Deceitful Lies by Brook Wilder
Chapter 25
Paige
Andrei stays in bed longer than usual in the morning, and his hand lingers on my stomach. I wonder if he can feel my heart hammering wildly in my chest. Last night, panic flooded my veins when Natasha told me Andrei was interrogating Viktor, and I ran to the garage. When I entered, Dmitri had a gun pointed at the boy. What would have happened if I hadn’t gone?
I’m out of bed in a flash, heading toward the ensuite to get dressed. Before I close the door, I look back at Andrei, and his eyes are open, looking back at me. I shut the door with a bang, and I’m dressed in a few minutes.
“I’ll walk with you.” Andrei rises from his bed, then his phone chimes. “Just give me a minute.”
I shake my head and sprint toward the door. “I can manage. He’s my father.”
“Okay.” He looks concerned. “You look pale. That’s all. I’ll go down later.”
“I’ll be all right.” I race out of our suite as if my secrets are chasing me.
Alone in the hallway, I pause and rest my back against the wall, closing my eyes. Andrei must know that I was lying last night. I can feel it. They all know it. Natasha picked at her shirt cuffs, refusing to look at me. Dmitri had a small hint of a smirk, and Viktor’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed nervously.
And Andrei …
I saw a flash of something that seemed like relief on his face. Could it be he was bluffing, never intending to shoot the boy? I silently wish that was true. It would’ve been too cruel, even for him. Viktor only made a stupid mistake like any other kid would in his circumstances.
What if he had been our son, facing his father, Andrei, who had to make a tough decision? I block that image out of my mind and open the door to my father’s room.
“You may leave.”
Inessa glances at me standing in the open doorway. She hesitates, perhaps wondering if it’s all right for me to be there, then quietly steps out of the room.
The bed looks large and imposing, engulfing my father’s frail body. The machines by the bed hum softly, and their beeping is the only indication that he’s still alive. I move closer to get a better view, my stomach tying in knots as I stare at him hidden beneath heavy blankets despite the summer heat. My throat tightens, waiting for any sign of life, when his eyes suddenly flutter open.
I catch my breath.
Finally, I’m allowed to speak with my dad alone, and the sight of him ravaged by chemo twists my heart. I know Andrei is doing the right thing by providing treatment, but I can also tell that my father is in pain.
I sit in an armchair close to the bed, resting my hands on my lap. “Dad, are you awake?”
He starts to cough, and I stand immediately, rubbing his back until the coughing fit is over.
“Raise the bed,” he gasps. Once he’s as comfortable as he can be, Dad opens his eyes fully and smiles wanly at me.
“Do you want anything, Dad?”
“I’d like to listen to some music,” he replies. “The nurse doesn’t like my taste. She switches it off whenever I close my eyes, claiming I should get some rest.”
I tell the speaker to play “yacht rock.” Michael McDonald’s “What a Fool Believes” immediately starts to play. I grin morosely at the irony, as if the song is a warning, suggesting I wake up to the facts surrounding me and stop being a dummy.
“That’s better.” His pain seems to lessen as he sighs, pleased to hear his favorite music.
“I know this isn’t what you wanted.” The words aren’t easy to say. “But I hope at least you’re comfortable.”
“I want to die, Paige.” His words hang in the air and attach to me as strongly as my guilt.
“Are you in that much pain, Daddy?” I ask timidly.
“It’s not the pain. It’s the memories. It’s what I know. I want to take it to my grave, but your husband is determined to keep me around.” He spits the word husband out as if it’s a curse.
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault you’re here.”
His laughter startles me. “This has nothing to do with you, Paige.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It started long ago,” he continues. “It wasn’t entirely greed. These people lived like royalty, but I, an honest man, could barely keep a roof over my family’s head. I needed the money to pay rent. And then the car needed repairs. And then I became obsessed with seeing the numbers in my accounts grow.”
Accounts? How much money did he really steal? “But someone did notice, didn’t they?” I ask, eager to learn more.
“Can someone ever have enough money?” he asks with a wry grin. “The answer is no. It’s like a drug. Something you have to possess. Billions that could never be spent in a lifetime. It’s not the things you could buy. It’s the money itself. The power of having more.”
My father’s clouded eyes take me in. Or rather, the obscene diamond on my finger. I place my hand over it, childishly covering my wedding ring, but that action only places my gold rings on my other hand, front and center, on view.
The marriage is fake.
I’ve been a fool. Fooled by my father, and now, my criminal husband. I’m not a queen. I never was. I’m a pawn in the game these two men are playing with my life. Bastards.
“You hid the money, didn’t you, Daddy?” My voice is gentle, hiding the emotions churning inside.
He chuckles softly. “They got some of it back but not all of it. Not by a long shot. You and Emma will have the rest. Your mother would’ve gotten her share if she hadn’t walked away.”
I swallow back my anger. “Mom knew where the money was hidden?”
“She didn’t know where, but she wanted me to give it back,” he replies. “She thought doing that would’ve kept us safe, but they would’ve killed me if I returned it. And if I’m dead, God knows what will happen to the three of you. I was a coward then. I didn’t want to die.”
“But now you do.” I say softly.
My world is shattering. Dad isn’t the honest and upstanding man I spent my entire life looking up to. He’s a thief. A monster no different from Andrei and the rest. I hold out hope that he is still an honorable thief. That he did it for us, but he went too far.
But somehow, I feel like he’s still hiding something from me. He still wants me to look at him the way I’ve always looked at him—as the dad who was there for us, and not the monster who destroyed our family.
“Does anyone else know?” I prod gently. I wait for him to confirm my suspicions and say my husband’s name. To tell me Andrei’s plan for me if I survive this nightmare.
He doesn’t answer and softly sings along with the music as consciousness slowly slips away. My anger builds as I watch Dad find a peace that will elude Emma and me once he leaves us behind.
He can’t leave before I tell him how I really feel.
“I don’t even know you anymore,” I tell him tearfully. “How could you do this to us? I thought you loved us. But you’re a worse crook than the crooks you stole from.”
The words seem to rouse Dad as he becomes delirious from the effects of chemo. I debate calling the nurse but decide to take care of him myself. I am a fool, constantly being used. I should walk out of this room and never see him again, but I can’t. Deep inside, I hope Dad will tell me something to make me believe in him again.
I reach to take his hand, and that’s when he jolts awake again. But the expression on his face hardens, and the father that I knew—the one that I loved—disappears.
In his place is the man that he used to be for the Bratva.
“You.” His eyes flash with rage as he grabs my wrist. “You bitch.”
“Dad.” His grip is tighter than it should be for a man on his deathbed. “You’re hurting me.”
His face twists into a sadistic mask, and he stares at me disgustedly. In front of my eyes, my mild-mannered father becomes a person I don’t know. The tightness on my wrist increases.
“You bitch! You whore! You wanted it to happen. Why did you go to your nephew? Why did you have to tell him anything? We could’ve had it all, but you just had to open your big fucking mouth.”
I gasp in terror. He thinks I’m Mom …
And as much as this sudden shift scares me, it’s an opportunity for me to learn the truth.
The real truth.
The one that got Mom killed.
The one he’s still hiding from me.
“Tell him what, Gerald?” I ask, doing my best to imitate my mother’s voice.
He clenches my wrist painfully. “You shouldn’t have told Kenney those bastards touched you. You shouldn’t have told him that they fucked you. Did you think he could help? A cop against the Bratva?”
“Gerald,” I plead. “You owe me. I did it for you and the girls. Where did you hide the money?”
“You fucking gold-digging whore, I heard you in there. In our marriage bed.” He stares at me with intense hatred. “That’s all you cared about. My money. I’ll leave it for the girls, but you’re not getting a single fucking penny. That money is mine to give, not yours. You want that money? You earn it on your back like the whore that you are!”
“You’re my husband,” I say the words that Mom must’ve said to him so many times. But the next words are from both of us. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”
“You never knew me.” My father stares at me with intense hatred, making my skin crawl with fear. “You only knew Gerald Reyes, the pathetic accountant who couldn’t provide. You never knew the version of me that actually amounted to something in his life.”
“And who would that be?” I ask.
“Sava Khodemchuk.”
His grip lessens until I can finally wrench my hand out of his.
I stare at this ruined person. He raised me, he laughed with me, he cried with me. But I don’t recognize him anymore. The mask he wore my entire life has slipped off, and all I can see is a villain I can’t run from. He was my dad. A mild expression replaces the viciousness on his face as he slips into a slumber and starts to murmur lyrics to The Doobie Brothers’ “Minute by Minute.”
Was he always like this? Has he been lying to me my entire life?
