by Bella King
Yet.
The prospect of the warmth of California or the warmth of a prison cell becomes more appealing once I’m baring my shoulders in a white tank top. It’s chilly, but no longer freezing now that daylight has broken. My nipples stiffen and rub against the fabric of my tank top. It’s uncomfortable, but thankfully, I don’t have to stay outside for long.
I pull my hair back into a bun as I enter the grocery store, avoiding eye contact with the security guard standing idle by the entrance. They never kick me out for looking rough, but they will follow me around. I hate that.
I grab a red plastic shopping basket and take long steps toward the back of the store where the bread is. I like to eat bread. It’s cheap, filling, and I don’t have to cook it. Carbohydrates are always good when you’re trying to keep your energy up. I’m sure I burn plenty when I’m running from shadows, gunshots, and drunkards in the middle of the night.
I haven’t counted the money in my bag yet, but I know I don’t have to. I’m only going to get a day-old 99 cent loaf and save the rest for the gym. I’ve decided that a shower is more important than stocking up on food. It tends to go bad quickly sitting in my bookbag all day, anyway.
Funny enough, even the leftovers that I dig out of the trash and the day-old bread from the store are better than what I used to eat at the orphanage. I’m pretty sure they contracted the food services out to the cheapest company possible, producing such terrible food that some girls there wouldn’t even eat it. I know at least one of them had to be admitted to the hospital for starving herself.
I always ate, though. I didn’t care how bad the food was, as long as I had something to fill my stomach with.
Now, as I shuffle to the back of the store, the only thing I can think about is getting my hands on a loaf of bread and retreating to the street to eat it. For me, this is going to be a feast, and I might be able to get a good nap in afterward before the cops peel me off the park bench. I need any rest I can get.
“Ma’am. Excuse me, ma’am,” a deep voice with a distinctly foreign accent says from behind me.
I freeze. Oh god, is it the security finally kicking me out for looking like crap? I thought with the hoodie off, I’d look another ordinary person, albeit a little dirty, getting some stuff for lunch.
“Ma’am.”
I turn around, and I’m surprised to see a large, muscular bald man with tattoos creeping up his neck. The sound of his voice betrays his image. He sounds innocent enough, but he looks like the type of thug I’d avoid after dark. He could break me in half with his pinky.
I’m lost for words. What does this man want from me? I lean back as he steps forward, my eyes wide with fright.
“Sorry to bother you, but do you know where the bathrooms are?” he asks.
I have no clue. They’re usually in the back, which is where I’m headed, but I don’t want him anywhere near me.
“Are you okay?” he asks, frowning and taking another step forward.
Finally, I’m able to find my voice. “Oh, yes. I was just thinking, uh, I think the bathrooms would be in the back.” I give him a half-hearted smile. “But I’m not sure.”
He nods, narrowing his eyes at me for a moment and looking me over.
I pull up the neckline of my tank top instinctually.
“Boris,” he says, extending a large hand.
I lean back even further, but I reach my hand out to accept his handshake. He nearly rips my arm off with the vigor in which he shakes it. I wince.
“Nice to meet you, young lady. I didn’t catch your name,” he says, pulling me toward him without letting go of my hand.
I can smell the coffee and smoke on his breath. “Alexia,” I blurt, eager to escape from his hand and this unnecessary conversation.
A grin overtakes his serious face. “Alexia, very beautiful name. Is that Russian?”
Russia, that’s where he’s from. His accent is so heavy that I should’ve known, but it’s hard for me to concentrate when I’m overwhelmed. I wasn’t expecting someone to talk to me. It’s been a while since anyone has done anything but yell at me.
“I think it’s Greek,” I reply. That’s about the only thing I know about my origin.
“Greek, that’s right. I think the Russian form is Alexis, but that’s also a man’s name. Are you from Greece?”
I’d like very much to end this conversation, but I don’t know how. “My father was Greek, I think.”
“You think? The swine isn’t around, eh?” he replies with a chuckle.
I shrug. “He’s dead, so yeah.”
Boris shakes his bald head. “Shame.” He doesn’t seem to care much.
“Yeah, so I’m kind of in a hurry, so…”
“Oh, well, I don’t wish to keep you, Miss Alexis. Oh, I mean, Alexia. That’s right, isn’t it?”
I nod, waiting for him to leave me alone.
“Alexia what?” he asks.
“You want to know my last name?” I ask, feeling distrustful that a complete stranger would ask such a question. It seems unwarranted, considering that he just wanted to know where the bathroom was.
But Boris nods his head, his eyes wide and eager. “Is it Greek too?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have a last name.”
“But everyone does,” he says, frowning.
“I guess everyone but me, then. Listen, it was nice meeting you, Boris, but I have to go.”
He shrugs. “Very well. I hope I didn’t offend you with my curiosity. You know, I’m just a curious kind of guy.” He chuckles, finally stepping away from me.
I don’t say anything in return. Instead, I wait for him to leave me the fuck alone so that I can get back to what I was doing. His questions may have been innocent, but they creeped me out. I don’t like strangers. I just don’t trust them, especially not when they look like Boris.
I wait for Boris to disappear from view before continuing my shuffle back toward the bread stands in the back of the store. There’s nothing worse than having someone hover around you when you’re just trying to get in, get what you need, and get the hell out.
I’m not a big fan of Boris or his silly questions. It hardly seems necessary that he would ask them. I wonder if he had something else in mind when he approached me, some other reason to be bothering me.
But men are weird like that sometimes. Perhaps he just that I was pretty and wanted to steal some of my time. It wouldn’t be the first occasion when something like that has happened, though I do wonder what anyone would want with a raggedy young woman like me. There are plenty of women around town who don’t look like they’ve fallen asleep in a puddle of mud. I’m nothing special.
Then again, looking helpless also makes me easy prey for sick men. I learned that if I didn’t want men doing nasty things to me without my permission, I’d have to take on an attitude and bite back. That was a harsh lesson I learned at the orphanage. Being helpless only makes the creeps act creepier.
There’s an old saying – if you can’t beat them, join them. I’ve never been able to bring myself to join them in the literal sense, but some of the street-smart and attitude as rubbed off, and that helps me stay out of trouble.
I put on one of those oversized plastic gloves and dig around in the discount bread box for a loaf that’s not too hard but is also big enough for me to justify spending a whole 99 cents on. Part of me wants to walk out without paying, or even better, take it to the bathroom and eat it in the stall so that I can leave empty-handed.
I resist the urge, trying to refrain from turning into a criminal. I just want to survive and be left alone, but as it turns out, that’s much easier said than done.
Chapter Four
Zeno
A spark of yellow turns to red as I light up a cigar in the passenger’s seat of Boris’s car, puffing on it until the end glows red. I lean back, turning my head to Boris as he slides into the driver’s seat. “And you’re sure she’s the right one?” I ask.
“There’s no way
that she’s not,” he replies, shutting the door with a dull thud. “She has the right name, she’s the right age, doesn’t know anything about her surname, and she smells like she’s been sleeping in the gutter.”
“Alexia,” I mutter, twirling my cigar as I watch the tobacco on the end of it change from brown, the black, to red.
“Yes, Alexia is going to make us a fucking fortune if you can pull this off. It’s a little more complicated than a hit, though.”
I lick my lips at the thought of how much money that woman has. And she doesn’t even know it.
Perfect.
This is going to be too easy. I’ll do just about anything to get a hold of a clean fifty-million dollars. Hell, I’d even move back to Russia and complete my prison sentence for that kind of money.
Thankfully, I won’t have to.
I look out the window at the entrance to the grocery store. “Give me the complete rundown on this Alexia woman, everything you know.”
Boris clears his throat. “Alexia Diamandis. Eighteen years old. Light ginger hair, not really orange, but close. Grey eyes. Doesn’t seem to talk much. She was orphaned at three. She doesn’t even know her own last name, for god’s sake. She’ll never know what hit her, and to be honest, a bullet to the head is probably the nicest thing we can do for her. A girl like that won’t make it on the streets.”
“She could be the happiest woman on the planet, and I still wouldn’t have an issue loading up the old .45 for fifty-million,” I reply.
Boris chuckles. “I see nothing has changed with you.”
“It never will,” I reply dryly.
“Well, I doubt you’ll be doing many more hits after this one if everything goes according to plan. I only ask for twenty-million for finding this one for you, so I’m sure you’ll be happy to retire on thirty.”
“Forty,” I snap.
“That only leaves me with ten, my friend. You know I have to eat too,” he replies.
I shake my head. “You’re not the one marrying this girl. I’m taking all the risk here,” I reply. “You know they’re going to investigate me once all this is over.”
“You’ll already be on an island somewhere with a bunch of naked runway models by then. It’s not that risky,” Boris replies. “Besides, I could always give this one to someone else.”
“Thirty-five, and you keep fifteen,” I reply. “That’s my final offer.”
“Thirty and twenty would be easier.”
I take a puff of my cigar and glare at him. “Final is final, Boris. I’m not taking this for anything less than thirty-five.”
“Fine, but I wouldn’t mind a little bonus later if everything goes over well,” he says with a shrug.
I roll my eyes and turn back to watch the grocery store entrance. Alexia should be out any second. I don’t want to miss her.
This mission is way too good to turn down. It’s precisely the sort of thing I’ve been looking for.
“There she is,” Boris blurts as a small woman walks out of the store with a single loaf of bread, biting into it the second she comes through the sliding glass doors.
I focus on my new target, processing her, analyzing her every movement. She walks with the slightest limp, probably from sleeping on the street. She’s dirty, but not filthy, and she’s aware of it. She moves like she’s trying not to be noticed, but I notice her. It’s difficult not to.
A light sense of pity hits me as I watch her stop to dig an oversized hoodie out of her bookbag. She reminds me of what I had to go through in my younger days before getting involved with the mafia. I know her struggle.
Marrying this woman and killing her would probably be a huge favor, even if she doesn’t realize it yet. She’ll end up selling herself for drugs within five years. I’ve seen this play out a thousand times. It’s simply impossible to cope with life on the streets for that long without resorting to substances to take the edge off.
“She’ll be easy to kidnap,” Boris says. “Maybe you could let me have some fun with her too.”
“No,” I reply, already annoyed with him. “We’re going to have her come to us, and you’re not going to make any more appearances until we’re ready to seal her fate. She already knows who you are.”
“How are you going to do that?” he asks.
“I have a plan.”
“You’re a quick thinker, Zeno, but that’s why I knew I should give this target to you,” Boris replies, his voice filled with excitement.
My eyes never leave Alexia as I speak to Boris. “You have some thugs out here in Portland, don’t you?”
“Only the finest,” he replies proudly.
“Great. We’ll need them tonight. Gather up a group, no more than four or five, and I’ll call you late this evening with the rest of the plan.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Run her into my arms,” I reply, a smirk overtaking my lips. “She’ll come straight to me, and she’ll truly believe that I’m there to save her.”
I take another puff of my cigar and slip my hand into the door handle, pushing the silver button down with my thumb to unlock the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” Boris asks, surprised that I’m leaving so soon.
“To stalk my prey,” I reply as I step out of the vehicle.
There’s no time to waste. The longer Alexia is living on the streets, the less likely she’s going to trust me when I need her to. If she’s already had a few run-ins with my type, which I’m sure she has, she’s already going to be suspicious of me.
I maintain a healthy distance from Alexia, but she’s too entranced by her loaf of bread to notice a man in a suit following her. There are many of them out in the street right now, bustling around, to and from work. I’m just like them, swinging my black suitcase cheerfully as though it doesn’t have a rifle inside of it that was recently used to kill someone.
It’s going to be a while until Alexia settles down for the night, but I don’t want to lose sight of her. The price that she has on her head now is too high for me to opt for comfort and risk losing my trail on her. Boris told me she didn’t sleep in the same place every night, so she was hard for him to locate. I don’t want to lose her again.
A police car wails past me, followed by an ambulance, heading in the direction of the building I left an hour ago. I could be wrong, but I have a funny feeling that they’re going after the body that I slumped over in the office chair this morning.
It’s of no importance to me anymore. I’ve covered my tail, as I always do, and now my eyes are glued to the next big thing – Alexia. For such a big deal, she sure is a small woman, though. She can’t be more than five feet tall, and that’s with her thick-soled sneakers.
And I have to marry this woman. I wonder how long it will take to convince her that marrying a Russian hitman is a good idea. She’s either as ruthless as her father supposedly was, or she’s the polar opposite, in which case, this isn’t going to be all that easy.
With how she’s walking, making herself small and ordinary, I’m leaning toward the latter. All that means is that I’ll have to play a more innocent role, contrary to my nature. It’s not difficult for me to charm a woman by acting like the big, tough, dangerous man that I am, but the subtlety of a charming businessman is all but lost to me after my years on the streets of Russia. It will take some effort to get right.
Alexia disappears from view suddenly, while my mind is clouded in thought, and I’m jolted back to awareness. My senses are catlike as I scan the sidewalk, searching for her. I wasn’t expecting her to dip out like that. She must have gone down an alleyway or something. There aren’t enough people in the way for them to block her from my vision.
I pick up my pace, approached the location I lost her at. You would think that a woman like Alexia would be easy to spot amongst her squeaky-clean counterparts, but she’s proving to be sneakier than I thought. Boris didn’t inform me of this.
I mutter a curse as my foot lands on the location where she di
sappeared. There’s an alley to the right of me, which she almost certainly went down. The only problem with following her down is that she’ll know that I’m after her. I’ll have to loop around the building and wait on the other side if I don’t want to be noticed.
I break out into a sprint, not caring about the looks I receive from the relatively slow-moving businesspeople gliding along the sidewalk with their coffees and phones in hand. The only thing I’m concerned about is catching up with Alexia before she slips away into the crowd when she exits on the other side.
The second I round the corner, her little ginger head pops out into the open, only to dip back in when she sees me skidding to a halt so that I don’t breeze past her. Did she spot me?
Fuck, this isn’t going at all how I wanted it to. She’s back in the alley, which only has two exits, and I’m going to look like a threat to her if I circle back around yet again to meet her on the other side.
So, I pull back, walking to the park, and sitting down on the bench so that I can wait for her to come out. If she doesn’t pop her head back out again, I’ll assume that she went around the other way, and I’ll have to give Boris a call.
But I don’t want to admit to him that I’ve already blown up this mission. He seemed so sure that I would be able to handle this case, and I was also sure of it up until Alexia suddenly seemed to realize I was following her. She’s either more street-smart than she appears to be, or I’m starting to lose my edge.
I glance back toward the alleyway exit. Alexia isn’t coming out. She’s probably already back on the other side by now, and I won’t be able to catch up to her without her knowing that I’m chasing her. If she realizes that, I’m never going to be able to go through with my plan for tonight.
My only option is to return to my car and make rounds in the neighborhood until I spot her. She won’t get very far on foot, and the homeless tend to hang out in the park during the day. She’ll join them eventually, and I can continue following her from there.
I stand up from the park bench, rolling over the sum of thirty-five-million dollars in my head. I try to picture what that would look like in cash. It must be a lot. Even if Alexia turns out to be the biggest pain in the ass, she’s still worth that kind of payoff.