All the Secrets We Keep (Quarry Book 2) Read online

  Galina waved a hand. “Your brother is grilling me. Yes, yes, Kolya, I quit my nursing job to work in a diner. What’s the problem?”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” Ilya pushed past Niko to get at the fridge, where he bent to pull out three beers. He handed one out to each of them and lifted his. “Cheers. I have news.”

  Niko cracked the top on his bottle and drank, watching his brother. “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “I bought Zimmerman’s.”

  “The diner?” Galina had set her bottle on the counter and looked at Ilya now, her face a mask of surprise. “What on earth? You don’t know anything about running a diner, Ilya.” Galina shot Niko a glance. “Tell him.”

  Niko clinked his bottle to his brother’s and grinned. “I’m not going to tell him anything. If he wants to buy a diner, let him. Hey, maybe you can work there.”

  “Bite your tongue,” Galina said with a frown.

  “I thought you liked working for the diner,” Ilya put in. “But, relax, I’m not going to ask you to work for me.”

  “Thank God,” their mother said.

  Ilya’s look turned serious. “I might ask you to help us figure some things out, though. If you worked at a diner, then you’d have a better idea of how it all works than I do. Or Theresa.”

  “Theresa?” Galina asked, tone sharp. “What does she have to do with it?”

  “She’s going in on it with me. Kind of a silent partner,” Ilya said. “Sort of. Not silent. Just not half and half. But she’s going to get us set up to serve good old-fashioned Babulya recipes.”

  Galina took a step back, clearly shocked, a hand over her heart. It was a reaction that seemed both feigned and forced. “What? My mother’s recipes? Ilya, what are you talking about?”

  “Good diners serve burgers, fries, open-faced turkey sandwiches. That sort of thing. Great diners,” Ilya said with a grin so infectious Niko couldn’t stop himself from grinning, too, “serve something special. Greek salads, gyros . . . well, my diner’s going to serve the kind of food Babulya cooked for us.”

  “Nobody in this hick shitstain of a town is going to eat that,” Galina said flatly. “You’ll be out of business and broke within six months.

  Ilya’s grin faltered, then faded. “Wow, thanks for the vote of support.”

  “I’d eat there,” Niko said. “Are you going to have matzoh-ball soup?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m in,” Niko said. “Sold. Especially if it’s from Babulya’s recipe.”

  “How do you have my mother’s recipes? You boys never bothered to learn to make anything more complicated than cold cereal or disgusting sandwiches.”

  Ilya shrugged. “Theresa says Babulya taught her how to make a number of things. I remember her in the kitchen a lot, cooking.”

  “I don’t remember that at all,” Galina said.

  “Maybe that’s because you weren’t around,” Ilya replied, but lightly, in the way he and Niko had both adopted over the years to keep from starting drama with her. “Almost every day after school, they’d be cooking something. Just because you weren’t there doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

  “Because I wasn’t here?” Galina’s shriek rose up and up, her voice cracking. “You say that like I was out gallivanting around, whoring myself! I was working! To support the two of you! You think sports equipment was cheap? You think those new jeans and sneakers you always had to have just grew on trees? No! I had to work to pay for those things to support the two of you—and that old woman! You think I liked being gone so much? You think it was easy for me?”

  The microwave beeped.

  Nobody moved.

  She turned to Niko. “Will there be a wedding, do you think?”

  Niko frowned. “I have no idea. We haven’t talked about it.”

  “I could get a mother-of-the-bride dress. I didn’t have one the first time around. Same daughter-in-law, but this time with a dress. Unless you decide to run off and elope the way they did the first time.” Galina gave him a small but vicious smile.

  “How about,” Ilya said conversationally, “you keep your damned mouth shut about anything that ever had to do with me and Alicia.”

  Galina threw the beer bottle into the sink where it shattered and fizzed. She turned on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen, leaving Niko and Ilya to stand in silence.

  “Well, that went well,” Niko said finally when Ilya didn’t seem like he was going to say anything.

  “She’s crazy.”

  “You pushed her buttons.”

  Ilya rolled his eyes and took a drink from his beer. “Are you kidding me? She was acting like we were in a freaking elevator and she needed to stop on every single floor. Pushing buttons? Please, man. She’s the queen of that. And you weren’t going to say anything to her about it, because you never do.”

  “I don’t need you to defend me,” Niko said.

  Ilya shrugged. “You haven’t been here, Niko. You haven’t had to deal with her, remember?”

  “You haven’t, either,” Niko pointed out. “She’s been gone, too.”

  “And now she’s back.”

  The brothers looked at each other, both of them solemn.

  “She was reading a book in the garden,” Niko said.

  Ilya made a face. “What kind of book?”

  “I couldn’t see, and she put it away when I came out. But something’s going on with her, for sure,” Niko said, and added after a few seconds, “We haven’t talked about getting married. I want you to know that.”

  Ilya shrugged. “You’re going to do what you want to do. So is Galina.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I just bought a diner,” Ilya answered with a grin.

  “With Theresa Malone.” Niko looked at his brother’s expression, noticing the shift in his gaze. “What’s up with that, anyway?”

  Ilya muttered under his breath. “Nothing. She’s pretty.”

  “Dude.” Niko shook his head.

  Ilya looked defensive, embarrassed, but not quite ashamed. “Don’t worry. I’m not a total idiot.”

  “You into her like that?” Niko took a drink, relishing the crisp flavors of the craft beer but really using the drink as an excuse not to say more than he just had. When his brother didn’t answer, Niko held out the bottle and frowned. “Dude!”

  “No. That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?”

  Niko shook his head. “It wouldn’t be smart, that’s for sure.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not like I’m going to be a dumbass and get myself into some weird situation with someone who’s kind of related to us, sort of, like, oh, say . . . a sisterish sort of thing,” Ilya said sarcastically. “That sure would be stupid.”

  Niko put down his bottle on the counter. Holding one hand out in front of him, middle finger pointing downward, he said as he twisted his wrist to reverse the gesture, “Oh, hey, is this too quiet for you? Do you need me to turn it up?”

  “It’s just a business thing,” Ilya said when they’d stopped laughing. He looked serious. “She thinks I’ll be good at it. It’s been a long time since anyone thought I could be good at anything.”

  Niko lifted his drink. “All right, then. Mazel tov on your new adventure.”

  They clinked their bottles together.

  “Hey,” Niko said after a pause, “you want to help me tear down that garden shed?”

  Ilya grinned. “You’re on. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  She owned a diner.

  Theresa grinned to herself as she pulled into the parking lot, then walked around the back and up to the kitchen doors, the ones not for public use. She could use them because she owned the diner. Owned. The diner. Well, she didn’t actually own the diner. She’d simply agreed to help run this diner, with the potential to eventually own part of it, so long as she kept up her part of the payments they’d agreed on.

  She and Ilya Stern: partners.

  This thought sobered her a littl