Losing Francesca (29 page)

I turn and look back out the window and one of the security guys is on the phone.

"He's calling my dad." I say it to myself mostly, but the driver answers.

"That's pretty much the plan, Fiona."

Chapter Forty-Three - Brody

I can see her hair flying out the window of the piece-of-shit car. My happiness is automatic. I push through the door and exit the waiting area just as the car stops. She opens the door slowly, her hand over her eyes, shading herself from the sun. I catch a blaze of silver and then she's running. I walk towards her and grab her as she leaps and wraps her arms and legs around me.

"You are silly, Fiona!"

She plants a kiss on my cheek and starts talking breathlessly. "I can't believe you're here! How did you find me? I didn't drop
that
many hints!"

"They tracked your dad's jet to Fiji, it wasn't that hard. Like you said, small neighborhood. And you know, something about a silver-eyed thug with tattoos all over his body tends to stick out."

She scowls at me.

"Sorry. He's not a thug. He's legally challenged."

She laughs at my lame joke. "Can you stay? How long can you stay? What's happening?"

"Well." I sigh and jerk my head towards the road. "I guess this is gonna be another day for the books, Fee. Because there is some serious shit you need to know about your dad." She turns just as the black car screeches into the parking lot and the local police come running. "Just so you know, I'd never take you away from him. He thinks we're here to steal you back, but that's not the case. We're just here to give you the truth and step back so you can decide."

Her father and the muscle guy jump out of the car before it's even stopped, guns ready. I let go of Fiona and put my hands up just as Barker and his men exit the waiting area, hands also in the air. We did not come here to fuck with the Russian Mafia, that's for sure. He's got the local police in his pocket. We have no authority.

"Filia!" her dad barks.

Who the hell is Filia?

"Come here now, baby."

Barker interrupts. "Fiona, don't you want to know the truth?"

I watch her face carefully as she tries to decide whether or not she should disobey. She takes a few steps towards her dad. "I do want to know, but I'm not going to choose you over him, Barker. There's no way."

"Not necessary, Fiona." Barker takes his attention to Fiona's father and smiles. "Viktor, I'm sure you'd like to get it off your chest, right? Tell her the truth? Finally? Let's go inside and have a conversation."

"No," Viktor says. "Get in the car, Filia."

She hesitates again. "But what about Brody?"

His raging gaze drifts away from Barker and settles on me. "He is nobody. Now, get in the car."

I say nothing, just stand silently and wait. I refuse to ask her to choose me. I refuse. I chose her, I came all this way, I looked for her and prayed for her and loved her all these years. If she wants to walk away, that's her decision to make and I'm not going to make it more difficult than I know it must be.

She's only about fifteen feet away and the rock on her finger has been flickering in the sunlight since she stepped out of the car. I know what's up and I won't be like these people. If she wants to stay, then I'll say goodbye and let her go. I look over at the muscle guy and smile. "You're the fiancée?" I ask, nodding to the ring on her finger.

Fiona gasps and looks down at the ring like she forgot it was there. I smile internally at this.

The muscle guy says nothing.

"Brody—"

"It's OK, Fiona, you don't owe me an explanation." This hurts her, I can tell from her expression. She takes a few steps towards me.

"Faina! Get. In. The. Car." It's muscle guy this time.

She hesitates and looks back at him. "No," she says softly. Her little whisper of defiance commands everyone's attention, including her father's and the police. "I'm not going to leave him without hearing him out. I'm not walking away this time."

She turns back to me. "I wanted to say goodbye, Brody. But the TV cameras—"

"You do not have to explain, Fiona. I'm not mad and you're a grown-up, so you know, you're allowed to make your own choices. To decide what's best for you." I stare her father in the eyes as the last part comes out. "But your story is not over, Fee," I say looking back to her. "I think you need to hear it. I think you might even
want
to hear it."

I track back to Viktor Saburov and stare at him. It's his call really. We can't move forward unless he agrees because the truth is, we don't know what happened. We're bluffing. We have some idea, but we have no proof and no details.

"Just tell her the truth, Mr. Saburov," I say politely. "She deserves that. Just tell her the truth and let her figure it out. She knows you love her—hell, even I can see you love her. So just tell her. Tell her she's Fiona Sullivan, because she's gonna find out eventually."

Saburov lowers his weapon and lets out a long sigh.

"Daddy?"

"Faina, you are my daughter. You are Faina Saburov. The DNA test came back as a match because this is a fact."

I watch Fee's face as she takes in the words. I'm not sure if her expression is one of relief or regret. Maybe both.

"But you are also Fiona Sullivan." He stops and nods his head. "You are Fiona Sullivan." Saburov looks over at Barker now, then lets out another long breath. "You have a place to talk privately?"

Barker nods. "Frank and Sean Sullivan are inside though, you should know that."

I walk over and take Fiona's hand because she looks like she might fall over. "Come on, let's go inside. Frank and Sean are probably dying to kiss you right now."

I lead her inside and everyone follows us. Frank and Sean huddle off to the side as everyone piles into the small room. We have a conference table set up, like we're having a business meeting or something. I never figured we'd get this far, to be honest. But it's a good sign. Sitting down at a table seems very civilized. Standing out in the parking lot with guns ready, not so much.

Fiona chooses a seat, her dad sits on one side of her and Frank on the other. I stand behind her with the muscle guy. A woman, her mother I guess, sits next to her father and Sean sits next to Frank.

It's got a whole Hatfields and McCoys vibe going on. Us against them. That's not really how I want this to play out, so I stick my hand out to the muscle guy. "Brody Mason, nice to meet you."

He looks at me for a second. In fact, everyone looks at me for a second. Then he shakes my hand and his American accent briefly surprises me. "Nic Cretu."

Sean pipes up, "Nic. Ah, the go-to guy. I'm the big brother." He sticks his hand out as well and the dumbfounded mafia guy shakes it as well.

Viktor Saburov clears his throat to bring the attention back to him, and then takes Fiona's hand and begins to speak. "I loved your mother. I need to start with that. Your real mother was the love of my life."

Fiona clasps her other hand over his and nods.

"But what I do…" He hesitates as he looks over to Barker.

"Hey," Barker interjects, "we're off the record, we have no jurisdiction here, and quite frankly, I could give a shit what you do over there in your own part of the world. So please, forget I'm here."

Viktor turns back to Fiona. "What I do is unpopular, dangerous, and illegal."

Fiona is not surprised.

"Everyone knew I loved Yekaterina, we were best friends before we were lovers. I was being promoted quickly, I became… dangerous to be around. To be associated with. People were threatening her so much, I had to move her to Romania just to keep her alive and when she became pregnant with you, I moved her to America."

Fiona pats her father's hand. "I understand, Daddy," she says softly.

"But she was very frightened and so when you were born, she decided to give you up for adoption, so no one would ever know you were my daughter. So no one could ever hurt you because of me." He looks over to Frank. "And the Sullivans adopted you. She chose them, actually."

I look over at Frank. I never knew that and by the look on his face, neither did he.

"We picked a nice Irish family to erase all evidence that you were Russian. We paid the adoption agency to keep track of you, we hired people to make sure you were safe, and everything was fine until the Italy vacation."

He stops to look at Frank again. "I did not kill your wife. And I did not steal my daughter back. They found her, they found them alone that day. My enemies knew she was my daughter and they took her. They killed your wife and dumped her body in the sea. They were about to kill Faina too, but my men intervened."

He waits to see if Frank will say anything, maybe object or contradict him, but Frank simply nods, his face a bit crumpled and his eyes red and watery over the thoughts of Mrs. Sullivan's horrific death.

"They killed my Yekaterina, too, Mr. Sullivan. They got my wife right after she came home from America and moved in with me in my Moldova flat. So I took my daughter back. I took your daughter away. To keep her safe," he says as his gaze moves to Barker. "And all this time I have kept her safe. She would be dead without me."

He looks back to Fiona. "I'm sorry. You had so many nightmares. They killed your adopted mother right in front of you." He shakes his head. "You had so many nightmares."

We sit in silence.

"Thank you," Frank says as the tears stream down. "Thank you for telling me what happened." And then he pushes back from the table and walks out of the room.

Sean and I look at each other, then he gets up and follows his dad outside.

Viktor looks up at me and Fiona turns to do the same. "Now what?" her father asks. "What do you want?"

I take a deep breath and look him in the eye. "I love her." I shrug. "I love her," I say again, this time to Nic. "I've loved her since I was a little boy, I looked for her…" I stop and have to shake my head to stop the flood of emotion that wants to let loose. "You have no idea how long I looked for her."

I find Fiona's face. "It's not fair that you're both girls. I understand. I—" I grow some balls, that's what I do, because this is my only chance. "I love you, Fiona. I want you to choose me, I want you to say you love me back and never leave me again. But I'm not going to ask you to do that. It's not fair." I look over at her dad now. "None of this is fair."

Chapter Forty-Four - Fiona

The entire time my dad is talking I'm reliving the nightmare. Everything he says is true. All the memories of that night in the boat come back and I feel the tight bindings around my wrists. They cut me and the blood is running all over my little orange sun dress. My mother has a gag in her mouth, as do I, but it's her gag that I'm focused on because it's preventing her from breathing or she's choking or something. She's gasping and they hit her several times, yelling in another language.

When her face begins to turn blue I start squealing and kicking. I know, even at that age, that this is not good. Never mind the fact that we're with strangers I can't understand. My mother is turning blue and that is not normal. She is dying.

When I look up Brody is talking to me, professing his love for me. Asking me, pleading with me to choose him. I need to choose. How do I choose? What does it mean to make this decision right now?

I have no answers for these questions at the moment. No one in this room is impartial, save for Barker. I almost laugh at that thought. To think, he might be the only one worth listening to.

"I want to choose you, Brody. I want to choose everyone." I lean over and hug my dad. "I still love you. I know you did what you thought was right."

Barker clears his throat. "Well, I have a proposition for you, Viktor."

I get up and stand next to Brody. He takes my hand and squeezes it. "What proposition?" I ask, redirecting Barker's attention to me because my dad looks a little lost right now and it's weird.

He's never lost. He is always in control.

"We found her school name," he says, addressing my father again. "She's enrolled at UCSD for the fall semester?"

"I was," I say as I let out a sigh. "But I can't go now. I wouldn't feel safe."

"She can't go," my father says. He sounds so defeated, it breaks my heart. "She can't go back, not after the attention she had in Ohio."

Barker shrugs. "She could still go. Her face was never shown on TV. No one got a clear picture, but even if they did, we would've confiscated it. I've been authorized to offer a deal if you let her come back to America. We could give her a new name, reestablish her citizenship, make her American. We could smooth things over with the school, we could provide protection. You could," he says, gesturing to Nic, "have your men keep track of her. Or you can just keep her on that little island for the rest of her life. But even paradise can be a prison."

He stops and we're all silent.

"You don't have to decide now. The offer stands." He hands me a card. "When you're ready, Fiona." And then he turns to Brody. "Thank you for your help. I've been working this case for a dozen years and now it's closed. Good luck." He shakes Brody's hand, then proceeds to shake everyone's hand, including mine and my dad's. "And goodbye."