Whatever It Takes
Table of Contents
Title Page
COPYRIGHT
WHATEVER IT TAKES
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
About the Author
WHATEVER IT TAKES
BARBARA ELSBORG
COPYRIGHT
Whatever It Takes is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination, as are many locales. Where actual locations are mentioned, they are used in a fictitious manner. Where real people or events are mentioned, the information is freely available on the Internet.
Copyright © 2019 by Barbara Elsborg
Cover design by B4Jay
Edited by Deco
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or transmitted in any manner without written permission from Barbara Elsborg, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For all enquiries please contact Barbara Elsborg at bjelsborg@gmail.com
Image/art disclaimer : Licenced material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licenced material is a model.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Rita, Jo, Misty and Katerina for all your thoughts and suggestions and encouragement. Particularly for the rereads and enthusiasm for the story. Thanks also to my daughter Natalie for her ideas for the final part of the tale and for not reading the sex scenes.
WHATEVER IT TAKES
War in Syria has devastated Zain’s country, destroyed his family and broken his heart. When there is nothing left to stay for, he journeys to England, determined to follow in his father’s footsteps and train as a doctor in London. He might be a refugee with no money, no friends and no qualifications but he still has his dreams and he’ll do whatever it takes to ensure his future turns out to be the one he wants.
Roman is a world away from the naïve Russian boy who lost everything, one devastating day. Now he’s a fixer for a wealthy Russian, keeping the guy’s business dealings away from the attention of the British authorities. Roman is balanced on a moral tightrope, which grows more unsteady by the hour. The last thing he needs is to become emotionally involved with a young Syrian, especially when he can’t afford to trust anyone.
A chance discovery in Roman’s car by Zain sets off a violent chain reaction and Zain is thrown into a world that threatens not just his dreams but his life. Roman has difficult decisions to make. He’s determined to do whatever it takes to keep Zain safe. But lingering shadows from their pasts as well as prominent figures from Roman’s present need to be eliminated if they’re to have a chance together.
As lies and danger escalate, are they doomed before they’ve even begun?
Chapter One
Before
Moscow
Roman had just walked through the side gate and was on his way up the drive when something struck him in the face. He gasped and reeled back as a football bounced away. The second ball knocked the box he was holding from his hands, and though he tried to catch it, it hit the ground. Roman heard Dima laughing. The third ball missed him but the damage was done.
He rubbed his fingers under his nose, and they came away smeared with blood. Dima was such a bastard. Another football sat under his foot, and Roman waited to see what he was going to do.
Dima dribbled the ball down the drive towards him. “What’s in the box?”
As Roman reached to pick it up, Dima kicked the ball straight at him. Roman moved to avoid it and Dima took the opportunity to jump on the box. There was no way the cake had survived that and Roman was flooded with a mixture of disappointment and rage.
“Arsehole,” Roman muttered.
“Oops,” Dima said. “Your birthday cake?”
Roman picked up the box and opened it, just in case there was a part he could salvage for him and his father but there wasn’t. Rage swamped disappointment and Roman smacked the mashed-up cake into Dima’s face before hurrying up the drive, leaving Dima wailing behind him.
It had been a mistake to retaliate. Dima wouldn’t let him get away with that. Roman slipped around the side of the mansion and down into the basement flat he and his father occupied.
His father sat at the small kitchen table drinking tea. “I thought you were bringing your cake home?”
“Dima’s wearing it,” Roman mumbled.
His father winced.
“He knocked it out of my hands with a football then jumped on it. I decided he might as well have it.”
Roman slid his school bag from his shoulder and slumped at the table.
“Perhaps it’s just as well that Arkady is away.” His father pulled out his wallet. “Go and buy another cake.”
“No, it doesn’t matter.” Roman spun around when he heard someone clattering down the stairs.
Dima burst in without knocking. “Look what he’s done to me. Look at my clothes.”
“And how did Roman get a bloody nose?” his father asked.
“I kicked the ball to him. He was supposed to kick it back. I want him punished.”
“No birthday cake for you, Roman.”
Dima glared. “I’ll tell my father.”
“Then Roman can tell Arkady his side of the story.”
Roman could almost hear Dima grinding his teeth.
“I’m spending the night at my friend’s,” Dima snapped. “Be ready to take me in fifteen minutes. And wear your uniform.” He stamped off again.
When they heard the door slam at the top of the stairs, they both sighed.
“He’s a little shit,” his father muttered. “Just as well you’re not at the same school.”
“We’d be in different classes. He’s a year older than me.” Fifteen to Roman’s fourteen tomorrow.
“Is your nose okay?”
Roman felt it gingerly. “I think so.”
“Dima only got a satisfactory grade in the assessments.”
Roman was surprised he’d managed that.
“Arkady was not happy. Perhaps it’s better that you’re a good rather than an honour student.”
Roman shrugged, but his father was right. Dima always had to be the best at everything, have the best of everything.
“The grading system might be unfair but at least it gives him an excuse,” his father said.
The overall assessment was set by the lowest grade a student gained in a term. Even if Dima had been at the good level in all subjects but one, that one grade would pull him down to satisfactory. Just as Roman’s level had been pulled from an honour student to a good one by his mark in Russian history. And it was a matter of opinion as to whether he or the teacher had been right about The Winter War with Finland.
“He’ll just say it’s easier to do well at my school.” Roman shrugged.
Which was possibly true but Roman worked hard. Dima went to a school full of rich, privileged kids with ambitious parents who could buy success for their children if they didn’t achieve it on their own merits. Not that Roman’s father wasn’t ambitious for him but his chance of the future his father wou
ld like him to have was small. Education was his only hope and even that didn’t ensure success.
“Watch out for him, Roman. He has too much of his father in him.”
“Me too?”
His father grinned. “You never know. You might turn out to be as good-looking as me.”
Roman laughed.
“Want a lift to school tomorrow?” his father called as he changed in the bedroom. “I need to collect Arkady from the airport, but I have time to drop you off, especially since it’s your birthday.”
“Thanks. Just as long as you turn on the blinkers and cut through traffic. Best birthday present ever.”
His father chuckled. But sometimes, when Dima overslept, that was exactly what his father had to do to get him to school on time. Even if Dima was the one who’d delayed them setting off, it was Roman’s father who got the blame for Dima’s late arrival. Dima was a spoilt arsehole.
His father came out of the bedroom in his chauffeur’s uniform. “Chicken and pasta for dinner. Don’t wait for me. Dima will probably find some reason to keep me hanging around.”
“I’m sorry.”
His father hugged him. “Don’t be. I know you try to turn the other cheek but you can’t let him get away with it all the time.”
When his father had gone, Roman cleaned up his face. There wasn’t much blood and at least his nose wasn’t broken. Dima didn’t usually use physical violence. He was more cunning than that. Words hurt as much as stones.
Roman might live in a mansion with a swimming pool, gym, cinema, sauna and ice pool, but he wasn’t allowed to use any of them as Dima delighted in reminding him. Though on a couple of occasions, when the house had been empty, he’d risked a swim in the pool. Never the fun experience he’d hoped for because he spent the entire time on edge expecting someone to come back and catch him. A bit like swimming in the sea worrying a great white shark would surge up and eat him. Not that he’d ever swum in the sea.
He and his father occupied a basement flat in the huge seven-bedroom, mock French chateau on the outskirts of Moscow. His father had the only proper bedroom; Roman managed in the box room, though it was barely big enough for a bed, and there was no window. They shared a small bathroom and a reasonably large living space though the only furniture they had was a two-seater sofa, a reclining chair for his father—given to him by Arkady, and a small TV.
Roman started his homework, hoping his father would come back so they could eat together but when he didn’t, Roman prepared the food and ate. His father wasn’t back by the time Roman went to bed, but he wasn’t worried. Dima was just making his point, though Roman felt bad that his father was the one paying for him pushing the cake into Dima’s face.
“Time to wake up, birthday boy.”
Roman opened his eyes to see his father looking down at him.
“Happy birthday.” His father perched on the bed. When Roman sat up, he pulled his ears fourteen times. “Grow up. Don’t be noodles.” A traditional Russian birthday greeting. “Though you’re already tall and strong.” He handed Roman a bag.
Roman looked inside and gasped. The book on rocks he’d wanted. He threw his arms around his father and hugged him. “Thank you.”
“I wish it was more.”
“It’s perfect.”
“I bought you a cake to take to school.”
Roman swallowed the lump in his throat. “Papa…”
His father brushed the hair from Roman’s eyes. “You look so much like your mother.”
“Even without make-up and a dress?”
His father laughed.
Roman wanted to look at the book but it would have to wait until after school. He showered, dressed, and hurried to the table to spoon porridge into his mouth. The cake was… “Honeycake?” Roman’s eyes widened when he opened the lid.
“I know it’s your favourite.”
“Papa.” Roman could feel tears forming in his eyes.
His father hugged him. “You are so precious to me. Happy Birthday, Roman. Now hurry and pack up your books. I’ll carry the cake. We’ll go for a ride around the city first and you can wave regally from the back of the car.”
Roman laughed. He piled up his books on the kitchen table then slotted them into his bag before following his father up the stairs.
But as they headed for the car, Roman groaned. “I’ve forgotten my saxophone.”
“I’ll get the engine going.”
Roman clattered back down the stairs. He grabbed his saxophone case from next to the kitchen table, gathered together his music and as he hurried back up, he heard the car start. But the familiar sound was followed by a loud boom. Roman emerged to see the Mercedes rise up inside a ball of smoke and flames, then slam back down with a sickening crunch. Hot air rushed towards him and he dropped what he was holding to bring his arm up to cover his face, turning away as pieces of metal shot in his direction.
It seemed to take an impossibly long time for his mind to process what had happened, that the car had blown up and his father was inside. When it did, he ran towards the vehicle only to stumble to a halt before he reached it. There was hardly any car left. Just a tangled burning mess and… His heart pulled him forward but heat pushed him back.
“Papa!” he screamed.
Roman pictured himself dragging his father out, smothering the flames with his body, but he was a skinny fourteen-year-old. His father was six foot and a hundred and eighty pounds. Regardless, Roman would have still tried to pull him out but he couldn’t even see him. The car had been turned to twists of metal and everything was on fire, even the ground.
“Papa,” he whispered. “Papa Papa Papa.”
He backed away from the intense heat. Oh God. Oh God.
“What’s happened?”
Raisa, Arkady’s eighteen-year-old mistress, came up at his side. Her gaze flicked between Roman and the burning vehicle.
“The car blew up.” Roman’s ears were ringing.
“Your father?”
“Was…inside.”
“Arkady’s Mercedes! There’s nothing left.”
Nor of my father. Maybe he hadn’t been in there. Maybe he was in the garage. But in the midst of the fire, he could now see a shape sitting behind the wheel. Roman began to shake.
“Oh, it stinks.” Raisa clapped a hand over her mouth and nose, turned and fled back into the house.
“Papa,” Roman whispered again as if his father was going to emerge from the fire like a phoenix and everything would be fine.
He waited and waited.
I’m not going to get a lift now. I’ll be late.
Roman was dimly aware he was in shock and not thinking straight, but he fetched everything he’d dropped, shook the glass off his music and gathered it together, even the charred pages, picked up his bag and saxophone, and walked to the gate. He heard the sirens of emergency vehicles as he turned the corner and sped up as if he could escape what had happened.
A bus arrived moments after he reached the stop, but Roman was still late for school. He knocked on the door of the classroom and requested permission to enter. His teacher narrowed his eyes but beckoned him in. “Are you all right?”
Roman nodded.
“What happened to you?” Ilya whispered as Roman sat next to him. “Your clothes? Your face? Have you been in an accident? Happy birthday, by the way.”
Roman brushed his fingers across his cheek and they came away smeared with red. He rubbed his hand on his dark trousers. His white shirt was speckled with blood and dirt. He tried to concentrate but there was a heavy weight pressing on his brain and another on his heart.
Someone had killed his father.
Forgetting his saxophone had saved Roman.
Right at that moment, he wished it hadn’t.
Roman was called out of the classroom a few hours later, after three lessons in which he’d done no work, and was driven to a police station. Everything he did took so much effort. Walking, sitting, speaking, breathing. My father… Papa
…
No, Roman had no idea who’d want to kill Arkady Grekov.
No, Roman had no idea who might know Arkady was away.
No, Roman hadn’t seen anyone messing around with the car. Apart from his father, but he wouldn’t blow himself up.
The police automatically assumed Arkady was the target and Roman thought they were right. Who would want to kill his father? His kind, loving, funny Papa? The most important person in Roman’s life. The only person he had left in the world. At the insistence of the police, Roman went over and over what had happened that morning. Suddenly, it all became real, and in that shabby windowless room, sitting on a hard metal chair, he began to cry.
No one hugged him. No one put a hand on his shoulder. They watched him fall apart and Roman’s heart turned to stone. He was nothing. He didn’t matter to anyone. He no longer wanted anyone to help him or feel sorry for him. This was his grief. The burden was his. He didn’t want to share it.
But even as his tears subsided, reality pushed its way forward. What was going to happen to him now? His home would be occupied by a new chauffeur-cum-bodyguard. Roman had no living relatives. He didn’t want to go into an orphanage. He’d rather live on the street.
The police took him back with his bag and saxophone to what had been his home. A piece of shrapnel was lodged in the saxophone case and when Roman saw it, the breath caught in his throat.
The gates of Arkady’s house opened, and Arkady emerged as the car pulled up. Dima was at his side, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Roman.” A pale-faced Arkady strode forward and pulled him into his arms.
Roman’s father had called Arkady a sleeping dragon, a man to be cautious of and it felt to Roman as if Arkady held him too tight, suffocating him. He endured the embrace, his arms hanging limp at his sides but Arkady didn’t let him go. He could feel Arkady shaking, hear his rapid breathing and gradually Roman stopped enduring and let himself fall into kindness.
“You’re not to worry,” Arkady said. “Everything will be all right.”