Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas (A Sophie Katz Novel) (16 page)

“Bo-Bo? You mean Bo? He was in there?” Anatoly asked, concerned.
“Did you notice if he was hurt in the crash?”

“You know him?” I asked and then shook my head in disgust. “Of
course you do. You’re all hooked up in the mafia world, aren’t you?”

“I used to be a part of that world, Sophie. I was honest with
you about that.”

“Oh right, you were very honest after you were caught lying.
Your friend Bo-Bo is fine!”

“Yes,” Marcus muttered, “he is that.”

I glared out the tinted window. “I wonder if Natasha has any
injuries.”

“If we’re lucky,” Anatoly said quietly.

I gave him a sideways glance. The corner of his mouth was
twitching. I broke out into a full smile and grabbed his hand. “I love you,
Anatoly.”

“I love you too, Sophie.”

Marcus groaned. “I swear you two make Catherine and Heathcliff
look like a well adjusted couple.”

I sighed and turned back to the window. The desert
was beautiful but it frightened me.
It had to be every bit as foreboding as an English moor.
“I’ve memorized whole passages from Wuthering Heights,” I admitted aloud.

“Have you?” Anatoly asked, his eyes still firmly on the road.

In an affected voice I took on the personage of Catherine.
“Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any
more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”

My Heathcliff smiled and squeezed my hand as he drove us into
the depths of the desert.

“I learned how to fight but no one ever taught me how to
walk away.”

--Death Of The Party

It took me a few minutes before I
was truly thinking clearly again. My first worry was for my sister and friends
but Anatoly assured me they were safe.
 
Natasha had no interest in messing with any of them and she probably
would have preferred not to bother Marcus but since he was there when she
nabbed me she had to take him along. Still, Marcus called Dena and suggested
that she, Leah and Mary Ann stay in public places and be on the alert. He also
told Dena she might want to keep one of her whips and a pair of her fur-lined
handcuffs handy just in case.

“Where are we going?” I asked as
we drove further away from the Vegas I knew.

“Somewhere we can talk.”

I accepted that for no other
reason than that I didn’t have the energy to interrogate him.
 
Apparently Marcus was exhausted too
because he remained silent in the backseat.
 

“I called the Civic Center
library,” Anatoly said casually.

I laughed. “Oh yeah? What did
they tell you?”

“That I would have to wait until
Tuesday to get my books.
 
That’s
when the person who deals with donations will be back at work.”

“Well then, I guess you’ll have
to get all this wrapped up by Tuesday, huh?”

He smiled wistfully. “If only.”

We were approaching mountains now
but they weren’t the green mountains I knew from Northern California. These
were bare and jagged. As we drew nearer I could see the red soil and rock that
covered the peeks and ridges of the land ahead of me. It was as if the very
earth was angry and wanted to broadcast its power to the entire world…or maybe
just to me.

 
I didn’t know how to survive out here. I didn’t know the
rules. Eventually we came to a giant rock on the side of the road. On it were
the words “Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Center” painted in bold, black
letters and a little after that we reached a parking lot outside a closed
visitor center. There were a few cars in the parking lot but no people to be
seen.

Anatoly turned back to Marcus. “I
need some time to talk to Sophie alone. Do you mind if we take off for ten
minutes or so?”

“I’ll stay here,” Marcus said,
with relief. “Not moving sounds very, very good.”

Anatoly nodded and got out of the
car. He was actually gentlemanly enough to come around to my side and open my
door for me.

Without protest I let him lead me
toward the hiking trails.

For a few minutes we didn’t say
anything. We knew that as soon as the words came so would the accusations. So
we kept our mouths shut and just walked, red dust rising up with each step and
settling on our shoes. We were just…feeling each other’s presence. How many
times had we walked like this and not even thought about it? Sure we argued,
occasionally we even broke up but when it came time to walk down one of life’s
dusty little paths we always found a way to do it together. It was just
natural.

But now for the first time I was
acutely aware that my hold on Anatoly was tenuous. Not because he didn’t love
me, but because the forces that were keeping us apart were just
so big
!

A lizard darted out from under a
rock, took one look at us and darted back under again.
 

Anatoly sighed. He was going to
break the silence. “So now do you see why I need you to leave Vegas?”

“Do you see why I can’t?”

The sun was getting a little
lower in the sky, making the rusty red surroundings look almost luminous.

Anatoly stopped and took my hands
in his. God, I loved his hands and I couldn’t help softening a little as he
caressed my skin with the subtle back and forth movement of his thumb.
 
“I was married before and I lied to you
about it.”

Oddly enough, it didn’t feel
wrong for him to use this moment to state the obvious. It sounded like the
confession that I needed. Simple, straight forward…even the pain the words
caused felt…right.

“I was married before,” he said
again. “But I’ve never been in love before. Sophie…you have to leave Vegas. For
me.”

 
“You are so selfish,” I whispered.

He furrowed his brow. “I’m
sorry?”

“You act like your feelings are
the only ones that matter here. You want me to leave Vegas because you don’t
like thinking about me being in danger
.
Well have you ever considered that I don’t
like the danger
you’re
in?”

“Sophie-”

“Forget it,” I said, cutting him
off before he could even start his rebuttal.
 
“I can’t leave Vegas until I know you’re safe. That stresses
you out? Tough. Pop a Valium and learn to deal.”

Anatoly’s mouth was twitching
again. He was really trying to scowl at me but it just wasn’t working for him.

“Do you think Innokenty’s brother
is behind all this?” I asked.

“You know about Innokenty.” By
the tone of his voice I could tell he didn’t want me to know about hm. Clearly
he didn’t want to answer the question either.

His eyes moved to the horizon.
“I’ve heard Natasha’s theory, but Alexander Kinsky’s motives seem weak to me.”

“Weak? They killed his brother!
If someone killed Leah I’d go vigilante too!”

 
“So he gets revenge, but if the theory’s right then the
revenge he’s after will probably end up getting him killed along with everyone
else.”

“So you
don’t
think he’s involved.”

“Until I can figure out why he
would be, I can’t point any fingers,” he said. His jaw tighten a bit before he
added, “Natasha tells me that you and Alexander Kinsky have become close.”

“Not that close,” I said harshly,
“it’s not like he’s my husband or anything.”

I knew that was a cruel twist of
the knife but for him to listen to
Natasha
about what other men I was or wasn’t
getting close to…it just made me want to scream.

“I can’t accuse him of much at
this point, but he’s not a good guy. Look at who his employer is.”

“Yeah, he works for your old
boss. You know, you don’t have to use his full name when you refer to him. You
can just call him Kettle and I’ll call you Pot. How ‘bout that?”

Anatoly’s jaw was so tight at
this point I was a little worried that it might lock in place. But after a deep
breath he managed to relax it enough to talk.
 
“Even if this guy isn’t the cause of all this, he’s still
involved and now I am too. That’s why you need to get on a plane and as far
away from both of us as possible…until I say it’s safe.”

“And that will be when? After
you’ve taken down the entire Russian mafia?”

 
“Natasha doesn’t think the mob set up that trap at Hotel
Noir. Which means Tanya was either working on her own or she was working for
someone else and
that’s
weird. If you work for a crime family it’s really not a good idea to
freelance, and to what end? It’s got to be about more than revenge.”

“Oh, wait! I just thought of
another possibility!”

The sun was in my eyes and I had
to squint to look up into Anatoly’s face. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Maybe Natasha’s full of shit!”

Anatoly chuckled. “Let’s keep
walking.”

“I’m not kidding!” I insisted as
we continued down the path.
 
“Maybe
Natasha is behind all of this! She could have lured you out here and set up a
situation that made her look like your savior.”

“She has no motive.”

“She has a huge motive! She wants
you back!”

“You think she set up a situation
in which two people would be killed just so she could play the hero?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, would that be
beneath the mafia princess’ code of ethics?”

“One of those people was her
cousin!”

“Please, did you ever watch
The Sopranos
?
Cousins kill each other.”

“Natasha isn’t behind this.”

 
I looked around at the landscape and studied the large
boulders that decorated it. Each one was way too big for me to throw at
Anatoly’s head. “You’re defending her.”

“No, I’m…” his voice trailed off
as he tried to find an alternative explanation. Unfortunately there wasn’t one.
“I don’t think she’s behind this, that’s all.”

“She was going to kill me,
Anatoly.”

“It wouldn’t have gone that far.”

“You
are
defending her!”

“As moronic as this sounds, she
believes you’re working with Alexander to get me killed.”

“You still care about her!”

“I risked her safety in order to
get you away from her. If she has whiplash it’s because she deserves it. And if
she had actually hurt you? I would have killed her.”

“Oh!” Immediately I felt better
about things. “That’s sweet, thank you.”

“But she wouldn’t have.”

And then I felt worse about
things.
 
“Oh, what-the-hell-ever.
Just tell me what information you have on the mafia.”

“Some corners were cut and if the
wrong people find out it will be a big problem for the mafia.”

 
Could the man
be
more vague? “A life or death kind of
problem?”

“No, just death,” Anatoly said,
his voice becoming so quiet I had to strain to hear him.
 
“Kidnapping, torture, decapitation…even
the family members, the kids and the wives…everyone will be in danger.”

“Oh.”

“That’s why it doesn’t make sense
that Alexander would be behind this. Why would he want to risk getting caught
up in that? But you should still stay the hell away from him,” he quickly
added. The sun was even lower now. I had never seen the sunset over the desert
and I wondered if it would be as red as the dirt we were walking on.

 
“I have to go,” he said.

“No. You’re not leaving me
again.”

“Natasha didn’t have her family’s
permission to do what she did today. I can use that to make sure she doesn’t
come near you again. If you go back to San Francisco it’ll look like the
break-up is permanent. You’ll be safe.”

“Anatoly--”

“I have to figure this out.
Natasha can help me but she won’t if you’re by my side.” He ran his hands over
my hair. “You can’t tell anyone you saw me.”

“Obviously.”

“Please leave Vegas, Sophie.”

“No.”

Again he sighed and this time he
gently pulled me to him, kissing my lips so gently that at first it felt like
the tickle of a feather. But then it became deeper, more passionate…I felt
myself melting against him and automatically my hands went up into his hair as
I tried to pull him even closer to me, to make my Heathcliff part of “my own
being.”

But of course there was no way of
doing that…not in a physical way, and as his hands moved up and down my back I
felt him gently pull away.

“Have you forgiven me?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

He traced my jaw line with his
finger and then lifted my chin so I was looking up into his dark brown eyes
again. “You don’t have to,” he said hoarsely. “But I want to fix this.”

I could hear the concern in his
voice and I wanted to tell him it was all going to be okay but that would be
like one agnostic trying to convince another that there really was a heaven. I
wanted
to believe
in our future…more than anything. But I wasn’t sure anymore. Our lives were in
danger and he was about to walk away from me and into the waiting arms of his
ex-wife who had just tried to kill me…no, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t his ex
anything. And if all that wasn’t enough to drive a wedge between us, he was
also keeping secrets from me.

“Anatoly, what’s the real reason
you learned to speak Spanish?”

He hesitated, but only briefly.
“I’m good with languages. When I got to this country I could see that Spanish
would be useful.”

“That’s all?” I didn’t even try
to disguise the disbelief in my voice.

He smiled, almost apologetically.
If there was more to it he wasn’t going to tell me. “I’m going to have Marcus
call a car to come pick you up. I’ll stay until it arrives.
 
Believe it or not we’re only about
thirty minutes away from the center of the city.”

“And then you’re leaving again.”

“I have to, Sophie.”

“In that case have Marcus text me
when the car arrives. I’m going to sit here by myself for a while.”