She wished she could tell him she wouldn’t, wished she could reassure him, but it wasn’t true and there wasn’t enough time. She settled on not letting her terror show as she bent down further and helped Pavel climb up on her shoulders and out the window.
His feet disappeared just as the bathroom door rattled with the force of someone banging his shoulder against it. The sound of someone trying to get in.
Back Up once again went to the door the bad guy was trying to bash through, sniffing at the crack beneath it with more curiosity than anything else. Sam loved her bullie, but this was one of the times it might have come in handy not to have a total sweetheart of a dog.
“Go away!” Sam yelled. “I have a rabid pit bull in here and she will tear you from limb to limb if you don’t go away now!”
Back Up looked over her shoulder at Sam and snuffed like, “Who me? I’d do no such thing! In fact, dogs of my breed are way more likely to be kidnapped because we’re so ridiculously friendly and trusting!”
Seriously, she’d seen teacup poodles show more menace than Back Up was displaying now. But maybe the guy on the other side of the door believed her because the rattling came to an abrupt stop.
With her heart in her throat, Sam waited. But no sound came. Minutes passed that felt like hours. And soon the fearful anticipation was replaced with dread. What if he hadn’t been scared… what if he’d left? Left because he’d gotten what they’d come for?
Sam’s heart seized with those thoughts and without thinking, she opened the bathroom door. She had to be sure, she just had to be…
The bedroom was now empty. Its door standing open, knocked off one hinge in ominous testament to the fact that someone had aggressively barged inside. Before leaving.
No, Sam thought to herself. No! No! No!
She ran through the broken door, down the narrow hallway, and into the living room, her shoes crunching over the broken glass as she rushed outside onto the wide expanse of lawn that sat between her and the shelter.
Only to stop short.
Pavel was standing in front of the back entrance to Ruth’s House… having what looked like a solemn conversation with Nikolai Rustanov. At least she thought it was Nikolai Rustanov. He was turned to the side and had swapped his tuxedo for a black pea coat and skull cap. In fact, he was dressed all in black as if he’d set out to match the large black Escalade parked, not in one of the special parking spots for Ruth’s House, but on the lawn itself with the passenger door hanging open, as if he’d skidded to a stop and leapt out.
But even turned sideways, she knew it was him, if only by the sharp planes of his face, like a gargoyle come to life.
She stood there, mouth unhinged, trying to figure out what was going on before she approached the unexpected scene. Back Up, though, wasn’t nearly as wary. She barked happily and ran over to Pavel, nearly knocking the poor boy down in her eagerness to lick him after a whole five, possibly ten, minutes apart.
Nikolai watched the scene with narrow eyes, his body tense as if he were trying to figure out if Back Up was a danger to Pavel. He must have decided she wasn’t, because his head swiveled towards Sam as she also came running across the lawn toward them.
The only evidence that he recognized her was a slight widening of his hooded eyes, before his face went to another setting, one that rearranged the harsh planes of his face into an expression of angry accusation.
“This,” he said, his voice dangerous and low. “This is what you call taking care of my nephew?”
10
Sam didn’t know how to feel about Nikolai Rustanov staring down at her. Confusion, relief, and defensiveness were all putting in bids to be her main emotion. But in the end it came down to Pavel.
She fell to her knees in front of him, hugging the little boy to her.
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
“I’m fine, Mama. The bad guy didn’t get me because Uncle Nik came and chased him away.” His eyes filled up with delight as he informed her, “Mount Nik is my uncle! I can’t believe it.”
“Me either,” Sam said, trying to keep her shit together. Was it true? Were they really both still here, alive and totally unharmed? She hugged Pavel to her again. She couldn’t believe how close she’d come to losing him tonight. “How lucky your uncle came here to meet you.”
She could feel Nikolai’s angry eyes watching her hug his nephew and knew he must be jumping to all sorts of conclusions about her fitness as even a temporary custodian. “Why don’t we all go inside Ruth’s House,” she suggested. “Call the police and maybe we can talk while we wait for them to get here.”
But Pavel pulled back, still stuck on the whole uncle reveal. “Papa said Mount Nik was his brother, but I thought he was lying. If my uncle was a famous hockey player with lots of money, why…”
He didn’t seem to know how to finish that sentence. But he didn’t have to. The haunted look in his eyes said more about what he had been through as the neglected son of a drug addict than words ever could. His eyes filled with tears and he buried his head in Sam’s shoulder, turning them both so his back was to his uncle. His uncle, who he didn’t want to see him cry.
Sam’s heart broke for the boy. She’d never seen him shed as much as a tear in all that had happened and she wrapped her arms around him tight, wanting to reassure with hugs that everything would be all right.
Back Up apparently felt the same way. But since she didn’t have a pair of arms she could wrap around the little boy, she settled for gently nudging his back with her wedge-shaped forehead.
“I did not know.” The words came hard and flat from above them. “Your father did not tell me.”
Pavel shook his head against Sam’s shoulder, refusing to look up at his uncle. “I prayed for him to be real. I prayed for him to be the truth. But Mount Nik never came for me.”
“Pavel…” Sam started.
“Now I am here,” Nikolai said, his tone impatient. “And do not call me Mount Nik. You are my nephew. Not fan. You may call me Uncle Nikolai or Uncle, but not silly nickname.”
Sam glared over Pavel’s shoulder at him. Was he seriously quibbling about what Pavel called him after all he’d been through?
As if to confirm her suspicions about his abject unfitness to parent a traumatized child, Nikolai said, “You will stop crying and come now to my home. Your proper home.”
Sam scrunched her face, not bothering to hide her irritation from Nikolai.