Chapter 51: Chapter 51

Charleigh

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my little sister quite as excited as she is right now.

She’s practically jumping out of her skin, checking the front door every few minutes while waiting for her friends to arrive for the Alekseev’s big party.

Not that the guys ever would have said no anyway, but it was their idea to have Evie invite some of her friends. They wisely realized the only way she will ever be comfortable here, as part of their world, is if she can keep up her friendships. Her friends will have questions, she knows, but we practiced how to answer them, explaining this is where she lives now that her father is gone, and I’m her guardian.

After much pacing, she squeals and flings open the door, running out front, where I follow to watch her throw her arms around her friends. They jump up and down and scream like typical teenaged girls, and I’m both happy and sad at how normal it all seems.

I’m happy that my sister is so tickled, but also sad her joy is so contrived. She doesn’t have the normal life of a teenager, where they learn the ways of the world under the watchful eye of parents, doing minor silly and stupid things that carry no great consequence other than learning a lesson or two that gets chalked up to ‘life experience.’

That was never in the cards for her, just like it wasn’t for me. When you have to raise yourself and your sibling, there’s very little about life that is carefree.

Because of that, the lack of normalcy in her life, this new, unexpected chapter might be a step-up, although an unconventional one, to a different sort of happy life.

Beggars can’t be choosers, yo.

When the girls arrive, they shower Evie with a barrage of nosy questions, which she handles like a champ. I hover in the background in case she needs me to run interference, but she diverts the attention from herself to the house and compound. Loaded with Cokes in their hands, Evie proudly shows them around, starting with her bedroom. This is where I let them do their thing, oohing and ahhhing over Evie’s nice, new digs. I want to think she’s not showing off or bragging, but I let it go. She’s got to learn to use good judgement, and no amount of my hovering is going to help that develop.

Hell, she’s going to be seventeen soon.

“Mmmm, that looks good,” I say.

One of the gazillion security guards finishes stuffing a mini-sandwich in his mouth that he swiped from a catering tray. He blushes when I catch him and gulps it down so fast I don’t know how he didn’t choke.

“Oh, um, Miss Gates—”

I laugh and make him a plate of the small sandwiches. We have so much, anyway, and if we don’t feed our employees, what the hell are we doing feeding guests?

“Take this back to the guard house so everyone can have some. And really, help yourself anytime,” I say, pressing the plate into his hands.

He glances in the direction of the housekeeper, who I see scowling at him, and I make a mental note to talk to her later. In the past, it might not have been typical to share the catered food with security or other members of the team, but since I’m basically the ‘lady of the house’ now, I make these decisions.

Lady of the house. What a stupid, old-fashioned term. I need to come up with something better. I mean hell, I freaking shot a man. Actually, I shot two men, and killed one of them. I’m so much more than any lady of the house.

The guests begin to arrive, a carefully curated list of club members and others from outside the club. In spite of ‘obligations’ and crap like that, I convinced the guys to omit any of our ‘difficult’ members like the pervy old Alexei, and include only those we knew would be sure to appreciate a nice party, and who are capable of behaving.

There will be one guest I’m not too pleased about—the Pakhan—but the guys insisted there’s no way around inviting him. Even if he never shows up, he still has to be on every invitation list, they tell me.

Oh, and I nearly forgot Dominika. Since I’m not at the club much these days—security concerns, and all—she’s pretty much fallen off my radar. But her strange collection of photos still gnaws at me, and I don’t get why the guys let it go so easily.

Something about ‘picking battles,’ they said, and insisted she be included.

But seriously, someone scratching your mother’s face out of a bunch of family photos? If it were my mom, I sure wouldn’t let it go as easily.

Which reminds me. We made a final trip to my father’s apartment before the landlord came to clear it out, and I found a box of photos albums in the back corner of a closet he must have forgotten. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in the ten years since Mother has been gone. I only peeked at it, intending to bring it home to the compound and take my time going through it later.

What a treasure it turned out to be. There were photos of my parents before they were married, looking so happy and carefree when every possibility in the world was ahead of them, and there was nothing they thought they couldn’t do. But life has a way of wearing on people, and the stresses of having children and a barely-surviving pawn shop didn’t take long to show in their expressions, replacing the happy fullness of their younger faces.

Especially for my mother, her face became a map of the hardships of life with my father. She was still pretty, of course, but the light in her eyes was somewhat dimmed, her complexion dry and sallow. The worry lines between her eyebrows were, by that time, permanently etched.

I opened an album, the last one she must have filled before she died—my father had no interest in documenting our lives either before or after Mother passed—and in it were photos of a small birthday cake with ten candles. I’m smiling behind the little flames, no doubt on the edge of my seat waiting to blow them out, and I am happy the way a ten-year-old is with few cares in the world beyond who’s coming to my slumber party. I looked at the date and realized it was only two days before my mother was murdered. That’s a knife to the heart, and the pain that I thought was mostly gone reared its head again, an unkind reminder that I’ll never be okay about losing my mother as a ten-year-old.

The guys were calling me to come down for dinner, so I stuffed everything back in the box, unsure of the right time to share it with Evie, when something slipped out of the back of an album.

Happy 10th birthday to my sweet Charleigh,the outside of the envelope said.

She forgot to give me my birthday card.

I flipped it over between my fingers for a minute, debating whether to open the seal on it and figured, why the hell not. The card was intended for me and even though ten years have passed, I have it now. I carefully break the glue on the seal and unfold the card to see the inside message.

My beautiful girl, know that I will always be with you. Love, Mom.

Well, that did it. I looked around my bedroom like someone had planted this thing or was playing a mean trick on me. But I know it’s from Mother thanks to her unforgettable handwriting and the cheap Dollar Store cards she always chose.

That card was sitting in that box for ten years, waiting for me. What are the chances? If I hadn’t found those things, they would have gone to the dump with Pops’s other things, and probably incinerated as if they never existed.

As if my mother and I never existed.

How I want her back. I’d be happy for five minutes, just enough to feel her, smell her, and hear her words in my ears. Is that so much to ask for? I’ve never needed her more than I do now. I need her to help me navigate raising an ornery teenager, the love of three strong men, and a new life where I carry a weapon, since I never know when I’ll need to defend myself.

But as luck would have it, all I get is this card, and maybe that’s enough to be thankful for, a reminder that Mother is here with me all the time, even when I don’t know it, and that if she weren’t, things might be much, much more strange than they already are.

**********

Charleigh

The party was held mostly under a huge white canopy in the backyard with music playing, drinks flowing, and lots of good, catered food. I, for one, ate way too much sushi, never a good idea at a party because you might end up with fish breath.

Which wasn’t a problem, Evie assured me, after she was kind enough to let me breathe on her.

Sisters.

During the party, I hung back for a time, watching not only my sister but also the guys. It’s funny how they’re brothers when they are also so different. Now that I know them, like really know them, I see things I never would have noticed a few weeks ago.

Vadik is pressing the flesh with the guests who come through the door, but also keeping an eye on the big picture, making sure everyone has a drink and that hors d’oeuvres are passed generously. Kir is surrounded by people laughing at his jokes who are also sucking down beers, slapping each other on the back, and making all kinds of noise. Then there’s Niko, whose beauty is admired by every woman he passes as well as some men, engaging in quiet one-on-one conversations where he makes every person he spends time with feel like they’re the only person in the room.

They complement each other, these guys really do.

I have a better time than I even hoped, and the guys seem happy with how things go, as well. Dominika, to her credit, steers clear of me.

With the party eventually winding down, Evie’s little friends leave, and I put her to work throwing out empties and making sure glassware is returned to the kitchen. She’s in such a good mood she doesn’t protest, not even for a moment, and I work alongside her until Vadik walks up to us.

“You know, you don’t have to do this. We have staff who do this work,” he says.

Evie sets down what she’s doing, eager to be let off the hook.

Not a chance.

“Thanks, Vadik, we realize that, but it’s important we pitch in. I want to make sure Evie remembers not all teenagers live in mansions surrounded by household help.”

Evie clicks her tongue loudly and I catch her rolling her eyes like she does dozens of times a day. But she gets back to work, although not without her usual litany of long, loud, dramatic sighs.

Vadik makes himself scarce before he laughs out loud.

“Evie,” I say when we’ve made a good dent in the after-party mess, “let’s take a little walk.”

The compound is big enough to feel like you’re away and off the property, even when you aren’t, which is a godsend.

“So how are things going for you here?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “It’s nice. My friends all liked it.”

Of course. I think back to the days when what my friends thought was the most important thing in the world. Glad those days are past. They were torturous.

She nudges me, giggling. “They also think your boyfriends are hot.”

Hmmm. My boyfriends. I hadn’t thought of them like that. These guys are a lot of things to me, but boyfriend is one term I hadn’t thought to use.

“Glad they think so,” I say, hoping to end the conversation.

Evie pulls her phone out of her pocket, and I hear it vibrating lightly. “Oh, Char, do you mind if I go back to the house? Everyone’s posting their photos of the party now and I want to be the first to see them.”

“Yeah, sure.”

I find the old hammock, the one that the guys told me their father used to love, and crawl into it, warmed by the dappled light sneaking through the tree canopy. I wonder what it was like to be Grigory Alekseev, Russian immigrant who made it big the only way he knew how, who later perished with his beloved wife in a raging house fire.

Bizarre how both my and the Alekseevs’ parents died under terrible circumstances. I’ve often wondered if in some way it’s more than just a coincidence, to have this in common with the guys. But I push that out of my mind. I’m drowsy in the sun and want to close my eyes for just a bit to see if I can make up for the lack of sleep I’ve been getting a night.

Just a few minutes of napping would be so nice…