Page 23 of Ruthless Rustanovs

Eva hung up shaking her head. Alexei was a real teddy bear but most people couldn’t tell that just by looking at him.

So, simple requests from him tended to come off way more intimidating than they should have.

She’d learned to accept that they were always going to get better service than most couples because he had a way of asking for things that made other folks feel like he might harm them if his demands weren’t met.

As if to confirm her assessment of Alexei’s influence, a knock sounded. She glanced at the clock. The fix-it guy had arrived at twelve noon on the dot.

But when Eva opened the door, instead of a plumber and Alexei’s landlord, two men in business suits stood there, one a tall, beefy, middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, the other a younger, skinny guy in glasses.

“Hi,” she said carefully, wondering why two men in suits would be at the door. “Can I help you?”

“Eva St. James?” the younger man asked. He had a slight accent she couldn’t place but otherwise spoke in a business-like manner.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said. Then asked again, “Can I help you?”

“I am Michael,” he said, “And this is Sergei Rustanov. Alexei Rustanov’s uncle.”

Her eyes widened. Like any good Texas girl her first thought was she wished she’d known company was coming by and she would have cleaned up a little. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Alexei isn’t here, and, oh...this place is a mess!”

The uncle, who had a craggy face that looked like it was sculpted from cement, moved past her and into the apartment.

His size made it easy for him to barge in and Eva instinctively jumped out of the way to let him pass.

Now she knew where Lexie got it from. She was forever chastising him about charging down the campus sidewalks like he owned them, forcing other people to move aside rather than sharing the sidewalk like a civilized human being.

“Really, sir. This apartment is in no state for guests,” she said to Sergei’s back.

“He does not speak English,” Michael said behind her. “That is why I am here. To translate. May I come in?”

Eva frowned. “So, you’re here to talk to me, not Alexei?”

“Yes.”

“Um, okay then, come on in. There’s no place to sit. We don’t have a couch or anything—”

Sergei took one look at the table covered in her neatly folded clothes and swept it clean with one swoop of his large arm. He then took a seat as if he hadn’t just knocked all her clean clothes to the floor.

“Mr. Rustanov would like for us to talk at the table,” Michael said indicating with a sweeping gesture of his hand that she, too, should sit.

Suddenly feeling like a guest in her own home, Eva took a seat in the chair across from Sergei. “We only have two chairs,” she said to Michael.

“That is quite all right,” he said. “I will stand.”

Without any further ado, Sergei held her gaze and said something in a stream of Russian.

“He wants to know what Alexei has told you about his family,” Michael said.

“Not much,” Eva answered, her unease growing by the minute. “Just that his parents died and his father left him enough money to study over here.”

Michael translated and Sergei looked away, obviously irritated. He then said something else in Russian.

“Anything else?”

She shook her head. “Um, not much. Sometimes I hear him arguing with his uncle—” She stopped and addressed Sergei directly as she’d been taught to do in her “Talking to the Deaf” master class.

“I hear him talking to you on the phone in Russian. I’m just going to assume you’re the uncle he talks to.

You seem like the kind of guy who’d be totally down for a weekly Transatlantic argument.

By the way, did you have to dump my clothes on the floor? They were freshly washed.”

Once again, Michael translated. She could tell when he got to the part about the clothes and the weekly arguments because the uncle’s eyes narrowed to slits.

He said something to Michael who turned to her and said, “From now on I will speak in the first person as if I am Mr. Rustanov himself. He has much to say and would prefer that you not interrupt.”

“I’ll try,” Eva said. “But us Texas girls aren’t known for keeping quiet.”

This time Michael didn’t translate. Instead, he said in an aside to Eva, “I know you think you are being funny but I am strongly advising you to do as he says.”

Something in his tone alerted Eva that this wasn’t just a strange situation, but it could possibly be a dangerous one. Her mind scrambled trying to figure out if she should stay and listen or run for her life. But in the end, her curiosity won out. “Okay, I can be quiet,” she said.

Michael translated and Sergei nodded before folding his large hands on the table in front of him and speaking in large chunks, stopping every five sentences or so to let Michael translate.

“You may be a nice girl. I don’t know. I don’t care.

Russia is not like America. We are not so enthusiastic about races mixing.

If Alexei were to bring you home, it will not be good for the Rustanov family.

People would ask us, ‘what is this?’ I do not want Alexei with an American girl, especially a black one. ”

Growing up in a mostly white Texas town, Eva had encountered her fair share of racism, but never anything quite this straightforward and blatant.

She opened her mouth but Michael shook his head behind Sergei and tapped a warning finger against his lips twice.

Her protest died as her instincts told her to keep her mouth shut, even if Sergei was saying he didn’t want Alexei and her to be together because of her nationality and the color of her skin.

There was something about this man. He seemed to be everything others assumed Lexie was, casually dangerous to the point where she had no problem imagining him pulling out a gun and shooting her for being disrespectful.

“Alexei did you a disservice,” Michael continued, picking up as if they hadn’t had the silent exchange behind Sergei’s back.

“He should have told you about me, about his family. The reason we argue every week is because Alexei is the head of our family now that his father has died. But instead of doing his duty back in Russia, he wastes his time with unnecessary schooling. Another reason we have been arguing is he says he wants to stay on in America after he graduates. He says he wants to work for a regular business as an executive. He says instead of serving his family as he was raised to do, he wishes to live a normal life. I will not let this happen.”

Despite how weirded out Eva was by this entire situation, her heart soared. She had worried about how they were going to make it work after Alexei graduated next year and she was delighted to hear he had already started making plans.

She had half a mind to disobey Sergei’s edict to stay quiet and tell him Alexei was a grown man and he got to decide what path to choose for himself. But that right about when Michael brought out a laptop and flipped it open. “He wants me to show you this.”

The screen lit up to a full-screen photo of a man in a dripping wet suit, his skin bloated, his eyes glassy with death.

His throat was slit and, from the looks of his chest, someone had put a bullet or two into him as well.

Seeing one picture of a dead body was horrifying enough, but then Michael pushed a button and a whole slideshow of dead bodies started.

There were images of men ranging from eighteen to sixty, all dead.

And they’d been violently killed with slit throats, chest wounds, and in some cases, blown out kneecaps.

The slideshow went on for several minutes with at least fifty pictures flashing across the screen in horrific succession until it finally, mercifully ended on a picture of a young, blond businessman, his eyes still wide with horror, his neck slit from end to end, and his chest neatly punctured by two bullet wounds.

Sergei began speaking again with Michael translating.

“Because you are keeping Alexei from fulfilling his duties, the Rustanovs now consider you an enemy. Those photos are examples of what we do to our enemies. It is what we’re known for.

But our revenge isn’t always loud and dramatic.

Sometimes our enemies die quietly, in car accidents, or they have an unfortunate fall from a window, or maybe drink a cup of tea only to find out it has been poisoned. ”

Eva froze in abject fear. She frequently drank a cup of tea in the mornings. Sergei said something else in Russian. Michael nodded and gazed solemnly at her. “Now he says you can speak.”

She shook her head. “This isn’t Alexei. I might not have known where he came from, but he would never do something like this.”

Michael translated and to her surprise, Sergei chuckled. He pointed to the picture of the blond businessman and said something in Russian, his eyes twinkling like a proud papa.

Michael translated, “Perhaps you do not know your Alexei as well as you think. That photo is of Alexei’s handiwork. He hunted this man down and killed him when he was only eighteen.”

“Eva,” Alexei said.

“No,” she said, shaking her head, not wanting to believe but seeing the truth in the uncle’s eyes.

“Here is what you will do,” Michael said, translating for Sergei. “You will leave Alexei. You will do it tonight before he gets home. You will leave him a note. Make it convincing or there will be severe repercussions.”

“Eva,” Alexei said again.

“No,” Eva said, “I can’t. I can’t.”

Michael leaned forward. “I am speaking as myself now. Everything Sergei has told you is true. If you lived in Russia, you’d know about the Rustanov Family.

You do not want to cross this man. Even if you tell Alexei, he won’t be able to protect you from his uncle.

Sergei is too powerful and he wants his nephew back.

Don’t be a fool. Alexei may be fantasizing about leading a normal life with you, but he killed a man when he was just eighteen. He obviously belongs with his family.”

Eva’s eyes went back to the picture of the dead man.

“Eva!” Hands grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

She woke, for real this time, only to find Alexei Rustanov standing above her.