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With Timofey Viktorov.
As if she can read my mind, the woman leans forward, her hands braced on the plastic side of my bed. “Your husband, er, boyfriend—I don’t know who he is to you, but I recognized him. When he brought you in.”
“Timofey?”
She nods. “Everyone here knows him. He assaulted a doctor in pediatrics a few months ago.”
I can tell by the way she whispers the words and eyes me that she is waiting for a crack in my façade. For me to crumble in fear.
Timofey Viktorov assaulted a doctor. He must be an abusive monster.
I should kill you.
Actions speak louder than words, right? God knows I’ve seen that on enough motivational posters in my lifetime. Timofey said some horrible things, but none of them were backed by his actions.
To be fair, neither were mine.
“There’s more to the story,” I try to explain to her. “He was going through a difficult time. He’d just lost his family. He isn’t usually like that.”
She doesn’t look even slightly convinced. But the mention of his loss does soften the hard edge around her eyes. “Yeah, well, he didn’t seem at all interested in being a father when he left the baby here. What is he going to think aboutthisnews?”
Timofey only decided to raise Benjamin because of his love for Emily. Because he wanted to do right by his sister.
But me? He wishes I was dead.
I can’t imagine he’ll be thrilled.
Dread coils tight in my stomach, and I feel lightheaded all over again.
“Piper?” The nurse stares worryingly up at my heart rate monitor.
I hear it beeping frantically in the corner, betraying the storm raging inside of me. “Don’t tell him,” I blurt. “About the baby. Don’t tell him.”
She stares at me for a long, silent moment. Then she nods. “Of course. It’s our secret.”
It’s our secret, I think.But for how much longer?
5
TIMOFEY
“I didn’t think smoking was allowed in hospitals.” Akim leans through the door of the small waiting room and scans the ceiling, presumably for any signs of a smoke detector.
I tap my cigarette on the arm of the chair next to me. Ash and embers fall like dark snow into the only other chair. “Take a seat.”
“You’re chipper. I’m guessing I shouldn’t mention that we don’t usually bring the people we ‘interrogate’ to the hospital?” I glare up at him, and he holds his hands in surrender. “Don’t kill the messenger.”
“You have to deliver a message to be considered a messenger.” I wave him on with my fourth cigarette in the last hour. “So fucking get on with it.”
“Kreshnik found Arber’s body. Not that it was hard to find, exactly.” He shrugs, biting down a proud smile. “I had the guys arrange it in one of the adirondack chairs on the porch. He was holding onto his own head. It was pretty artistic, actually. I think I have an eye for this kind of thing after all those years of making your plates.”
On another day, I might’ve laughed. Today is not that day.
I grimace. “Remind me not to give you time off. You go crazy when you aren’t cooking for me.”
“We all have to have our hobbies.” He drops into a silence that stretches across several drags of my cigarette. He’s trying to avoid the minefield of off-limits topics between us right now. Finally, he drums his fingers together. “So… when will I be cooking for you regularly again?”
I glance over at him.
