Building the Tension | ✔ | 18+

Chapter 20 - Back to My Roots

When Yuri and I finished our training session, my father was standing outside the classroom door. My ... father. Just thinking the words sounded so strange and foreign to me. This was my father.

Knowing about Dimitri and his deal with him just made this all even more strange. If I had heard he was the sort of man that made deals like that, it would've been odd enough. Knowing that Dimitri was in his debt was something different.

I also couldn't escape the way Dimitri reacted to him. There are few people in this world that I've seen cause such revulsion in Dimitri. None of them that I've met are people that I'd like to cross paths with. His first instinct when he saw him was to protect me, too - no thought of himself, or of the man coming to collect his due, just to protect me, fiercely. Something in the back of my mind was in awe of the fact that Dimitri would put me first to that extent, this incredibly beautiful man who had told me that he loved me and wanted to put my safety before his own life.

I couldn't deny that I love him, too. All of my doubts from the past few weeks seemed to have evaporated when he'd had that knife up to my throat earlier. I'm not sure if the life flashed before my eyes or I just realized how much I can truly trust him, but I knew. He was the only man for me. Dimitri - and a dozen others - was my past, and Adrian may have been my present, but Dimitri was my future. The only future I wanted.

My father, though - he was the unknown. My mother had loved him. Still loved him, or at least trusted him, if her arranging this introduction was any indication. She had wanted me to meet him. I might even think that she thought highly of him. He certainly was a puzzle.

After Dimitri had left for his gate duty, Abe and I had a few minutes to talk. He had asked me a few brief questions about my friends and relationships on campus, then we separated so that I would have time to shower and change before my training in this classroom with Yuri. To be honest, I'm not sure I knew what to say to him then - or now - and I didn't exactly have any concrete plans. Admittedly, I had a lot of questions, but I wasn't sure where to start. I decided while I was in training with Yuri, though, that even though Abe was apparently some criminal mastermind, I wasn't going to let him intimidate me - especially if he was my father.

"Hello again, Rosemarie," he said, motioning out towards the building exit doors as Yuri gave me a wave and walked away, "Shall we walk?"

"Old man, please call me Rose," I said.

"'Old man'," he said, with a dry chuckle, "I don't know if I like you calling me that."

"Well, get used to it," I said, "I think it's gonna stick. Unless, of course, you'd like me to call you Zmey."

"So, you've heard that name, too, I see. You and Guardian Belikov must be very close, indeed." Close? Yeah, that's one word for it. I saw an odd glint forming in his eye as he saw my reaction to that statement.

"He told me about his debt to you," I said, "I don't know what I think of the fact that you're the kind of man who would extort some future promised favor out of a thirteen-year-old boy who was just trying to keep his family safe."

"This isn't the way I wanted to start things, Rosemarie, but you should know that I never would've done what I did for so little if I didn't care for him and his family."

"Then why make him owe anything at all? You could've just done this one out of the goodness of your heart. And, once again, it's just Rose, please."

"People don't survive in my line of work doing things out of the goodness of their hearts," he said.

I didn't want to have to play this card, but it felt necessary. "So why not do it for me now? Can't you make this just go away if I ask you for it? Just wipe the slate clean because I care about him and he is my friend."