“Waiting,” Lew clips, glaring at me as he froths a little at the corners of his mouth.
Tapping my foot on the concrete floor, Iwaitfor their boss to appear. He does, not even two minutes later.
“Good afternoon,” He joins our little gathering.
“Good indeed,” I say, an unmistakable hint of mockery in my voice. “I’m going back home. Do you mind?”
“I’d consider it unwise.” He dismisses Lew with a wave of his hands, gesturing toward the living room.
I don’t move. Something in his stance tells me his focus is solely on keeping me in the castle and not on answering my questions. “My flight leaves in two hours, and you know how long passport control took when we arrived. I’d rather not be late.”
“Dante won’t be pleased if you leave, Layla.”
No, he probably won’t. “What makes you think he doesn’t know I’m leaving?”
“I spoke to him last night. Besides, he would never agree to you boarding a plane by yourself.”
Things just keep getting better and better. Dante won’t call me but found time for Anatolij? That’s... ugh! I stomp my foot again. “He’ll deal with it. I’ll take his anger over your lies any day of the week.”
“If you leave, you’ll be risking your life. You’re safe here. That should be your top priority right now.”
“The trouble is, I don’t feel safe anymore. You had two days to explain why my mother’s portrait hangs in your office. You chose not to, and so I choose to leave.”
He comes closer, slowly as if approaching a wounded, scared animal. Too many conflicting emotions whirl in his gray eyes to guess which one dominates. “I never lied to you, and I’m not about to start tonight. I will explain. I wanted to explain when you arrived here, but I thought it’d be better if Dante were here.”
A subtle suggestion in his words turns my stomach. “What does Dante have to do with this?”
“I thought you’d find the news less stressful if he’d be with you when we talk. He thought so too.”
“He knows?”
Instead of being annoyed, I’m reassured. There’s no reason to worry if Dante knows what this is about and hasn’t changed his mind about sending me here.
Anatolij glances at his watch, then back at me. “Come on, let’s have a drink.” He extends his hand, waiting for me to take it. “If you still want to go back home once we’re done talking, I’ll personally deliver you back to Dante.”
Mission accomplished.
Instead of taking his hand, I enter the living room, hang my coat on the back of an oversized wingback chair by the fireplace, and sit down, leaning closer to the fire.
Anatolij joins me with two glasses of Port. I’m not a fan of red, but Port tastes like everything that’s right with this world. The atmosphere turns heavy once he sits in the chair opposite mine. His shoulders look unnaturally tense. Nonchalance and a bit of arrogance are the pillars of his personality. Fear is the last thing anyone could accuse him of, yet sitting three feet away from me, he looks anxious.
“When my brother moved to America twenty years ago, he took me with him.” His tone is spiked with hesitance as if he’d never shared this piece of information with anyone before. “He opened a restaurant in Chicago and hired your mother as a waitress. She was fifteen. The most amazing woman I have ever met. Intelligent, beautiful, joyful.”
I cock an eyebrow, calling him out on the blatant lie. “Intelligent? Are you sure you’re talking about Jess? She’s infantile, shallow, and self-righteous.”
Anatolij snorts softly. “She is now, but she wasn’t back then. She was ambitious. I loved that about her.”
A cold sweat slips down my back.I loved that about heris all my mind can focus on. My assumptions were correct—they had an affair. One question remains. How long did it last? Or better yet, is it still happening?
“She was full of passion. She worked two jobs, was at the top of her class, and had her future planned to the smallest detail.”
Whoever he’s describing sounds nothing like the woman who pretended to raise me. “I’m having a hard time believing my mother ever thought about something other than what color lipstick suits her outfit.”
“She might be vain now, but it wasn’t always the case. Even now, I think she still has that spark. She just buried it deep to please Frank. He always was her only weakness.” His expression turns severe. “I can honestly say I have no idea what she saw in him. We met the day Jess started working at the restaurant. He was uncouth, big-headed. He only cared about money and respect.”
That I have no problem believing. Frank hadn’t changed one bit over the years. Until he died, my father had close to zero good qualities. He was one bigflaw. A living, breathing proof that evil had a face.
Anatolij downs his port and refills the glass as if there’s no way he can tell me the whole story without liquid courage.