by L. L. Ash
A tremor of fear rushed down my spine at his somber words.
Sitting back with the little pot, he took a sip then turned his black eyes to me. They skated up and down me as he seemed to assess me all over again.
I wasn’t sure how I missed this part of him in St. Petersburg. I grew up with cold, calculating, militant men. And he was just like all the rest.
“Your father,” he said with a sing-song type of voice like he was telling some grand tale. “Has made a pretty shady deal with the Brotherhood.”
“I know that already. I was the deal.”
He shrugged a shoulder, but shook his head.
“Yes, but not entirely. Do you know what ‘daddy’ gets for selling his only daughter to them?”
I licked my lips and shook my head just as he did.
“No, not specifically. I assume it cements a friendship between them.”
He leaned forward, the little pot settled on the floor between his legs.
“Ilei Vasile is the biggest drug dealer in Eastern Europe. The man has made himself an empire for a very long time, uncontested until recently. So, he went to Popov with a solution. Money. Your father traded you and one hell of a dowery to Popov, including a mass of drugs for Popv’s men to run, all in trade for protection. Daddy dearest gets to run his empire, the Brotherhood gets the power and funds of Vasile exclusivity, and suddenly two crime lords have all that more power. That will lead to innocent people dead, and corrupt people taking over the streets, the police, and the government. If you thought it was already a shithole, think how bad it would get once they became partners?”
My mouth opened to protest, but I couldn’t.
“Tată doesn’t hurt innocent people.”
Max scoffed and laughed.
“God, you’re so Naïve. Your father has killed more people than you could count, Mila. Either directly or indirectly. He’s ordered the deaths of hundreds, thousands. Meanwhile you grew up in your little castle with caviar and champagne and fancy clothes. They died for that, Mila. And you care so little that you didn’t even bother to look around and see that your father is a murderer. Your brother too, for that matter. The fucker killed someone just last week. Did you know that? The police knew it was him and everything, but the witnesses refused to stand against him because they don’t want to end up dead too.”
My eyes burned, tears blurring him from my vision.
It couldn’t be true.
But it was. I knew deep inside my gut that it was. I’d seen things, heard things over the years that told me he was telling the truth.
“And then you. You. I can hardly even believe your own father—who pretends so nicely to love his baby girl—would sell you to a monster like Kir Popov. He’s a ruthless killing machine with the blood of more than one lover on his hands. You would have been next.”
Growling, he snatched up his tea and drank angrily from the pot before slapping it on the ground.
“Meanwhile I’m played out to be the bad guy because I took you away from that horror. You’re fucking welcome. I not only saved your sanity, but I saved your life. And one better than that, I’m going to be the one giving you the exact life you say that you want. Freedom to roam, freedom to be exactly who you want to be.”
He stood suddenly from his place on the floor and took his tea out the door, leaving me in the echoing silence.
I wasn’t sure exactly what happened. That was the most animated and passionate I’d ever seen him outside of bed. He stood on the dirt outside the door of the cabin, one hand flexing and loosening as he finished off his tea. Eventually he plopped the pot right back onto the stove, looming over me for just a moment before he stalked back out, zipping his coat up his chest before disappearing out of my sight.
I didn’t want to believe him, let alone think about all those things, but the more I did, the more my anger seeped out, like a micro hole in a balloon, slowly deflating.
I’ve always loved Tată and Danny. They were my family. After Mamă died when I was little, they were all I had. It was almost funny to me how easy it was to turn a blind eye to all the things I saw happening; the bad things I knew they did in the small, scrupulous part of my brain, just because of my love for them.
Admittedly, I filled in those parts of myself with the luxuries that were always at my fingertips. Tată always gave me what I asked, and to a childish mind, that was enough. It wasn’t until I began to attend university that I saw just how different my family was to the other ones my friends had.
Well, friends was a strong word. I chatted to them in our classes but Tată didn’t let me do much more than that. I couldn’t go to their homes, and obviously I wasn’t going to invite them to my family’s home. That would have been inviting trouble.
Maybe it was the loneliness that allowed me to overlook it.
Hell, it was probably that exact thing that made me agree to the marriage with Kir. I was so tired of being alone. I’d hoped that we would at least be friends. How quickly that dream was dashed away.
Max eventually came back, a sigh on his lips as he paced the little wooden floor.
How different he was than the man I’d met in Russia.
That man had been suave, well-mannered, charming and friendly. The man in front of me was none of those things. This Max was fierce, icy, intelligent and difficult. American, not Russian, and he hated me.
Wiping at more tears falling down my cheeks, I shoved my fingers into my hair and then cringed when my bed-ratted hair tangled all around my fingers.
“How am I to bathe?” I asked him as he paced.
“There’s water. Have a ball,” he said, not even looking at me.
“How am I supposed to wash my hair? Is there no bath, at the very least?”
He scoffed at me again and shook his hair.
“Sorry princess, no bath. Spongebaths only from this point on until we get the fuck out of here.”
“You must have...a bowl or something, at least.”
Gritting his teeth, Max stomped over to the bunker and dropped in. He rattled around down there for a minute, then he came up with a plastic bucket and a bar of soap.
“Have fun. Get water from the well outside for that. Don’t use our drinking water on your fucking hair.”
I took up the bucket and soap, then stormed outside myself.
There were moments when he could be so kind and soft, but most of the time he let himself be hard and unforgiving. It drove me absolutely crazy.
I only had to round the house to see the well and the ancient-looking bucket attached to a rope. I lowered it, then it took me quite a few minutes to get the bucket back up, but only half full because I’d splashed it all over the side in the troublesome ride up the dirt walls of the well.
It took quite some time to fill up my plastic bucket, but when I did it was too heavy for me to carry back to the cabin with any hopes of not spilling.
After a long moment of staring at the bucket, I heard Max’s voice travel around the cabin to me.
“You filling up a pool back there?”
My options were few, and while I had my pride, I needed a cleaning more.
“I need help,” I said finally, my voice wavering only a little as I bit back tears of frustration.
It was only moments later that Max came around the cabin, his coat open again and flashing the sharp planes of his chest through a tight black t-shirt.
“Back up,” he said when he approached, not even pausing to make sure I listened before he heaved up the bucket and brought it toward the hut. “Where the hell you going with this, anyway?”
“I’m going to warm it,” I said with a frown, picking my way along the path beside him.
He sighed, as if he’d been so long-suffering already, before doing as I asked. He brought the bucket to the stove and set it down with a throaty grunt. Once there, I started filling the small pot with the water.
“I’ll need another bucket,” I told him. “And a towel of some kind to wash myself.”
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“This isn’t a five star hotel, princess. What supplies we have are limited. When we’re out, we’re out. If you use them all to keep up your high maintenance lifestyle, we’re going to be hungry and dirty.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
It was a gross exaggeration, sure, but the truth of it wasn’t what stung. It was the words coming from his mouth that made some strange part of my chest twinge with a stab of pain.
“I am not high maintenance,” I whispered, gulping down the hurt.
“You’re not, huh?” he asked, plopping more wood in the fire. “With all your creams and makeup and clothes and perfect hair, nails… what would you call that, Mila?”
I stared down at the water as it sat on the hot stove, just waiting for it to heat..
“It’s called loneliness,” I said in such a quiet voice. “It was all I had. Money was the only thing I ever really...got from my father. My pearls kept me company and my fur coat kept me warm at night. They were the only friends I ever had that didn’t answer to my father. Well, them, and then you, before you became this...heartless thing. You can say what you want about being a military man, but it does not take away a man’s humanity to fight wars and battles on behalf of his home nation. No, you chose that path on your own and now I am standing directly in the way of your open fire.”
I stomped away from him like a petulant child. I knew how it made me look, but I couldn’t help myself. Being with him had been a series of unfortunate events that had led me to living in the Godforsaken wild with a man who despised me. In Russia I’d hoped that maybe...just maybe knowing him would leave me with good experiences to make up for the hollow life I’d lead up until now. After I gave him the thing most important to me; the thing that kept me safe and valuable to Tată, I’d thought that maybe it could have even led to more. I was beginning to fall in love with the man and his reserved smiles, his debonair personality and his intense eyes. The moment he was inside me for the first time, I wanted to cry and beg him to never leave me again.
When I left with him, I had given him everything that I was, and everything that I could ever be.
And this is what he gave me in return.
I’d just traded one monster for another.
“Kisa,” a deep voice said from behind me.
It was Max. Of course it was him. There wasn’t another person around us for miles.
“What do you want?” I asked, fighting the tightening in my throat and the tears that kept trying to escape my weary, tired eyes.
God I was so sick of crying…
“Come back in and I’ll help you,” he said in nothing more than a whisper.
It wasn’t an apology for being a total bastard, but it was something. It was a concession he was willing to make for me, and that, from him, was a lot.
I wiped at my face before turning toward him. His stance was still rigid, but he gave me the tiniest tilt of his head before he led me back into the cabin.
The water was boiling by that point, so Max took it off the heat and dumped the hot water back into the bucket of cold. It was nothing warmer than tepid, but it would do to get myself clean.
“Lean forward,” Max told me, kneeling beside the bucket.
I did as he asked, and gathered my hair behind my neck, then dumped it forward.
Using one of the tin cups, he dipped into the water that was a little cooler than I’d anticipated, and started dumping it over my head in effective little pours.
“Soap,” he said the simple word.
I fumbled on the ground for it before handing it over.
He rubbed it violently into my hair and I cringed at the mess it would be when he was done, but at least it would be clean from the adventure we’d had over the last few days. It would go a long way to help me get back to the normal me.
After the soaping he dropped more of the water over my head for a minute, then he stopped. A long moment passed before his hands passed over my straight, black hair and squeezed water out of it.
“If you want to wash your body, then use your clothes to do it. When you’re done you can wash the shirt or whatever in this water and put something clean on while it dries.”
“No use cleaning this blouse,” I said with a sigh. “It’s torn to smithereens.”
Flipping my hair back, it landed with a wet splat against my wool coat as I turned to Max. I didn’t miss the way his eyes dipped momentarily to where my blouse gaped under my coat or the quick flick of his tongue over his lips.
“Use this soap to clean your clothes too, right here in this bucket when you’re done washing yourself. You can do mine too.”
“Oh, can I?” I asked sarcastically, even though his kindness had softened me just a little.
“I’m not going to stop you,” he said with a smirk before leaving the cabin and me in peace.
I wasn’t sure how long I had so I took his advice and stripped to my underthings in the not quite freezing air beside the stove and quickly dunked my ruined blouse in the water. It wasn’t the best instrument to clean with, but with a little soap and water, I felt refreshed. The only problem that remained, was finding where my bag was hiding. I needed new panties and a new shirt before I could get comfortable again and regain the warmth my body had lost in my attempt at cleanliness.
More boots on the packed dirt outside, and I wrapped myself back into my long wool jacket before Max came back through the door without even a warning or a knock.
“Figured you’ll need this,” he said, plopping my suitcase in front of me.
“I do, thank you.”
“You done?”
“Almost. I just need to change.”
He rolled his eyes and headed back out the door.
“It’s fucking cold out here, you know,” he told me from just outside. “Hurrying would be appreciated.”
I wanted to give him a smart remark, but after he helped me wash my hair, I found myself unable.
“One more moment,” I called, dropping my washing rag AKA my blouse, before I started to dress, starting from my panties.
“Your second’s up!” he hollered, his voice coming closer.
The door opened just as I reached for my bra.
He froze in the door and I froze with the lacey cup in my hand. Max gulped, then turned his eyes away and gave me his back. I didn’t even need any heat from the fire anymore because my embarrassment was warming me overmuch.
Slipping on my bra, I clasped it on then dug for a shirt to wear.
“Did Serge’s wife give you enough to wear?”
“She gave me several things,” I choked out, feeling so exposed.
“Warm enough?”
Well, not very warm. Not warm enough for our current lodging, especially considering there wasn’t heating or a proper sized fire.
“I’ll manage,” I told him, not about to tell him that I’d been cold since we landed on that airplane.
Well, with the exception of the few hours I spent in that bed with him, but I couldn’t think about that while I was half naked in the same room.
“Wait a sec. I have some warmer things you can wear.”
“I’m fine how I am,” I insisted, putting on a long sleeved turtleneck and a pair of jeans that were just a little too small around the hips.
Eventually Max looked over his shoulder, his back still to the fire before he turned fully around with arms crossed over his chest.
“You’re going to freeze in that.”
“I have my coat too,” I bit out, but even still my body was shivering between the cool water and the cold air outside.
He didn’t say anything else before dropping to his knees beside me and shamelessly digging through my bag.
“This stuff is shit. You’ve got no reason to be fashionable out here in the middle of nowhere. Dresses? Really? Maybe Serge’s girl is just as spoiled as you are.”
Standing without another word, he dropped back into the supply area and clicked on a lamp.
I foll
owed him, going down the ladder instead of falling to my bare feet on the cold wood.
“Here,” he said, handing me some things that he dug out of a bin. “And high heels won’t work either. You’re just going to have to be ok with wearing big shoes.”
“I’m not spoilt,” I told him, with a frown. “Whatever your misconceptions are about me, I don’t appreciate being called names.”
“Whatever you say, princess,” he rebuffed, making me grind my teeth in anger.
That seemed to be the way with us. One moment of kindness or tenderness and he flipped a one-eighty and was cruel and heartless the next. It baffled me and grated on me at the same time.
Dropping the boots by my feet, he added thick, woolen socks, a heavy sweater and a jacket to match his own. Next he added a stack of dark thermals to the pile.
“Now, get dressed for real and I’ll take you out of here.”
I sucked in a breath and nodded, eager to leave the small space.
He left the lamp on, but climbed out of the hole in the ground, so that was where I changed. The boots were three sizes too big, but I was able to tighten the laces around my ankle to keep them on well enough, and the rest was also big, but for once I was starting to warm up. It was almost pleasant, if not for the musty smell permeating the clothes.
Climbing up was a little tough with the heavy layers, but once I was up, Max was waiting for me with a rifle in his hand, a long knife on his belt, poking out from where his coat covered half of it, and a scowl on his face.
“I should’a come out here beforehand and put some clothes here for you. You look ridiculous.”
“Didn’t you just say it doesn’t matter what I look like in the wilderness?”
“Looks? No. But function matters, and you’re waddling like a fucking pregnant woman in all that gear.”
I didn’t need to tell him that the waddle was from what had happened the night before. It would probably just inflate his ego.
“I can walk fine.” I brushed past him and out the door into the wildness around me.
Trees sprouted thick and tall for as far as I could see. How did he not get lost?
“C’mon princess,” Max called as he already started hiking through the trees.