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“We can trust them?” I ask.
Yakov grabs my hand and brings my knuckles to his lips. “I wouldn’t leave you here if I couldn’t trust them. They are good people. They’ll keep you safe.”
I want to say, You can keep me safe. Arguments I know won’t work rise up in my mind. Yakov is set on this, so it’s going to happen whether I like it or not. And I don’t like it. I don’t care how safe these people are—they aren’t Yakov.
But I don’t want to make things harder for him. If he has to go off and face some threat, I don’t want him worried that I’ll be here trying to dig a tunnel to freedom. I’m on his side. If this is what he needs from me… I’ll do it.
That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Yakov lets go of my hand and reaches across to the glove compartment. His woodsy scent surrounds me as he pulls two black phones out and hands each of us one.
“My number is loaded into the contacts if you need anything. These are basically bricks, but you still have to be careful. You can’t use it for whatever the fuck you want.” Yakov narrows his eyes on Mariya in the backseat. “It’s for emergency use only. Any contact with anyone outside of me could put you both at risk.”
“I doubt this thing can even complete a phone call.” Mariya wrinkles her nose as she weighs the heavy phone in her palm. “But I understand. No outside communication.”
Yakov grabs our bags from the trunk and leads us up the narrow sidewalk to the house. It’s a modest craftsman-style house on a quiet street. The only lamp is at the end of the block, so it’s shrouded in shadow. A well-kept garden lines the front of the house just under matching large windows. All the curtains are drawn, only the thinnest hints of light peeking out between the gaps.
As soon as Yakov steps onto the porch, the front door opens. I don’t see who is behind it until we’re inside a dimly-lit living room and the door is shut and bolted.
A bald man in house slippers—Usev, I presume—looks through the peephole and then asks Yakov something in Russian.
Yakov answers, a short, staccato conversation taking place before a woman with graying hair wearing a baby blue robe walks into the room. It must be Vera. She cups Mariya’s face and utters something I don’t understand.
Miraculously, Mariya doesn’t swat the woman’s hands away like I expect. She smiles and gives her a quick hug.
Then Vera turns to me. She pats my stomach, looks directly into my eyes, and asks me a question.
“I don’t speak Russian,” I admit sheepishly. Apparently, I should learn. I hate being out of the loop. Yakov answers for me. Vera’s eyes go wide. She frowns down at my stomach and then holds up two fingers. Yakov nods.
I know they’re talking about me and the twins, but I wish I knew what exactly they were saying.
“Vera is a midwife,” Mariya says in my ear, translating. “She has never delivered twins before, but she is confident she can?—”
“I’m not having my babies here,” I blurt. I look at Yakov. “I won’t be here that long, will I? This will be over before the babies come. Right? Won’t it?”
Vera frowns, wearing the same confused expression I just had on. Apparently, neither of us speak the other’s native tongue.
Yakov says something to Usev and Vera and then grabs my hand and pulls me along after him.
We cut through a narrow kitchen with apple wallpaper on the walls and down a set of rickety stairs to an unfinished, concrete basement. The walls are damp. The floor is damp. The air is damp. With every step deeper into the house, I feel like I’m being buried alive. There is no oxygen down here.
I’ve never been claustrophobic but as Mariya pulls the door at the top of the stairs closed and plunges us into darkness, I’ve never felt more panicked. I’m about to throw myself on Yakov’s back and refuse to let go until he carries me out of here when he slides a bookshelf to the side to reveal a keypad. He punches in a code and a door swings open.
“This way,” he says, ushering Mariya and I through the door. “In here.”
Instantly, I can breathe.
The air is dry and fresh. It smells like cinnamon apples, which makes sense when I see an apple cake sitting on the countertop of the kitchenette to the right.
Straight ahead is a living room complete with a U-shaped sofa and a wall of bookshelves. Beyond that are three doors set into the back wall.
“Not bad,” Mariya says. She grabs her bag from Yakov and heads for the door in the back right. She opens it and nods in approval. “This is definitely my bedroom. Dibs.” Then she disappears inside.
“What is this place?” I ask.
Yakov leans wearily against the wall. “My father had it built when I was just a kid. Usev is an old friend of his. They grew up together in Russia. He isn’t in the Bratva proper, but he’s always been sympathetic to my father and our family. You can trust him.”
“But why do I have to?” I try to hide it, but my lower lip wobbles. “I don’t want to trust these people. I want to be with you.”
