For what had to be at least a minute, he said nothing, as if his brain had locked him in place while it attempted to process what she was telling him.
But then he took a step toward her and said, “You are saying my uncle came to our apartment and threatened to kill you if you did not leave me?”
“Yes,” she answered, realizing how unbelievable that must sound to him. “He said you were supposed to be the head of the family, not him, but you wanted to stay in America with me and he wanted you to come back. He also said a bunch of stuff about him not wanting you to marry a black girl, or even an American, but I’m pretty sure it was mostly because I was black.”
“He did not know about you. I kept this from him.” Alexei said. “I only told him I did not want to come back to Russia.”
“Well, apparently he figured it out somehow, because he was real clear about the fact that he would kill me if I didn’t leave that night. He even sent somebody over to clean out my stuff and had it delivered to Layla’s apartment, even though I hadn’t told anybody I was staying there.”
“So that is where you were hiding from me when I was trying to find you,” he said dully. “With Layla.”
“Yeah, I knew I had to go to someone you didn’t know I knew, and she’s still the only person I’ve ever met who would take in a girl she’d met once in a CPR seminar.” She lowered her eyes, suddenly nervous about making a full confession about what she did and how she did it eight years later. “Funny story, that’s actually how Aaron got his name. Her middle name is Erin, so I named him after her—“
“Eva,” he said, cutting off her ramble, his voice harsh with anger. “You are telling me you did not leave me that night because I was poor or because you were pregnant, but because my uncle threatened you. This is what you are telling me.”
“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. I didn’t even find out I was pregnant until, like, a month later, and by then, I was way too scared of what your uncle might do to me to tell you.”
He blinked, his face becoming a cold mask, and when his eyes met hers, for the first time, she saw in them the other Alexei, the one she’d been told about. In that moment, he wasn’t the passionate, intelligent, caring, and sexy Russian she’d thought he was when they’d first started dating, but the cold-blooded killer his uncle had presented him as in their tiny little apartment.
“Stay here,” he said.
“What?”
“Stay here,” he repeated. He grabbed her by the wrist. “Look at me, if you try to run, I will hunt you down. So do not make me do that. You need to realize your original plan was a bad one, because there is nowhere on Earth you could hide from me.”
A chill ran down her back. It felt like she was talking to a stranger. No, that wasn’t it. The truth was it felt like she was talking to his uncle again. She shrank from him. “Let go.”
He did, but not before saying the two words again, this time so viciously they cut through the air like a knife. “Stay here.”
Then he strode out of the room and apparently out of the apartment, because Maria appeared just a few moments later and said, “Why does he not eat the pasta?” Then her eyes went to Eva’s still full plate. “And you do not eat either?”
She looked positively crushed by their seeming rejection of her food, but Eva was too confused to form a coherent answer. What had just happened? Over the past few weeks, Eva had spent an obscene amount of time running scenarios in which she told him the truth about what had happened the night she left him. She had imagined him yelling, she had imagined him accusing her of being a liar. She’d also imagined he’d hug her, apologize, and tell her everything was going to be okay in more hopeful moments.
But never in her wildest dreams had she imagined he would bark a command at her and then just walk out.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Maria, trying to pull herself together. “It was a long trip, and I’m just too tired to eat.”
“Oh, you poor thing. Let me show you to Aaron’s room. You will sleep there.”
She let Maria mother hen her toward the apartment’s third bedroom, which Aaron had been occupying all summer, but then she remembered, “Wait, I need to talk to Aaron, to explain to him…”
“No, no. You need to sleep. You can talk to Aaron when you get up.” Maria sat her on the side of the bed and pulled off her flip-flops.
As soon as she sat down on the bed, the jetlag and lack of food and rest kicked back in, all but erasing the adrenaline that had helped her get through her fight with Alexei. Maria’s twins were lucky to have such a nurturing and kind mother, Eva thought drowsily.
“Thank you,” Eva said, sleep pulling her down to the pillow, beckoning like a warm, insistent embrace she could no longer fight off. The waking world faded to black before Maria was even done tucking her in.
* * * *
The sun was setting when Eva woke up, painting the Italian sky outside her window a dark purple sinking into a bright orange horizon. If the sun was just now going down, she thought, then she’d gotten at least six hours of sleep—which was good, because she’d really needed it. She found a jersey dress, a new sports bra, a package of underwear, a towel, and a wash cloth on a wooden chair near the bed. She assumed these items had been left there for her by her ever-thoughtful sister-in-law. And she couldn’t help but feel a pin prick of jealousy for her brother, who had not only become a Foreign Service officer, but had also gotten the cream of the crop as far as life mates were concerned.
Still, by the time Eva emerged from the shower she felt completely restored. Done feeling sorry for herself and ready to fight Alexei’s uncle and Alexei himself if she had to. She refused to let his last threat deter her from keeping her son safe.
Pulling her hair back into a large puff as she strode down the hallway toward the living room, she began to make plans. First, she’d need to convince Steve to get her and Aaron fake IDs, then she’d run to some place big like California, where a single black mother with a light-skinned child wouldn’t stand out so much. Once there, she’d put together a new plan for what to do if they were found—
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of children giggling in the family room, accompanied by that of male laughter. And that was how she found Alexei, of all people, lying on the floor, pretending Aaron and Steve’s two-year-old twins had him completely pinned and he couldn’t get up.