by Nicole Fox
“Hello?” He moves into the living room, and I follow, arms crossed, hoping to glean something—anything from the conversation.
When Yuri sees me standing behind him, he lowers his voice and switches to Russian.
I suddenly regret every minute I wasted in Spanish classes in college. Perhaps if my father had told me more about his business dealings, I would have studied Russian. As it is, I can’t understand a word Yuri is saying, and it’s clear that is what he intended. The only thing I can gather is that he sounds tense, though that could just be the Russian language. It isn’t exactly a romantic sound.
When he hangs up, I trail after him like a lost puppy. “What did he say?”
Yuri pockets his phone and shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Didn’t sound like nothing.”
“Well, it was,” he snaps, moving to the minibar and grabbing a drink. We’ve probably spent over fifty dollars just on water bottles and liquor, but Yuri doesn’t seem bothered by the high price tag as he tosses back whatever it is, grits his teeth, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
With my father outed as a criminal, I don’t have anyone else to depend on. In this situation, it’s just me and Yuri. I need him to know he can trust me. I need him to know I’m not going to run off or betray him. Not now that things have changed so drastically. I cross the room and lay a hand on his shoulder.
Yuri flinches like I’ve burned him, stumbling into the bar and knocking off a glass cup full of paper umbrellas. The glass shatters on the floor, and I reach down to pick it up. Yuri stays unmoving in front of me.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Why are you sorry?” He sounds angry, and I assume it’s from the conversation with his dad and breaking the glass.
I set a handful of the largest glass shards on the bar next to his elbow. “For scaring you.”
“You didn’t scare me.” He steps over the rest of the glass debris and walks into the bedroom. He paces in front of the bed like a wild animal.
“What is going on?” I ask, taking another step towards him. “Did your dad say something to upset you?”
When he looks up at me, his eyes are dark and distant. They look the way they did when I was being kept in the basement. He looks crazed. “It was a private conversation.”
I twist my lips nervously to the side of my mouth. I want to be there for him, but I’m not sure how. “You can trust me. Now that I know my dad has been lying to me, you’re the only person I can trust. We’re in this together, Yuri.”
He spins on me, closing the distance between us in half a second, and hurls me back onto the bed by my arm. I scrambled back onto the bed, trying to sit up and understand what is going on, but then Yuri is on top of me, his weight pinning me to the mattress. I’m too scared to fight or argue. I just lie beneath him, adrenaline pumping through my veins and making my arms and legs shake.
“We aren’t in anything together,” he hisses, pinning my arms down to the mattress so I’m spread beneath him, helpless.
I know he’s too strong for me to fight, but I wriggle anyway, trying to free my arms. His hands tighten around my wrists and he grinds his hips into mine. There’s nothing sensual or electric between us. It’s raw, angry. “We aren’t partners, Bella. Or friends. You’re just collateral.”
“Yuri, please—”
His lips tear across mine, and I clamp my mouth shut, but it doesn’t matter. His hands are all over my body. Tears spill down my cheeks before I can stop them, and when he finally pulls away from me, I’m shaking with sobs.
“Why?” The word is a broken whisper.
Yuri leans down and licks across my cheek, tasting the tears he caused. “Because you can’t trust me, Bella. You’re the bitch I’m using to help my family. Nothing more.”
He spits the words at me, and then just as fast as he pushed me onto the bed and crawled over me, he’s gone.
Even after the hotel door slams shut, I lie perfectly still in the bed, too afraid to move.
Chapter Eleven
Yuri
The hotel bar isn’t even open yet, but I convince one of the waitresses to “accidentally” spill a little liquor in a clean glass for me. She tells me she’ll charge it to my room, and I wink at her. Her cheeks color and she bats her eyelashes, and the sight is so repulsive I have to look away.
I’ve always had a way with women. They’re drawn to me before I even try, and when I do, I can have almost anyone I want. But up until now, I haven’t ever wanted anyone. Not really.
My life is complicated. There are few people I can trust to tell about my work, and those that I can are either married to someone in my family or actually related to me. But then Bella came along. She knows the whole truth, has seen me at my worst—a few minutes ago in the hotel room is a good example of my worst—and I want her.
Even admitting that much makes me want to grab one of the bottles lining the shelves behind the bar and pound it back in one swallow. I don’t know how to be good.
I’ve told Bella I’m no good, but when she looks at me, I get the sense she’s seeing someone else. I can practically feel her expectations hanging around my neck like a weight. Even though I kidnapped her and pinned her against a cell wall, she looks at me like she expects better. Like I’m walking around in a mascot costume, and only she can see the sweaty man underneath it all.
Bella hasn’t realized there isn’t anything beneath the mask. I’m the mask. My father groomed me my entire life to fulfill this role. To torture people, get information, and dispose of those who are unnecessary. I wasn’t raised to play house with raven-haired socialites. I have one-night stands, not romances. I fuck women; I don’t make love to them.
But does that mean I can’t?
I finish the amber liquor and wince as it burns its way down my throat, clearing my head.
She was crying when I left. Sobbing, actually. Bella was as terrified of me as I wanted her to be right after I’d kidnapped her. I wanted her to cower in fear and cry. But now, the memory of it scrapes my insides clean. I felt hollow.
I caused her blue eyes to go wide and glassy with fear. And for what?
She wanted to know what my dad said, and when I told her it was nothing, I wasn’t lying. He was just checking in, making sure we hadn’t been discovered and overpowered by anyone in the secret society, and reminding me to stay put and keep Bella hidden. It wasn’t anything secret or sensitive. Yet I kept it from her. Because she called me nice.
I guess I forgot who I was talking to. You were being nice, so I must have gotten confused.
I felt like I was losing my edge, like I was going soft. If my dad hadn’t called, I would have talked to her about her feelings, maybe laid her out on the bed and kissed her softly until she forgot about everything else. I wanted to make her feel good, and like a horse who spies a snake on the trail, I got spooked. I had to push her away as fast as possible.
And like the idiot I am, I thought it would make me feel better. If I could get back to the status quo, to being the monster everyone thinks I am, then my complicated feelings for Bella would go away. But they didn’t, and now that I’ve left her crying and alone in the hotel room, I feel even more like an ass.
“Do I need to accidentally spill you another drink?” the waitress asks, leaning across the bar, her breasts squeezed together for my benefit, no doubt. She’s a leggy blonde with too much makeup on—the exact type of woman I usually prefer.
“No, I think I’m good,” I say, sliding the glass towards her.
She purses her lips and nods. “I’m just opening the bar. I actually get off in half an hour.”
“That’s nice,” I say, sliding off my stool and stretching.
Her brows pull together, but she strangely isn’t discouraged. “You could take me to lunch? We could see what I can do about that frown of yours.”
Fucking her would be fun. She has perky breasts, big lips, and long legs that could wrap around my waist easily. And yet, I can’t even g
et excited about the thought. Not when I so recently had Bella. Not when she’s upstairs crying because of me.
Without responding, I turn and leave.
***
When I get back to the room, everything is quiet and still, and I wonder if storming out wasn’t a bigger mistake than I already thought. Did Bella leave? I told her not to trust me, but on some level, I trusted her. Trusted that she would stay in the room, that she wouldn’t run away.
I’m mentally tracing back over her steps for the last several weeks, wondering where she would go first. Not her father’s house since she just discovered his secrets. Not her house since she might be a target for not just one, but two criminal organizations. Maybe her best friend’s house?
Then, I hear a small cough and look up to see Bella standing in the doorway. She found the jeans and T-shirt I bought for her and stashed in the drawers, and her long hair is pulled back in a messy bun on top of her head. Her eyes are clear, but they’re puffy from crying.
I hold out the to-go bag I’m carrying. “Chinese food. If you want it.”
She looks at the bag and bites her lower lip. “That’s my favorite takeout place.”
I know. She went there twice a week while I was keeping tabs on her. It’s a family-owned operation on the other side of town. The hotel was way beyond their delivery range, so I had to pay one of the men on the bottom rung of our operation to pick it up for me. And I might have threatened his nuts if he didn’t have it at the hotel within twenty minutes.
“Lo mein and egg rolls.” I drop the bag on the coffee table in front of the sofa and stand back.
She hesitates and then moves towards the table, stopping when she sees the cardboard box next to the bag. “What is that?”
“Death by chocolate.”
Bella looks over her shoulder at me. “You bought me a cake?”
“And a brownie,” I say, pointing to the plastic-wrapped fudgy square behind the box. It feels like too much. Like an obvious buy off that she’ll reject and continue hating me. But it was all I could think to do. I’d buy her favorite things, let her know I’m not a total monster, not completely, anyway.
I’m not even sure why I care what she thinks. Why it matters. But it does. Because if Bella thinks I’m irredeemable, then it must be true. If she doesn’t think I’m worth her time, then I’ll know I’m not. But I want to be.
She sits down and digs into the Chinese food, slowly at first, but picking up speed as her hunger takes the reins. I move towards her slowly, like I’m approaching a timid animal, and when I finally sit on the sofa next to her, she stiffens but keeps eating.
“Do you want any?” she asks.
“No, I’m fine.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, my stomach growls. She looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t like Chinese food.”
All the progress I’ve made so far might be undone by that phrase. She looks at me like I just beat a puppy. “You what?”
“It’s not for me,” I shrug. “My dad used to take us to a Chinese buffet every Thursday because it was ‘all you can eat,’ and I lost the taste for it. You can only have reheated orange chicken so many times before it ruins it for you forever.”
“But have you had this Chinese food?” she asks, pointing to the open cardboard carton on the table.
“Do you mean this specific Chinese food or—”
“The restaurant,” she says, rolling her eyes. Yesterday I was annoyed with how often she rolled her eyes at me. Now, I realize how much I would miss it if she ever stopped.
I shake my head, and suddenly there are chopsticks in my hand and Bella is thrusting a carton of lo mein into my hands.
“But I don’t—”
“Eat.” She widens her eyes in a threatening manner, and I realize it’s a command. Before my freak-out an hour ago, I would have shoved the carton back at her and made some remark about not taking orders from my hostage, but now I have to eat crow. Which means I have to eat Chinese food.
I swirl the noodles clumsily around the chopsticks and take a reluctant bite as she watches. She smiles as I chew, her eyebrows rising higher and higher until they nearly disappear into her hairline. “So ...”
“It’s Chinese food,” I shrug, swallowing and handing her the carton. “And it tastes exactly how I remember.”
She sags. “I thought that was going to be more of a revelation for you. You really don’t like it?”
“It’s not the Chinese food, it’s me,” I say. “I hated going with my family to get Chinese every week, and I’m pretty sure we only used that restaurant because my father did business with them. I was too young to pay much attention at the time.”
“One time, my mom made peanut butter cookies while I had the flu, and now I can’t eat baked goods with peanut butter in them without feeling nauseous,” Bella offers. “Is that how you feel about Chinese food?”
“I guess so.” It feels weird to be talking about Chinese food when our last conversation was so intense. So cruel. But I’m just glad she’s talking to me and looking at me. I have no intention of doing anything to screw it up. “My dad liked to keep a strict schedule when we were kids. We woke up at the same time every day whether it was a weekday or the weekend. Every Saturday we cleaned our rooms and the house. Every Sunday we went to church and then to a sandwich shop next door. And Thursdays were for Chinese. Not liking the food was my small way of rebelling, I think. It was the only rebellion that wouldn’t earn my father’s wrath.”
“You went to church?” Bella asks, nose wrinkled.
“You seem surprised.”
“Well,” she says, head bobbing back and forth. “Kind of. Your father is a criminal.”
“Did your family go to church?” I ask.
“Every Sunday,” she nods, smiling at the memory. Then her smile falters and she frowns. “I guess my father is a criminal too. Both of our dads were liars.”
“Well, actually, only your dad was a liar,” I say softly. “But my dad was a lot of other things. Worse things, probably.”
Bella bites into an egg roll. “Was he abusive? You mentioned his wrath, so I thought maybe—”
“No,” I say, cutting her off. “He never hit us. But he demanded a lot. Unerring loyalty. No matter what.”
She takes another crunching bite and then tucks her legs up underneath her on the sofa. When her foot brushes against my thigh, we both shift away from one another like we’ve been shocked. Her mouth turns up in an embarrassed smile and then she sighs. “It seems like my childhood was always structured around a campaign. Wherever we went, it was ‘Smile, Bells. Don’t forget to smile. We’re a happy family.’ And we were, mostly. But it would have been nice to not have to exude cheerfulness all the time. If one photographer caught a photo of me yawning during one of his speeches or frowning while we stood in line for ice cream at the fair, then there were news stories about the ‘toll of the campaign trail on Senator McNair’s young daughter’ and a ‘crack in the family man’s façade.’”
Bella turns towards me and crosses her legs, and her willingness to face me feels like a gold medal. “I’m sure that seems like nothing compared to what you went through. And I don’t mean to complain about my life because—”
Her hand is resting on her knee, and I reach out and touch it before I can stop myself. My fingers brush across her smooth knuckles, and she falls silent. “It isn’t a competition.”
She looks down at where we’re touching, but doesn’t pull away. “I know,” she says softly. “You just seem ... different ... compared to your dad. I wonder what it must be like to follow his orders.”
“I’m used to it,” I shrug. “I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
Her lashes are long and they brush across her cheek as she blinks slowly. “I just wonder ... have you ever disobeyed an order? Or wanted to?”
I know what she’s asking. She asked the question before, and I wanted to answer it the first time. But I couldn’t. Not without undermining my father. Not w
ithout making myself look disloyal.
But does that matter anymore? And even if it does, does it matter more than this?
“I didn’t want to kill you.” The words come out in a rush like I’m afraid I’ll chicken out midway through. “I might have. If he’d asked me to, I might have.”
I stand up and tug on the back of my shirt, pulling it up to reveal the tattoo that stretches across most of my mid-back. The one that was inked there when I was only sixteen and that I’ve added to every year since. I hear Bella’s breathy intake when she sees it—the two-story home sitting in an open field, the starry sky above, the word beneath it.
“Family,” she says, reading the cursive scrawl.
I nod. “Each star is someone I’ve killed for my family. Either because I was ordered to or because I had to in order to survive.” I drop my shirt before she can count all of the stars, before she can be completely horrified by my past actions, and sit down. “I’ve done a lot of things for my father, but if he were to ask me again right now? If he were to ask me to kill you or hurt you, I wouldn’t do it. Not again.”
Bella’s eyes are wide, and she stares at me for a second before suddenly, she’s on her knees and crawling towards me. The half-eaten carton of Chinese falls to the floor, but I don’t care as her hands wrap around my neck and she settles in my lap. When our lips touch, it feels soft and easy and inevitable.
I wrap my arms around her waist and carry her to the bedroom where I lay her out on the bed. With gentle hands, I peel her jeans down her shapely legs and spread her thighs. I kiss my way across her body, pressing my unspoken apology into her skin, letting her know what she means to me. That no matter what I said before, we’re in this together.
When I finally press into her, we’re face-to-face, and I don’t take my eyes off her as she shudders apart, clinging to me like she might fall off the earth if she lets go. And she doesn’t look away when my climax comes, when I squeeze my eyes shut and curse how good she feels. How good this feels.
She lies next to me when we’re finished, her head on my chest, and I wrap an arm around her shoulders. Cuddling is new for me, but Bella is a good teacher.