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“I’m going to make sure Leo’s safe,” I said weakly, hating every second of the ruse.
“Should I come to Miami after all?” Oleg asked, sounding worried.
“Don’t bother yourself,” Evelina said. “We’re heading to pick up Leo now. Everything’sfine.”
Surely he wouldn’t believe her? “Good, good, darling. Keep me updated.”
“Of course, Papa.”
“And Mikhail?” he said. “Thanks for watching over my babies.”
I had no answer for that. How was I watching over them? I was sleeping with one, and the other was currently in mortal danger. I wasn’t the only one who looked uncomfortable about his outpouring of gratitude. Evelina ended the call and stared straight ahead with pursed lips.
“He didn’t mean anything,” I said. “Parents always think of their kids as babies. He knows you’re an adult. I still think of Kristina as a little kid most of the time, too.” I had tried defending my old friend but realized I had only put my foot in my mouth. Evelina and my daughter were the same age, for God’s sake. Now was not the time to recognize for the hundredth time that I needed to end things with her. Not until we found Leo.
“Wow,” she said, shaking her head at me.
I changed tack, anything to get her off the age issue. “So what’s with all the lying to your father? Is that a regular thing with you?” I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. “Does Kristina do that to me, too?
She handed back my phone with a smug look. I supposed it was better than the sickly fear, but it was still galling. “Of course she does. We do it to protect you.”
“Wow,” I said, repeating her own sentiment. I was utterly appalled.
She shrugged. “There’s no reason for him to make himself sick when there’s nothing he can do. If—” she stopped and took a shaky breath. “If he needs to know something, we’ll tell him then.”
“Fine,” I said. “I guess that makes sense.” It still rankled, though.
She was clearly over-talking about her father and no longer thinking about the age gap between us anymore because she clenched her fists and leaned forward. “Can’t he drive faster?”
“We’re already going as fast as we can without drawing attention. Either from law enforcement or anyone who might be tailing us.”
The fear rushed back into her face. “Do you think someone is?”
“Better to be safe than sorry.”
In fact, my paranoia that someone might have been lying in wait for her to leave the island, I had our convoy pull into a hotel twenty minutes later, where I had arranged to have a different car waiting for me. When no one followed us into the garage, and Andre said no one seemed to be suspicious out on the street, Evelina and I continued in the new car. The other two left ahead of us and went in separate directions, prepared to take a different route and meet up with us at the location.
I wanted to wait a little longer, keeping eyes on the road beneath us from our spot in the parking garage. The traffic moved along at a normal pace. No one was in any of the parked cars, and no one else entered the garage while we were there.
“We’re wasting time,” Evelina snapped, pacing back and forth beside our car while the driver kept a lookout with me.
I nodded to the driver, who got in the car, then I took Evelina in my arms. “Everything will be fine.”
She rested her head against my chest and sighed, too frazzled to argue, which broke my heart a little. I pulled away, overwhelmed by the confused mix of feelings I had for her. None of it was right, at least not now. I needed to be ready at the drop of a hat to commit violence if we found the people who took Leo and caused her so much worry and pain. That meant I needed to stay focused. And not on comforting Evelina, as much as I might have wanted to.
“We’ll be there very soon,” I said, tucking her into the backseat.
I had to be mentally prepared for whatever came next, not wrapped up in emotions. I closed the back door and got in front with the driver, blocking out her look of hurt and trying to ignore the searing pain of feeling like I was abandoning her.
Chapter 19 - Evelina
It was no time to feel bad about Mikhail when I was already eaten up with worry over Leo. But why was he suddenly pulling away? I blamed the phone call to my father, dragging him back to reality. I also hated that it seemed like he still lumped me in with Kristina, making out that there was an us versus them, kids versus grown-ups mentality with us just because I didn’t want my father to end up in the hospital on top of everything else.
Would I ever be completely, one hundred percent honest with my father? It was laughable as if he’d never lied to me. And certainly not in a malicious way to hurt me. My father loved me more than his own life, but I wasn’t stupid. There were probably dozens of times he’d wanted to spare me hurt feelings or keep me out of harm’s way with a bending of the truth. As I was certain Mikhail had done for Kristina over the years.
He was being willfully pigheaded if he couldn’t see it was exactly the same when we did it for them. And he was being foolish if he cared about our age difference, too. I certainly didn’t.
The map indicated we were very close, and tension built up in me as I watched the city pass by outside the new SUV’s tinted windows. At first, I’d been annoyed at his overly cautious waste of time, but when I thought about the video and what the Novikoffs were capable of doing to get their hands on me, I was relieved for the extra layer of security.
