Chapter 51 The Stranger
By the time Anya finally moved from the chair the fire had burned down to embers .
She didn't remember falling asleep cause one moment she was watching the flames, with her hands wrapped around the empty mug, her mind too full to hold a single thought while the next, she was waking to grey light through the windows and a blanket draped over her shoulders that someone had placed there while she slept.
Natalia was at the kitchen counter, her back facing Anya while her hands were busy with something that smelled like bread and cinnamon. She moved with the ease of someone who had made this kitchen hers, spent years learning where everything lived and of someone who had come back to this place over and over again when the world outside became too much.
Anya watched her for a long moment, the blanket rough against her fingers, the fire warm on her face. The photograph from the mantel was still in her hand, pressed against her chest where she'd held it throughout the night.
"You should eat something." Natalia said, "there's bread, eggs, and some fruit, nothing fancy, but it's warm."
Anya's stomach turned at the thought of food, but she stood anyway, her legs stiff from the chair, her neck aching from where she'd slept wrong. She crossed to the kitchen, drawn by the smell needing to do something, anything, that wasn't sitting in front of the fire and staring at ghosts.
Natalia slid a plate across the counter consisting of eggs, toast and sliced apples. It was the kind of breakfast her mother used to make before the wine and fear became important and a constant companion.
Anya picked up a piece of toast just to have something in her hands not because she wanted to eat it. "You knew my father well."
"I knew him." Natalia poured herself coffee which was dark enough to be bitter. "He was the only person in that world who never treated me like I was invisible or I was a problem to be solved." She sat across from Anya at the small table, her grey eyes steady. "He saw me, the way he saw everyone, same way he saw your mother before she lost herself.”
Anya's fingers tightened on the toast. "You said he saved your life."
"I did." Natalia set down her mug, her hands wrapping around it like she needed something to hold onto. "Fifteen years ago, I made a choice. I found out what Nikolai was planning to do to Katya which was the deal he'd made with Smirnov, to trade what he was arranging. He was going to use her to secure his position so I went to Katya first telling her to run but she wouldn't leave without your father and your father wasn't ready to leave without the evidence he'd been gathering."
She paused, her eyes distant, seeing something Anya couldn't see. "So I went to Nikolai next. I thought I could reason with him after all he was my brother. We'd grown up together, survived the same father, cold house and same hunger for something we couldn't name."
"He didn't."
"He didn't." Natalia let out a soft bitter laugh. "He told me I was imagining things, that Katya was safe and your father was nothing to worry about. Saying I should go back to my own life and stop interfering in matters I didn't understand. Three days later, someone came for me in the night."
Anya's breath caught. "Nikolai sent them."
"He thought I knew too much. That I'd talked to someone, told someone, that the evidence your father had gathered was in my hands instead of his, so he couldn't take the risk." She touched her shoulder, a reflex of an old wound remembering itself. "I was lucky cause I got out but I knew if I stayed in that world, kept my name, or try to fight him openly, I'd end up like Katya so I died."
"You faked your death."
"I disappeared, letting everyone think Nikolai had succeeded, believing that I was buried somewhere no one would ever find me." She met Anya's eyes, and for the first time, Anya saw something beneath the calm surface, maybe grief or rage banked for so long for it to become something else. "I watched from a distance. I saw him marry your mother, build his empire while killing your dad saying he died in an accident that wasn't an accident but I couldn't do anything to stop it."
"You were watching." Anya's voice was quiet, the words settling into her chest like stones. "All those years, you were watching."
"I was waiting." Natalia leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her voice dropping to something barely above a whisper. "Before your father died, he asked me to wait knowing what was coming. He knew Nikolai would find him eventually, that the evidence he'd gathered would only buy him so much time so he asked me to watch over you. To wait until you were old strong and ready enough to finish what he started."
Anya's throat tightened. "I wasn't ready, I'm still not ready cause I ran."
"You survived." Natalia reached across the table, her hand covering Anya's, warm and real. "Your father didn't expect you to be a warrior, he expected you to be alive. Everything else, the Key, evidence and fight was his gift to you. Something you could use if you chose and something you could burn if you needed to. All he wanted was for you to have a choice."
The toast had gone cold in Anya's hand. She set it down, her fingers trembling, her chest too full of everything she couldn't name.
"Why me?" she asked. "Why did he trust me with something so heavy? I was just a kid. I didn't know anything about the Key, about Nikolai or any of it. I didn't even know he was in danger until after he was gone."
Natalia was quiet for a long moment, the fire crackled and the clock on the wall ticked. Anya could hear her own breathing, which was too fast and shallow like a sound of someone who had been running for so long she'd forgotten how to stand still.
"Your father believed in people," Natalia said finally. "It was his gift and curse. He believed in Katya when everyone else saw a woman trapped in a marriage she couldn't escape, believed in your mother when she was too scared to believe in herself and he also believed in me when I was too ashamed to ask for help." She squeezed Anya's hand. "More importantly, he believed in you not because you were strong enough to fight his battles but because you were brave enough to live your life without letting fear make your choices."
Anya pulled her hand away, standing abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. She moved to the window, her back to Natalia, her forehead pressing against the cool glass.
The yard was wild, overgrown, the garden her father had planted was now a tangle of weeds and flowers she couldn't name. Somewhere out there, in the trees, a bird was singing, a sound that belonged to a world where men didn't kill each other for money and mothers didn't marry monsters for safety.
"I don't know if I can do this." Her voice came out smaller than she intended, thinner, the voice of the girl she'd been before the wedding and before Dima's hands on her skin, his voice in her ear. "I don't know if I'm brave enough to go back facing him or any of them."
Natalia didn't answer right away. Anya heard her stand, cross the room and felt her presence behind her, close but not touching.
"You don't have to decide anything today," Natalia said quietly. "That's the choice your father wanted you to have, you can stay here as long as you need. It might be a week, months or year just know the house will wait and I’ll wait. Whenever you're ready we'll talk about what comes next.