Close Up: Exposure Book Three (5 page)

I finished dressing, and left the penthouse without another word.

I
stared
out the window of the cab as it made its way back to my home. As Asher had said, the limo was there waiting for me, but I chose to tell the driver that I didn’t need him. I hailed a cab instead.

I felt the need to get back home, and I hoped that Scarlett was back. I missed her so much. She was the person that was always there for me, through thick and thin.

Just thinking that she might be at the apartment to greet me made me feel just a tad less anxious. But just a tad. In reality, I could feel my chest constricting as I thought about the possibility that I would come home to a dark and empty place. I was already feeling the loneliness of staring at an empty wall, as I sadly contemplated what my life had become. And why it had become that way.

I didn’t know how I could retrieve all my memories. I felt that was the key to feeling as strongly about Asher as he apparently had felt about me. My doctor told me that there was a possibility that all of my memories might be restored as the part of my brain that was damaged in the crash gradually healed. But there was also the chance that nothing would ever come back to me, and nothing would ever make sense from that period of time that was lost.

I guessed that I should have been happy that the fragments had returned to me. The fragments that told me that I needed to forgive myself for what had happened to Nathaniel were restored to me, and perhaps I just needed to be satisfied with that.

But I couldn’t be. The problem with that is that these memories weren’t enough to sustain my relationship with Asher. He was way, way ahead of me in our relationship, and that didn’t really seem fair. Things were unequal between us just because so much of him was lost to me. So much of our time together was gone.

I just had to go on and live my life, and hope that my memories could come back. That the part of my brain that was injured would heal, and I could catch up to Asher as far as our relationship went. That was the only thing that could help me learn to trust him again. Remembering our relationship before would give me some kind of positive feelings for him. Hopefully it would be enough to erase all the negativity that had happened since I awoke from my coma. Perhaps getting my memory back would offset all the lies and deception that came from him.

I therefore would have to get back to work, start hanging out with Scarlett again, and hope to get some sense of normalcy back. I was working a job, apparently my dream job, as a photojournalist. I was very much looking forward to that. Between going back to the job and seeing Scarlett, who was really my anchor, as she was the only person who I remembered from my old life who could stand to be around me, I could maybe pick up the pieces of my shattered life.

At least that was my hope and my goal.

The cabbie stopped in front of my building, and I got out and tipped him five dollars. I opened the door to my building and trudged up the four flights of stairs. I hoped that Scarlett was home, because I really needed her. I needed to be around somebody who had my back. Somebody who I could trust not to lie to me or deceive me.

Unfortunately, at that point, the person whom I could trust wasn’t my boyfriend. It was my best friend.

I prayed that she could help me pick up the pieces of my shattered life.

C
J had just left
, and I was angry. Angry with CJ for doubting me. Angry at myself for getting into the trap that Sophie had laid. And angry with Sophie for laying that trap in the first place. I was increasingly believing that Sophie had a hand in the whole abduction scenario, from start to finish.

Why I didn’t suspect that at first, I don’t know. Sophie was devious and cunning. And she would still stop at nothing to get CJ out of the way. I was therefore starting to doubt Sophie’s story about how she was having CJ trailed because she wanted to see if CJ and I were together. That was a suspect story from the start, but I didn’t question it at the time, simply because I was focused on one thing and one thing only – getting to CJ on time. I would have done anything, absolutely anything, to make sure that this was accomplished. I would have danced with the devil to ensure CJ’s safety, which is exactly what I ended up doing with Sophie. Dancing with the devil.

Things were clearer for me, though, since CJ was out of danger. And I was starting to have my suspicions that the abduction went down the way that Sophie said it did.

I was going to win CJ back. Of that much, I was sure. But I first had to square things away with Sophie. She was the most manipulative person I had ever met, and I wondered if she had played me like a grand piano.

I called her and she picked up on the second ring. “Asher,” she said sweetly. “I was just thinking about calling you.”

“You were. Imagine that.”

“Yes,” she said brightly. “I was. Would you like to meet me for a drink a little bit later? I need to talk to you.”

As much as I didn’t want to, because I had no desire to fall into her web, I knew that meeting her would probably clear the air about certain things. “Sure,” I said.

“Let’s meet at that bar that we used to go to when we first moved here. The dive in Queens.”

“Sounds good. How about eight?”

“See you then.”

We hung up and I put my head in my hands. I couldn’t stand any of this. It was all so unjust. But I was going to get answers from Sophie, and that was really all that mattered to me. I would know how to proceed from there.

E
ight o’clock rolled around
,
and I arrived at the bar and sat in the back. I knew that Sophie would find me there, because that was the place where we always sat.

Sure enough, she was soon there, and she got in the booth with me. She scooted close to me, too close, and I felt uncomfortable. I moved away from her subtly, and she said nothing, but her expression told me that she wasn’t happy about my move.

Both of us ordered a drink, and I didn’t want to beat around the bush. “Sophie,” I began. “I’ve been thinking about CJ’s abduction. I should have questioned you more about this before, but I have this sneaking suspicion that you’re behind all of it.”

Sophie sat up straighter but didn’t confirm or deny my accusation. “Are you and CJ still together?” she asked. “Or I guess I should ask you if the two of you managed to get back together after she was released.”

“That’s none of your business. Now, please answer my question.”

“Answer mine first. And then I’ll answer yours. I promise to tell you the truth, too.”

I didn’t know how to answer Sophie’s question, because I had no idea myself. CJ and I had a fight, and there was every indication that CJ needed time to think. But I didn’t exactly consider my relationship with CJ to be over. “Yes,” I said. “CJ and I are still together.”

She narrowed her eyes, and I knew, just by her expression, that she didn’t quite believe me. “I don’t think that you’re telling me the truth. At least, I don’t think that you’re telling me the entire truth.”

“Well, what do you think is going to happen when I tell her that I fathered a child with another woman? You had me by the balls, and I have this feeling that you were behind the entire scheme. You knew what would happen if CJ was abducted, and you knew what would happen if you blackmailed me to get her back. At that time, I would have done anything to get CJ back before something tragic happened to her. I was too late as it was.”

She cocked her head. “Was there a question in there, Asher? Because I didn’t hear one.”

“Tell me the truth about the abduction.” I felt foolish for ever believing her in the first place.

“Okay,” she said. “Here is the truth. I might as well tell you now, because there’s nothing that you can do about it. It’s not like you can tell CJ any of this, because I’ll know that you did, and she won’t survive the next abduction. I can almost guarantee you that.”

I bit my lip, trying to not strangle her.
If ever there was a woman who deserved a beat-down, it would be Sophie.
I had a dark fantasy of killing her, right there on the spot. I could taste her blood in my mouth, my fantasy was so realistic at that point.

“Go on.”

“Okay. Yes, Asher, I was behind it. Yuri and Bashkim, who was the man who abducted CJ, were in on the entire thing together. I master-minded it. And, yes, I set up the entire situation where I would extract a promise from you that I knew would destroy your relationship with CJ. Don’t get me wrong, though – I did need for you to vouch for this baby as well. But, yes, my main motivation was to break the two of you up. And it worked like a charm, didn’t it?”

I felt stupid at that point, which was a feeling that I never had before. But knowing that Sophie was able to stay one step ahead of me in this entire scenario was something that was almost embarrassing for me. I couldn’t believe that I bought her bogus story from before. I should have known, right from the start, that her devious mind was behind all of it.

She smiled. “I check-mated you, didn’t I?” Then she shook her head. “You’re rusty, Asher. Being straight for the past eight years has made you soft. You should probably try to fix that. Stop being such a snob and get re-acquainted with the underworld.”

She was delighted that she had played me. I took a deep breath, and tried to keep my cool. “Sophie,” I said in measured tones. “The deal is off. I’m going to tell CJ the truth about the parentage of this child. We might have had a deal before, but that was when I thought that you weren’t behind the whole abduction. Now that I know that you were, my position has changed.”

“Oh, no. You can’t get out of it now. You made a promise, and you have to keep it.” She took another sip of her drink, and her hand was shaking a tiny bit. “Asher, to tell you the truth, part of the reason why I set this whole thing up was because I wanted an insurance policy from you. I wanted to be sure that I would have an alternative father for this child, just in case there was ever any question. Oksana knows about Viktor and I, of course, so if she found out I was pregnant….” She shook her head. “Well, you know who her father is. I don’t think that I’d last very long in this world. So, if you tell CJ, then I’ll come after her again. She won’t survive another abduction, I hope that you know this.”

I sized her up. I knew that she wasn’t bluffing. She would do anything, anything at all, to make sure that CJ was out of the way. I was amazed at how intricately this whole thing was planned, and how I had fallen for it. I was soft, I knew this. And now CJ was in danger because of it. Yes, I still had the trump card in that I would expose Sophie’s lies about the baby if anything ever happened to CJ. At the same time, though, I wondered if Sophie had something else up her sleeve.

And, just like that, the answer came to me. CJ might never forgive me for fathering a child with Sophie. So, I had to find a way to tell her the truth about the baby. And the only way that I could think of would be to make sure that she was protected by my father. Once she came under that umbrella of protection, then I could tell her exactly what happened with Sophie and me.

“Sophie,” I said. “You might have ties to some powerful figures here in the states. But I don’t think that I need to remind you of who my father is. How powerful his syndicate is. It is one of the most powerful in the world. You mess with CJ anymore, and…”

“And what? Your father doesn’t know CJ, and you know as well as I do that he won’t protect her.”

“He will if I marry her.”

Sophie started to laugh about that. “And how, pray tell, is that going to happen? CJ will never trust you because you allegedly fathered a child with me. And your father will never give his blessing for a marriage between you and CJ because CJ isn’t Russian Orthodox. I am, of course. I don’t practice it, and I haven’t for a long time, but I was baptized in that church and I’ve taken communion.”

She sat back and crossed her arms in front of her. “Check-mate.”

“My father told me that he wanted me to marry someone who is Russian Orthodox when I was 18. It’s entirely possible that he has dropped this requirement. It’s not like he and I have been exactly close since I’ve moved here.”

“What, you think that’s something that’s negotiable?”

“With him, yes. He’s not exactly a pillar of the church, and he knows that I’m not, either. It would be an absolute sham requirement for his blessing, and he knows it.”

“Does he know it? You’re making some assumptions that probably aren’t warranted.”

I wasn’t getting anywhere with Sophie. I knew that. She told me the truth, which is what I needed to hear. How it was going to impact my relationship with CJ, I didn’t know. Sophie was right on one thing, though. If I admitted to CJ that I didn’t really sleep with Sophie at all, she probably wouldn’t believe me. And, if I told her exactly why I lied to her about that, then I would be breaching my agreement with Sophie, which could put her in further danger.

“Well, I think that we’re done here,” I said. I was anxious to get the ball rolling. Somehow convince CJ to marry me, even though there was a “baby” on the way with Sophie. It seemed an impossible task, but I had to at least try.

Sophie cocked her beautiful head and regarded me from behind her martini glass. “We’ll never be done, Asher. In the end, you’re going to end up with me.”

“Sophie, you’re insane. I don’t know how many different ways I can tell you that I’m not interested in you. And I never will be. Get that through your head. Now, whether or not CJ and I can get past this mess is something that remains to be seen. I’m not going to give up on her, though, that much I can tell you. But if something happens to her and me, and we don’t stay together, then it doesn’t mean that you and I will be together. Because that will never, ever happen.”

“Don’t be so sure,” she said. “Asher, I get you. I know you. I know everything about you. What you’ve done, where you’ve been. I accept that part of you. She never will. She can’t, because she wasn’t there. It’s all something esoteric to her and abstract. She doesn’t know how many people you’ve killed.”

I looked around the restaurant, and then started speaking Russian to her. I hoped that there was nobody around who would understand the language, and I doubted that there was. Indeed, the bar was quiet, as it was pre-rush.

“I only killed men in self-defense,” I said to her in Russian. “You know that.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” she said in English. “You keep telling yourself that. Because that’s bullshit and you know that’s bullshit.”

My heart was racing. I hated to think about that part of my life. The year that I was a soldier, which meant that I needed to defend my father’s business. If men were caught spying on the organization, then it was automatically a death sentence for them. It was a part of my job description, the same as a soldier in a war. That’s really the only reason why I would have done such things.

Still speaking Russian, I said “you know the reasons why I killed those men. It was either them or me, too, because if I would have allowed them to live, then I would have been killed myself. You know this.”

“I don’t know this, Asher,” she said, still speaking English. “All that I know is that it’s something that’s in your past and is a part of you. It’s why you went to prison, which, I’m sure, she doesn’t know. She obviously has no idea what that rose means on your chest.”

No, she didn’t know that a rose meant that I came of age in prison. I knew this, although I was surprised that she didn’t try to research it. It would have been easy enough to find this out.

“What are you trying to say to me?” I asked her in English.

“It’s just that I’m sure that you sugar-coated what you did for your father’s organization. Let me guess…you told her that you just stole money from large banks. Am I correct about this? You made yourself out to be some kind of Robin Hood who never got down in the muck with the men you surrounded yourself with, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

“That’s none of your business what I told her.”

“I thought so.” Then she smiled. “So, Asher, she doesn’t know the real dirty things about your past. She has no idea that you murdered people, and she has no clue that you spent time in prison. I’ll bet that she doesn’t even know the real reason why you were allowed to come to America. Does she?”

Things were getting too close. I felt a sense of suffocation, and I remembered, anew, why I never let a woman get close to me. I always had a feeling that, once my past came to life, I would lose the woman anyhow, so why bother?

CJ changed all of that, and I had no idea exactly why. All that I knew was that I finally allowed myself to take a chance on love. As complicated as my past was, I felt that it was time to integrate her into my present.

But Sophie was exactly right. I
didn’t
tell CJ the pertinent details of my past. I
did
sugar-coat my involvement with the mafia, exactly as Sophie was accusing me of doing. I couldn’t avoid that fact, as much as I really wanted to.

Would CJ accept me if she found out? Could I protect her? Would my father agree to protect her?

I suddenly realized that the fact that CJ thought that I was having a baby with another woman was the least of my worries.

Then Sophie brought out the obvious trump card. “And Asher, you have to remember one thing. Your father loves me. He would approve of the two of us together. He will never, and I mean never, approve of CJ. He doesn’t know her, she’s American, and he won’t trust her. I think that you know this. And I think that you know that, in the end, you and I will be together, because your father will never approve of anybody else. That means that CJ, or any other woman that you want to be with, will never enjoy the protection that you have.”