Under His Ink

by Maya Hughes

  “You think this is about my show? You think this is just about what happened tonight?”

  Suddenly I was lost. Isn’t that what this is about?

  “This is about the fact that you’re never going to leave. You might try and get away from your family. You might try to start over. But this will always be a part of who you are. How do I ask you to change that? It’s ingrained.” She pressed her finger into my chest. Her touch burned with accusation and anger. “It’s in here. And I can’t be with you if I never know what might set you off. What might be too much. What might unleash the real Ivan the Terrible.”

  A flare of hope shot off in my chest. She’d said she couldn’t be with me, which meant she’d entertained the idea. I’d take that opening.

  “It’s not like that, Dahlia.” I dropped her arm and ran my hands over my face. She was so soft and smooth. So tough and strong all at the same time. There was so much she needed to know and so much I didn’t want to have to tell her. “The danger is real, Dahlia. There’s so much you don’t know.”

  “Tell me everything.” The hard line to her face brokered no argument.

  “That night when I came to the back door, when I had to leave out the back as well, there were two guys outside of your shop. I knew they were there watching you.”

  “How long have you known?” she asked, looking stunned.

  “Because of me. Because of other things going on with my uncle.” I hadn’t wanted to say those words, but there they were. “And I know that I can’t be with you every minute of every day.” I thought back to that long conversation I’d had with her dad the day she was sentenced to a year in juvenile detention for breaking and entering, even though she was eighteen. Her dad had managed to pull some strings for that. He knew back then what I’d only recently accepted.

  “I thought I could protect you. Keep you safe. But now I know it’s not true. Your dad tried to warn me.”

  Her eyes got wide, and she took a stunned step back.

  “My dad?”

  “Yes, your dad. The day you were sentenced, I tried to come to the courtroom. But your dad caught me on the steps outside. And he told me exactly what would happen to you if anyone found out that we were connected.”

  “But he didn’t know about you.”

  “He knew. Or he figured it out. Once he saw it was me coming to see you. He told me never to come near you again. But I was an idiot. A young idiot.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why didn’t he ever tell me?”

  “I can only imagine that he knew how much better it would be for you if you hated me. I hated myself for putting you in that situation in the first place. It never should have happened. You never should have been there, and I never should’ve left you. But once that was done, there wasn’t much else I could do.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” The anguish in her voice made me want to rip the flesh from my own body.

  “He knew how dangerous it would be. That the danger for you in there wasn’t as high as the danger outside. Danger your father knew all too well.” My heart pounded as the next words fell from my lips. I couldn’t keep this from her any longer.

  Her throat worked a mile a minute, and she made a slight wheezing sound. Her eyes got wide, and the pieces finally clicked. The pieces I’d kept close to me all this time because I knew once she found out, it would never be the same again.

  “He killed my father.” It came out barely a whisper. And she finally understood how dangerous being around me really was. The last bit of the puzzle I’d tried to spare her. To spare myself. Her father’s death had been because of me. Her dad being involved in Sergei’s son’s death had been his death warrant. Even if her dad hadn’t pulled the trigger, Sergei was never one to be precise when it came to repaying a family debt. My attempts at stopping it had only brought what happened between the two of us into the light of day and into my uncle’s sights.

  Sitting in her booth when I knew I had no business going after her. Taking her dancing and knowing she’d ruined me for anyone else. Inking herself on my heart long before she did my skin.

  “Your uncle killed my father.” Her angry tear-filled eyes shot to mine. She blinked quickly, trying to keep them at bay. A heaviness settled so hard on my chest it was hard to breathe. I wanted to wrap her up and wash the pain away, but there would never be any way to make this right. I was responsible for the last of her family being ripped away from her.

  18

  Dahlia

  I couldn’t breathe. Everything stood still as my brain processed what had just happened.

  “Dahlia,” Ivan said, reaching for me. My vision swam, and a roar filled my ears. It took me a few seconds to realize it was my screaming. He’d killed my father. Ivan’s uncle killed my father.

  “Why would he do that? Why?”

  “To teach me a lesson about avenging wrongs against the family,” he said, his voice deepening like he had to force those words out past a lump in his throat. “To make sure I never went against him. Wouldn’t make a mistake like that again,” he said, the muscles flexing in his jaw. He touched my arm, and I ripped it away. I steadied myself against the wall as the room tilted.

  He reached for me again, but I shrugged him off, rushing from the room and launching myself into the bathroom. Bile rose in my throat as it felt like everything I’d ever eaten came racing out.

  It was my fault. If I hadn’t flirted. Hadn’t run off with him that night after the fight with my dad. If I hadn’t gotten involved with him in the first place, none of this would have happened. The dry heaves kept coming as I buried my head in the bowl.

  I jumped as something cold gently landed on the back of my neck. I skittered away from his touch and pressed myself against the wall, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I stared at Ivan, tears soaking my cheeks. He crouched in front of me with a washcloth in his hands. It was written all over his face. Guilt.

  “You knew this whole time.” My voice cracked.

  He dropped his head before glancing up at me and nodding. “I did.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” My voice was hoarse, choked with emotion. I wanted to scream in his face and pound on his chest.

  “I did what I could to protect you. I stayed away once I learned how far my uncle would go to keep us in line. To keep us under his control.”

  “He came to me.” I clenched my fists so tightly my fingers ached.

  “He what?”

  “He came to me like he was doing me a favor. He said he was sorry about what happened to my dad.” I could barely get the words out. The crater of guilt and anger tunneled deep in my chest. “He said he was sorry, and he said he came with a warning. A warning about you.”

  Ivan got down on his knees in front of me, trying to take my hands. I snatched them away.

  “He showed me pictures. Pictures of men he said you’d killed.”

  Ivan shook his head grimly. “The men responsible. I—I couldn’t look at them knowing what they’d done.” His voice caught.

  “Those men you killed were the ones who killed my father?”

  “It was my last act of defiance. He allowed it. Condoned it, knowing I needed to get my revenge, but his terms were clear. Never see you again. Never go against him again.”

  Ivan nodded his head slowly, like he was afraid to scare me off with that answer. Shame slammed into my chest at the satisfaction I felt knowing they were dead. The men who’d ripped my father away from me were gone too.

  “What else did my uncle say to you?”

  “He said that getting involved with you might lead to something like that happening to me. His threat was clear enough.” I shuddered as I thought back to the way he’d looked at me, like I was a specimen under a glass dome. It still didn’t explain how things ended up spiraling so far out of control.

  “Why did you come back now? Why did you come to me?” I said, almost pleading. The careful balance of my life had been upended the minute he came to my door. The anger insi
de me threatened to boil over. So many lies over so many years. His uncle had threatened me. He’d shown me what Ivan was capable of, but it was him who was the real monster. I was so stupid not to put that together. My dad died in a car accident. It never crossed my mind that it had anything to do with me. No one knew about Ivan. At least I thought no one knew until his uncle showed up. “You should have stayed away from me.”

  “As if I could. There is nothing I’ve done that hasn’t been to protect the people I cared about. Whether it was shutting off my humanity to do the things Sergei needed me to do or ripping out a part of my soul and leaving you behind. I never wanted this life. Never. But I knew if I didn’t fall in line, everyone I cared about was at risk.”

  “That’s why you left me that night. Not just because of the police, but because of your uncle.” It dawned on me how much worse it may have been had I not been tucked away in relative safety. Suddenly my father asking them to throw the book at me wasn’t about heaping even more punishment on me. He was trying to protect me, not from my bad decisions or teenage rebellion, but from the real threat of Ivan’s uncle.

  “He was having me watched. He was not happy about how things turned out. And once he found out which division your dad was in…I had to pay my penance, but I had no idea he’d visited you. I’d have stopped him if I could.”

  I bit back exactly what I wanted to say, but my anger eased a little when Ivan dropped his head and stared at his fisted hands. When he looked back up, there was a shimmer in his eyes. They were filled with pain and regret and shame. Those were so many of the same feelings that had threatened to drown me over the years.

  “If I walked out that door right now, would you let me go? Would you leave me alone and never bother me again?” My hands were balled up into fists.

  “I won’t lie to you anymore. No.”

  So many more lies than I’d thought possible. I’d thought my discoveries had ended and I knew the whole story, but it was so much worse. Why hadn’t my dad told me of the real danger lurking out there? Why hadn’t Ivan told me who he really was all those years ago?

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” I whispered. But I knew. I had still been an angry, rebellious, barely eighteen-year-old.

  “He did the best he could. He did everything he could to protect you,” Ivan said, his voice quiet. Barely above a whisper. I flinched as he held out the damp cloth to me again.

  “You spoke to him after the courthouse?”

  “I did.”

  “You told him all of this?”

  He nodded.

  “Why? Why would you go to him? Why would you two even speak about this behind my back?”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Once he knew what was at stake, he made sure you wouldn’t get out early. I would have thought you’d pieced that together already. There isn’t anything in this world I wouldn’t do for you.”

  I opened my mouth to ask the one question, but he cut me off.

  “But I won’t leave you. I can’t leave you. Walking around for the past ten years was like walking around without a soul, without my humanity. You’ve given that back to me. You’ve made me whole.” He ran his knuckles along my cheeks, wiping away the last of my tears. “Because I love you. I have always loved you and will always love you, Dahlia.”

  My head snapped back like I’d been slapped. So many years of so many doubts and regrets, and the two people I’d cared about the most made a decision that would completely change my life and didn’t even tell me.

  His words sliced through me. That little nagging voice in the back of my mind, the one I’d silenced, had been saying the same thing for a long time, but I didn’t want to believe it.

  I stood, pushing myself off the wall and launching myself at him. “You didn’t think I deserved to know that my life was in danger. That I could have been killed. That my father still loved me. That you still loved me,” I shouted, pressing my hands against his chest, trying to push him away. He wrapped his hands around my wrists, his touch so gentle, like he was afraid I might break. His own eyes glittered with moisture, but I knocked his hands away.

  “There are so many things I’d have done differently.” He wrapped his arms around me even as I dug my hands into his chest. Every muscle in my body tensed as he held me closer, pressing my body against his and not letting me go.

  My struggle stopped as the cage of his arms kept me still, but the tears I’d held back for so long slammed into me with full force. I’d been so alone and scared. Everyone I loved had been ripped from me, but he was standing right there. That piece of me I’d thought was gone forever had come back to me, no matter how much I tried to deny it. Ivan was deep under my skin, even deeper than I was under his.

  And just as quickly my hold was reversed. I wasn’t pushing him away. I had my fingers wrapped around his shirt, dragging him toward me as I buried my face in his chest. His smell, cedar and lavender, filled my nose as my tears soaked his shirt.

  A tension I hadn’t realized I’d been holding broke free like a dam, the weight of it all crashing over me and threatening to consume me. His hands were no longer holding me still. No longer caging me in. They rubbed their way up and down my back as he murmured against the top of my head.

  “It was never your fault. Never. I’m sorry you ever thought that. That I didn’t tell you. That I disappeared. I’m sorry your dad didn’t get to tell you. I’m sorry for so many things.” His lips were beside my ear as he told me all the things I needed to hear, to release a small part of the guilt I’d let gnaw at me for all these years. I’d been so focused on what I’d done that I couldn’t see how much he cared.

  My hands still fisted around his shirt, I stared up at Ivan. The weight of everything made it hard to focus. My head swam as my body went numb. He ran his hand down my hair, making comforting sounds and rocking me. There wasn’t anything I could do to escape what happened, but I needed Ivan to keep my head above the crashing waves that threatened to swallow me up.

  19

  Ivan

  The emotional roller coaster had taken a toll on her. I’d carried her from the bathroom and lay in bed with her, the soft blankets around the two of us. I tucked Dahlia into my bed.

  Wrapping her in my arms, I rocked her until her sobs turned to tears and then steady breathing. She always tried to be so strong and so tough. But some things were too much, and today had been way too much.

  I hated myself for what I’d done to her. Brushing her hair back off her face, I wiped away the last of the tears on her cheeks. So many things were left unsaid, and I had no idea where we stood. She’d let me hold her and comfort her, but what would happen when she woke up?

  There were no more secrets between us. She knew it all now. The complete, ugly, shameful truth I’d been so afraid for her to finally figure out. There weren’t many things I’d wished for. I’d long since given up on the idea that those came true. If they did, my parents wouldn’t be dead. I wouldn’t have had to leave my sister behind in Russia. Dahlia’s dad would be alive, and I’d never have hurt her. Her sweet smile should have been enough to know she wasn’t for me, but I’d been stupid.

  “You think you get to determine your own destiny, boy?” Sergei said through clenched teeth. I stood in his office with my fists clenched at my sides. “You go out and get involved with some girl? The daughter of a cop? One of the ones who helped kill my son. Are you that fucking stupid?”

  “I don’t care what you say. I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to do. You think you can rule my life.”

  He punched me in the mouth. It happened so quickly I didn’t even have time to react. He grabbed me by the collar with his spit splattering my face. His hot, rum-laden breath smacked me in the face.

  “I own you, Ivan. You will do whatever I tell you to do.” He released me, and I stumbled backward.

  “Fuck you,” I spat.

  “Fuck me? No, fuck you. Because if you don’t do exactly what I say and stay away from this girl, I’ll make sure you never s
ee your sister again.”

  That threat was like cold water being dumped on my head. It scared me more than the punch ever could.

  “Elena is back in Russia. All I have to do is give the word and she’s gone.”

  “She’s your fucking niece,” I roared. The muscles in my neck were so tight I thought I might snap something. Threatening Dahlia was one thing, but his own flesh and blood?

  “You do as I say. You understand that I am the one who gets to decide if she will be fine. No harm will come to her, and you’ll never have to worry about it. But if you go against me again, you will not like what happens to her. My own brother knew he shouldn’t have married that woman, your mother, with her ideas of leaving this family behind. His mistakes have been passed down to you. I don’t want you to have the same problems he had.”

  He walked to the bar cart in his office and poured two glasses of vodka. He handed me mine like we were celebrating something. Not like he hadn’t just threatened the woman I love and my baby sister.

  “Remember who’s in charge, Ivan.” He clinked his glass to mine. “Na zdorovie!” he said cheerfully, but his eyes were hard. Angry and vile, like everything else about him.

  “Na zdorovie,” I said, tipping the glass to my lips. Sergei threw his back and smiled. I enjoyed the white-hot burn as the liquor seared its way down my throat.

  That was the day I promised myself I’d kill him. He’d kept Dahlia from me. But I’d gotten Elena to the shores, out of his clutches back in Russia. Soon I’d make him pay.

  I fell asleep with Dahlia in my arms, and when I woke, her side of the bed was empty. Like she’d been a figment of my imagination, she was gone. Scrambling for my phone, I checked the time and the surveillance videos.

  Before she filled the screen, tiptoeing out of the apartment, it crossed my mind that perhaps this had been a vivid dream. A dream where I got to live out one of my worst nightmares of her finding out without it actually happening. But as I pressed my face into the pillow beside me, I smelled her. Her wildflower smell that clung to her skin now clung to my sheets.