Page 8 of The Fixer

5

Sascha

“Who are you?” Frowning as I sat my briefcase on my desk, I cast a curious glance at the woman sitting on the sofa.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder before standing up. The long, lean pants, the vest, the glasses…a professional of some sort.

Definitively not one of my students. Too confident to be one of my students. “You’re not one of my students.”

“I’m Malda. I’ve been assigned to you by Vyachaslav Makovich. You’re dating the Cherinivsky girl.”

My cheek twitched, and I gazed at her from under furrowed brows. “Vyachaslav Makovich…notAleksander?” Curiosity colored my tone.

Malda nodded firmly.

“Wonderful. I have the both of them on me, now?”

“Better the father than the son, if you ask me. Aleksander’s a monster of a man. I promise not to interfere with your life, but it’s my job to find out how much you know.”

Rounding my desk, I sat down to take a deep, steadying breath.

Malda didn’t hesitate to walk over and drop across from me. “I do not want to be here, Sascha. I don’t like Moscow. I don’t likeschool.” Malda physically shivered in disgust, her eyes bouncing around warily between lines of dark charcoal. She crossed her knees, somehow managing to look sophisticated and impudent at the same time.

The silence stretched, and I opened my mouth when it became apparent that she wouldn’t, “So… considering you’re not going to understand most of what I teach, and you’re not going to just go away, what are you really doing here in my office, specifically? Why did Vyachaslav Makovich send you, not his darling boy?”Maybethere was more going on than just wanting to keep an eye on Ophelia. That ‘maybe’ was only worried by the fact the old man sent Malda. Unless she was lying. “I doubt it has anything to do with the fact that, theoretically, I could build an atomic bomb.”

“Please! Makovich doesn’t care about that. Anyone with the internet can make a bomb. He assigned me to you because he thinks it’s interesting that you know everything about Cherinivsky, but you don’t do anything with it. Everyone has an ulterior motive, it can’t be just because you fell in love with a teenager.”

Covering my mouth to stifle my scoff, I flopped my head back to inhale a stabilizing breath.

Malda eyed me critically, but nowhere in those shrewd eyes was the disgust she felt for my profession. “When did you two really meet? And before you try the same thing on Aleksander on me…don’t. Aleksander allows it because it amuses him. Vyachaslav is a crotchety, old bastard whose sense of humor shriveled smaller than his balls.”

“… At the Summer Festival in Vladivostok. She was 17. Ophelia was alone, trying to win a fish… a blue one. That festival is 12 days long. On the last day, I asked for her number, and she gave it to me.” The memory was so strong, even after 5 years. Ophelia wore this cute dress with spots on it ? a black dress with matching black shoes. She’d gathered her hair, but not all of it. Her face was long but soft… like an angel. “Ophelia wanted to wait until she was 18, when she could move out of her parent’s house. They hated me from the second they found our texts. Someone from up high kept them from exercising their parental right to step on her neck.”

“That’s not all of it, is it? You just found this gorgeous, rich girl so intriguing that you kept up a relationship with herentirelythrough text for months?” Incredulousness thickened Malda’s tone, her eyes widening with skepticism. “You’re obviously not a dumbass, at the very least, Sascha Matheson. Explain to me how you managed.”

“I didn’t fall in love with her through a cell phone screen, if that’s what you want to know. When she moved out, I went to her place a few times. She went to my place a few times. Then, she stayed the night, and that turned into a few nights a week. We didn’t have sex until Ophelia’s 19thbirthday. 20thbirthday, we went to an aquarium. 21stbirthday, she got black out drunk for the first time. I was sober. 22ndbirthday, I bought her a ring. She keeps it in my left nightstand, second drawer ? are you going to check if it’s there?” My tangent came to an end. “Do you want to know what I’m going to do for Ophelia’s 23rdbirthday?”

Malda’s brows rose in surprise. “What are you going to do?”

I shouldn’t have offered.My eyelid twitched in irritation,

Malda shook her head. “I don’t really care. To be honest, I don’t care about any of it. I’m just here to figure out why a 39 year old uni professor… is in a serious relationship with a 22 year old daughter of a crime boss, and then to figure out if that reason is true.”

“I don’t care who she’s the daughter of, Malda. She’s Ophelia, no one else. Her parents hated me. They’re gone. Her brother threatened to kick my ass but never had the guts to do so…he’s dead. Her annoying little sisters are in Saint Petersburg and out of the way. For now, at least, I have her all to myself. It doesn’t matter how long until it ends… only as long as it lasts.”

Malda rolled her eyes with a huff, the indignation on her face intensifying.

My own irritation with this setup was starting to boil over. “I don’t have an ulterior motive, if I did, I’d get with Vyachaslav’s slut daughters.”

“I’ll make sure to recount that verbatim.” She stood up, turning her nose at me as she sauntered out of my office.

Watching her sashay away, I stroked my beard thoughtfully.

Pausing at the door, she cast me a dull look over her shoulder. “You’re not hot enough to have someone half your age in love with you.” Malda disappeared, leaving me in contemplative quiet that made my office seem small.

Ophelia’s parents weren’t even buried, yet people were making moves on Ophelia’s life ? as if they had that right. Grinding my teeth, I sat back to cross my knees and cup my chin. Why Vyachaslav? Why not Aleksander or one of the dozen other kids he had running around Russia in positions of power?

“It’s not like I can just ask him…” Fishing my cell phone out of my pocket, I shook my head slightly. Last night had been long and dreary. Ophelia didn’t sleep soundly, which meant I didn’t sleep at all. She mumbled all night, probably recounting her conversations with Aleksander Makovich. I didn’t understand any of it, but she’d wake up after a while before settling back down.