‘It’s where her father is too. That murderous little shit, Max!’
‘She doesn’t want to talk to Max. And it’s mutual from what I can make out.’ Richard shrugged and padded over towards the bed.
‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’ snarled Robin. ‘We’re not talking about what Max wants! He’s done his worst. And damn near destroyed his daughter. It’s what she wants now that’s important. It’s what Anastasia wants!’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what Anastasia wants!’ rumbled Richard, picking up on more of Robin’s outrage but spinning it from a different angle as he strode towards the bed once more. ‘She wants to take that wooden obscenity Ngoboi left in her bedroom and, when she finds him, she wants to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine! That’d make him dance a whole new set of steps.’
Robin choked on a laugh. It was a combination of his adroit change of subject and pace combined with the lingering outrage on his usually open face that amused her. And even her amusement caught her off guard, for she was still simmering with rage. But of course, she wasn’t enraged at her Richard, she thought more gently. And he hadn’t meant to overhear Max or be overheard by Max’s errant daughter. None of this utter mess was his fault really. But of course he felt responsible when he was nothing of the sort. Just the same as poor Anastasia had done, she thought. Until earlier this evening.
‘So,’ she said, her voice mellowing, ‘what are we going to do about it?’
‘On the one hand,’ he decided, stretching out beside her on the sheet — and snuggling up against her because the bed was so small — ‘we want to let things well alone. Let her and Ivan work out whatever it is they are going to work out between themselves. No matter what happened in the past, they’re all grown up now. He’s a big boy and she’s a big girl. But even so …’
‘Even so?’ she prompted, snuggling back against him — with little option as he had her wedged against the cabin wall.
‘Even so, I’m not too keen to rush upriver in the morning and leave her to hope that Kebila catches Odem before Odem lets Ngoboi loose on her. Especially as Ngoboi managed to waltz in here and out again tonight, pausing only to put the frighteners on everybody and slaughter four top-flight ex-Spetsnaz mercenaries. Especially as it’s probably Odem in the Ngoboi suit anyway — and he’s got a hell of a lot of anger to take out on her. Hence the sexual threat, I suppose — as well as the magic and the heart-eating.’ He hesitated. Reached for the light and snapped it off. ‘No. I’m not about to let her face that on her own — or with her scary-looking army of nuns and Amazons. And in the meantime …’
‘In the meantime what?’ she asked, arching slightly as his hand found the hem of her nightgown and slid gently upward.
‘Just where were we before the screaming and the shooting started …’
‘Look,’ said Ivan, a great deal more forcefully than he meant to. ‘If I could undo any of this I would, believe me.’
‘If you could!’ spat Anastasia. ‘Ohooiet’, Ivan, where would you start?’
‘I’d start with that dumbass eblan Boris and the bad drugs he gave you that night!’ he snarled. ‘I’d stop you sharing them with your brother and then none of this would have happened!’ He strode forward, towering over her in a way he had not done to her father.
But she was not sprawled on a bed. She was sober. And she was every bit as angry as Max had been. ‘Too late, you moron!’ she shouted, squaring up to him in the way she always had. ‘Too fucking late! One step behind as always! You needed to start with that svoloch’ bastard Fydor Novotkin! He was the one who gave my brother the drugs. It was always Fydor who supplied the drugs!’
Ivan stepped back. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he admitted, nonplussed.
‘Of course you didn’t, dumbass!’ she snarled, coming towards him like a terrier harrying a bear. ‘It wasn’t your scene. You were a goody-goody military boy! How would you know a thing like that? Think about it! We might have grown up together but you were my brother’s friend rather than mine. I don’t think I was ever anything other than a kind of a pet to the pair of you. And when you came back from military school in your smart little uniform, what was I to you then? Some kind of porcelain princess! You told me that you loved me but it was all bullshit, wasn’t it? Something arranged between our fathers! You never saw me as a real woman. As an equal. As your wife! I was just something out of Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky or Checkov — the idiot Dushecha, probably! I don’t think you really saw me at all until after my brother died. It wasn’t until I met real men like Boris and Fydor that I got treated like a proper woman!’
‘Well, both Boris and Fydor certainly treated you like a proper woman later on!’ spat Ivan, striding towards her again, his rage reawakening.
‘You bet they fucking did!’ she hissed, relishing the shock and hurt in his eyes; using the brutal words like clubs to beat him with. ‘And Fydor got me every fucking way he could. In ways not even you and that sick satyric slob of a father of mine could imagine. Though Fydor had to drug me out of my head first! And then again and again and again …’ Each repetition got louder and more forceful until she was literally spitting in his face. ‘But I tell you what, Ivan Lavrentovitch, my hulking great Ivan Grozny — I came through. I fucking survived! And no thanks to you! Or to Maxim Kirilovitch Asov, billionaire businessman, corporate magician, top-rate cocksmith — fucking trainwreck of a parent! And now, I hear, the man who likely had my boyfriend killed. Who allowed me to sink into a pit of guilt and self-loathing because of it. Who could have pulled me out just by telling me the truth. The truth. Nothing more than that! And who let me sink and drown instead! And you let him, Ivan! You could have helped me and you didn’t lift one finger. Not one finger, you bastard!’
‘But I didn’t realize you were … I didn’t know Fydor … I’ve always … I still love you, Anastasia Maximovitch …’
‘Don’t you call me that! Don’t you dare …’ She hit him then, pounded her fists on his chest and reached up towards his face with clawed fingers.
But he caught her wrists in his massive hands and held her still, surprisingly gently, looking down into her overflowing eyes, unable to work out what was rage in them, what was confusion and what was simple, agonizing hurt. ‘Anastasia! I’ll do anything to make it up to you!’ he said. ‘Tell me what to do.’
‘Kill Max!’ she spat.
‘I can’t, Anastasia!’ He released her and stood back. But the fight was gone out of her. Her hands fell to her sides and she looked up at him with her shoulders slumped. ‘This isn’t some Greek tragedy!’ he whispered, only half convinced. Wondering if she could see the horror of what she had just said.
‘Then you can’t do anything for me, Ivan!’ She turned away and crossed the room, putting the bed between them like the wall of a fortress. ‘You let me down in the past. Oh, Christ, how you let me down! You might as well keep right on doing it in the future.’
‘Anastasia …’ He came forward until the sharp side of the bed frame struck against his shins hard enough to bruise them. ‘Nastia …’Then he stopped, helpless.
She turned back, her face a wilderness and her eyes empty, hopeless. ‘I’d have come for you, Ivan. If things had been the other way round, I’d have come for you no matter what. I swear it on my life!’ She pulled her hand down her face and Anastasia the Amazon Queen was back. ‘Now get the fuck out of my bedroom and leave me alone!’