Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4)(52)

“For your parents,” Angela said with a catch in her voice that got Sacha right in the heart.

Sacha’s mom and dad were professional ballroom dancers who’d traveled around Russia and the Ukraine by request, doing shows and competitions. Her favorite dance of theirs had been the jive. The way they’d anticipated each other’s moves, complimenting and highlighting each other’s strengths had been so beautiful to Sacha. God, she missed them.

She’d grown up in a small village in Northwest Russia, surrounded by the greenest of forests and the bluest of streams. She’d loved it and had assumed she’d happily live out her life there. Until her parents’ death turned her sheltered world into a place of loneliness and isolation.

A knock had sounded on their door one evening as she’d set the table for dinner. She’d been wondering why they were so late, worrying because they had an early start the next day for a show in Saint Petersburg. Two large shapes had been visible through the glass panel, and with her stomach churning and dread seeping in, she’d opened with the chain attached. She’d quickly shut and reopened it all the way when she’d seen her visitors were policemen. She’d attended elementary school with the one but couldn’t remember his name, and didn’t care enough to look at the tag on his chest. Sacha Urusski? the other had questioned as she’d started to shake. She’d nodded, and had barely been able to remain upright as he explained about the head-on crash that had just taken her parents’ lives.

She’d thought she and her mother would have to suffer the agony of burying her father after he succumbed to the effects of the pancreatic cancer he’d been diagnosed with a month before. But no. A stretch of road they’d commonly traveled, and a logging truck was what took them both from her.

With no siblings anywhere in her small family tree, and her grandparents already long gone by then, Sacha was left alone.

She’d wallowed and wished things were different for almost a year before escaping to New York. The only person she’d thought might care that she was leaving had been the older man who’d lived down the road from them. He’d known Sacha her entire life and had always been nice to her, though that had changed when he found out she’d sold the house and their ten acres of land to a young newlywed couple without first asking if he was interested in purchasing it. He hadn’t spoken to her again, not even returning her wave when her taxi had driven past his driveway on the way to the airport the day she’d left.

Her throat thickened. She’d forgotten how she’d felt during that year. How difficult it had been when she realized no one would know or care if she disappeared and was never seen or heard from again.

She was leaving her daughter to the same fate.

She tried to push the thought away as she always did, but it wouldn’t budge this time.

If a sudden illness struck, or a speeding taxi, history would repeat itself, and Lekzi would be alone in the world. Sacha would love to think Angela and Steve would take her in, but who knew?

The tragic part? Her daughter had a family. A large, loving and protective one that included a father who would adore her, who would shelter her from anything and everything life would throw at her. Alekzander would love his child in that way every little girl deserved to be loved by her father. The way Sacha had been loved by her father. A man she’d worshiped.

I’m robbing my daughter of what I thrived on.

When she slowly turned and found Angela right behind her, her expression expectant and sympathetic, Sacha whispered something she’d known for a long time but could no longer deny.

“I think I have made a terrible mistake.”





THIRTEEN




“Everything is ready. Care for a rundown?”

Alek took a break from scanning the large ballroom decorated in simple but classic black and white with splashes of red. Sedate. Fitting. Not that he gave a shit about linens or paid any attention to the tasteful flower arrangements gracing the tables. He was searching for a beauty with sable hair and a body that would stop traffic.

Instead, he got Markus Fane. Which was second best, because the uber-efficient guy was making things happen, as usual.

As suave and tall-dark-and-handsome as any old-school movie star, Markus flashed his pearly whites. “You, Maksim, and Sydney are now at table forty-four. I can’t believe you chose him as your wingman. I’d have gone with Gabriel. At least he and Eva blend.”

“Don’t let Sydney hear you say that.”

“As if she doesn’t know,” Markus said good-naturedly. “Look at them. I swear, by the way Maks is covering her, people are going to think she’s a celebrity and start asking for her autograph.”