Awful Resemblance

XIV

                               

Moscow, 8:02 PM.

After hours of reminiscence and overthinking, Annika fell asleep on the couch, Kirill and Roman having left in order to give her some privacy. Although she was deep in her slumber, her senses were still keen as she heard Matvei's arrival.

She slowly opened her eyes to see him taking off his coat in the living room. He didn't seem to have noticed her so she instinctively closed her eyes and pretended to still be asleep.

She heard his footsteps around the room and they got closer to where she was. He tapped her cheek a little to wake her up but seeing no reaction, he grabbed her by the arm and redressed her, forcing her to snap out of her nap.

"I can't let you sleep with an empty stomach." He explained.

"Well, aren't you caring?" She said, her tone full of sarcasm.

He ignored her comment and went to the kitchen to come back after twenty minutes with two fuming dishes of lobster and ravioli. He brought them to the dining room and filled two glasses with red wine, inviting her to join him. She went to sit on the second chair of the table, facing Matvei who was sitting at her parallel.

After a few seconds of contemplating her dish, she finally took a fork and started to eat. Matvei did the same while observing her. He noticed that her amber eyes looked darker than usual, her curls were messier, her lips were dryer and her smile lines seemed to have disappeared. Despite that, he couldn't deny that she was very pretty.

"How was your day?" She hesitantly asked, catching him off guard.

"Good." He replied, not bothering to ask about hers.

"They killed Gavril, didn't they?" She then inquired in a low voice.

He seemed to think for a while before answering :

"Probably not. If they killed him, Rodion would no longer be able to blackmail you."

She quietly sighed of relief.

"Do you think he's okay?" She questioned him.

He shook his head negatively.

"I bet they are taking out their anger on him." He said, sipping on his glass of wine.

She got stiff and lowered her gaze, suddenly feeling unwilling to talk to him.

"Turn me in to them in exchange of my father." She mumbled.

He stopped eating and looked up, locking his eyes to hers with a frown.

"Come again?" He said, unsure if he had misheard her.

"I want you to do as you had planned to: Offer me to them on a silver plate. You obviously don't believe that I am your friend's sister so what's the use of bearing with me any longer?" She blurted, hurting herself with her own words. "But before you completely toss me out, you have to listen to me."

She put down her fork and crossed her arms on the table, leaning towards him.

"The day I moved to Moscow, I was with my aunt, a woman named Elena Minsky." She started. "She is the one who told me that Esther Uwayo was my biological mother and that she had been murdered in her house by a stranger, suspected to be Sasha, when I was a baby. Her and her sister Nadia found her body first and later on, the latter adopted me after marrying Gavril. She said that Esther had hidden me in a kitchen drawer beforehand because she feared for my life. After hearing that, I went to Seldivi the next day in order to meet your father, but instead I met a man called Kesar Rostova and he rushed me to run away so that people wouldn't recognize me as Esther's child. I did as he said but then, Elena and I received the visit of another man, Yegor Petroff, to whom she had promised to give me to in exchange of leaving her alone. He... killed her but before he could lay a hand on me, Kesar shot him and told me to go and tell Sasha who I was. Elena had also told me the same thing but I couldn't bring myself to do that knowing that he could be the one behind Esther's death."

Matvei's face had gone livid. Though against his will, he undoubtedly felt responsible of her after finding out her version of the story. Not taking his eyes off her, he asked for one more confirmation :

"Do you have a birthmark?"

She looked confused but she still acquiesced, saying :

"A big one, behind my left ear."

His heart beat faster and unconsciously, he started to share with her Mikhail's version of the story:

"Kazimir and Esther split up but after a year, he found out that he had gotten her pregnant with fraternal twins that she gave birth to on July 4th. She named them Mikhail and Maria. He actively sought to see them and eventually, she would allow him to visit them on certain events until one day, when Kazimir went to see her with my father's car in order to pick up Mikhail, he found her dead at their return and the daughter was nowhere to be found. Afterwards, the police found a letter of Esther confessing that she had thrown the baby into a lake. According to Mikhail, Kazimir found the body."

Annika froze and she began to have headaches.

"Kazimir lied to him." She stated.

"I doubt that, but somebody else definitely did." Matvei replied, looking at every inch of her face and baffled at the minor resemblance between her and Mikhail.

"Convince him to do a DNA test with me." She requested.

"He is too stubborn," He sighed before suddenly lightening up. "Did Kesar recognize you right away?"

She thought for a bit and then she vigorously nodded.

"He told me that I looked like Esther."

Matvei acquiesced with contentment.

"Then all we have to do is get you to meet Kazimir," He concluded. "With him and my father pressuring Rodion, he might free your father."

"I think I know why Sasha didn't tell Kazimir about me, yet." Annika declared.

Matvei remained silent, inciting her to go on.

"Right now, only a few know that I am related to Esther but if I was often seen around the Smirnov family, everyone would eventually assume that I am Mikhail's twin, which would attract the wrong crowd of people." She thought.

Her theory resonated with him and he added:

"So Sasha is waiting for the right opportunity because he doesn't know if he can trust Kazimir's men. A marriage between the both of us was a way for him to protect you but if your siblings or your father were to know about your blood ties, their reactions could backfire."