I forced the cereal down my throat and plopped another in my mouth. “I guess I’m narcissistic I’m not a man then.”
“You being a woman has nothing to do with it.”
The childhood memory of my papa’s girlfriend resurfaced, and I pulled my gaze from him, chest suddenly tight. “I don’t want special treatment.” I don’t deserve it. “You should treat me like anyone else who happens to look at you the wrong way.”
“I find your sacrificial lamb mentality nauseating.”
“I’m sure selflessness is hard for you to stomach,” I said in understanding.
“You think you have me all figured out, don’t you?”
“Charismatic gangster who’s an introvert at heart? Sexual deviant? A villain with a sad past I refuse to sympathize with? Check, check, check. If you were a subject on my SATs, I’d ace it.”
A hint of a laugh passed through his eyes. “I have no idea where you come up with this shit.”
What I would never tell him was, I’d always been a bit of an introvert too.
“Where I come from, you either sink or swim. I swam.” His voice pulled me into his web, demon-spun, and as strong as his knots. “Can’t say the same, can you?”
The cereal in my stomach soured. I hated how he could pick apart my flaws, my secrets, and then practically throw them in my face. I focused on my cup of tea and took a sip. Scrunching my nose at the bitter taste, I added some sugar.
“Did you enjoy your day of freedom?” he asked.
“You and I have very different definitions of ‘freedom.’”
“Maybe, but mine is the only one that matters, isn’t it?”
I didn’t know why he had to wind me up until it felt as if I would pop like a jack-in-the-box. Maybe so I’d “misbehave,” and then he’d have a reason to punish me and sate his sadistic soul.
“You can continue to have free rein of my home, but don’t engage my men.” A threat tainted his voice.
Stirring my tea, I offered him a saccharine smile. “Why? Because I’m a lowly Mikhailov who shouldn’t deign to speak?”
“Your words, not mine.”
The whimsical, mocking tune of my childhood toy played in my head as Ronan cranked the lever—not only from the degrading nuance in his voice, but because I forgot what a bastard the man was just yesterday, and I couldn’t have humiliated myself more.
“If you despise me so much just because of who my papa is, then I feel sorry for you.”
He gave a dry, amused look. “Coming from someone who spread her legs for her papa’s enemy two seconds after meeting him. Perhaps the one who should be pitied here is you.”
“That’s your opinion. And it sucks.” So did this tea. The bitterness left a thick aftertaste on my tongue.
A volatile energy condensed the room and slowed the beat of my heart. I said I wasn’t perfect, and I was beginning to learn I had a fiery temper and more pride than sense.
“I hope using me to fulfill your twisted desire for revenge doesn’t weigh too heavily on your pin-size conscience.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re concerned for my welfare, but just to clear the air . . .” His eyes darkened. “I’ve enjoyed every second of it.”
Loathing burned a hole through my stomach as “Pop Goes the Weasel” grew louder and louder in my ears. Then, something vengeful, almost sensual, arose to trace the edges of my voice.
“I think you’re enjoying it more than you’d like.”
He went still, and then his gaze slowly lifted to examine me like I was toxic. Somehow, the bitter tea went down smoothly beneath the force of his stare.
“We both know I could have you any way I want. Unfortunately for you, I have better things to do than Mikhailov whores.”
A pop sounded in my chest, releasing an explosion of fire that turned my vision a hazy red. The slap to his face vibrated in the room and stung my palm, but the sight of his reddened cheek and violent gaze didn’t quell the pounding of blood in my ears.
I was doused in flames, in regret and confusion. He’d taken everything from me—my papa, my mother’s memory, my innocence—and still, I couldn’t even slap him without a tight sensation of remorse and an apology rising in my throat. I hated it. I hated this house. But what I hated the most was what I didn’t hate.
The pull between the feelings wreaked havoc on my body and the dining room. I shot to my feet and swept dishes off the table to the floor, including his stupid bowl of Fruit Loops. Fine china shattered.
He merely watched me smash every breakable item on the table, and when there was nothing else left to throw, my body shook, self-loathing pulsing through me in waves.
“Are you finished?”
My heart slowed to a short bu-bum, bu-bum, and all the blood inside rose to ache in my head. Violence was supposed to be a release, but I didn’t feel so good. Nausea turned my stomach while I tried to catch my breath. A glare from the overhead light singed my eyes, sending a ringing through my ears, and I winced.
“Mila.” Ronan never called me that, but I couldn’t focus on anything except the tightness in my lungs. There wasn’t enough oxygen in here, though when I tried to move to find fresh air, a wave of dizziness took ahold of me, and I grasped the table to steady myself.
Something was wrong with me . . . As a fierce wave of sickness roiled within, an anchor dragged my heart down.
The tea.
Sudden tears ran down my cheeks. My desolate eyes met Ronan’s, and my words reeked of betrayal.
“You poisoned me.”
One of his “fucks” hit my ears before he shot out of his chair and caught me by the waist just as my legs gave out.
With my back to his chest, he shoved two fingers down my throat. I gagged on them, then threw up on his hand and the marble floor. He did it again, and again, until nothing else came up, and I begged him to stop.
Hot sweat permeated my skin, which made me shiver. My limbs were as weak as jelly, and tears saturated my cheeks from the presence of his fingers down my throat. But the knowledge he hadn’t done this to me filled me with a disturbing amount of relief that alleviated the grip on my lungs.
When he lifted me, my eyes opened, and I blinked against the harsh light. Yulia dashed from the room after Ronan growled something at her.
Rainbow-colored vomit stained my sunflower dress and Ronan’s Tom Ford suit. I wondered if this was how I would die, poisoned by black tea in the devil’s arms. I wondered if hell would feel as welcoming; if it had an accent, sharp incisors, and inked hands.
Madame Richie’s laugh resounded in my mind, sending a chill down my spine that disturbed me so much I said between weak pants, “With how much I’ve puked around you, you’d think you would take the hint.”
“Ne govori.” Don’t talk. It was soft but brusque.
He set me on the couch in the drawing room. As weight pulled on my muscles, I moved to lie down, but, on his haunches in front of me, Ronan held me in a sitting position by the back of my neck.
Yulia, whose dry expression conveyed she believed I was being dramatic, handed Ronan a glass of water and a white pill he tried to put in my mouth. I shied away from his hand and shook my head.
“Voz’mi tabletku.”
My head pounded. I didn’t have the energy to try to decipher the rough Russian.
“English, please.”
A fleeting pause in his eyes vanished with something volatile. “Take the fucking pill, Mila.”
He drugged me once before, and I should have learned my lesson. Although, with my puke on his shirt, my name on his lips still lingering in the air, and the closeness of his gaze, I let him put the pill in my mouth before I forced it down my sore throat with a drink of water.
His phone rang, and he stood to answer it. I took the opportunity to lean my head against the armrest and close my eyes to alleviate the ache behind them. A pat to my face made me groan and open them again.
“Ne zasypay,” he told me.
“English,” I reminded him
.
After a second of awareness that told me he didn’t realize he’d spoken Russian, he clenched his teeth and walked away to continue terrorizing whoever was on the phone. My eyelids were so heavy I allowed them to close again, but the peace was interrupted by another pat to my cheek.
I glared at Ronan as best as I could manage. “Stop it.”
Phone to his ear, his gaze bore into mine. “If you fall asleep, I will spank your ass.”
We stared at each other for a long second. If he hadn’t done so for throwing tea in his face, he wouldn’t punish me for falling asleep after I was poisoned. Although, for some reason, I let him have the threat and forced my eyes to stay open.
A moment passed, and he released me from his gaze and walked to the front door. He returned with a familiar face: the doctor I met my first night in Moscow. The one who tried to warn me. This home seemed so remote, I had no idea how he managed to get here so fast. My imagination played a scene of the doctor in the underworld boarding a train called Satan’s Express. Nothing would surprise me anymore. While the two men shared Russian words, Kirill kneeled in front of me, shined a light in my eyes, and checked my pulse. It seemed I’d come full circle, but this time, I knew the devil was in the room.
When Kirill pulled an IV bag and a needle from his briefcase, anxiety pulsed through me in waves. Tired muscles shook as I forced myself to my feet, and, swaying slightly, I nonchalantly announced, “I’m going to my room.”
Kirill frowned and said something to Ronan, who, with an ounce of dry amusement, caught me by the waist and pulled me back.
Weakly struggling against him, I said, “Really. I feel fine.”
Ronan forced me onto the couch. “We’re going to discuss your habit of lying later.” He lowered to his haunches in front of me and brushed a piece of vomit-covered hair from my sweaty face. “Right now, you’re going to let Kirill treat you.”
“I don’t want to do this,” I breathed frantically. “Can we do it tomorrow?”
The look he gave me said, No. He nodded at Kirill to continue before saying to him, “Sdelay vse pravilno s pervogo raza.”
Kirill swallowed thickly. I didn’t need to know what Ronan said to know he’d just threatened him.
I tensed and closed my eyes tight, but the sharp pinch of the needle in the top of my hand didn’t send my blood pressure diving like I expected. Maybe it was already too low. Or maybe being captive in this house changed my body’s perception of what I should fear. It wasn’t a needle or blood. Somehow, it wasn’t even D’yavol on his haunches in front of me.
I opened my eyes to see the IV was in, the bag set up. A cool fluid shot through my blood, up my arm. My tired, half-lidded gaze met Ronan’s, and the moment stretched through time and space as my body fought the poison within. But holding this man’s stare was like looking into a well that granted immortality. It shimmered, beckoning me to jump into its dark depths, and obliterated the fear inside I might never make it back out.
“Am I going to die?” The soft words escaped me.
His gaze darkened. “Nyet.”
One should never trust a monster, but as something heavy filled my chest, I believed him. If anyone understood death, it was this man with eyes as black as coal. That is, unless an unsuspecting victim got too close and saw they sparkled like tanzanite.
I let my head drop against the back of the couch. He still had puke on his hand, having wiped some of it on his pants, yet he looked put together, too composed to be real. The sight reminded me of his previous words. “I swam.” A memory resurfaced, of my papa teaching me to swim off a yacht in the Atlantic after he strapped so many flotation devices to me I would be carried away like a balloon in a strong wind.
A nostalgic smile touched my lips as I asked, “How did you learn to swim?”
He watched me for a second. “When I was eight, in the back seat of a car after my mother put a brick on the gas pedal and drove it into the Moskva.”
The smile slipped from my lips. I stared at him, the words tightening around my throat with cold fingers. He didn’t look away. He didn’t even seem to realize the horror of what he just said. Thankfully, Kirill interrupted the chaos in my mind by handing me a mask and gesturing for me to place it over my mouth. Avoiding Ronan’s gaze, I breathed the treatment in for a few seconds while the doctor checked my blood pressure and spoke to him in Russian.
Suddenly too tired to keep my eyes open, I drifted in and out of consciousness.
I woke to movement and the softness of my bed beneath me.
“Up,” Ronan said.
Understanding the command, I groggily lifted my arms, and he pulled my dress over my head. He ripped the seam from the collar to the sleeve so he could get it off with the IV in my hand. It was my favorite dress, but I didn’t have the energy to complain. Not even as he unclipped my sweat-soaked bra and pulled it off along with my underwear and socks.
I was naked, inside and out. On his haunches beside me, he worked the IV bag through my bra strap, and my chest tightened when I saw the faint mark on his cheek. I couldn’t stop myself from running my fingers across it.
He stilled, eyes lifting to mine.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “For hitting you.”
We stared at each other so long my hand grew tired and slipped from his face. I must have fallen asleep again. When I opened my eyes, Ronan was gone, and Kirill silently read a book in a chair beside my bed.
agathokakological
(adj.) composed of both good and evil
Albert occupied the chair in front of my desk, his careful gaze and silence on my skin. He had a good reason to be cautious. It was a while since I’d been so angry my hands shook—three months exactly, when I found Pasha’s body mutilated by Mikhailov hands.
The irony of the situation was one of the reasons I’d forced myself to sit here and wait for the rage to cool before I shot my men one by one to find the traitor in our midst. The other reason . . . well, it made me a little nauseous. It was the idea Mila’s soft eyes were almost permanently snuffed out by a cup of tea. The burn in my chest whenever I thought of it reminded me of the time I fought for air in an old Volkswagen filled with icy water.
I wasn’t sure why I shared that story with Mila considering I didn’t even tell my brother after walking into our apartment later that night dripping water on the cracked linoleum floor. I didn’t often dwell on the past, but the odd sense of . . . relief Mila would live reminded me of my first breath after breaking my head through the surface of the Moskva.
“Where have you been?” Kristian asked me in Russian, pulling his gaze from the tiny TV with rabbit ear antennas that sat on the floor.
“Swimming,” I answered.
Momma was passed out in the apartment’s single bedroom. Dark hair covered her face, and an arm hung off the bed, a cigarette dangling from her fingers. I used to think she was pretty, but now, at eight, all I saw when I looked at her were burned silver spoons, empty eyes, and a heat in my gut that expanded further every day.
I grabbed the baggie of crack rocks off the table and flushed it down the toilet. There’d be hell to pay for that later, but I doubted it would be worse than another night of my momma smoking that stuff. It made her act crazy, and she’d say things that didn’t make any sense.
After I stripped out of my wet clothes, I plopped down on the stained mattress next to Kristian and stole the remote from him.
“You don’t know how to swim,” he said, keeping his eyes on the TV.
I flipped the channel. “Do now.”
“It’s March.”
My brother could be so annoying. He kicked me in his sleep, watched boring shows, and thought he knew everything. The fact he was mostly right irritated me even more. I’d also punch any kid who was mean to him. Momma’s friends were mean to him the most. They never bothered me, but still, sometimes, an angry red mist covered my eyes when they were here. Those men were too large for me to hurt now, but someday, I’d be big enough.
> “Everything’s still frozen,” he said.
I wouldn’t admit I’d held onto a piece of ice until I reached the shore even if Kristian saw me at it. With a shrug, I said, “I got hot.” In fact, I was feeling a little sweaty from the shaky nerves and my cold skin. I wiped sweat from my chest onto his cheek. He glared at me and rubbed it off with a hand.
The room went silent, the dark room lit by the TV with a broken speaker. “We should go there,” he said to the TV, to a scene of New York City. “To America.”
I shook my head. “I want to stay here.”
His eyes came to me. “What are you gonna do, sleep on this mattress all your life?”
“No, dimwit, I’m gonna be like him.” I nodded to the TV as a political commercial came on.
“He’s the president,” Kristian said.
“I know.” I didn’t know that. I just liked the way he looked in expensive clothes, with an audience in front of him.
After a moment, he said, “You could be the president if you wanted to be.”
“I don’t want to be the president.” I rested a sweaty arm on his shoulders. “I’m gonna be something better.”
“Like God.”
The old lady next door invited me and Kristian over sometimes. We went for the tea and biscuits while she read us passages from the Bible. So many “thou shalt nots” and pointed looks over her glasses.
“Kind of like God,” I said, and after a moment of silence, a smile touched my lips. “But I’d rather be the devil.”
I took a drag from my cigar. My mother didn’t remember what she’d done until the police knocked on the door the next morning and asked why her car was in the Moskva. She talked—or, rather, fucked—her way out of it, and then she made me and Kristian syrniki. The decent meal was almost worth it.
“Viktor is questioning Anna,” Albert said.
I stared at him, not knowing who the fuck Anna was.
“The girl who’s been serving your meals for the past three years.”
“Ah,” I mused. “The little mouse.”
She was the most obvious suspect. Although, I had my doubts. I only needed to look in the girl’s general vicinity, and she’d tremble with fear. It annoyed me so much, I ignored her presence like she was a frightened, stray dog. If she poisoned Mila, she didn’t do it alone.
The Darkest Temptation Page 20