SWNOVELS Twilight Sins: Chapter 28
Yakov’s office is exactly what I expected: meticulous. His laptop is perfectly centered. Aside from a single black pen and a landline phone, there is nothing else.
Desolate as it may be, there is still a filing cabinet in the corner and drawers built into the desk. Plenty of things to sift through if I want to figure out what is going on here.
But my lonely ass is drawn to the phone.
Call Kayla, then snoop. Or call Kayla while I snoop. I can multitask.
I dial Kayla’s number and actually hop from one foot to the other while I wait for her to pick up.
“Hello, Kayla Stevenson speaking.” She has on her Adult Kayla voice. The one she uses for her monthly call with her grandma and talking to the dentist.
“Kayla, it’s me.” I don’t know why I’m whispering, but talking any louder feels like a risk. “It’s Luna.”
She gasps. “Holy fucking shit! Where in the hell have you been, Loon? I’ve been scared shitless for you!”
Adult Kayla has left the chat. Her grandma would be very disappointed in her potty mouth. I, on the other hand, have never felt more at home.
I drop down into Yakov’s ginormous office chair. “I’m so sorry. I’m okay. I’m fine. I’ve just been… busy.”
“Busy with what? I know it isn’t work!”
“Yeah, I took some time off.”
“You say that now, but the last time we talked, you said you were on a business trip. So, which is it?”
Shit. “Oh. Right. I was, er, on the trip, but then I got sick.”
“You got sick and quit your job?” she snaps.
“What are you talking about?”
“I called your work,” Kayla explains. “I called your desk number. Then I called the receptionist and asked to be connected to you. She told me you no longer worked there.”
I sag down even further in Yakov’s leather chair. If I was a giant like him, it would probably have great lumbar support. As it is, it’s digging uncomfortably into my middle back. “I quit?”
Yakov told me he handled work for me. He promised I’d have a job to go back to when this was all over. And I just… trusted him.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“I’m such an idiot,” I moan.
“What is going on?” Kayla barks into the phone. “You aren’t at work. No one is at your apartment. Not even Gregory. I know because I used the spare you gave me for emergencies and went to check. I got so desperate I even went to Benjy’s place.”
“Kayla! I would never go back to him.”
“I wanted to believe that, but I was also desperate. This is a real tangled web you’re weaving, babe.” She blows out a harsh breath. “Also, side note: Benjy was beat to absolute shit. His face was swollen and bruised.”
“He was in a fight?”
“Apparently. The way he reacted when I mentioned your name made me wonder if you weren’t the one who wrecked his face. But you sound surprised, so I guess not.”
“How would I beat Benjy in a fight?” I ask.
“I don’t know. How would you disappear from your job and your apartment without telling your best friends?” she snaps. “You’re doing a lot of crazy stuff lately.”
“I’m sorry, Kay. I should have told you what’s going on. I just… couldn’t.”
“Nuh-uh. That isn’t good enough for me. You don’t get to call me out of the blue, tell me you’re fine, and then disappear again. I want to know what is going on and I want to know now.”
“That makes two of us,” I mutter.
“Luna?” Her voice immediately softens. “I’m obviously mad at you for pulling a Houdini, but tell me right now if this is something I need to be worried about. If you’re in trouble, I’m there. Wherever you are.”
“I’m… I’m okay.”
There’s a long pause before Kayla whispers into the phone. “Use the word ‘flipper’ in a sentence if you need me to call the police.”
I snort. “How would I even use the word ‘flipper’ in a sentence? Just randomly start talking about dolphins?”
Kayla gasps. “Was that it? Did you use it? Should I call?”
“No!” I sit up straight. “No, sorry. Don’t. I’m okay! Call off Operation Dolphin.”
“Don’t scare me like that. I was kind of kidding, but then you actually used it.” She blows out a long breath. “Luna… I’m going to need you to start from the beginning. Spare no detail. Starting now. I’m listening.”
If Yakov was here, he’d tell me to hang up. Information is dangerous, Kayla could be in danger, danger this, danger that, yada, yada. But I’m also in danger of losing my ever-loving mind if I don’t brain dump some of the stuff circling around in my head.
“Okay, so about the blind date you set me up on last week… Sergey stood me up.”
“No, he didn’t. You went out with him. You told me about the date.”
“I told you about a date,” I explain. “A date I had with a man I thought was Sergey, but ended up being someone else. He didn’t correct me. Halfway through the night, the real Sergey showed up wasted and my date kicked him out of the restaurant.”
“So who was your date?” she asks.
“His name is Yakov Kulikov and, apparently, he has some enemies. Enemies who are now after me because they saw us together at dinner.”
“I—You’re—What? I don’t believe this. This is insane,” she breathes.
“Agreed. It also gets more insane. Because I’ve been staying in his mansion since the night of the date. He took my phone and isn’t allowing me to leave because it would be dangerous for me to be on my own.”
“Flipper,” Kayla hisses. “Operation Dolphin is a go! I’m calling the police. Flipper!”
“I know how it sounds.” I drag a hand over my face. “I really know how it sounds. It’s crazy.”
“Crazy. Insane. Banana pants. Stockholm Syndrome. Yeah,” Kayla says. “It’s all of those things.”
“I do not have Stockholm Syndrome. He didn’t even kidnap me!”
If me from last week could hear me now, she’d want to have some words.
“Yakov is trying to protect me. I believe that,” I continue. “I just… I needed to talk to someone out in the real world. Someone from my real life. I needed to hear your voice, Kay.”
“My God, Luna. This is… this is a lot. I don’t even know what to say.” I hear her pacing on the other end of the phone. She takes her calls in the bathroom at work. The familiar sound of her heels clicking on the tile is comforting. “Do you want to be there with him? That’s the most important thing. Because if you want to leave, you should be able to leave regardless of what he thinks. We can pool money and hire you a bodyguard if we need to.”
“We don’t have the money for a bodyguard.”
“That’s what crowdsourcing sites are for. I’ll downsize. We can figure it out.”
Kayla and her boyfriend just moved into a two-bedroom apartment together that she loves. I also know Kayla loves me. She would pack up, sell her stuff, and move back to their dinky one-bedroom place in a heartbeat if I needed the money.
I can’t do that to her.
I don’t even know if I want to do that.
I like being here with Yakov. Mostly. I think. Minus the times when my insides are tied into a knot and my head is spinning, it has been really great.
“I’m fine here. There are security guards and three meals per day. Staying here is easier.”
“Fuck ‘easy,’” she snaps. “I’ll do so many hard things to make sure you’re happy and healthy, Loon.”
Tears well in my eyes like the big mushy sap I am. “Thanks, Kay. Ditto.”
“So, are you? Happy and healthy?”
It’s hard to answer that question when my current roommate is a hot and cold Greek god who is giving me sexual and emotional whiplash on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. It’s also tough to answer when “healthy” is dependent on me not being murdered by unknown, shadowy, may-or-may-not-be-real enemies.
“I’m safe,” I say instead. “I can tell you that much. Right now, I’m safe. Yakov won’t hurt me.”
“Is that an option? Are you worried about that?”
“No, no. I’m not afraid of him. I just—”
“Just what?” she snaps. “Either he’s keeping you safe or he isn’t.”
“He’s keeping me safe! He’s just doing that by not telling me anything that is going on. He thinks information is dangerous.” I sigh. “I believe him. Telling me more than necessary probably would be dangerous. But I think the fact I’m here at all is dangerous. Being near him is dangerous.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t—God, it sounds crazy. I haven’t said it out loud yet.”
“The Crazy Ship set sail ages ago. You can’t shock me anymore. Spit it out.”
I take a deep breath and say exactly what I’ve been thinking. “His dad was shot in the chest in front of him. Then we had to leave a restaurant because we were in danger. Now, people are apparently out to get me because I was on a date with him. That sounds like some serious Goodfellas stuff, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve never seen that movie.”
“Mobsters,” I say plainly. “The classic shoot ‘em up, breaking legs, send-you-to-sleep-with-the-fishies kind of criminals. I don’t know if that’s exactly what he’s involved in, but it has to be something like that. Some sort of black market, underground stuff.”
With anyone else, my thought would be that they’d gotten roped into the wrong crowd. But I don’t think anyone could rope Yakov into anything he didn’t want to be a part of.
Whatever is going on here, he is clearly the man in charge.
“Last I heard, accountants and doctors aren’t taking out hits on people. So you might be onto something.”
“I haven’t gotten up the courage to ask him yet,” I admit.
I can’t tell Kayla that Yakov distracted me with his dick. She won’t trust my judgment. Operation Dolphin would be back on in an instant and I’d have to explain to Yakov why the police were banging down his door.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Kayla suggests. “Ask him, I mean. Maybe it would be safest to keep that thought to yourself. If he hasn’t told you he’s a criminal, bringing it up might not go over so well.”
“I’m not afraid of him, Kay.”
She sighs. “I know. I just wonder if maybe you should be.”
It hits me all at once: this was a mistake.
I feel better, but Kayla is clearly freaked out. She has every right to be. I shouldn’t have roped her into this mess. I was being selfish, but that ends here. Whatever is going on with Yakov, I’ll figure it out alone.
“I’m being smart. I promise. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.”
“You swear?” she asks.
“I swear. I have to go. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Loon. Please don’t disappear again.”
I hang up and push away from Yakov’s desk.
I’m not sure how much longer I have in here before someone finds me, but I’m not going to waste another second. I pull open his top desk drawer and get to snooping.