Estes Park, CO July 2010
Boris flipped through the papers on his desk, reviewing the various holdings of his extended family. Ever since he had recovered from his poisoning Boris had vowed to take a more aggressive stance on dealing with his relatives. They had gone after Marisa, not once, but twice. They tried had to murder him, and very possibly had murdered his father. Before he had employed only countermeasures, postponing attacks until he'd found the culprit. That strategy had nearly ended with his death. A change in course was long overdue.
Boris' new plan was to hit the Ratenicz and von Jurgens branches where it would hurt: their bottom-line. He would continue to launch assaults on their business interests, their holdings, and their homes until someone offered him the head of his adversary. The only question was, where to strike next?
Boris' phone rang, and he immediately accepted the call. One of Boris' lawyers greeted him then reported that the acquisition of a Ratenicz summer home had been successful. Call loans really were beautiful things. A little pressure applied to the bank and suddenly the Rateniczes had to pay the full balance or foreclose. Humiliation and a financial hit all in one stroke.
"Excellent. Put it immediately back on the market. New money buyers only. Ideally a rapper or better still, a reality show personality." Marisa slipped into the room, her smile telling him he had been overheard. She thought his condition was amusing. Little did she realize it wasn't simply pettiness driving his request. To lose a family property was a blow, but to lose it to the nouveau riche was a bitter insult.
"Very good, Mr. Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz." Boris closed his phone and smiled at the love of his life.
"Something I can do for you, mi corazon?" He had no objection to taking a break from his business, not when he was doing his best to make up for lost time. Being at odds with Marisa had been agonizing. He'd felt like a part of him was missing. Now he was whole again.
"I won't wish to interrupt you while you are making war on your family." Boris came around the front of his desk and pulled Marisa to him for a kiss.
"You and Carlos are my family. They are a pack of vicious, traitorous criminals with whom I happen to share some genetic material." Marisa ran a hand up his chest, resting it over his heart.
"It wasn't a criticism, mi amor. If I ever got my hands on that servant of yours…" Marisa stepped back, her fingers flexing as if they were surrounding Dieter's neck. The look of her face was murderous. Doctor or no, Boris' enemy would do well to stay out of her reach.
Marisa closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When she opened them her expression had cleared, homicidal thoughts banished for the moment.
"But we have happier matters to discuss. The church has been booked for next week. We do need to make a decision on Godparents."
Boris nodded. Marisa was correct. With the war escalating, arrangements for Carlos needed to be made. He and Marisa had both dodged bullets and there was no telling if their luck would hold.
"I'd like Hank to be Carlos' godfather." Marisa smiled up at him, his suggestion apparently no surprise.
"I think that's an excellent idea." Boris blinked. He'd thought he'd need to make his case before she agreed.
"You don't think he's an odd selection?" Marisa raised a sardonic eyebrow at him.
"You, choosing an agnostic Jewish man to guide our son in the teachings of Christ? No." Marisa looked as though she was fighting not to laugh.
"I can't tell if you are being serious or not." She shrugged, apparently unconcerned.
"You're a lapsed Buddhist. The only reason you are having this ceremony at all is for me." That made some sense to Boris. Hank was a concession she was willing to make, because she thought he'd already made one. She was compromising as they'd both agreed to for the sake of their relationship.
"Untrue. I also like to cover my bases." Boris would do everything he could to protect his son, in this life and the next. The minor ritual was insurance, in case Marisa's version of the afterlife turned out to be right. If there was a heaven, then his son was going.
"Si. And that's the main reason you want Hank as godfather. In the event something happens to both of us, you want Hank to raise Carlos." He eyed Marisa uneasily, unsure if she'd be offended he hadn't picked a member of her family.
"I can think of no one I would trust most more." The doctor's exceptional medical skills were a consideration. Carlos' health would be in the best of possible hands, regardless of whether or not he carried a genetic disease. Additionally if anyone could bring up Carlos to use his vast fortune with honor, it would be Hank. Boris could rest easy knowing if the worst happened his son would be raised with integrity and love.
"Neither can I." Boris let out a breath of relief. It was quite a feeling, to be so fully on the same page as his partner.
"I'd also like to grant him power of attorney, con su permiso." Marisa squinted at him as though he were speaking gibberish.
"What do you need my permission for?"
"I wanted to be sure you won't feel slighted." Marisa stepped closer to Boris and wrapped her arms around him.
"If there comes a time when Hank would need to invoke it, dealing with your business affairs would be the last thing on my mind. Though I can't imagine Hank will be faring much better."
Despite the grim future that scenario presented, Boris couldn't help but smile. The thought of all those unctuous high powered businessmen kowtowing to Hank Lawson was quite the image.
"I'm confident Evan would be there to help guide him through it." Two Lawsons for the price of one. It had always been so, from that very first night. Boris had initially only tolerated the younger Lawson, but in time he developed a certain fondness for the CPA.
"And you're comfortable with that?" Marisa's tone was skeptical, and he couldn't blame her. She knew how seriously Boris took his family legacy, and Evan very rarely came off as a serious man.
"Yes. Evan is a competent businessman. His university marks were excellent and he's managed to turn HankMed into a profitable enterprise with little interference from me."
Boris neglected to mention Evan's investment failures, or the loan to his father. The younger man had stumbled, but what was more important to Boris was that he had taken responsibility and recovered. All businessmen experience setbacks from time to time. It was what they did after that mattered.
"I would never have guessed."
"You wouldn't be alone in underestimating him, but beneath the awkward exterior, there is potential."
Evan was an intriguing character, with far more depth and intelligence than Boris had initially credited him with. People weren't always who they appeared to be. Sometimes that was for the worse, as with Dieter. Sometimes that was for the better, as with Evan.
"High praise coming from you." Boris shook himself, clearing his head of his ruminations.
"It's likely a moot point in any case. As Hank said, I may have already beaten my 'disease.'"
Boris may have been horrifically betrayed by someone he trusted, but even the chance his genes were stable was quite the silver lining. Better to focus on that than his fugitive retainer. It frustrated Boris to no end that his people had not yet been able to locate the man.
"I am sorry about Dieter." Boris smiled weakly at the sympathy in her tone, kissing Marisa's hand to reassure her.
"We weren't...personally close." In the early days of their relationship Boris had tried to befriend the retainer, but he had been met with resistance. Dieter came from a family with a legacy of service to the Kuester clan. Tradition dictated a certain formality be maintained at all times. At least that WAS the motive Boris had ascribed to the manservant. Now he thought differently. Perhaps Dieter had wanted to keep his distance to make his ultimate goal of murdering Boris easier.
"Still, he was in your life for a long time." Boris felt his anger rise anew, recalling all of the man's sins, not just his final act.
"Which made him the perfect assassin and spy. Your detainment in Cuba was because of him."
Boris' forensic accountants had found an offshore holding containing a sizable transfer on the day of Marisa's arrest. It was a brilliant plan, really. Marisa had presented a problem on so many levels. A doctor and an expert in Boris' disease, she could have uncovered the poison plot, just as Hank had. Marisa had also found out about her pregnancy just before her arrest. He wouldn't put it past his relatives to have acquired that intelligence prior to her incarceration. The only reason he had been able to free Marisa was that Dima had had leverage on the prison's warden. Without Dimitry, Marisa would no doubt have been purchased and leveraged, along with his unborn child.
Hank's father had been the ideal scapegoat. Dieter knew Boris' father's history with conmen, and Boris' bone-deep hatred of them. He had been so quick to point the finger at Eddie R. Lawson and Dieter's 'intelligence' had fed that suspicion. It was only due to the fact he'd had multiple investigations running that Eddie had been cleared. Without that information, Boris would have taken vengeance. That vengeance would have no doubt irrevocably fractured Boris' relationship with Hank. Without Hank at his side, Dieter's assassination attempt would have succeeded.
"Everything worked out in the end." Boris leaned and kissed her forehead, gratitude flooding him.
"Thanks to Hank. How differently things would have turned out if we had never met." Marisa tilted her head at Boris in curiosity.
"How did you meet? You never told me the story." Boris smiled, fondly recalling the events of the previous year.
"Last summer I threw a large party on Memorial day weekend. He was there." Boris remembered his ennui that evening, feeling even older than his forty-odd years. How it had seemed a Herculean labor to join the festivities he had been hosting.
"Was he trying to secure donors for his hospital?" Of course Marisa had guessed that motive. She knew better than anyone how Boris liked to scatter worthy hopefuls amongst the uber wealthy. Marisa had once called him a 'philanthropic matchmaker'. Little did she know his mother had first introduced Boris to the practice. One of his Ratenicz cousins had once snidely called her efforts 'charity pimping'. Boris had taken his revenge, hiring a former member of the coast guard to steal and sink Laszlo's favorite yacht.
"No, he'd actually been recently fired." More than once Boris had toyed with the idea of retaliating against Brooklyn Mercy's hospital administrators. The spineless bureaucrats had nearly destroyed Hank's life. They deserved a reckoning. Only three things stopped him.
First, in a roundabout way they had put Hank in Boris' path. Without their craven actions, Boris would be long dead. Second, Hank would never approve. He was very New Testament in that respect. Third, it was a fear of the privileged that had motivated the board of directors to betray Hank. Boris' using his wealth to decimate them would only perpetuate that trepidation in other hospital admins. They wouldn't learn to protect their doctors, they would learn to dread their wealthy patients.
"Then why was he on your guest list?"
"He wasn't. He and Evan were 'gate-crashing'." Boris chuckled remembering the charade.
"Hank, sneaking into a fancy party?"
Boris understood her credulity. Hobnobbing was not one of Hank's favorite pastimes. It spoke to Hank's mindset after his fall from grace that Evan had convinced him to attend at all. If the younger Lawson had revealed he had no legitimate means of entry, Boris doubted Hank would have left Brooklyn.
"Evan didn't tell Hank that was the plan until they were at security."
After Hank had departed Boris had watched the security footage of his and his brother's 'infiltration' on his computer. The expression on the doctor's face when he'd been dubbed 'Johan the bodyguard' was quite funny.
"That makes more sense. You let them stay?" One seemingly inconsequential decision that had completely altered the course of Boris' life.
"Yes, quite fortunately as it turned out. One of the models collapsed, and my former concierge doctor misdiagnosed her. He was about to administer the wrong medication when Hank intervened." April was the first, though not that last Hamptonite to be saved by the good doctor.
"I can guess the rest. Hank heroically saved the young woman and you hired him on the spot." Boris snorted. Hank had not made things nearly so easy for him.
"Close. Hank saved the girl. I tried to compensate him. He refused payment and scolded me for not calling an ambulance." Boris recalled Hank's chivalry, covering the model with his jacket to spare her modesty as she was lifted to one of the upstairs bedrooms. He'd stood vigil at her bedside until she awoke, ignoring Boris as if he were a piece of expensive furniture.
It wasn't until after April regained consciousness that he'd favored Boris with a smile. That too had been intriguing. The look hadn't been smug, or expectant, as Boris was certain Silver's would have been. No, it was an invitation for Boris to share in that moment of relief. The girl would be well again, and that was all it took to please Hank Lawson.
"At least he didn't call you a liar, a hypocrite, and a condescending rich boy." Boris smiled at her reference to their own first encounter.
"I do not recall that last insult." Certainly he'd replayed that meeting enough in his mind that he hadn't forgotten anything.
"That one I did in my head." Boris chuckled and bent down, his face hovering inches from hers.
"At least I made a strong impression." Marisa met him halfway. When they pulled apart they were both slightly breathless."Marisa-"
Marisa cast her eyes heavenward, as though praying for patience.
"Ay, Boris! The doctor said four to six weeks. It's been seven. That's not counting the seven months you were being estupido." Boris didn't need Marisa to remind him exactly how long it had been. He was fairly certain he could give her the number of hours, if not minutes. Still Boris couldn't help hesitating. He'd hurt her so much during the pregnancy, he didn't want even the slightest chance of doing it again. Marisa seemed to read the fear in his eyes, and her expression softened. "No te preocupes, mi amor. Todo estará bien. Confía en mí."
He smiled, stroking her hair. Not worrying wasn't really an option for him, but trusting her…that he could do.
