Hating Beauty (The Vegas Titans Series Book 6) (10 page)

“Not even he can escape the law
forever. Not even he can outrun God.”

“It’s not about forever, Tatiana,
it’s about who survives the longest. What are you, the avenging angel?”

“Maybe!”

“You’re not, you’re just a kid,
Tatiana. A smart kid, but you’re alone.”

Her eyes shimmer, filling with
unshed tears. “You don’t have to tell me I am alone. Believe me, I know that. I
know that more than anything. I know your being with me for one day hasn’t
changed that. I’m not stupid.”

Guilt pumps through me, and I clear
my throat, toning my voice down a notch. “Listen to me, Tatiana. I know someone
is going to die over this. It won’t be the reporters or anyone directly
connected, no one in the public eye that would make him look bad. No, it will
be the anonymous source, the leak. It will be you, Tatiana. And everyone close
to you.”

I don’t bother mentioning that this
now includes me. Instead I take a deep breath, knowing this next part is
uncomfortably true.

“And I don’t want you to put
yourself in that position.”

Tatiana smiles, but it’s a smile
that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Too late, Knox Cole,” she says. “He’s
already got everyone close to me. I was in that position before we met.”

Before I can say anything else to
convince her to wait, to think, she flicks the mouse and clicks. I worry in
vain as the email sends.

It’s done.

“Okay,” I whisper, my gut clenching
with dread. “Okay. We’ll figure this out. We’ll just have to move fast, make
sure he can’t find us.”

“We have to be very fast now,”
Tatiana says. “Follow my next clue.”

I watch her nervous movements as
she pulls something shiny and jagged out of the folder in the bag. It’s a
broken-off piece of thin, silvery metal plate. She hands it to me, and I frown.

“It’s a piece from his laptop,” she
explains. “The bottom plate cover. He carved two addresses into it. The first
is downtown, near Broadway and Lafayette. That’s where we are going now.”

“And the second?”

“That I don’t understand yet. But
downtown –”

Her voice cracks.

“Hey, shh…it’s ok.”

I don’t know why. But it triggers
me. My hand reaches out with a mind of it’s own, tangling my fingers in
Tatiana’s hair, caressing her neck, drawing her in to my side protectively. She
curls in to me, and I feel some of those unshed tears silently wetting my
chest. I can’t stand it, her tears. I can’t stand her closeness.

More roughly than I mean to, I jerk
her chin up, holding her face close to mine, and find myself kissing her until
I can’t tell the difference between her tears and my breath, close and hot. I
groan, needing more, drowning myself in her lips. I don’t let her pull away
until I can feel her pulse hammering against my hand on her neck, see her
breathing change, and feel her body melting into me. I don’t let her pull away
until I know that she’s stopped crying. Now I can feel my own body shaking.

This kiss is different. This kiss
changes something.

She does pull back finally, her
skin flushed, her breathing shallow, her pupils dilated. When I reach to brush
her hair out of her eyes she almost flinches away, as if she’s scared of me.
Then she laughs breathlessly, a deflection, and starts to dig furiously in her
duffel bag, zipping and unzipping things. Then she’s on her feet, shutting the
computer down, not meeting my eyes.

“We should go now, before anything
else happens. If I know my newspaper girls, the story will be in the afternoon
edition. We only have a couple hours.”

I nod. “Okay.”

But if I know Breslin, our bodies
will be in the morgue by then. Unless I can produce a motherfucking miracle.

Chapter Fourteen

Knox Cole

Now we’re standing outside the fucking Planned Parenthood. I
double-check the address on the piece of metal.

“This is it?” I groan. “This is your big clue? What the
hell?”

But Tatiana’s face is set in secret-agent mode. She’s not
letting me in.

“Yes. And if anyone asks, you are my brother. Ok? Ok.”

And with that she marches inside.

“Oh god,” I groan. “Here we go.”

There’s a metal detector. A receptionist. The woman’s hair
is frizzed and she looks about a million years old.

“Do you have an appointment?”

Tatiana’s jaw clenches, but she smiles. “I am Sunny Dee and
I am here to get a copy of my patient records. I called yesterday with the
request and they said they’d have it ready. It was Dr. Shenke who handled my
case. In 2009.”

At this point I’m not even surprised to hear Tatiana use yet
another name, and it only takes me a second to realize it’s a variation on what
her email had said was her sister’s nickname. I wonder idly how much of what
she’s just said is a lie and how much is fact that Tatiana’s pulled out of
Breslin’s computer. But there isn’t much time to muse on the question because
the receptionist is already on the line, announcing us to someone upstairs.

“I have a Miss Dee to pick up her records. Mmmhmm…” she
grunts. “Huh.”

The receptionist’s face crinkles in surprise. It’s probably
the first expression she’s made in a thousand years.

“Ok.” She hangs up the receiver and stares at Tatiana
suspiciously. “Have a seat, Miss Dee. Someone will be out for you soon.”

We take a seat in the dilapidated clinical chairs,
surrounded by tense women queuing for their appointments and anxious boyfriends
chewing their nails. Tatiana drops down to the edge of the chair beside me, but
her butt barely grazes the pad before she’s back on her feet, pacing, twisting
her hair in her fingertips absently. I haven’t seen her this keyed up before.

“Hey, babe,” I whisper. “You ok?”

She nods absently, flashes an uneasy smile.

“Miss Dee?”

That was fast. Too fast. Breslin fast.

Tatiana snaps to attention, her body twisting to face the
source of the voice. It’s a middle-aged woman in a lab coat, numerous ID tags
pinned to her lapel. She gives Tatiana a crisp, impersonal nod.

“Hi Miss Dee, I’m Maxine
Sutherland, one of the case workers. I’m so sorry, but your records aren’t
ready. Normally it takes 48 hours for us to make copies, not twenty-four.”

Tatiana shakes her head slowly. “I
am afraid I need them now, today. On the phone, I was told they would be ready.
All it takes is for someone to spend five minutes with the Xerox machine.”

“I’m sorry, we just can’t have them
ready today.”

“Can I speak to your supervisor?
This is very important. I need the records, and I have a legal right to them.”

I stand, placing my hand on
Tatiana’s shoulder. “We’re not going to have any trouble, are we?”

The woman hesitates, her eyes
shifting between us. She purses her lips.

“Wait here.”

This time Tatiana doesn’t even try
to sit. She’s standing, her arms crossed, neurotically tapping her foot. The
receptionist shoots her an annoyed look but Tatiana doesn’t notice, doesn’t
blink. Ten minutes go by. Fifteen.

“Fuck,” Tatiana whispers. She closes
her eyes. I can hear her murmuring to herself: “
Mamao chveno,
romeli
khar tsata shina…”

I’m not sure what it means, but
I’ve heard her say it before with a gun pressed to her head.

A patient gets called to the back,
and through the swinging doors I get a glimpse of the Sutherland woman deep in
conversation with two men in suits.

The doors close, then burst open.

It’s one of the men. He’s young,
sharp looking, probably fresh out of some psychology program. Definitely one of
those social work crusaders with thick glasses, the type who thinks they know
what’s best for other people.

I can’t stand those bastards.

“Miss Dee,” he says, flashing two
rows of perfectly capped teeth. “I’m Roger Kim, I’m a supervisor in our patient
care division. I understand you’ve requested a copy of your records, but there
seems to be some confusion. The name you’ve given us –”

“Sunny Dee,” Tatiana interrupts.
“S-u-n-n-y, D-e-e.”

Kim clears his throat. “Yes, well,
that’s the difficulty. We don’t have any records of you as a patient.”

Tatiana registers no physical
reaction, but takes a long moment to reply.

“That’s impossible, Mr. Kim.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true. Might
you be mistaken about the branch you visited?”

“This is the only Manhattan branch.
I am not mistaken.”

Mr. Kim gives a strained, insincere
smile. “Well, I’m sure you can understand our problem. Much as we’d like to
help you Miss Dee, you unfortunately aren’t one of our patients and we have no
records to give you.”

“That’s a lie,” Tatiana spits.
“Yesterday on the phone, the person confirmed. She said she had my files in her
hand. I talked to her. Her name was Rose. Rose Campanel. Is she here today? Ask
her.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. There
are no records in this facility for Sunny Dee. As far as we know, there is no
Sunny Dee. There’s nothing else we can do.”

He turns to leave.

“No!” Tatiana’s voice rips through
the tense, silent waiting room like a thunderclap. “I am not mistaken! You have
them! I have the right to the records! You are required by law to release them!
I know they are here! I know this is the place! I know that is the name!”

She’s grabbing at Mr. Kim’s jacket,
pulling at his clipboard. Her voice rises to a keen, high and otherworldly,
accusing and terrifying. The entire room shifts, their focus and attention
riveted on the young woman going insane.

“Give them to me! I know they are
here! I know it! I know she was here! What did you do to her in this place, you
bastards?! What did you do to her? What happened to her? What happened?”

Tatiana is sobbing as Mr. Kim and
several security guards dive in to the melee. I’m up and swinging, shoving
every asshole that tries to drag her away. All I see is a confusion of
florescent lights and shouting faces as we are thrown out into the street.

“Try that again and we’ll call the
police,” someone shouts. “Get the hell out of here.”

“Ok,” I say, holding up my hands in
surrender. “Ok, we’re leaving.”

Tatiana has collapsed on the
sidewalk, huddled on all fours weeping.

“I know it,” she’s moaning. “She
was here. I know she was here.”

I’ve never seen her like this. I didn’t think it was
possible to see her like this, that cool exotic Mystery Girl I met only a day
or two ago. Yet here she is losing her shit, a hot mess on the side of the
street. The little hurt kid I glimpsed in her eyes before is on a rampage.

Without thinking I sweep her up in my arms, lifting her body
from the ground and holding her tight against me. She sobs, her ribcage
rattling against mine like an earthquake, as something deep and old finally rises
to the surface.

A guy doesn’t need a psychology
degree to see this breakdown was a long time coming. She’s not a secret agent.
She’s not a gangster.

She’s just a scared young woman who
is all alone.

“Tatiana,” I whisper, “Breathe, ok, just breathe. I got you.
You’ve got to calm down. We’ve got to walk. Can you walk? We can’t stay here,
baby girl, and I am really going to need you to explain what is happening,
because I don’t understand what is going on with you. You’ve gotta snap out of
it. We gotta get the hell out of this neighborhood.”

She’s not answering. She’s unhinged, crying, talking to
herself in her language that I can’t understand.

“Shit.”

Opening my arms, I lean her up against the brick wall of the
building, trying to make her stand on her own. Every time I let go she starts
to slide to the ground, sobbing.

“Shit. Tatiana! Hey! Come on, don’t
go nuts on me now. We can’t stay here. You can’t stay like this. Whatever that
was about in there, Breslin probably was a part of it. We’ve got to keep
moving. Hey!”

I even try giving her a light smack
in the face, the way you would to wake up a drunk, but it doesn’t work.

“Shit.”

The security guards are staring at us from the door of Planned
Parenthood. I make an executive decision and hail a cab, opening the door and
tumbling Tatiana and her bag in to the backseat before the driver can object.

“Just drive,” I bark, sliding in next to her. “Anywhere.”

Chapter Fifteen

Rusudan Tsetsilia Dadiana

A.K.A. Tatiana/Katja/Jana/Mystery Girl

blah blah blah

It doesn’t matter

Once upon a time I had only one
name. Once upon a time I was simply myself. I was a child like any other, and I
had a mother and a sister. Even a father, such as he was.

I had a home.

We lived by the
Shavi
zghva, the Black Sea
, and for a short time I was happy. There everyone
called me the same thing, because it was my name.
Rusiko. Rusudan
. The
little bright one, the daylight. The little princess.

My real name. No one has called me
by my real name since 2010, five long, lonely years. No one knows it anymore.
Sometimes I almost don’t know it myself.

Have I become someone, something,
else?

If no one calls you by your name,
is it really yours?

How does a person really know who
they are, if there is no one in the whole world to tell them? If there is no
one left in the world to love them?

Six years since I have had a
family, five years since I have had my own name, my own identity. It’s been five
years since I have existed. Since then, I have been everyone, anyone, but me.

I am my sister, my ‘Sunny,’ Madlena
Ketevan.
Keto
. I am my mother, my
Deda
, Tamar Darejani. I am all
of the women of my house now. I am whoever I need to be to stay alive, to keep
their memory, to avenge the wrong that was done to us. I am the only one left
to whisper their names to the icon of Saint Nino in prayer, the only one left
to ask the Ghvtismshobeli, the Holy Virgin Mary, to pray to God for them.

And for those bastards at the
Planned Parenthood to say to me that there is no Sunny, that there is no
record, that she doesn’t exist! To lie to my face! For them to say that, it
takes away even my lack of self. It takes away the last shred I have of her. The
last hope.

It takes away everything, all over
again.

There is a dull ache in my chest
that never goes away, a constant physical reminder of my orphan state, of the
fact that I no longer belong to anyone. There is a pressure in my head, an
urgency to make things right. It steals my sleep even on the good days, when I
feel proud of the work I have done. There is never, ever a moment when I can be
at peace, because I lost myself when I lost them.

Sometimes it’s almost as if I can
hear their voices from within my heart:
Rusiko, Rusiko, don’t forget us.
Don’t forget.
I am the only one left to remember, the only one who can make
the man who destroyed us all, pay. But how can I remember them when I am
starting to forget myself?

There are other times, more and
more often lately, when I don’t even hear their voices or see their faces in my
heart at all. Sometimes, instead of pain, there is a terrible silence where
they used to be. And the silence is worse.

“I have to go home,” I say aloud. “It’s
time to go home.”

Through the windows of the taxi,
lower Manhattan gives way to the Williamsburg Bridge. It’s still early
afternoon, the bright light of day reflecting off the East River and the glass
facades of the skyline in blinding brightness.

“What?”

It’s not until Knox Cole’s deep,
gruff voice pulls my focus back inside the cab that I realize I’ve been
speaking in
Kartuli
, in my native language. Rubbing my tears off my
cheeks until they are raw, I take a deep breath and try again—this time in
English.

“I need to go home.”

Now I turn to look at the handsome,
dangerous man beside me, blinking my eyes until they are clear. The expression
on his face smites me with guilt. He is confused, concerned, and desperate. 
Hurting. How long has he been watching me like that, waiting for me to come
back from the edge?

My words have done nothing to ease
him.

“Home?” His brow twists in
consternation. “You mean that place where we almost got shot this morning? You
mean that window we jumped through? You mean that floor covered in Rex’s blood?
You’re the one that poked at Breslin until he turned to swat you like a fly.
You’re the one that sent that email to the press that’s going to make this all
blow up even more, remember? ‘No negotiating, no compromise’? Baby girl, I
really hate to be the one to remind you, but there’s no home left to go to
until this is over.”

“No,” I sigh. “I know that. This is
not what I mean.”

“You scared the shit out of me back
there. What was that about?”

“This is what I am trying to tell
you, if you would listen.”

“Well tell me then, Mystery Girl,
and make it make some fucking sense. Because I was just about convinced I’d
have to jump off of this bridge in a minute, between your crazy and Breslin’s
crazy. If I’m gonna die, I at least want to know it’s coming.”

I stare at him for a minute,
collecting my thoughts.

He already knows more about my
story than is safe. Every instinct that I’ve honed over the years, every sense
of survival, resists telling him more.

But oh, how I’d love to belong to
someone. To have someone say my name.

“We’ve got to trust each other,”
Knox says, as if reading my mind. His face is firm even if his voice is
uncertain.

So, I am not the only one afraid of
speaking too much.

“It’s our only chance,” he insists.
“Otherwise, we both might as well jump off of this bridge right now.”

“Really? Does that mean you trust
me? You are willing to put your story in my hands?”

His silence is enough of an answer,
and I chuckle to myself. Objectively, I know I have little reason to trust him
either. Objectively, I know this could all just be a trick. Our entire time
together could be a lie, a double-cross. It could have been their plan all
along, to trick me into thinking of him as an ally, to use him as a spy to find
out everything I know about Breslin before they destroy me.

I know this, but I don’t care enough
to let it stop me. I don’t want to believe that is the case. I want to trust
him.

Not just because of the way that I
feel my insides glowing when he looks at me…or because of the way that his
touch makes me stronger…or because of how I somehow know that when he sounds
cross or angry with me, it is only because he is uncomfortable and embarrassed
and doesn’t want me to know how confused he is, how unsettled, how attracted.

A woman knows these things, from
time to time. My mother had always said that, but I never really knew what she
was talking about until now. A woman knows when a man’s voice and touch are
more than what they seem. When there is something under the surface, something
more. Something that maybe scares him with its power, something that he is
afraid to name.

And I understand it, because I feel
it myself. I felt it clearly this morning when he kissed me after the email. He
isn’t using me, not really, even if that’s what he is telling himself he is
doing. He wants to protect me. I felt it even earlier, last night when we were
making love. That wasn’t meaningless sex, and I know the difference. He knows
it, too. He made love to me, when he was supposed to destroy me. He is my
lover. Neither of us will admit it, but it’s true.

I don’t want to be strong anymore, or
to be alone. I want Knox to know me, to help me. I want him to fill the silence,
to say my real name. No, it’s more than just a want.

I need him.

And so, I need to explain.

“I have to go home, whether I want
to or not. Not to the Leo house, you idiot. To my country, to
Sakartvelo
.
What you call Georgia. A legal necessity.”

He is staring at me blankly.

“You know, Georgia, Eurasia, Caucus
Mountains, Black Sea. Supermodels? Former Soviet Socialist Republic, birthplace
of Stalin? You Americans, don’t you know anything?”

“Ok, ok, I get it. What do you mean
you
have
to go back?”

“It is a long story, but I have no
choice: I have to leave the US by the end of the next two weeks. This is why I
have to find my sister, fast. This is why I had to attack Breslin, now. This is
my last chance. If I don’t find her now, it will really mean that she is lost
to me forever. And Breslin will have won.”

Knox nods at the traffic on the
bridge.

“Tatiana, I think this is the perfect time for long stories.
I think this is a fucking brilliant time for long stories. I think you sure as
hell better tell your long stories so we can have a fucking chance of getting
to the next long story alive.”

Blessed Mary, give me patience.

“Fine. I will tell you everything, as simply as I can.”

Well, almost everything. There
are some things I am not ready to talk about: the way I am suddenly nervous
around you, the way you look at me. The way that it’s insane for me to feel so
much, and I can’t seem to talk myself down.

“
Ok, I’ll explain more. Listen.”

“I’m listening.”

 “If you’re listening why are you talking?”

“I was just telling you that I’m listening.”

“So shut up and listen.”

“Alright. I’m shutting up. I’m listening.”

There’s a hint of a smirk on the corner of his full lips. I
don’t know whether I want to kiss him or smack him. He clearly does this just
to annoy me.

“Knox I have never told anyone these things, ok? It’s, how
would you say, a big deal? It’s a big deal to me. So shut up.”

This time he doesn’t have a quip. Instead, his eyes burn
into mine with understanding and respect. My stomach turns at the directness of
his gaze. God, he is a beautiful man. But more than this, he is a strong one.
And he is ready to hear me, to see me. For the first time.

So I begin.