, not the time to—"

"What has she seen when she went there? What are you not telling me? Is my mom... okay?"

That was the main question I needed answer to. But Sergei wouldn't even give an answer to any of them. The frustratiion was building up so much that I could feel it in my throat like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode right in his face. I hated him. In that very moment, I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck to strangle the life out of him.

The car was literally flying off the road now. He hadn't even exchanged any words with Tim, but Sergei and his drivers worked so well hand-in-hand that he didn't even have to mention anything before they knew what they had to do. He'd sounded so tense over the phone and Tim had immediately yanked the car's wheel around.

"What are you hiding from me again?" My voice broke. Small and exhausted while Sergei across from me looked like he didn't even know what to do with me, or himself, or the whatever chaos must be brewing again. Ever since Boston, two nights ago, we've never been able to catch a break. Him. Me. Even his men.

Ignoring me, his fingers typed away on his phone speedily, and then afterwards, he tucked it away again, and leaned forward again, commanding. "Use the seatbelts…"

"What–"

"Every question you have should be dropped right now. Use your seatbelt Anya, and for once stop being so fucking slow…"

I clasped the belt in, fighting the sting in my eyes.

"I promised to let you see your mom, but change of plans. I'll give you a list of countries once and you choose which you'd like to go to…"

"W-"

He wouldn't even let me speak, reclining into his seat again. A ray of sunlight filtering through the windows caught how red his eyes were becoming as he finalised his decision.

"That's the new plan now. You have no say in this."



True to his words, he gave me a list of countries to choose from. Colombia. Costa Rica. Panama. He rattled them off like we were picking out a weekend getaway, completely blind to the fact that he had just ripped the floor out from under my life again. I didn't answer him. I couldn't. I let him make the choice, and a few hours later, the jet's tires slammed against the tarmac of a private airstrip in Panama.

Nobody told me anything. Even though I knew I shouldn't be talking to the fresh set of men that had been on the jet with us, I still asked what was happening. They either didn’t talk to me at all, or stepped away fast enough to avoid their boss’s wrath.

One thing I knew for certain was that Sergei wasn’t himself by the time we were being conveyed in another vehicle to wherever we’d be staying. He tried to keep calm, and I tried to pretend I didn’t see him checking his phone over and over again, ringing someone—ringing Cheryl—endlessly, letting his agitation build up until his fingers were literally trembling around the device.

After some time, his uneasiness heightened. The tremor had started in his hands first, and I swear, within the seconds I sat next to him in that SUV, he was shaking all over.

Uncontrollably.

I saw him trying to fight it. Teeth sunk into his lips, jaw clenching, knuckles white around his phone as he tried to maintain his composure. I didn’t know what was happening or how to react. I was biting hard on my own tongue to keep myself from asking questions, knowing it would only lead to him blowing up in my face like he’d done at the mountain house in Boston two nights ago. Like he’d done this morning. I could feel the heat radiating off him from sitting so close, even though the air conditioning in the car was so cold I felt my fingers starting to go numb.

When the car finally stopped, he popped the door open and got out before me.

I watched him through the tinted window, my heart racing. I wanted to ask questions. I wanted to know, God, but I was teetering too dangerously on the edge of a knife.

For a few minutes, he was out of sight. And then, out of nowhere, the door on my right was yanked open by him.

“Get out.”

I did immediately, stepping out under the harsh fluorescent light of an underground parking garage. Numerous sleek cars were parked side-by-side in a row. I instantly knew this had to be private property. One of the numerous properties a man like Sergei would likely use as a hideout, if what we were doing here, right now, was hiding.

Before I could even take in my surroundings, Sergei was already moving.

Except he wasn’t walking alone.

Two of the new men from the trailing cars flanked him on both sides. Between them, I could see that he was struggling just to stand still. His broad shoulders were hunched beneath his grey tee. Head bowed, the shaking that I had considered subtle in the car was now violently worse. His baseball cap remained pulled low, his face mask still on.

The reality that a man as tall and bulky as him looked like he was literally on the verge of collapse filled my chest with nothing but absolute panic.

“Sergei…”

My legs caught up to them.

I tried to slide between him and the men flanking his sides, but they were locked in place like brick walls.

“Let me in…. Please, tell me what’s going on? Anyone? What is happening?”

I pranced around them, but neither of them would let me stand next to him.

I felt the panic in my chest rising to the point of explosion. I’d known something was wrong with him. I just couldn’t place it. God, no one was going to say a word to me. No matter how frantically I moved around, trying to keep up with their fast, heavy footsteps, his men treated me like I was a ghost demanding answers.

Even Sergei wouldn’t say a word.

Or couldn’t.

“Just let me know—”

We reached the end of the garage, and one of the men turned around to face me while the other swiped a keycard against a private elevator bank.

The one who turned around was bald. “Ma’am. You need to keep your voice down…”

“What is happening to him?”

“He’s fine…”

“Clearly he’s not fine if he’s shaking that hard or… unable to speak… And you two keep treating me like I’m air. I’m his wife….”

I was too angry to even acknowledge the weight of what I’d just said. My chin was tilted up, and I was fighting the urge to swing a fist into the bald-headed idiot. Now that I was standing very close to him, I caught a subtle hint of recognition. I suppose bald heads can stand out if the eye shapes are slightly different. He’d been one of the men at my wedding yesterday.

“…And I’m assuming you know that…” My words were aggressive.

“I know, Mrs. Morozov… It’s just…”

“HEY…”

The other man called from inside the elevator, cutting him off. Before I could even ask another question, I was yanked inside so fast I almost lost my footing. Everything was moving too quickly. The elevator shot upward so violently my stomach dropped into my shoes and my ears popped painfully.

I staggered forward, struggling to stand still, but the other guard pushed into me. I ended up colliding hard into Sergei’s chest, yanking a muffled grunt straight out of his lungs.
Now that I was standing right in front of him, without his guards pushing me away, I immediately jumped to the interrogation. From the intense tremor in his body and the way I’d felt his heart hammering against his ribs during the collision, it was obvious the bastard was far from fine.

“What is happening?” My voice was strained, wound tight because not only was he hiding things, he was hiding his face now, too. The baseball hat was pulled down so far that I could barely see anything other than the brown strands of hair dusting over his forehead. He was so tall, yet his shoulders were slouched forward now, like he was going to fall into me. “And before you say you’re fine…. Or try to punish me….or intimidate me… which you’re clearly not cut out for right now… I can see you’re not fine, Morozov…”

“I am,” he said gruffly, his voice muffled beneath the mask.

I stepped even closer to him.

“Cut the bullshit. You look like you’re going to fucking pass out, you bitch. Would you just let me know what is going—”

“Don’t start…”

“I’m not starting anything.” My voice was beginning to pitch into a yell. “And I’m not crazy. I’m afraid of you, yes, but right now I have to put that shit aside and ask the questions that need to be asked. Because I need answers. What was happening in Nichols Hills…”

“That’s not—” He stopped talking with a sharp grunt, breathless.

Before he could even give the sentence another try, one of his men tried to tug me away from his presence.

I wasn’t thinking when I felt his heavy hand drop onto my shoulder with a gruff, “Step away from him.”

I spun around so fast, the only sound in my ears was the whirr of the elevator as it scaled the floors in tens—20, 40, 60, 80—before my fist collided hard into the bald bastard’s nose.

The sound of a brutal crunch filled the small space. I couldn’t tell if it was his nose or my knuckles, but the reaction he gave—slamming back into the steel doors of the elevator—told me I hadn’t broken my wrist.

I yelled right after that. “DO NOT EVER PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME AGAIN! I WAS TALKING TO HIM, NOT YOU. AND UNLESS YOUR BOSS TELLS ME NOT TO TALK TO HIM, I TALK TO HIM. YOU….” I spun around to the other guard standing behind Sergei, my index finger wagging between them. “And YOU… none of his men have ANY RIGHT to boss me around. I TALK WHEN I WANT TO TALK—”

“Anya…”

I spun around so fast my finger could have poked Sergei’s eyes out if he wasn't so tall.

“And YOU….”

I could barely catch my breath or regulate the massive rush of adrenaline in my system. It was the first hit I’d landed in years, and it flooded my veins with nothing but the pure, unadulterated energy to keep going. I’d been pushed around so much in the past two days, I finally felt like a cornered rat fighting back against the cage. There was nothing but pure anger burning in my veins.

“..... You just watched them put their hands on me…”

He didn’t counter that. He didn’t engage. I could almost imagine he was watching me with an amused look beneath that cap, if he wasn’t so breathless for whatever fucked up reason.

“.... I don’t know what to say to you, Sergei…”

The elevator door pinged. He didn’t wait for me to finish talking before he sidestepped me and walked out. His men followed quietly after him, leaving me behind like I was a ravaging, mad lunatic who needed to be kept in check.