He pulled me into his room and locked the door behind me.
"Go on," he said after I just stood there.
Dang, dang, dang! What did he want? A list of all the things I've done wrong went through my head.
I kissed Misha.
But Stephan wouldn't get mad about that, right? I mean, he was making me pretend to be his fiancee and that would only make our roles more believable. So that can't be it.
Did he figure out I was pregnant?
I slapped myself mentally for being so stupid. Of course, he knew by now. The entire Russian country knew! I was on my sixth month and my belly was pretty large; a blind Russian old grandma could tell I was pregnant.
What if Stephan didn't want to me to be pregnant? Would he 'abort' the baby? No, no! He was a very scary and dangerous person but he wouldn't do that. Besides, didn't Misha say that my pregnancy would only make it easier to hide me?
Okay, so what else?
I thought to my deepest fear: Alexander. More precisely, losing him.
I thought hard. I was also very scared of seeing him again. After being away from him for... was it four months or five? Wow, the time had gone by very quickly and I had lost track.
All I knew is that a lot of time had gone by and I didn't want to see him again. No, scratch that. I did, but I was terrified. I had learned so much about him in these few months than I had in my entire two years of being married to him.
It turns out he was the richest person, or at least in the top five, on this planet and his incredible alliance with the governments of all nations made him that much more powerful. That scared me; his power, his influence, and the fact that he forgot to mention it to me.
But I was also scared of learning about him murdering Misha. True, he lived, but at the time he stabbed him in the neck, he definitely wasn't planning on him living. It's only a miracle from God that he did live.
And then, of course, I was scared of showing up with this belly. Even worse, if I showed up with the baby in my arms already. What would he say or do? He did say he wanted children, but I didn't know how much he meant that.
As I had found out in the past few months, he was an excellent liar, and I was very heartbroken to admit that I didn't trust him.
So why was I afraid to lose him? Shouldn't I have been helping plan his death with the rest of the gang?
No, no, somewhere deep down I wanted to forgive him for all the lies he told me. Or, more specifically, all the truth's he didn't say. I wanted to hope that he didn't lie about everything and maybe he did become a different person.
I also maybe wanted him to be the father of his child. I wanted us to eventually get past all this and become a loving and kind family again, the type of family that caused others to be jealous. I wanted that so bad and I couldn't have that without Alexander.
I closed my eyes.
Stephan wouldn't that about me, right? So something else should have caused this 'crisis'.
The letter, my brain whispered to me.
Yes. Yes, the letter. What would happen to me if they found out that Alexander had communicated with me and I didn't let them know?
They would use my greatest fears against me. They would take him away, or they would take me or the baby away. They would definitely make sure I never saw him again.
My breath caught in my throat and I felt my eyes get wet.
Stop! Stop that, Maria! Get yourself together and act like a decent human being! Act like a woman who is strong and independent and a hostage who has crossed the entire world with a baby and a Russsian gang!
I took a deep breath and faced Stephan. I opened my eyes to see the rest of the crew was actually gathered in the room as well.
"Sit."
I sat down. It would be wise not to upset Stephan in any way.
"This... crisis we have. You know about it, don't you?"
I squinted my eyes and cocked my head. "Hmmm, crisis?"
Everyone's eyes were on me. I knew they were talking about the letter! How could they not be? What else did I do, or know about, other than the letter?
Wait...
What if they knew that I had eavesdropped on their plans back on that plane ride to India?
No, no! Misha had told me their plans, right? So that wasn't it!
I wouldn't let them know that Alexander had reached out to me. What if I was completely wrong and they had no idea? If I confessed, that might give them new information. It was safer to play dumb.
"No clue. I don't know about any crisis. You don't let me go to any of your gatherings and so I wouldn't know about anything."
"Really? Funny, because we did allow you to go the ball, did we not?"
I nodded. "Yes, you did."
"Perfect. What happened at the ball?"
I smiled. "Oh, it was so brilliant! I wore a white dress with large red and pink roses or peonies. I have trouble differentiating between flowers, but I am almost positive it was one of those types of flowers. I do remember that it was held at Kremlin's Palace! I had never imagined that one day I would be in the walls where the great Kings and Queens of Russia, let alone dance at a ball just like they had at one point in history! We walked in, the walls-"
"Silence!"
I frowned. Maybe I was playing too dumb. But I didn't care. I couldn't let them know.
"Maria." Stephan leaned in just centimeters away from my nose and in a calm, and freezing voice, slowly said, "What happened at the end of the ball. And please, don't go into detail."
I nodded. "Of course! I remember that Misha had gotten called away by some man, he seemed very important. Misha ran off, cheerily talking with the gentleman about his wife, and left me all alone. I stood around a little but I didn't try to make conversation with any of the guests. Finally, Misha arrived and pretty soon the rest of you guys showed up and we left. We didn't dance anymore because I had gotten too tired and many people were leaving as well. We walked back to the hotel and that's all I have. Excluding the details, of course."
Stephan closed his eyes.
I knew he was trying to hold back a long list of curses, and I was testing his patience. But I didn't care.
I heard a snicker behind me and I didn't need to turn around to see it was Misha. I heard a slap and knew that was Eugene slapping Misha for laughing at the very serious situation.
I also heard a knife being taken out and a set of curses. The curses were from Shurik though, and as soon as I could smell the sweet aroma of burning metal I realized why.
"Maria. One more time, you have a chance to explain what happened."
I nodded again and sat up straight. "Okay, from the end again?"
He nodded. "With a few more details."
"Okay. We had just finished our last dance, Misha and I. At the time we didn't know it would be our last, but it was. Anyways, I needed a break. I think it was the baby or the dress, or just the fact that we had danced practically non-stop with Misha. He is a good dancer, and I didn't mind dancing so much with him. I enjoyed myself quite well. According to Misha, he also enjoyed himself. That's what we were discussing before a gentleman, dressed just as nice as everyone in the Palace, except for Misha, of course, and the rest of you guys came up to us and asked to speak with Misha. His name, I don't remember but I know Misha recognized him immediately and started a conversation about his wife, Anna. I do remember her name, but that's because her name-"
"Maria!"
I calmly looked up at him, not forgetting to plaster on a very sweet and innocent smile. "Yes?"
"Stop!"
"I'm sorry Stephan, but I just don't know what you want. I've told you the story without detail and you didn't seem to like it. I don't know how much detail you would like. I really don't know what I'm missing or what it is that you want me to say."
He let out a slow breath.
"The letter."
I cocked my head and frowned. "The letter... Stephan, I remember details quite well but I don't recall any letter. Was it a letter I gave, or a letter you may have received? I wasn't keeping track of your whereabouts, and definitely not the people you interacted with. I didn't see any letter being exchanged."
Stephan walked out onto the balcony. It was snowing outside but he didn't seem to mind. He needed to cool off before he exploded at me.
The rest of the crew was silent as Stephan stood outside, but I could feel that Misha really wanted to do something wild and Eugene couldn't wait to get out.
Finally, Stephan came back.
"The note you picked up off of the floor as soon as Mikael went to talk with Antonin Dimitrievich about his wife, Anna. Do you remember that, Maria?"
I wanted to laugh but held it in. Ah... the wonderful art of annoying a Russian gang leader.
"Ah! Yes, I remember! It was a piece of paper and I was curious to see if it was important so I picked it up."
Stephan let out a breath of relief. "And what did the note say?"
I shrugged.
Stephan raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"I couldn't read it."
After a moment of silence, he realized I wouldn't say anymore and so he asked, "And what does that mean?"
"It was written in another language. I don't even know which one, but I am guessing German. It looked to me like a list of food items because I recognized the word salz, which is close to the English word salt, and vanillin, which is very similar to the Russian word ванилин, or vanilla in English."
Stephan stared long and hard at me.
I decided to take this time to say a prayer of thanks to God.
Lord, thank you for giving me this idea of a grocery list in a different language. Thank you, God, praise you and please let me out of this room safe and sound. I don't want them to suspect me anymore and I don't want them to suspect Alexander of anything.
"Maria!"
I snapped back to Stephan. "Yes?"
"Are you sure about the letter?"
"No. I am not sure that it was a grocery list because I don't speak or read German, that's the language that I think the note was written in, but as I said, I think it was because of the words I think I could read."
He took a deep breath. A very deep breath.
Good. That most likely meant that he did believe me and the letter didn't get him anywhere.
"Get out."
I nodded and left very quickly before he changed his mind and accidentally killed me.
I rushed out and then hurried to the balcony.
Darn! It was very cold and the snow and wind blowing in my face were not entirely pleasant. However, the open balcony door the room of Stephan made it much easier to bear.
It was faint, but I could hear their conversation.
"We need to check the room. I don't know if I can believe her. Alexander was there at the ball that day and I am sure he noticed her. He'll probably want a way to get her."
"What about the letter he sent us? About keeping her?" Eugene asked.
I heard a deep sigh from Stephan. Funny how I could still hear that above the wind.
"I'm not sure what to do about that, but we have to keep her away from another chance of seeing Alexander. We're almost done with our plan."
Misha laughed. "Speaking of our plan, how about you update me on what's going on. I love going out to the city with Maria, but I would also love to learn what's going on with our plan."
"You're right. As you know, we planned to slowly ruin him from the inside. We did fairly decent in Cairo and Dubai but that wasn't even the start to the plan. We've been having meetings with people who don't like Alexander. You know many of them. They've each been putting in some effort in the plan."
"Okay. Give me the current situation."
"Shurik was able to hack into the office. We have full access in there now. The European countries have lost contact with him because of that now and their immigration problems are rising. Everything Alexander had been helping with is deteriorating."
I paled. No! Alexander had very good relationships established with the government of Spain, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Poland... and the rest of Europe! Many of our customers were European and we had built very good connections between us and the customers and the countries!
"Australia was ours as soon as we took Dubai and Sydney. I have no idea why Dubai contributed but apparently, that was a good thing to get Dubai. The people hate Alexander's influence there and although the government still loves him, it's hard for the government to fight the citizens."
"Perfect," Misha said. "Next."
"You know our next biggest project was the Middle East and Africa. Dubai certainly helped, but it got us nowhere close because of Jordan."
I thought back to the time Alexander told me that we have got to be on the good side of Jordan Jonathan. Did he know what could have happened? Either way, I was very glad that he knew that we needed Jordan.
"Explain," Misha said.
You'd think that Misha was the leader of the gang. Stephan obeyed him immediately without any questions.
"Jordan's influence in the country is way more positive and stronger than we originally thought. He not only gained popularity within the government but with the people as well. That is the biggest difference between him and Alexander. Alexander only looked after the governments and worked with them. The citizens would hardly know him, especially of all the good he's done." Stephan explained.
"Yes, I know. Alexander's cold attitude towards people caused him to forget how important it is to create a positive reputation within the country. He did much good, but he didn't know how to make it known."
I frowned. Really? Was that really's Alexander's flaw that would now cost him his entire fortune?
It made sense, however. He would never directly talk with people of countries or the developing businesses. He strictly communicated with the government only, and they did learn to love him, but the people never learned of all the good he did for their fellow citizens.
"Jordan was the opposite and since he has befriended Alexander, getting the Middle East away from them is nearly impossible. But we are trying anyway."
"Good," Misha stated cold and clear.
He almost never used his cold and determined voice, but he had a reason to now.
I wanted to be mad at the scheme the men had devised but I couldn't. Not entirely. To some degree, I understood Misha's anger, and his desire to ruin Alexander.
After all, what could be more valuable than life, and scarier than losing it? Facing eternity, facing God? Losing your life and your future on earth?
That is what Alexander had done. He took away Misha's life. And as much as I hated hearing Alexander go through so much loss, a part of me couldn't help but think he deserved it.
"You've got to distract Maria, Misha. We'll need her gone as much as possible during our fight for the Middle East."
"I know. I hate having to do this to her husband, she doesn't deserve it. But if I just think of him as Alexander Vasiliev, the last image I had before I died, it's easier to do this to him." Misha said softly.
I let out a shaky breath. Why did I understand him so easily?
"Good. I don't know what to do about the letter. I think Alexander will want to reach out to her and we need to stop that. Whatever it takes. Her role isn't done and we need her with us. He can't have anyone while we're ripping him apart." The cold in Stephan's voice surpassed the cold of the snow falling and sent a shiver down my back.
The room was silent. I was silent.
"Go, keep her safe and out of the way, Misha. We're going to start to find a path to destroy Jordan first."
I quickly hurried back into my room and hopped into the shower. It would have been suspicious if Misha came in and I was covered in snowflakes.
Now, how could I help Alexander, but also help Misha?