Misha nods, reaching for a cup of water next to his plate. “Yeah, I should be fine.” He gulps down the water, and I study him, noticing again the leaner, harder lines of his face. With every day that passes, my baby brother grows up a little more, maturing right in front of my eyes. Soon, he won’t be a boy at all, just like he’s no longer the toddler of my memories.
My throat grows tight as I think again about him leaving. “I’m going to miss you,” I say, trying not to sound as choked up as I feel. “A lot.”
Misha puts down his cup. “I’ll miss you too, Yulia.” His expression is even more somber than before. “You’ll come to visit, though, won’t you?”
“Of course.” Unable to sit still, I get up, swallowing the tears stinging the back of my throat. “We’ll be just a three-hour flight away. Practically next door.” At least when we’re not traveling all over Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, as Lucas warned me we will have to. Pushing that knowledge aside, I say with forced brightness, “And you’ll come visit us. During summers, school holidays, and such.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be great.” Finishing his plate, Misha gets up too. “I’ll be the envy of all my friends, vacationing in Cyprus like that.”
“That’s right.” I smile, though all I want to do is cry. “You’ll be the most popular boy in school.”
“Oh, I was anyway,” he says with a total lack of modesty. “So it’s all good.”
I laugh and walk around the table to hug him. He lets me, and even hugs me back, his sinewy arms sturdy and strong. When I pull away and look at him, I realize my baby brother has grown another couple of inches in the last month and get all choked up again.
“Oh, come on,” Misha mutters as the tears I’ve been holding back spill out. Pulling me into another hug, he pats my back awkwardly. “Don’t cry. Come on, it’s going to be fine. We’ll see each other often, and we’ll email and Skype…”
“I know.” I pull away and smile at Misha, wiping the wetness on my cheeks with the back of my hand. “It’s just that I keep remembering how little you were, and now you’re growing up so fast, changing into this young man…” I sniffle. “I’m sorry. I’m just being silly.”
“Well, you are a girl,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “You’re allowed, I guess.”
I burst out laughing at that chauvinistic statement, and for the rest of the meal, we don’t discuss the separation again.
* * *
On the afternoon before our departure, I throw a big party in Lucas’s back yard, inviting all of my cafe’s customers and anyone else who wants to come. Using the remaining food supplies, I make a variety of hors d’oeuvres and, with Lucas, Eduardo, and Diego’s help, set up a couple of barbecue stations where I grill steaks, burgers, and lamb chops. Manning the grills is hot, sweaty work, but I feel elated as guard after guard comes up to me to say goodbye and express his gratitude for the gourmet meals.
“We’re going to miss you here,” one of the guards says gruffly. “Seriously, your cafe was the best food I’ve eaten.”
“Thank you.” I beam at him, then turn to smile at another guard who says something similar to me in Spanish. Most of these men are ex-soldiers of some kind, tough, scarred killers armed to the teeth, and to have them thank me like this touches me tremendously.
Of course, most guards here today are new recruits or those who didn’t have friends among the victims of the crash, but I don’t let that bother me. I know I’ll never be fully accepted at Esguerra’s estate—that’s why we’re leaving, after all—and to have so many people express regret at my departure is a gift beyond anything I could’ve expected.
“You’re one lucky son of a bitch,” a red-haired guard says to Lucas as I put a piece of medium-rare steak on his plate. “Seriously, man. Your girl’s the best.”
“I know,” Lucas says and wraps a possessive arm around my waist. “Now move along, O’Malley. You’re holding up the line.”
After all the barbecue is eaten and the last of the hors d’oeuvres disappear off the plates, the party starts to wind down. Lucas leaves to get on yet another call with new suppliers, and Diego, Eduardo, and Misha carry the empty platters inside and collect all the trash. Exhausted, I go in to wash my hands, and when I come out, I see that all the guards are gone. Only one person is standing in the middle of Lucas’s yard, her curvy figure clad in her usual black dress.
Stunned, I stare at the maid who helped me escape. “Rosa? What are you doing here?”
She casts a nervous glance at the house, where Misha and the two guards are still cleaning up, then says hesitantly, “Do you have a moment? I was hoping to talk to you alone.”
I automatically scan her for weapons. Finding nothing suspicious, I say, “Okay, sure. Want to take a little walk?”
She nods and disappears into the trees. I follow, both curious and uneasy. I’m fairly certain she won’t physically attack me, but I don’t know what she’s after and that makes me nervous. At the same time, I recall what Lucas told me about the events in Chicago, and sympathy tempers my wariness.
I may not know Rosa’s motivations, but I certainly understand what she’s been through.
When I catch up to Rosa, she stops and turns to face me. “Yulia, I…” She takes a breath. “I wanted to thank you for what you told Lucas. Nora said she spoke to you, but I wasn’t sure if you’d do it or not.”
“Well, Nora didn’t leave me much choice,” I say drily, recalling the petite girl’s graphic threat. “But you’re welcome. I assume you and Nora are both okay?”
Rosa nods, flushing. “Yes. I was under house arrest for a while, and I don’t have access to those keys anymore, but Señor Esguerra reinstated my position in the main house a few weeks ago.”
I smile, genuinely happy on her behalf. “Good, I’m glad. And I guess I should thank you for helping me that time. It was very nice of you—”
To my surprise, Rosa shakes her head. “It wasn’t nice,” she mutters. “It was stupid. I was stupid.”
The smile dies on my lips. “What do you mean?”
Rosa’s face is now dark red. “I had a crush on Lucas, and I thought that if you were gone…” Her hands twist in her skirt. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was just that I wanted to believe that he was different. But then he was keeping you like that and—” She stops, pressing her lips together.
“And it was ruining the image you had of him,” I say, finally beginning to understand. “You thought that if you let me go, you’d be doing something good while increasing your chances with the man you want.” Seeing the stricken look on her face, I stop, then say gently, “Except he’s not really the man you want, is he?”
“No.” Her brown eyes darken. “He’s not. He never was. I made up the man I wanted, and I pinned him on the nearest handsome face.”
“Oh, Rosa…” Giving in to a sudden impulse, I step forward and give her hand a comforting squeeze. “Listen to me,” I say softly. “You’re going to find the right person for you, and he might not be whom you imagined, but you’ll want him anyway, flaws and all. It won’t be perfect, but it will be real, and you’ll know it—you’ll feel it. You’ll both feel it.”
She swallows thickly and pulls her hand away. “Is that what it’s like for you and Lucas?”
“Yes,” I say, and the truth of that sears through me. “It’s not tender and pretty like I thought it would be. Some might even say it’s ugly. But it’s us. It’s our reality, our version of perfect. And you will also have that one day—your own version of perfect. It might not be what you expect, or with whom you expect, but it will make you happy.”
The girl’s lips tremble for a second; then her face goes blank and she steps back. “You should go,” she says, her hands once again playing with the skirt of her dress. “They’ll be looking for you if you don’t return soon.”
“Right.”
I’m about to turn and go back when Rosa says quietly, “Goodbye, Yulia. I wish you and Lucas all the best. I really do.”
“Thank you—and the same to you,” I say, but Rosa is already walking away, her black-clad figure melting into the greenery of the rainforest and disappearing out of sight.
47
Lucas
I expected Yulia and her brother to sleep on our flight to Ukraine, but they spend the entire time talking. Whenever I stick my head out of the pilot’s cabin to check on them, they’re deep in conversation, and I go back, not wanting to intrude on their sibling time.
I’ll have Yulia to myself soon enough.
When we approach Ukrainian airspace, I make contact with our men on the ground. Last week, they finally tracked down the last three known UUR associates and eliminated them as per my orders. To my disappointment, none of them were harboring Kirill, which means Yulia’s former trainer is either completely off the grid or, as Yulia thought, the fucker ended up expiring from his injuries and we just haven’t found his body. The latter possibility brings me little joy—I wanted to kill the bastard with my own hands—but it’s better than the alternative. The men also tracked down the headmistress of Yulia’s orphanage. The woman was already in jail for child abuse and trafficking, so I had to settle for sending in an assassin who cornered her in a bathroom and demonstrated just how much her victims suffered. The video of her death—all three hours of it—was the highlight of my Wednesday last week. Someday, I might show it to Yulia, but for now, I’ve decided not to, to avoid bringing back bad memories for her.