“Sure?”
“Positive.”
I hear the wooden floor creak as she moves away from my door. I stand up and open my window. I need fresh air…now.
My brain is racing and I feel like I’m going to pass out.
When the cab driver said “home” I thought he meant his home, as in the place where he was going to put me in the basement Buffalo Bill style from Silence of the Lambs until he had a chance to do things to me that I can’t even stomach thinking about.
But thank god by home he meant my home. Thankfully I wasn’t rattled to the point were I accidently gave him my actual address or anything, instead giving him cross streets a few blocks away. I was able to enter a convenience store that I’ve visited plenty of times, and one I knew had an employee exit where the guys who stocked the shelves often stood smoking cigarettes.
I cut through the shop and out the back, moving through the alley and to my building.
I kept an eye over my shoulder constantly, and didn’t see anyone following me.
The guy may know the vicinity of where I live, but thankfully he doesn’t know exactly where. Williamsburg is dense enough and all the hipster people look about the same so finding me will be like finding a needle in a haystack, although I don’t dress like a hipster.
I replay the events in my mind feeling like everything happened so quickly that it almost seemed staged or something.
No…it’s impossible.
And if it was staged why did he just give me a ride home? Sure he didn’t take me to my doorstep, because I didn’t allow it, but he did drop me off thinking I must have lived in one of the buildings just off the curb.
In a thirty-minute span of complete absurdity and weirdness maybe the strangest thing is that I’m…actually turned on by the guy.
What in the hell?
He didn’t even say a word on the way back, just driving in complete silence like he breaks guys necks every day when they steal from his passengers. He wasn’t even breathing hard and when we pulled away from the curb quickly he did so under complete control.
I looked for some kind of markings or logo which would tell me the name of the cab company he worked for, but found nothing. It was just a very nice Mercedes with one of those light up cab triangle shaped things that sits atop the hood.
I thank my lucky stars that I’m home and I’m safe. Reaching down I place one hand on my wrist, running my fingertips along my mom’s watch.
I didn’t even get a chance to thank him, and he didn’t make a big deal at all about it, or what he did.
Part of me is embarrassed, and I feel like I owe it to him to search him out and at least take a moment to say thank you now that I realize he most likely wasn’t a completely psycho axe murder. Scary? Yes. I’m probably being too forgiving, he did kill a robber and that’s terrifying in it’s own right, but strangely enough everything he did seemed under control, calculated, and he didn’t hurt me one bit even though he easily could have.
But that means going back to Brighton Beach and stumbling around until the one cab driver I’m looking for in New York crosses my path?
Please.
Not gonna happen.
And I’m not going back there anytime soon, which is a shame now that my heartbeat is slowly coming back down to earth. The guy was the epitome of a real man…a throwback…the kind you just don’t see anymore.
And unfortunately I’ll never see him again.
CHAPTER 3
Vladimir
The garage door begins to open when I’m still fifty yards from my driveway. A few seconds later I slide right inside my garage and the door closes behind me.
I breathe out, still thinking about Julie and that fucking Chechen who tried to take her watch, which reminds me…I’m going to have to put a set of eyes on the surveillance footage in the area to watch and see if anything turns up where my face can be identified.
I step out of my car, and put my old license plates into a tub of acid I keep in the garage. They’ll be completely gone in an hour if not sooner.
After I dropped off Julie I headed out to Fountain Avenue, a street in Brooklyn that runs from Atlantic and Conduit Avenues in the north to Belt Parkway in the south. It’s a desolate industrial area out there, with vacant lots and abandoned brick buildings surrounded by landfills and swamp-like growth. The mob has used it as a dumping ground for bodies since back in the 1930s. I just swapped out my license plates and headed home this time, although I have been out there before for much more serious matters that I couldn’t risk being caught on surveillance footage doing.
As I enter the kitchen I pull a burner phone out from behind the silverware, deep in the drawer. I wait for it to turn on and then send a message to my insider at the NYPD. He sends back nothing more than a period, which means that he knows we need to meet tomorrow afternoon. He’ll make sure that dead Chechen won’t come back and get pinned on me.
I pour myself a glass of Russian Standard vodka and plop down on the couch. I click on the TV and watch the hockey game.
I guess it is true. The more things change the more they stay the same.
I’m thirty-seven now, but hell…the first time I did this was twenty years ago back in Russia. Vodka and hockey and falling asleep on the couch, but I’m no slouch.
That’s how things go when you’re running an international syndicate twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. By the end of the day you’re cooked, on the rare occurrences there even is an “end of the day.”
My mind is always on. Cops, businessmen, politicians and how I’ve become the missing link that brings them all together without anyone finding out.
But what I can’t figure out is why I’m so obsessed with this damn woman.
I tip back the vodka, letting the smooth taste glide over my lips and down my throat. I shut off the TV realizing the idea of watching grown men skating around chasing a puck is nowhere near as appealing as thinking about how I’ve been chasing this woman all over New York the last few months.
Ever since she moved up here to attend Brooklyn Law School I’ve been a wreck.
This whole cab company is a front to launder money, but here I am, driving my own damn cars around following her all over town.
I switch the cars up so she doesn’t catch sight of me and become suspicious.
Tonight was the highlight…it’s the first time I’ve ever interacted with her and damn did she have my dick hard. I even got my hands dirty tonight, and I’d do it a thousand times over if it meant watching out for her.
I can’t believe that bastard tried to steal her watch…and I can’t believe I didn’t strike up a conversation with her on the ride home.
Sipping the vodka again I think back to how she handled the situation.
There’s no way a girl like her has ever seen a man killed in front of her very eyes before. I know her father keeps her sheltered from the real world, but she sure handled her first taste well.
She didn’t even get rattled when it came time for her to give me her address, giving me a nearby stop-off point instead.
Damn that girl is smart, and cool under pressure. It’s no surprise she’s studying law. Hell one day I might need her to bail me out of something, but nothing can save me from the crime that was on my mind tonight…taking her and making her mine.
I’ve never forced myself on a woman, never would. Hell, I’ve been too damn busy these past twenty years since I arrived in the States to even think about women. You don’t get to the top by taking days off.
But every time I think of her all I can think about is throwing this entire life away…all of it, right into the trash. She makes me see there’s no point to this. Live fast and die young? That’s some bullshit they sell to testosterone filled young men.
My testosterone levels haven’t dipped at all, but my ability to tolerate bullshit has certainly nosedived.
And what I know now, at this age, is that nothing else in life matters but her…her and starting a family wit
I tip back the glass one last time, finishing it and then set it down on the coffee table.
Damn, this is dangerous. I’ve never been so obsessed with anything, let alone anyone, like this before.
This is how guys like me get killed. I get so infatuated with this woman and someone uses it against me.
But this isn’t some woman. This is her…my woman. And she will be mine.
My cock is still throbbing, the alcohol doing nothing to blur my thoughts, to dilute my focus on her. She’s not even here and I swear I can perfectly imagine her presence across the room, putting the picture together from my memory tonight.
The way my heartbeat was racing when she was standing there on the sidewalk just a few feet from me.
The way she didn’t see me at first which gave me time to look her up and down completely, taking in her curves, her soft, subtle lips, and that damn sexy way she carries herself. You can see her innocence from a mile away, and I swear I can smell it too, like a fucking wolf on the prowl.
I’d bet everything I have that woman has never been touched, and I’d give everything to be the first.
My cock is throbbing in my pants, my balls aching.
Fuck, I can’t take this anymore.
I slide my arms out of my jacket and toss it on the recliner next to the couch.
Quickly, my hand slides inside my boxer briefs while my other hand unclasps my belt buckle and then makes quick work of the zipper before yanking my underwear down.
My dick points straight toward the ceiling as my head leans back, the entire weight of the fucked up world I live in sinking into the couch as my eyes close.
I grab my shaft hard, imagining how tight her little virgin pussy must be.
Stroking up to the tip I already feel the precome on my crown, which only coats my palm as I slide it back down to the base of my shaft.
“Ride me beautiful,” I say out loud, imagining she’s doing just that.
My hips move on the couch, the dream so lifelike it’s practically a hallucination.
Fuck me, Vladimir. Fuck me.
I feel my balls pull up and my cock jerks, exploding upward as I shoot my load skyward feeling it come straight back down splattering all over my groin.
I work out every day but I’m breathing hard.
I leave my eyes closed for another few minutes, not wanting this dream to end…only wanting it to be real.
And it will be.
She is mine whether she knows it or not.
CHAPTER 4
Julie
“What do you mean you can’t find any footage?” I breathe out hard trying not to yell into the phone.
“It’s like it disappeared. The theater’s cameras weren’t working and no one’s come forward,” my friend who works at the police station says. “Look, I really have to go. I could get in big trouble for doing this. The ethics violations alone could cause me to lose my position.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry for putting you in this position.”
“Don’t worry about it. I completely understand, but I have to run.”
“Thanks again.”
The other end of the line clicks and the call drops.
Speaking of dropping, on the front page of this morning’s paper is a picture and a story about the Chechen mafia member who they found on the street outside the theater. They’re asking anyone with information about the crime to please come forward.
I visited The Post’s website and people were making all kinds of jokes about anyone who’s dumb enough to come forward against the mafia.
Somebody even tried to start a #GotUranium hashtag as almost a “play” on the Got Milk campaign from years ago, except with a Russian poisoning twist.
And that could be exactly what I’m facing.
I just started law school so I’m still far from being a lawyer, but being a good citizen means I should come forward with what I saw.
It just seems so much easier when you read about this stuff in the paper. When it’s actually you those black and white areas sure become gray fast.
So if I somehow got in the middle of a Chechen and Russian feud, and one bad guy ended up dead, does that mean I risk my life to put away the other “bad” guy?
The other bad guy, of course, seemed anything but bad as far as I was concerned. If anything he was kind of my knight in shining armor, and the one I couldn’t stop thinking about all night long.
My phone lights up. It’s Jeff again, from the police station. He’s studying with me and we went to the same undergrad together, hence him being the first person who I called. He also got a job at the police station working as a civilian which gives him access to some things, but not others.
“Hey,” I say, taking the call.
“I just have a second, but I found something,” he says, sounding out of breath. There’s an echo in his voice and I’m guessing he went outside to sit in a car, or some small space.
“Shoot.”
“One eyewitness just came forward. They said, and I quote, ‘he snapped his neck like a twig and walked away as if nothing happened…like he’d done it a million times before,’” he says as if he’s reading the statement off a piece of paper. He pauses. “Why are you so interested in this by the way?”
“Is that all you found?”
Jeff exhales hard, apparently not too happy I completely ignored his question. “No. The husband of the eyewitness ran after the guy and managed to get his plate number. It’s registered to an LLC in New Mexico. We looked it up online at OpenCorporates.com and got nowhere.”
“What do you mean? They have to have a registered agent, right?”
“Registered agent is Wyoming LLC, which is owned by another New Mexico LLC, which is owned by a Grand Cayman Trust.”
“You found all that out that fast?”
“Technology. Haven’t you ever watched CSI?”
“Very funny. Can you use technology to get more info?”
“We’re looking at different jurisdictions and all kinds of other things are in play here, not to mention nobody cares too much about a dead Russian gangster.”
“Chechen,” I correct.
“Same thing.”
I would have thought the same thing if I hadn’t taken an international law elective back in undergrad, but I’m still very ignorant when it comes to this stuff.
“Okay. Thanks. Let me know what you find out, okay?”
“Will do.” Suddenly there’s a knock at my door. “Sounds like the same for you.”
“Yeah. Thanks again and we’ll catch up soon.”
“Deal,” he says and ends the call.
I drop the phone from my ear and walk towards the door.
It’s the middle of the day and our door has no peephole so I’m pretty much at the mercy of whatever this door-to-door salesperson is peddling, but it’s easier to just get rid of them than let them keep knocking.
“I’m not inter—“
The door stops halfway open and my jaw drops.
“Could have fooled me with all the research you are doing.”
He takes a step forward, casting a shadow over my door as his big body blocks the morning sun which is coming in from the lone window at the end of the hallway. There’s no way I’m getting this door closed faster than he’s getting his oversized boot wedged in-between it and the doorjamb.
My roommate’s already gone so I can basically scream, which I doubt is a very good idea, or try and play it cool.
Animals that are at the mercy of predators are ill-advised to run, and this man is definitely the biggest predator I’ve come across in this concrete jungle.
“What are you talking about? I research cases all the time. It’s what law students do.”
“Research cases that have been solved and presided over to see what precedents have been set…not researching individuals who are unknown to anyone in cases that no one in law enforcement has any interest in pursuing. Another bad guy off the streets and they did not have to even get involved. I should get a medal for my work.”
My heart is pounding out of my chest as he looks down at me in a way that lets me know who’s in charge of this situation, but I refuse to be terrified in my own home. It’s going to take some conviction to stand up to this huge man, but I’ve got no other choice.
“You can’t just show up at my home. What gives you the right? I could call the police right now and have you arrested.”
-->