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Greg’s voice comes through the speakers.“‘Watch your tone with me, young lady…’”
We sit there in complete silence while the tape plays the full conversation between Clara and her father the night of the auction. I study Tolya’s face as he listens to his arresting officer confess to abusing his family, to being on the take, to manipulating the evidence with the full intention of framing Tolya for what ultimately was an unintentional suicide.
When the recording stops, he’s silent. I slide my gaze to Clara, who only stares at the table. The tension is so thick in the air, I can’t blame her for ducking beneath it.
Finally, Tolya sucks in a deep breath. “So. What’s being done about this?”
“I’m recanting.” Clara blurts it before I have a chance to open my mouth. She meets his hard stare with her own guileless one. “I’m taking back my testimony and telling the courts what really happened. That my dad beat me into a forced confession and I gave my testimony under duress. Bambi is confident that, between my recanting and this recording of his confession, we should be able to get you out.”
He listens. Folds his arms across his chest. He’s not leaping at the good news, but he’s not as pissed as he was fifteen minutes ago.
“I have to know…” He looks at her suspiciously. “What’s changed? You’ve had all this time to recant. Recording or no recording, you’ve known the truth this whole time.”
Clara takes a deep breath. I squeeze her hand under the table to silently encourage her.
You’ve got this, babe.
“My father…” She lets out that breath in a heavy sigh. “He’s been abusing me my entire life. Me and my mother. She’s dead now. He basically sold me to his little protégé when I was sixteen and I don’t know for sure, but I have a gut feeling it was so he could keep me under his thumb.”
Tolya frowns, but says nothing.
“That would be my ex, Martin. Martin Patterson. He… he’s on the force, too. He basically took charge of me when I was eighteen and kept it up for years. When he got me pregnant, I didn’t… I didn’t know where to go. Where was safe to go, I mean. I tried to report him a few times and I just…”
I rub her back gently. I don’t want to speak for her, but she needs to know she’s not alone.
That I believe her.
“I’ve never had a safe place. I’ve never known who to trust. My father’s the leading detective in the LVPD and no one did anything about the very obvious abuse going on in his home. You saw me in court.Everyonesaw me. And they chose to ignore it. They ignored me. Now, I have a little girl and… and… I had to get her out of there.” Clara’s voice catches. She takes another deep breath and wipes the corners of her eyes. “I’ve wanted to recant ever since I realized what my dad did. Even before I got that recording. But without the ability to prove anything, I’d be putting my daughter in danger.”
She quiets. It takes a moment before I realize that it’s because she’s trying not to burst into tears.
“She’s already in danger,” I add quietly. Tolya whips his gaze to mine, so I explain, “Yakuza. They shot up her school. Pavel justgot out of the hospital after taking a ricochet trying to keep her safe.”
He utters a curse in Russian that doesn’t translate. I see the rage and distrust leave his body. “How old is she?”
Clara musters a tiny smile. “Five.”
More cursing. I silently agree with him. Tolya and I may not be from the world’s most humanitarian family, but children are important to us. Children are top priority in our culture. To threaten one, to threatenany, is a crime far beyond anything either one of us would ever dream of committing.
“Not to belabor the point,” I quietly slip in, “but you were just about to believe an eight-year-old purposefully murdered a police detective. With cultivated poison.”
I realize this is the pot calling the kettle black, but he doesn’t know that.
Tolya rubs a hand over his face. Then, slowly, begins to laugh. “Oh my fucking God. I’m an idiot.”
Clara’s mouth twitches. I’m pretty sure the thought that just went through her head is along the lines of,Runs in the family.
She’s not wrong.
“Bambi is drafting up the appeal as we speak.” I pull out a folded stack of papers and slide it across the table to him. “She’s working with the lawyers to make sure it’s a sure thing this time.”
“Thistime,” he snorts. But before I can snap at him for being ungrateful, he holds up a placating hand. “Forgive me. After a dozen-plus failed attempts, a man tends to lose faith in thesystem.” He looks at Clara again, this time with an actual edge of sympathy. “I suppose you would understand that.”
She nods.
Tolya glances between us. I don’t know what my brother is thinking, and there’s an ever-growing part of me that doesn’t actually care unless it involves welcoming Clara into the family.
“I don’t usually say this, so consider it a one-time deal.” He steadies his gaze on her. “I am sorry. For everything. What your father—and I use that termveryloosely—did to you is unforgivable. What my father did to you is unforgivable, too. I am truly sorry for allowing my anger to cloud my judgment.” He sighs and slumps in his chair. “Given a chance to do it all over again, I know I still would. Dem and I grew up in this country, but that doesn’t change our culture. Children are everything. You fuck with kids, you’re asking for a death sentence.”
