by Maya Hughes
“Late nights mean I’m sleeping in.”
“Late nights doing what?” His eyes were hard and cold as he glared at me.
“Late nights doing who would be a better question.”
“Things would be so much easier if you stayed here.” We’d been over this before and I wasn’t coming back. Not until it was my house. He wanted me under his thumb where I was at his beck and call at a moment’s notice. It wasn’t happening again.
“Just because you are married does not mean you can’t still fuck whoever you want, but certainly not as conveniently as you can when unmarried.” He raised his eyebrow and nodded toward the closed door.
“I know you have plans for me. Plans for who would make a good wife. I should get all of this out of my system now, right?” I hedged, trying to appease him. He scoffed.
“Yes, it seems that way.”
“Your sister is still missing, and I have everyone at my disposal in Moscow combing the city looking for her. You still haven’t heard anything?”
It took so much effort to keep my body relaxed. To keep the slightest hint of any anger out of my voice and body. I shook my head.
“Nothing. I’m beginning to worry. Perhaps I should go there to try to find her.”
He stared at me for a long time. Evaluating. Weighing his options and my loyalty. The uneasy crawl in my stomach ramped up a notch, and then he broke off his intense stare.
“No, it’s fine. I have the best men on it. She will be found and put back somewhere safe where we all know she should be.” His way of threatening always made me want to rip out his throat. She’d get here, and the minute her plane touched down, he’d find out how much of a mistake he’d made all those years ago.
“Good. I’ll feel much better knowing my sister is under the watchful eye of the family.” I kept my teeth from grinding and my voice level.
“We have some developments in the bookkeeper situation. I thought you took care of it. I’ve never known you not to handle a situation.” The disappointment in his voice was laced with a threat that was there for any person he talked to.
“I went there, and I handled it. You didn’t say how I needed to handle it. He had no issues with understanding exactly what I told him.” I crossed my hands on my lap, and Sergei’s eyes darted down, checking out my cut and bruised knuckles.
Sergei sat behind his desk.
“Fine, but if this comes back to bite us, it’s your ass on the line, Ivan. Don’t make me regret not sending someone else. Someone like Igor.”
Igor’s shoulders straightened like a happy pet.
“If he hadn’t gotten himself shot, maybe that would be a possibility, but as it is right now, I’m the best option.”
Sergei took a gulp of his drink and sighed.
“You’re right.” Sergei pinched the bridge of his nose. I could feel the waves of resentment and embarrassment radiating off Igor. “He is a good bookkeeper. Hard to find good help these days.”
“Am I dismissed?” I said, my jaw aching. Sleep deprivation was getting to me. I needed to stay sharp. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake. Sergei nodded and offered me a drink. I chugged it down as quickly as I could to get the hell out of there. The smell of death got stronger every time I stepped over the threshold. I didn’t know whose I was smelling, his or mine.
“What did you find?” I asked, sliding into the sleek black town car.
“Well, hello to you too,” Luca said, throwing a manila folder onto my lap. I shot him a look, but he just chuckled around the lollipop in his mouth and tapped away on his phone. The hard candy clicked against his teeth as I tried to concentrate, flipping through the pictures.
These were guys I didn’t recognize. The car had been parked across the street from the shop on three different days. I had no way of knowing if this was a popular dealing spot or if something else was going on.
Had Sergei gone with outside help for this? Or were these other guys I needed to worry about? It was bad enough trying to figure out if I had already destroyed her life again, but I at least wanted to know which enemies I was up against.
Luca’s lollipop kept clacking against his teeth as he laughed at one thing or another on his phone.
“Can you stop with the fucking lollipop?” I glared at him. “And what is so funny, anyway?”
“It seems you’ve lost all sense of humor in your old age, Ivan.” Luca crunched the hard candy between his teeth until there was nothing left except for the stick. “So, what’s the verdict?” He grabbed the pictures off my lap and flipped through them as the driver pulled into traffic.
“Do you know any of those guys?”
“No. I haven’t seen any of them before. You don’t recognize them?”
“No.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose.
“That could go either way then.”
“I know.” I leaned back, resting my head against the headrest. “This is all you have?” I gestured to the stack of pictures. “They didn’t come near the shop or do anything like that?”
“No, my guys would have gotten pictures of that for sure. All they did was sit. Four different sets of guys so far. Could be something. Could be nothing.”
“Could be a hit squad waiting for the right time to strike.” I closed my eyes, and my leg bounced up and down, rocking the car as we weaved through late afternoon traffic.
“This is why I will never get involved with a woman. It’s like painting a giant bull’s-eye on your chest and letting your heart roam free in the world.” He tossed the pictures on the seat beside me, disgust lacing his voice.
“Sometimes it just happens.” I shook my head, keeping my eyes closed.
“You always have a choice. There isn’t a woman out there who can make me freak out the way you are.”
I opened my eyes and leveled them at Luca.
“You think you get a choice? You think you get to decide what woman you fall in love with? You don’t, my friend. That would make life too easy, and we all know life is never easy. When you fall for someone, there’s barely time to breathe, let alone decide you’re not going to do it.”
“I stick to partying, fucking and taking care of business. I only have a few years left until I’ll be expected to settle down. Have a family and then all that has to be a lot more discreet.”
“It seems you have it all planned out.”
“I’m not going out like my dad. I have no intentions of eating a bullet over a woman.” He chucked his phone onto the small bar setup and grabbed a glass, pouring himself some vodka. He held the glass out to me. I threw it back in one gulp, letting the smooth burn flow through me.
“You were supposed to wait for me, asshole. I even went to the trouble of buying vodka and everything.” He poured me a second drink and held out his glass to me.
“To not being so completely blinded by love that you can’t handle your business,” he said, grinning ear to ear, with his glass ready for a toast.
“I cannot fucking wait.”
“Wait until what?”
“Until you meet the woman who isn’t going to take your shit and is going to completely wreck you for all other women. Come to me then and ask me how fucking easy it is.” I clinked my glass to his and downed my second drink. He gulped his down slower, looking a little like he’d seen a ghost.
“You’re going to be fucked, my friend.” The car slowed as we pulled up in front of my building. “Thanks for the ride.” I climbed out of the car and stopped short just as the door closed behind me. Taking my hands out of my pockets, I knocked on the glass, and he lowered the dark tinted window. Luca raised his eyebrow as I leaned into the car.
“What do you know about art galleries?”
He furrowed his eyebrows and looked at me like I’d grown another head. I knew just what I could do to prove to Dahlia that I’d changed. Luca would make some calls for me to see what could be done. I didn’t know what it was going to look like when he finally called in his marker for all these favors, but I could
n’t think about that right then.
I had a one-track mind, and it was focused on Dahlia.
On making her mine once and for all.
12
Dahlia
I dragged myself out of bed for the day and picked up my camera off my dresser. Nearly nine. I didn’t know how Rachel was getting up before noon herself with the late hours she was pulling. Then again, I was my own boss. I toyed with the settings on the camera. It had been so long since I’d used it. Usually I took most of the pictures in the shop with my phone or with my client’s phone. Some of the pictures from the paper, those were ones I’d taken months ago. The guys from the shop had all chipped in to buy me the camera when I changed the name of the shop. I took it out less often than I should.
When Ivan had pointed out the pictures in my studio, I realized I hadn’t printed out any that I’d taken over the past few months. I fired up my laptop and went through the portraits. Such a slacker. I definitely owed some of my clients the pictures I’d promised them. After editing a few of them, I e-mailed them out to various clients and stared at my screen.
The close-up shots of the ink were great; what was I doing with them? A long time ago I had toyed with the idea of maybe going to art school. Or showing my work at a gallery or something, but I’d quickly pushed that aside. The designs I created weren’t the kind you saw hanging up in those galleries. Walking canvases were what I created.
I could ink someone’s entire body and never doubt any piece of my art, but the thought of sending my work to be critiqued by someone with a trained eye made me want to puke.
I flipped through page after page of the tattoos I’d worked on over the years. So many people who had trusted me to bring their vision into reality. I was humbled by the fact that what I created with ink and steel became a part of who they were and they always carried that with them. To think that this would be my life after ten years. When I left juvie, I hadn’t known how I would survive. No family. Barely any friends. And no Ivan.
But I made my way, somehow. And now I ran my own business. Life is good, right? I should be happy. I should be grateful. But in the back of my mind, I knew something was missing. My life would never be the same the minute I let Ivan touch me. And I had been right. Our nights together were definitely a mistake.
Pushing away from my desk, I grabbed my camera and slipped the SD card back inside. I’d take some pictures of the clients I’d been working on. Some of their ink would look good up on my wall. Maybe I could use some of it for ads for the shop or something. I never knew what to do with these pictures other than sticking them up on my wall.
The weight and balance of the camera came back to me like riding a bike. Cell phone pictures didn’t give the same depth and feel that I could get with my trusty camera. I’d see who’d let me take a few shots of them. I had no idea why I let what Ivan had said get into my head, but it had. For so many people, their tattoos meant a lot more than the ink on their skin. I’m sure a few people wouldn’t mind showcasing that.
Rachel turned up midway through the day, huffing and puffing as usual with a garment bag slung over her shoulder. That was new.
“What’s with the bag?” I asked, dropping my mug into the sink.
“Oh, it’s for a gala that Mr. Thayer—I mean Rhys—is going to.”
“I wouldn’t have taken him for a dress kind of guy.” I chuckled, and Rachel shot me a look.
“It’s for his nanny, Mel. She’s going with him.”
“A billionaire boss dating his nanny. How original.” I rolled my eyes.
“It’s not like that. He’s not like that. Plus Mel is awesome, and if they were dating, anyone who has a problem with it is just being an ass,” she said, lifting her eyebrow at me.
I held up my hands in surrender. Wow, sensitive much?
“You got me. I’m sure they make a wonderful couple.”
She grabbed some food and we talked about random stuff, but her eye was always halfway on her phone. Not that it was unusual, but it wasn’t going off like it usually did. She picked it up and tapped away on the screen, but Rhys’s notification hadn’t come on since she’d been here.
“Who are you texting?” I asked, looking over her shoulder. She clutched the phone to her chest.
“No one.”
“If it was no one, you would let me see your screen,” I said, trying to get a good look at her phone.
“It’s no one.” Her cheeks were red and flushed. It looked like my little Rachel had finally gotten herself a guy.
“So who’s the guy?” I asked, leaning on the counter. Her mouth hung open and then snapped shut.
“How did you know?”
I kept myself from rolling my eyes. “Of course it’s a guy, Rachel. You’re all flushed, secretive, and are almost never home anymore. And not like before when it was just work; this is something else. So give me the dirt. I’m all ears.” I leaned in conspiratorially.
She got a dreamy look in her eyes, and I knew she was a goner.
“He’s not like anyone I’ve ever been with before. He’s not really nice.”
That made my ears perk up. “What the hell do you mean, he’s not really nice? He’s not nice to you?”
“It’s not that kind of—I don’t even know what we are. And I don’t mean he’s not nice to me. I just mean he’s not really a nice person.” She ran her hands over her face. “I’m not explaining this well, am I?”
“No, you aren’t, because I’m about five seconds away from tracking this guy down and beating the crap out of him. What are you mixed up in, Rachel? And who is this not-nice guy you’re seeing?”
“I just mean he’s not like any other guy I’ve ever gone out with. But the way he makes me feel… I’ve never felt that before. And he’s not really an asshole. People seem to think that he is, but when he’s with me, I see a different side of him. The good and the bad.”
I couldn’t very well warn Rachel about being with the guy who was bad news when I was ten seconds away from jumping Ivan’s bones every minute he was in my shop.
“He makes you happy? He treats you well?”
She paused, seeming to think it over before nodding her head slowly. Not exactly convincing.
“You do know that I will cut off his balls for you, don’t you?” I put my hand over hers and squeezed it. She put her hand on top of mine.
“I know you would, and that’s why I love you.” She checked her phone and jumped off the stool. “I only came home to change my shoes. These were so uncomfortable.” I glanced down at the kitten heels she had on and barked out a laugh.
“When are you going to wear those shoes your mom sent you?”
She froze at the end of the hallway.
“Do you mean out? As in out in public? How about never? I would kill myself. Snap my ankles like twigs.”
“We have a deal. You had to wear them out within two months. Your time is almost up.”
She glared at me. “I hate you.”
“You just said how much you love me.” I hopped down from the stool, landing solidly on my six-inch heels.
“That was before you started trying to force me to wear the death heels.”
“They are meant to be worn out in public, Rach. You’ve got to show them off.”
She grumbled under her breath something that sounded a lot like “this is the thanks I get” and “one of these days I’ll get her back.”
“Tick tock. Tick tock.”
“I hate you,” she said again from her room. Rachel came back out with her sensible flats on.
“So when do I get to meet this mystery man?” I asked, shoving my camera into my bag.
“I don’t really think he’s a meet-your-friends kinda guy.” She grabbed the garment bag and hefted it over her shoulder.
“I guess when I told you to go out and do something that I would do, you really went for it,” I said, patting her on the shoulder.
“I seriously have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to him.”
That made two of us.
“Everyone needs to have one of those types of guys in their life at some point. They help keep things interesting, right?” I didn’t know who I was trying to convince, her or me. From the look on her face, it didn’t seem like I was doing a good job either way.
We left at the same time, with Rachel heading back to work and me heading to the shop. I stepped in the front door, and everything seemed completely normal. And it was. It was me who was different. Different because Ivan was back in my life, and as much as I tried to pretend that it didn’t matter and that I wasn’t affected, I knew the truth. He was turning my world inside out and upside down all over again.
Axel came out of the back.
“Hey, boss lady, nice of you to show up.”
“It’s one of the perks of being the boss, Axel.”
“Big D, how many you got today?” Ty asked, glancing up from the sweeping lines of a hawk he’d outlined on his client’s calf.
“I think I have three.”
“That’s it? You’re slacking,” he said, chuckling, his mop of brown curls jumping all over the place. He was a serious goofball about everything except for tattooing. That was the only thing that kept him quiet for more than five minutes.
“There were some dudes in here earlier looking for you,” Axel said without looking up from the client’s calf he was tattooing.
“That’s very informative. And what did they say? Did they make an appointment or something?” That wasn’t too unusual.
“No, they just said they were looking for you. Wanted to know your hours and stuff.”
“Did you tell them?”
“Nah, they looked weird. Big bulky guys in suits. Looked shady as fuck,” he said, swapping out ink. My heart pounded. Who were they? Were they someone Ivan’s uncle had sent? Did he know I was working with Ivan?
“Did they say they’d be back?”
“Nah, just left.”
“Okay, thanks for letting me know.” I wandered back behind the counter in a daze. Had I just plunked myself back in the middle of the horror that visited me a week after I’d left juvie? When I finally broke and thought about speaking to Ivan again.