Twilight Sins: Chapter 29

Turns out snooping isn’t as easy as it looks.

In the movies, people yank open drawers and dump out boxes onto long wooden tables. They spread papers around like they’re having a confetti fight. But I have to be precise. Yakov’s office is a shrine to his efficiency. He’ll probably sense a shift in the spacetime continuum if I incorrectly alphabetize one of his folders.

I have to be strategic about this.

“Start at the top and work my way down,” I decide, pulling out a stack of files from the top drawer and placing them carefully on his desk.

The first folder is nothing earth-shattering. Bills and bank statements, both with an unreal amount of zeroes. When you see a mansion like Yakov’s, the person is either deep in debt or ridiculously wealthy. I can now say with confidence that Yakov is the latter.

The most interesting thing I find is a stack of contracts written in Russian. If I had my phone, I’d be Google Translating my ass off. As it is, my monolingual brain is out of luck.

One by one, I sift through a folder, place it facedown to the left, and then move to the next.

Between some of the folders are loose photographs. Old Polaroids of a little girl with dark brown curls holding a ratty stuffed elephant under her chin. Another is of the same little girl with a slightly older boy. He has the same deep-set eyes as Yakov, but it isn’t him. His siblings, probably.

Yakov is the kind of man who barely mentions he has siblings, but then keeps photos of them in his desk drawer? Of course he is.

How is it possible that I’m pissed at him, rooting through his office, and he is still finding a way to soften my heart? He probably planted the photos to make me second-guess my decision to snoop.

Well… he’ll have to try harder than that. It will take more than a little sentimentality to get me off the case.

I set the very cute photos aside and keep searching.

The third drawer—like the first and second—is a collection of boring documents and nothing at all incriminating. Admittedly, guilt is starting to creep in.

Yakov let me into his home, protected me, fed me, fucked me absolutely sideways, and this is how I repay him?

I’m about to pack it all in and try to erase any evidence of my presence from the office when I flip over a folder with another Polaroid photo paper-clipped to the front.

This photo I recognize.

“… Benjy?”

Benjy is standing next to a car. Last I knew, he didn’t have one, but he’s about to climb into the driver’s seat. That’s all beside the point because the photo is unposed. It’s obvious he has no idea anyone is taking his picture.

I flip the folder open and I know for a fact Benjy had no clue about any of this. It’s detailed accounts of everywhere he was and every person he saw in a twenty-four-hour period. The couple pages after that are known addresses, phone numbers, and people of interest. I see my name near the middle of the list, just under Tiffany. The woman he cheated on me with.

I stare at the information in front of me and try to make sense of it.

Yakov asked me about my ex and I told him. He seemed surprised when I described my relationship with Benjy. Was it an act? Are they working together?

“No.” I say it out loud to try to calm the rapid-fire beat of my heart. “No, they aren’t working together.”

To what end? Benjy has absolutely nothing Yakov would ever want. Unless Yakov is suddenly in the market for a sunken-in foldout couch and a dried-up savings account. Even if Benjy did have something valuable, I’ve seen enough of Yakov’s old bank statements to know Yakov can afford anything Benjy might have ten times over. One hundred times over. Benjy has squat, yet Yakov has a picture of him in his desk.

Why?

There’s nothing else in the folder that gives any kind of context, so I set it away from the rest of the folders and keep searching.

The deeper I get in the desk, the more interesting things get. In the back of the bottom drawer is a plastic bag full of cheap phones. Burners, if I had to guess.

I don’t want to know why Yakov needs so many disposable phones, but I also don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I pocket one of the phones for later. Just in case I need a lifeline out of this mansion.

Then I pull out a newspaper clipping from the day Yakov’s dad was murdered. There’s no identifying information in the article, but the headline alone makes it obvious who it is about. Man Gunned Down in Front of Family; Police Asking for Information.

Underneath the article are a few more folders about people I don’t recognize. Someone named Budimir. Another man named Akim Gustev.

A few minutes ago, I would have poured over all of this information. I would have combed through every piece of paper looking for how Yakov knows these people and what really happened the day his dad was murdered.

But the only thing in my head now is: how does Yakov know Benjy?

What I told Kayla is true: I trust Yakov. Or, I want to. He’s been tight-lipped since I met him, but as far as I know, he hasn’t lied to me.

I want to think that he wouldn’t.

I’m sitting criss-cross on the floor with a million new thoughts and questions zigzagging through my brain when I hear Yakov’s voice.

“Shit!” My organized, methodical approach to going through the folders fell apart once I saw Benjy’s folder. The stacks in front of me are a mess and there’s nothing to be done about it. I scoop them into my arms and drop them in a heap in the bottom drawer.

I barely have time to slam the drawer closed and dive under the desk before I hear the office door open.

Yakov is speaking to someone on the phone in Russian. In another context, I’d be fascinated to listen to him. Beyond the nickname he has given me and a few curse words he reserves for when he’s deep inside of me, I haven’t heard him speak any of his native tongue.

Current circumstances as they are, however, I’d rather be any-fucking-where else on the planet.

I curl into a tight ball under his desk and pray he’s just here to straighten the single pen on his desk or drop off a piece of mail.

Whatever it is, I hope he does it fast. It’s tight quarters under his desk and my legs are starting to cramp.

I wrap my arms tightly around my knees to keep myself in a ball, but as I readjust, my foot slips.

I freeze.

He didn’t hear that. There’s no way. It was one small scrape of my heel across the carpet. He is a human being, not Predator.

Then Yakov goes quiet. I listen in horror as he walks around his desk.

His legs come into view. Then the chair is slowly dragged backwards.

The entire time, I try to maintain my cozy sense of denial.

But as soon as Yakov bends down and glares at me, his brows pinched and his mouth tugged down in a deadly serious scowl, I have to give up the charade.

He mutters something into the phone that I roughly translate to mean, “Excuse me. I have to murder a nosey blonde woman. I’ll call you right back.”

Then he hangs up and looks at me. His tongue runs threateningly across his teeth. “What are you doing here, Luna?”

I force a grin. “Would you believe it if I told you I was here to give you a blowjob?”