“Your aunt, my sister, was taken by the Organization,” he said with a pained expression. “That was what started this whole mess, before that I didn’t even know who they were.”
“Where is she now?” I asked.
“Dead,” he replied and looked me right in the eyes. “She’s dead, and I lost control of myself. I fell into this obsession with taking them down, and it cost me everything. Including a relationship with you.”
“I’m here now,” I replied. “And I want to help you.”
He hesitated as if he didn’t fully comprehend what I was saying. And then it sunk in, that I wanted to be by his side and destroy the Organization as much as he did.
He smiled, nodded, and said, “You are my daughter after all. I’m so proud of you.”
And I was proud of myself for not breaking into tears at the words I’d always wanted to hear.
CHAPTER22
We spoke wellinto the night. I left a message on the answering machine at home to let Mom know that I wasn’t going to be back to the house, and I let the Kings and Ryker handle everything for dinner and the rest of the night.
It felt like I talked to Ivan, my father, for hours. For days, even. We covered everything I wanted to know, like my aunt’s name. She’d been called Sonja. And whether my grandparents were alive. They were not. He brushed over our family heritage in a brief fashion, seeming to pull back when I questioned him more. I got the impression that we were a criminal group, a Russian mafia, but didn’t know how much of that was still operating. I wanted to find out, but when he was ready. I’d give him that respect.
He even told me about our family in Russia and the proud Popov lineage. I felt like I’d been dangling over an abyss with just one link in a chain holding me up. Now I was safe from falling in, I was part of that chain instead of being a useless piece. I could understand people’s obsession with DNA testing to find their ancestry, and I could understand the damage it did to entire cultures when that link to their genetic and cultural past was broken.
I became a different person that night, I became Ivan Popov’s daughter.
I told him more about Reg and Rick, and I watched him transform from my good natured, kind hearted father into a cold killing machine. He seemed to melt into another form when the steely rage took over his eyes, and his voice changes when he asked me questions.
“I don’t want to tell you details, and to be honest, I don’t even know exactly what was in the pictures they sent out,” I said. “Kingston saw them on his father’s laptop, but I never looked.”
Ivan looked over at Kingston and raised his brows. Kingston hastily said, “I’m sorry. I destroyed the laptop once I knew what they were. I smashed it and ground the hard drive to dust with a hammer.”
I hadn’t known that. My heart swelled when I pictured him protecting me the best way he knew how.
“I would prefer not to see any photographic evidence, I believe you both,” Ivan said, leaning back into the chair and transforming again into my doting father. “All I know is that those men need to disappear. I’m sorry I’m talking about your father like that, Kingston, but they need to be gone. I can’t rest in the world knowing they breathe the same air as my Everly.”
“Oh, I agree,” Kingston said. “If they hadn’t recently disappeared, I would probably have done it to my father myself. I wouldn’t keep a rabid dog around, so why would I keep him around? I know the kind of man he is. I spent my entire life trying to be the opposite.”
Kingston’s determination was sexy. He would have killed his father to keep me safe. I didn’t know if that was psychotic or romantic, but then again, I wasn’t exactly the most sane person on the planet myself. Not anymore. Not after everything that had been done to me.
“Who’s house is this?” Ivan asked after a brief silence.
“It’s mine, sir,” Archer replied. “What would you like to know?”
“How secure is it?” he asked.
“It’s served its purpose so far,” Archer said. “My parents are returning in three days, so we may need to change our location at that time. We have to go to Valen’s.”
“Oh, not mine,” Valen said. “My parents are coming home, too. For the annual Oakville New Year’s Eve celebration.”
“Oh no, I forgot about that. We’ll have to leave both places after they get home,” I said. Time flew when you were being kidnapped and then trained in weapons and self-defense, it seemed.
“I didn’t think about that,” Archer said. “We could all stay here, but my mother is rather weird about big groups of people sticking around. She might take issue with the sniper guards stationed around the property.”
“We can find a place for ourselves,” Ivan said. “What about that one we’re renting? I can buy it if it suits you, Everly.”
My heart began to beat faster as I slowly understood what he was saying.
“You want to buy us a house?” I asked.
“Well, you,” he replied. “Why? Does that not please you?”