PART FOUR
Tatyana hadn’t smoked since she graduated from secondary school, but she was wishing she had a cigarette as she paced in the cobblestone courtyard of SMO’s offices as they waited for Elene’s boss to arrive. Apparently the man was traveling from the north and kept odd hours because of jet lag.
Tatyana wasn’t going to question it when she felt inches away from success.
Offering to find the money for a finder’s fee was a gamble and she wasn’t nearly as confident as she’d presented to Elene, but it was the only play she had.
Yes, she wanted to get paid, but she also needed a job, and those were few and far between in Sevastopol, which was were she needed to be. Her neighbor could only look in on her mother for a few more days before Tatyana would need to return, because the woman could not take care of herself.
She felt her phone buzzing in her pocket and reached for it, knowing without looking who it was going to be. “Hallo.”
“Tatyana, are you flying home now?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “No, because you wouldn’t be able to call me if I was flying, Mama.”
“I know that. Are you still in Kyiv?”
“Odesa, Mama.”
“Odesa,” Anna Asanov whispered the word like a curse. “And are they going to pay you?”
“Yes, it’s a good company. It’s a real company, Mama, don’t worry.”
Her mother had always been suspicious of Tatyana working from home. She worried that the job wasn’t legal. That Tatyana was doing something illegal by not going into an office, even after Tatyana explained that much of her work back in Kyiv was also online and could be done from anywhere.
Sadly, with things the way they were, no firm in Kyiv was going to keep paying someone who had to live in Sevastopol, even if they wanted to.
“The electricity bill is due, Tanya.”
Fuck. Where was she going to get the money for it? How fast could SMO reimburse her for travel expenses? Maybe she should have taken Elene up on the offer to stay at the company’s preferred hotel and send the rest of her travel money back to her mother.
No, no, no. That gave SMO too much power over the situation. Better to be independent until some kind of contract was signed.
“Can you borrow a little bit from Karol?” Their neighbor knew the situation—a little of it anyway—and the old man held Tatyana with great affection because of her grandparents.
“I mean, I can try. He’s going to want something from me if I borrow money though.”
Tatyana tried not to roll her eyes, but then she gave in to the impulse because what the hell? Her mother couldn’t see her. “Mama, Karol doesn’t want to have sex with you.”
“Why not? I’m still a beautiful woman, Tanya.”
“And he’s a sweet old man who was friends with your father. He doesn’t see you that way.”
Her mother muttered something about old men still having balls, even if they were saggy and Tatyana let out a slow even breath and tried not to listen because the last thing she wanted to think about was her neighbor’s balls. “Mama, just borrow the money from Karol and tell him I’ll pay him back as soon as I get home.”
Because maybe money would magically materialize in her pocket going through security.
You’ll figure it out, Tatyana. You always figure it out.
She told herself the same thing every time she woke up in the middle of the night, wondering how she and her mother were going to make it though the winter without Tatyana having a job.
She sucked in a hard breath and let the sea air fill her lungs. It was Friday night and beyond the stone and wrought iron wall of SMO’s headquarters, she could hear young people heading into the night with friends. She heard faint music in the distance from a club and the pulse and retreat of pop music pumping from passing cars.
You used to have that life.
Well, not exactly that life. But she’d had friends in Kyiv. She’d had a job and a little extra money for fun on the weekends. She had friends she could call and boys she dated when she wanted to feel sexy and seen.
Tatyana was twenty-seven, but she felt like she was a decade older. Maybe more. She had no one but her mother now. She didn’t even have a job.
“Miss Vorona?” A voice called from the front of the office. “They’re ready for you.”
She took another deep bracing breath of sea air and said, “I have to go, Mama. Borrow the money from Karol and I’ll pay him back soon.”
“Okay but—”
“Mama, I have to go.”
“Fine, fine.” She muttered something under her breath and hung up the phone.
“Good night to you too.” Tatyana put her phone in her pocket and walked into the the building and through polished wooden doors that could pay her mother’s electric bill for a year.
Maybe a decade.
NEXT WEEK…
Tatyana was back in Elene Beridze’s conference room, her hand resting on the messenger bag in the seat next to her, when two people walked in.
One was Elene, and the other was a man.
No, more than a man. A presence.
Tatyana wasn’t impressed by men. Growing up without a father made her keenly aware that men held too much power over most women’s lives. Her mother pined for a man who never loved her. Her grandfather had been the rare exception in her life, but she’d never become attached to a boyfriend or a lover because in her experience, men were not dependable.
But the man who took the seat next to Elene was magnetic.
He was dressed in a dark grey suit the color of charcoal and wore a wine-red shirt under his jacket that was open at the collar. No tie. Dark, reddish brown hair was swept back from his face and a trim beard covered his jaw.
He sat across from her, staring at Tatyana with keen grey eyes the color of storm-clouds. He was tall, even while sitting, and she knew he’d tower over her if he stood. He was also handsome, but it was the least impressive thing about him.
Whatever cologne he was wearing smelled like cedar and sweet smoke, and she was tempted to lean toward him. She resisted. Power radiated from him and in her gut, Tatyana knew he was dangerous.
Her research had told her that SMO International was a legitimate multinational company not connected to organized crime or owned by a known oligarch, so why did this man have the bearing of a gangster?
Elene said, “Miss Vorona, this is my employer, Mr. Sokolov, the CEO of SMO International.”
His voice was low and curt. “She knows who I am.” He spoke in Russian, not English.
“I don’t know who you are,” Tatyana responded in Russian too. “But you look like the boss.”
The corner of his mouth curled up. “Then you know who I am.”
Copyright 2024, Elizabeth Hunter All rights reserved.