Chapter 55: Chapter 55

Charleigh

A kick straight to my gut couldn’t have hit me harder.

“Wh… what do you mean?” I ask, stumbling to a chair.

Niko mouths is everything all right?, but I raise a finger to ask him to give me a minute.

“Y… you were there? When Mother was killed? How? Why?” I ask, my mouth going dry.

Thank goodness I’m sitting because the room is beginning to move around me, and I think I may be sick.

“I was there. So was your sister, Evie.”

“What?” I ask in a whisper.

“I don’t think Evie remembers anything. In fact, I’m sure she doesn’t, Char. I don’t know that I’d tell her, at least not until she gets older.”

The guys are gathered around me now, listening only to my half of the conversation but having no trouble picking up what we’re talking about.

“Your mom was working in the shop, and Evie and I had just come in the back door after getting ice cream. We heard loud voices, so we hid, which was easy to do. You know all the junk your father kept there.”

Not Evie. Please, not Evie.

“They kept yelling at your mom, something about money. I thought it was a simple hold up and that they’d eventually leave after she gave them what they wanted. But when I listened more carefully, they were talking about getting the money your father owed them. Charleigh, they killed your mom as a message to your dad. He owed these men money. I don’t know what for, just that it must have been a lot.”

The shaking starts in my hands, and I struggle to hold the phone to my ear, so I switch to hands free and place it on the coffee table before me. Then, the trembling moves up my body and my teeth chatter even though I’m not cold. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be sick, and I don’t care if I barf all over the Alekseev house.

Pops was responsible for Mother’s death?

Pops? My father? Mother’s husband? He fucked her over just like he did me, just like the guys suspected.

“I’m sorry, Charleigh, sweetie. I’m so sorry, I wanted to tell you before, so many times, but I just couldn’t. Your dad was all you girls had left and I didn’t want you to hate him, at least not while you were young.”

So now I can hate him, now that he’s dead? Can you hate a dead person?

All these years he told us it was a random hold up. Just some guy with a gun, looking for quick and easy cash. Pawn shops get held up all the time, Pops told me. Rotten luck, he insisted.

Fucking liar. I swear, if he weren’t already dead, I might be tempted to put a gun to his head.

My own father.

“I… I can’t believe it, Vic,” I say in a small voice. “My dad. His debts killed my mother. And yet he still didn’t stop.”

Why? Oh, why?

How could he do this to us? He ruined our family. For something that was avoidable.

“I know this is hard, honey,” Victoria says. “In time, you’ll be able to put it behind you like I did. Your mother was my friend. It wasn’t easy for me to forgive your father, but I did. Your mother would have wanted it.”

Mother.What would she say if she were here?

I’ll never know.

I’ll never see her, hear her voice, feel her touch.

I start spiraling into despair. But I stop myself. I’m not going there, goddammit. I refuse. I’m still here. I have a life to live. That’s one thing my parents gave me, a life to live, and I’m going to live it.

“So why can’t we see you, Vic?” I ask.

“Honey, I’ve been looking over my shoulder since the day your mother was murdered, and I will continue to as long as I’m on this earth. I saw the killers. Now that your dad and the shop are gone, I’m out of here. You will never see me again, but I will try to call from time to time.”

“No, Vic—”

“Don’t look for me, Charleigh. It will only bring us both trouble. My rent is paid until the end of the month. Behind a false wall in my closet is your mother’s wedding dress and some other things. Go get them before the landlord cleans the place out. Remember I love you and your sister. Please take care of yourselves.”

And she’s gone.

I double over in tears, and when they finally taper off, I look up to find the guys circling me, like they always will, like they’ve promised, and while I know life will always throw no end of curve balls, they will be easier to accept with these men at my side.

* * *

EPILOGUE…

Two years later…

Evie waves at the four of us from her high school auditorium stage, where she’s accepting her diploma. She still has more black shit around her eyes than I prefer, and now has a septum piercing, but boarding school got her on track with straight A’s, so I really have nothing to complain about.

The headmaster, or principal, or whatever they call people in these fancy places, stops what he’s doing and gives her a quick hug. He knows she’s been through some shit, and has been her biggest supporter and fan.

After me, of course.

And the guys.

I grab Niko’s hand because he’s sitting next to me, and squeeze it. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure he’s tearing up.

Of course, I am too. There have been so many milestones lately.

Like my own graduation. I downplayed it so it didn’t overshadow Evie’s. I finished my bookkeeping certificate and stuck around the local city college to earn my two-year degree.

While Evie will go all the way with her education, my little diploma is the first anyone in my family has ever earned. My mother would be so proud.

I suppose my father would, too.

There was no funeral for Pops, no ‘celebration of life,’ nor any sort of remembrance. The guys took care of his cremation but I don’t know where they stored his ashes. I asked that they not be buried with my mother. After I learned the real story behind her death, it didn’t seem right to leave them together for eternity.

The twelve-year anniversary of my mother’s death just passed, and I acknowledged it by putting flowers on her grave. We got her a proper headstone, something my father never bothered with, and we’re now paying to have her gravesite regularly maintained. It felt good to visit and have a conversation with her in my head. I’ve stopped all my ‘why’ questions, where for years I didn’t understand what happened. I still don’t and have accepted I never will.

Sometimes there are no answers to questions. The ‘why,’ the wondering, and the questioning, have to be left behind. I carried them around long enough, and now that I’ve shed their weight—or at least most of it—I am a different person.

Actually, a lot of things have conspired to make me a different person. I don’t feel good about all of them.

For example, I don’t feel good about killing Dimitri Yegorov. I don’t regret it, but I also don’t feel good about it. It was a necessary evil, if I ever wanted to live in peace. Now that time has passed, I find I have compassion for him, as miserable and tortured as he must have been. It’s better for all of us that he’s gone, don’t get me wrong, it’s just too bad he couldn’t save himself from himself.

Same goes for Dominika. She was as evil as they come, that wretched woman, and is another person better off dead. She caused so much pain and destruction and while we never have gotten definitive proof, we think she was the one behind the car crash that killed Clara, as well as the one that killed Stacey. The Pakhan never divulged what he did with her, but I have no doubt she’s dead, her body or ashes dumped somewhere in an unceremonious fashion. That’s all she deserved.

The one downside to the Pakhan taking the lead on getting rid of her is that none of us got to have a final conversation with her. But what would we have said? What would we have asked?

More questions to which there are likely no answers, or at least none of the answers we want.

I finger my mother’s locket while the new graduates stream out of the auditorium, each heading to their families for photo time. Evie bounds up to us and Kir hands her a huge bouquet of her favorite flowers.

The same kind our mother loved so much.

Now that Evie is eighteen, an adult, and off to college, I know I have to tell her the story of what happened with our mother. It seems cruel to share something so devastating when everything in her life is looking so positive, but if I don’t tell her soon, I know I’ll chicken out and never do it.

Which might not be such a bad idea.

The guys have convinced me that honesty is the best policy, and even when important information is not happy news, it still needs to be shared.

But we won’t tell her today. That’s not the kind of graduation gift I’d wish on my worst enemy.

Still, it’s going to be a hard conversation and I imagine my sister will go through the whole gamut of emotions I did two years ago, when I found out from Victoria.

Who, by the way, we have not heard a word from. It kills me, knowing nothing, but I have to believe she’s doing what she needs to. When thoughts of how she is and whether anything has happened to her start swirling around my head, I remind myself, again, that we don’t always get answers to our questions.

As frustrating as that is, it feels like my new mantra.

But one thing I am sure of, sure enough to bet my life on, is that I have the full love and support of Vadik, Kir, and Niko.

The strong, sexy, devastatingly handsome Alekseev brothers.

“Are you ready?” Vadik asks Evie.

She looks over her shoulder at her friends, who are also tearing off their caps and gowns. She thrusts hers into my arms and plants a kiss on the cheek of each of the guys, saving a rib-cracking hug for me before she looks at me one more time and runs for the bus her other classmates are boarding, which will take them directly to the airport.

Lucky kids, they’re on a graduation trip to London and Paris, where they are supposed to ‘enrich their knowledge of art and history,’ but where I imagine they’ll basically goof off and consume all the wine and beer they can’t here in the US.

But I’m not worried. Later tonight, the guys and I will board our own private jet and follow the kids so we can keep somewhat of an eye on them. We’re not formal ‘chaperones,’ but we were desperate for a getaway and figured we could watch over Evie at the same time.

I swallow away the lump in my throat as Evie turns to wave at us one more time before climbing aboard the bus full of noisy teenagers.

Kir slings an arm around my shoulder. “Well then. The kiddo is gone. Time for some adult fun. What do you say, baby?”

I look at my three guys and then at my watch. “We have a couple hours to pack, then we gotta get to the airport. I say we wait until the plane.”

The guys laugh. “Our girl wants to join the mile high club,” Vadik teases.

“What? Are you saying you guys are already members?” I ask.

They look at each other, no one saying a word.

“I knew it!” I laugh.

Cripes, is there anything these guys haven’t done? I mean, can’t I be their first for anything?

With one last wave at the bus, we head for the limo to take us home, and later to the airport.

Oh, what the hell.

I’ll give the guys a taste of what’s to come.

I raise the window separating us from the limo driver, and get on my knees in front of Kir. I lift my skirt up to bare my ass, unencumbered by panties, as per the guys’ wishes.

The only time I wear panties anymore is when I willfully go against their demands because I am craving the spanking they promise to punish me with. I don’t do it often, but when I do, it’s fucking hot as hell.

I focus on opening Kir’s trousers while Vadik or Niko—I’m not sure which—places his hands on my ass cheeks.

I shiver in anticipation of what, I don’t yet know. But it will be something wild and orgasmic and memorable, just like the lives we’re building together.