Refrain

by Lana Sky

  “Kill?” His tone reminds me of his own “story.” The phrasing he used. The rationale for why he has murderer tattooed across his chest and nothing else.

  “No,” I hear myself admit while I advance on him three more steps. “I wanted to murder someone with it.”

  “Here.” He faces me and holds the gun out.

  I take it, pointing the barrel at the floor.

  “I assume you’re not planning on sticking around.” He doesn’t sound disappointed, merely resigned to the fact that I might leave. I need to leave…

  But, like a good addict, I seek his eyes, holding his gaze. One more prick of the needle. One last snort of my drug of choice.

  “What you said about love… You made it sound worse than hate.” It’s an odd topic for conversation, but it almost seems fitting given our current trajectory for the morning—jumping from fucking to violence to murder to love and hate.

  “Did I?” His lips slant in a thoughtful frown. “Well, I guess they’re close enough. But, with hate, at least you’re in control. You can fight it. You can resist it. You can forgive, or you can walk away. You can choose not to hate whenever you fucking want.”

  Love has the opposite limitations. I know them well, in fact. You can only resist its allure for so long before it sucks you back in. Moya lyubov. Love is poison. There is no choice in how it destroys you.

  “Have you ever been in love?” I know even before I see the slight shake of his head that he hasn’t, and I’m sure it’s by choice.

  He may care for his brother and his friend Arno, but he’s never been a slave to obsession. He’s never been addicted to the burning sting.

  “Don’t want to be,” he says. “Like I said, it’s easier to hate. You can turn your back on it. It doesn’t own you.”

  “And what if…what if you hate yourself?” I ask him, my tongue flicking out to dampen my dry lips. His potential answer intrigues me more than I care to admit. Do I want him to agree? You should hate yourself. “For the things you’ve seen, the things you’ve done?”

  He observes me for a long time. When he takes a step forward, I’m not sure how to react. I just stand here, allowing him to tower over me, his breath on my face, his heat on my skin. I’m unprepared when his hand flies out, and two of his fingers start an electrifying path down the length of my arm, skirting the stitches holding me together.

  “Then I guess you just have to ask yourself—Do you really hate that you’ve done those things, or do you just hate the fact that you can’t let yourself enjoy doing them?”

  I draw back, stepping out of his reach. My first instinct is to write him off. Silly little boy. The worst he can probably come up with is stealing or committing petty crimes. He has no fucking clue as to the horrors that paint the edges of my memory.

  On the other hand, he saw me kill Vlad, and the neckline of his shirt rides low, revealing a hint of the word emblazoned on his chest. When I look into his eyes again, the darkness lurks in plain view.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The way I see it, loving yourself is overrated.” Another step and he’s closer, forced to tilt his head down to maintain eye contact. “Nature. Do you love everything about it? The sun and stars, yeah. Maybe. But what about when the sun burns? What about the storms? The lightning? What about when that storm comes for you? You just have to admit that sometimes you need the push and pull. The good and bad. Life doesn’t need your approval all the damn time. Why should you?”

  Indignation rises, thick in my throat. I want to argue. You’re a boy. You know nothing. But…after everything he’s been through, it may be easy for him to accept his own hell. Live it. Breathe it. But I can’t afford that luxury.

  “Sometimes you can do unforgivable things,” I tell him, turning to stare at the wall rather than face him directly. Shadows flicker over it—mine, his, Piotr’s. “Things that don’t deserve acceptance.”

  Warm breath fans the back of my neck. “Says who?”

  He’s even closer now. Those searching fingers return, drifting up and down my shoulder blade. A tempting scenario of what could happen next plays out in my mind. All he’d have to do is curl his fingers and tug to have the jacket off. The shirt would easily follow. The table alone could support our combined weight.

  But we can’t. I can’t.

  I take a step back, and I can breathe again. I can fear again. When I turn for the door, I know he won’t stop me this time. Words don’t have any power in this moment. Still, I find myself spitting something out—“Thank you.”

  He grunts in acknowledgment. “Don’t mention it. And…”

  My footsteps slow, tethered to the sound of his voice. “Yes?”

  “If you ever need me, you know where to find me.”

  My entire chest constricts at that word. Need. I’ve endured people before. My father’s death. Piotr. The men he made me screw. I’ve never needed.

  When I finally reach the door, I don’t look back. I just tuck the gun inside the pocket of his borrowed sweatshirt. Hate is control, he said?

  It’s the only emotion I can bother to spare now—hatred.

  Piotr wants my love. This man has already taken something else. I’m not sure which one is harder to give up.

  I reach the bar on foot and slip in through the back, taking stock of everything I touch. Everything I see. Within a few short hours, I’ve left behind a real dwelling and entered the stage of a play. Piotr’s aura lurks in the shadows, rearranging scenery and adjusting the spotlight. All eyes on me. His star. His angel.

  Moya lyubov.

  Does Arno know? The question scuttles through my skull as I wander the back hallway and don’t find him slumped over a bottle. Maybe he does. Maybe he even let Piotr in with open arms. Birds of a feather. After all, it’s what a part of me has suspected all along.

  “Hey!” A heavy hand lands on my shoulder, snapping me from the reverie.

  I’m on the bottom step of the staircase without even realizing it. A quick glance over my shoulder reveals a familiar face, albeit rougher around the edges than I’m used to. Bloodshot eyes. Uncombed hair. This morning, he looks almost as haggard as Arno.

  “I need your help today,” Francisco says through a yawn as he swipes at the stubble on his chin. “Those fucking idiots trashed the place last night and Arno’s got something special planned for this one.”

  A welcome-back party perhaps? I scan Francisco’s eyes for any hint of the truth. Any sign of Piotr’s hand lurking behind the dark irises. Instead, I find nothing but the dilated evidence of booze and exhaustion.

  “Hey! You hear me?” He lifts his hand and lowers it, nearly jarring me off the step altogether. “Go finish what you were doing and meet me back here. Bring the mop.”

  He retreats down the hallway while my brain sluggishly processes his words. “Finish doing what you were doing.” And what was that? Oh. Dying…

  Poor Chloe Parker feels further away. Did she ever really exist? I can’t tell. My outstretched hand holds no answers, just pale skin riddled with scars. Burn marks. Bite marks. He loved to suck my thumb between his lips and bite down hard the moment I mistook the action for one of affection. He’s painted me in his ownership, leaving a million claims I’ve been forced to explain away in my new life. Oh, that mark on my hip? I fell. I touched a hot stove. I knocked over an ashtray.

  I nearly beat myself to death with one—haha, silly me.

  I’m laughing out loud as I haul myself up the remaining few steps. Did anyone ever buy those excuses? Did I ever really believe them? The lies get harder to tell from the truth. Harder to remember. I dyed my hair blonde because I hated being a brunette. I never let men see me naked because I was shy. I rarely have sex these days because I simply don’t enjoy it.

  It isn’t because I am already owned. My mind isn’t already taken, my body sold. My soul still belongs to me.

  I shiver as my forehead meets the cool surface of a closed door. I draw back and jerk forward just enough to feel the pain.
Thwack! Then I stay here, leaning against it for what feels like hours, trying to reprocess my entire life. Trying to breathe. Trying to forget.

  It’s the breathing that saves me in the end. I’m choking on cigarette smoke. It permeates everything he owns, every bit of him I’ve stolen. I can still taste him, heady and almost sweet. I can still see him—the fear, the pain, the wonder when I took him deep. My body throbs in ways I’ve never ever felt, every part of me aching to take him deep. Maybe it’s the only way I’ll ever be able to push Piotr out—let someone else shove himself in.

  Focus, Ksei! My fingers shake as I finally pry my hand loose from my side and open the door to the apartment. I’m so damn sore; an old woman waddles her way across the threshold, clinging to the wall for balance, not me. I manage to wrench the gun from the pocket of Espisido’s sweatshirt and toss it onto the couch before hobbling into the bathroom without bothering to strip.

  I turn the water to scalding hot and climb into the shower fully clothed. Only here, hunched on my knees against the side of the stall, can I hear myself again. Just whispers. Focus, Ksei. Run, Ksei. Breathe, Ksei.

  I play those pathetic phrases over and over, clinging to the fragile shards of my soul. The three women inside me clamor for supremacy. I’m not sure just which one I’m supposed to be anymore. Chloe? Ksenia? I think I almost find my true identity when I finally shut the water off and drag myself upright. But then I make the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror—empty brown eyes, no soul to speak of.

  What a waste.

  I leave the bathroom dripping wet and aimless. My stomach growls, and the thought of finding something to eat is oddly appealing. Maybe that’s what I need. To stuff myself so full that there’s no room left. I stagger over to the fridge and pull it open, scowling at the offerings inside. There’s a dubious carton of milk with a faded expiration date and a carton of eggs. I reach for them anyway, my fingers brushing the rough surface just as a telltale noise catches my ear. Click! I know it well.

  “Never panic when there’s a gun pointed at your skull, Parker,” Grey used to tell me. “That’s how you get your fucking head blown off.” There is no need to turn anyway. I smell her—fear, hate, and rage. She reeks of them all, just like I do.

  “You were supposed to kill him,” she says, her voice ragged and unsteady. “You said you would. You said you would do it—”

  “Domi?” I almost want fate to prove me wrong this time. It’s not her. Piotr’s web isn’t really this cruel.

  I risk glancing over my shoulder and find her anyway. She’s barely upright on trembling legs, fighting to hold the gun she’s pointing at me steady. Tears spill down her mascara-stained cheeks, stripping the tough outer exterior away and revealing the little girl she really is underneath. With her brilliant hair gleaming, even in the dim lighting, and those eyes…

  I wonder if Piotr planted her specifically, using her appearance like a blunt reminder of everything I’ve lost. Everything his family took from me.

  It stings to blink the memories back. Focus. “Domi. You don’t want to do this—”

  “I believed you!” The gun sways, the barrel drifting from left to right. Her finger shakes over the trigger. Unchecked, she’ll pull it, whether on purpose or by accident.

  Maybe I should let her. My fingers shake, and I’m unsure of whether to grab for her or beckon her to just do it. Kill me. Save me.

  “You’ve known,” I force myself to say instead. “You know he’s back.” I’m not surprised, even as the guilty flush creeps across her cheeks.

  “No one leaves Piotr. No one.” Her eyes swell with the terror sparked by those words. She’s trapped in the same hell I’ve always been in—but she’s braver than I ever was. She fights it, shaking her head to clear the memories. “He made me watch you. Stay close. I was going to kill myself before he could… For Espi—”

  “Does he know?” The pain I feel at the thought nearly knocks me over.

  Would Piotr really be that sadistic to use another man to feed me snippets of hope? A newer drug? The answer rings through my skull, and a part of me almost wishes it were true. It would save me the agony of succumbing to a more potent poison than him. Yes.

  “No.” Domi shakes her head again. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t deserve…” She bites her bottom lip, and more tears coat her face, falling unchecked beneath the low neckline of her sheer black top. “I wouldn’t bring him into this. I wouldn’t. But you said… I thought…”

  She sways, and I know that look on her face. That grim acceptance of the inevitable.

  She turns the gun on herself, pressing the barrel against her temple while her eyes seek mine out, cold and resigned. “I thought you were brave enough.”

  “No!” I lunge, throwing my weight against her.

  She buckles, dropping the gun. Her nails sink into my arm, ripping through flesh, as I knock the weapon from her reach and pin her to the floor by her shoulders.

  “Let me go!” She kicks out, trying to dislodge me. “There’s no point. There’s no use—”

  My palm burns as it connects with her cheek, stopping her mid-shout. “Enough.” I’m panting. Judging from how badly my arm’s throbbing, she drew blood. I can feel it seeping through rent flesh as I ignore the way she tenses and wrap my arms around her.

  Her arms go rigid. Limp. I hold her even as her shoulders begin to heave with suppressed tears she can barely smother with her hands.

  “You’re not alone.” The words aren’t mine, but stolen from a memory. Maybe they’re what Ivan told me that very first night he set me free. “You’re not alone—”

  “He’ll find me.” Her body trembles with the knowledge. “He’ll kill me.”

  “No.” I slowly draw back from her, already forming a plan in my head. “You’re already dead. I know someone who can make you disappear.”

  “Why?” she demands, tears in her eyes. “After what I did…”

  I stand, flicking loose hair away from my face with trembling fingers. “Because it’s not too late for you.” I grit my teeth to reinforce that statement. It has to be true. “Otherwise, there’s no hope for any of us.”

  The hotel appears different in the light of day. Piotr wears darkness like a cloak, but the glow of broad daylight always seemed more painful to witness him in. Blinding.

  The moment I enter the lobby, I spot at least three figures lurking within the shadows. Their posture alone betrays them as one of Piotr’s trained soldaty, his personal bodyguards. Either I missed them last night in my moment of nostalgia, or he purposefully hid them from me.

  He’s grown paranoid in his old age, Piotr. He must have pissed off someone big this time. Someone powerful enough to drive him into the arms of a low-level Irish gangster with a lone bar to his name.

  I’d forgotten about the connection to Arno, but as I head for the elevator and ride it to the top floor, it shoves its way into my mind again. Could the Petrovs have crossed the Cartel? Jose certainly seems like the type of enemy to warrant an increase in security, but Piotr always worked hard to soothe his allies in the drug trade. No, I suspect that another enemy has him spooked. Any other day, I’d consider finding out who.

  Now, it’s all I can do just to focus on breathing. Living. Fighting.

  My fingers are slick with sweat. Breathe. I do, keeping the gun tucked inside the pocket of my jacket. His jacket. I smell him even here, clashing with the growing stench of Wolf Blood and real blood in the air. I still taste him, faint at the back of my throat like a memory, one I cling to as my past looms ahead of me.

  The door to the suite is locked this time, and a scowling man in a black suit answers it when I knock. He takes one look at me and mutters something into the headset affixed to his bald head. A reply comes a second later, laced with static.

  “Let her in.”

  The man steps aside and leaves me to wander the maze of corridors alone. I find Piotr in a study. The same one that used to serve as his base of operations back in the old days.
Once again, nostalgia has me rooted to the spot. The floors are still dark wood, the walls a familiar shade of black. He even kept it furnished the same. I used to sit on his lap while he sat on that chair and snarled orders into the old-fashioned rotary phone on his desk. Make me more money. Kill that bastard. Bring me their heads.

  Today, he seems to be in the middle of bookkeeping. A ledger is open in front of him. When he sees me, he lets a silver pen fall from his hand and rises swiftly to his feet.

  “Ksei—”

  “I discovered your little spy. You won’t bother her again,” I throw at him, but the words don’t land with the impact I want. My voice is a pathetic rasp and he just…stares.

  “Did you kill her?”

  I would sell my soul to never see that look on his face again. Hope. Hunger. He inhales sharply, seeming to grow larger with every breath of air he takes, feeding off mine.

  “No.” I clench my fingers together. “I’m not a monster, like you.”

  “Ah, but you wanted to.” His tongue seems to caress each and every word, gently driving them into my skull. Did I? He advances a step before I can convince myself of the opposite. He’s wearing black again. Another tailored ebony suit with a blood-red tie to draw the eye. “Another obstacle between us gone.”

  I back away until I’m on the other side of the room, leaving a leather chair between us. “Was she the only one?”

  Of course not. His eyes take on that cunning, predatory gleam.

  “A diligent man uses more than one eye to see with, Ksei.”

  My own gaze fights to stay clear. My eyes sting. My vision is a sloppy smear. Who else? Darcy? Francisco? Who else does he have in his pocket to watch me and whisper back in his ear?

  I can’t smuggle them all to Ivan.

  “Is this why you came to me now, Ksei?” he asks in a dangerously soft tone. “Or is that just what you told yourself?”

  It’s like he’s inside my head, pulling the strings to my emotions—broken puppets manipulated across a stage doused in gasoline. The savoring looks he casts at my body serve as the lit match tossed on it all.