Page 16 of The Fixer
“Why would you be jealous? Truly, it sucks, dragging Sascha into this drama. I feel so guilty all the time,” grumbling the confession, I pulled my knees to my chest to close my eyes.
Malda made a noise of acknowledgment as she hunted through my dad’s bookshelf.
I shook my head. “Is Lyov like that all the time? I know I was a little harsh on purpose, but…”
“Yeah. I jumped at the chance to follow your boyfriend around just to get away from him. Usually, I’m Lyov’s bodyguard. I think I’m much more suited to recon, though.” Interest sparked in my brain.
Malda gave a faint‘hah’ before whipping around. The quarter—empty bottle of whiskey in her hand sloshed faintly, the amber liquid mesmerizing. Practically sashaying over to me. “So, why’d Lyov tell you that you were gonna die? Or was he just being an annoying idiot?”
Damn, she seemed so nice, personable and relatable, I got the nagging feeling we could be friends if I ever made the mistake of trusting her. “Apparently, there was a whole plan to kill off all the Makovich’s. It read like the plot to a bad thriller, to be honest. I printed it out.” Pointing at the desk, I took the bottle she offered, but sourness coated my tongue. Whiskey…I really didn’t like the stuff. Malda just offered, and I accepted because… I didn’t know why, really. Laying down on my side, I set the bottle on the floor. “It looks like my mom and brother were in charge of all the planning. Which explains why their whole plan is laid out in bullet points.”
She shot me a perfectly manicured, arched brow. “I-I— are you serious? She put it in writing?” Malda crossed the short distance to snatch up all the papers I’d printed, a hard, disbelieving laugh filling the room. Leafing through, her bemused expression grew more exaggerated.
Embarrassment that I was related to such stupid people rushed through my veins. My parents weren’t the brightest, but… come on.
“Wow! You’re right. Thisdoesread like a bad thriller. She even inserted the screams in italics… there’s apie chart—“
“They were going to do it in stages apparently, because they couldn’t get enough people without being noticed to kill all the Makovich’s all at once. That’s mostly all I found, though. The rest was just stupid emails to my dad’s mistresses.”Thatwasn’t so surprising to me, as it was well known my dad was unfaithful. My skin crawled in disgust, and I wrapped my arms around myself. “It’s more embarrassing than anything. If they was going to kill the Makovich’s, it should’ve happened when they were mostly in Saint Petersburg a few weeks ago. There’snomention of that guy in America, either... I forget his name—“
“Nik. Yeah.” Malda sat on the edge of the desk. “You should be embarrassed. You know, I’m not supposed to tell you this, Ophelia, but…” Lifting her eyes from the large sheath in her arms, Malda frowned. The twinkle in her eye died a little.
Curiosity rampaged through me as I mimicked her.
“The other families aren’t as welloff as you right now. I think Aleksander has a soft spot for you, considering he left you here in Moscow and took everyone else to Saint Petersburg. If you want, I can whisper in the old man’s ear about Aleksander’s ultimatum.”
“… I appreciate that, Malda, but if I let you do that, I’d have to admit I’m worried about it.” My throat tightened as the gates opened to that one thing I didn’t want to think about.
She smiled sadly, sympathetic.
I pursed my lips thinly before parting them to speak, “Aleksander’s ultimatum relies on me not being useful. At the time, I was too upset, but this has always been my life. I’ve never run away from it when that would’ve been easy. So, it’d be dumb to run away now since it’s almost impossible to do so successfully.”
“At the timewas two days ago, Ophelia. It’s okay to be sad that your family is dead. You don’t have to bury it with them because you’re ashamed they did something so stupid.”
Inhaling deeply through flared nostrils, I pushed myself up to sit.
Malda set her armful down to wander over, pulling her hair over her shoulder. Tall and slender, her body wrapped in a power suit that made her look majestic, for lack of a better term. “I know we’re not friends or anything, and you probably shouldn’t trust me, but Makovich killed my family too, so I know better than most what it’s like to work for them after.”
“… I never felt like they were my family.” My deepest, darkest secret came spewing out of my mouth as my shoulders slumped. Sitting next to me, Malda disappeared as I closed my eyes to hold my head in my hands. “That bothers me more than them actually being dead. I called them my parents, but ever since I can remember… I just wanted to get away from them. I moved out when I was 18 and not because of Sascha. I’d been planning it for a long time.”
“Why didn’t you when you were 16?” she asked.
I shrugged lightly, running my fingers up into my hair. Reaching back into my memory, I clicked my teeth lightly behind sealed lips. My mom favored Martin, my brother, to Hell and back, but she never let her grip on me slack. At 15, I knew a few things; I had to finish school. I hadn’t yet grown comfortable with the fact that I was cleaning up adult messes. “There were a lot of practical reasons to wait. But mostly, I liked hearing my parents argue about screwing things up, and then them tentatively coming to ask me what to do to fix it. Until I was able to manage that on my own, I wanted to stick around.”
Malda chuffed a small laugh at my revelation.
I cracked open my eyes to give her a sidelong glance. “I’m not a very emotional person but listening to that always made me smile. It made me feel wanted. It made me feel like I could do something Martin couldn’t. While he was out being a boy, I was learning to be successful. And now… I’m alive, and he’s not. It’s honestly not surprising that he got roped in with delusions of grandeur. Even if they managed to kill off Vyachaslav and by some miracle, Aleksander as well, the internal feud that would erupt as a result… I don’t think anyone planned on their coup actually succeeding.”
“Business talk, now…you’re right, Ophelia. You’re successful at what you do, which is why I need to ask… do you think there’s a reason this assassination attempt was so incredibly convoluted?”
My mouth dried at that probe and I nodded hesitantly.
Malda’s expression transformed to seriousness, her mouth thinning as she fought a frown. “I’m not the only one following the families. My associate says that Erik Avernisk is acting a little too contrite. It’s not going to affect you, I don’t think, but with him, anything is possible. He’s smart and what’s worse, is he knows it.”
“To be honest, I thought the same thing.” I nodded. “If Avernisk was going to stage a rebellion, why not want to besureit succeeds? Next month, I’m meeting with some people from Ukraine… We’ll see what happens between now and then. Erik and I went to school together and stuff, but I know him way better than he thinks. There’s a reason we dated in secondary.”
Her jaw nearly dropped into her lap, and Malda threw back her head to cackle hysterically.
Grabbing the bottle off the floor, I twisted the cap with a short sigh. “We could be friends.” I held out the bottle, cutting off her laughter scarily fast. Anxiety curdled my blood as I held my breath.