by Nicole Fox
“I am,” I say, taking a deep breath.
“You got the story down?” he asks.
“Yes, Finn, you only made me go over it a hundred times. I’ve got it.”
“This is your life, Selena,” he says. “You can’t afford to fuck it up.”
There are about fifty things I want to say, but I decide it’s not worth starting something with him. He’s right. Sergei is a piece of shit, but he’s got resources. If we can pull this off, my debt will be paid. I’ll be able to walk away from all of this. Start over. Raise my child in peace.
As I head for the door, he says he’ll hang around until the watcher leaves to follow me. He’s added himself as an alias in my phone. I’m to text him updates if it is safe to do so. He’s going to do some research of his own.
“Good luck,” he says as I head out the door.
I feel like I’m going to need a lot more than luck.
***
Finn
I have never wanted to fuck someone more than when I watched Selena rub her perfect, pink nipples in the shower. It took every single bit of my self-control to act as if I didn’t care. In fact, leaving was the only thing I could do in the moment. I wasn’t lying—what I wanted to do to her would have derailed our whole plan. We didn’t have time.
And frankly, I can’t afford to want her. I want her to get in and get information. I want her to help make good on her husband’s debt while helping me take out the piece of shit who almost raped her. And then I want to let her go. I want her to go off and live on a beach somewhere, preferably on the Kovolovs’ stolen dime.
She doesn’t need another asshole in her life. And that’s all I would be, someone who would hurt her, put her in danger. Why get all wrapped up, even for the best-tasting pussy in town?
I let out a little laugh to myself. I feel like a little pussy. I’m worried about her. She’s a mark, for Christ’s sake. This is business only. What the fuck is wrong with me that I want nothing more than to bring her back, to take her to bed, to fuck her until the screams my name? I want to pleasure her, make her come again and again, in all sorts of depraved ways.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t want to protect her. I should just let this shit go, let the cards fall where they will with her boss. It’s her fucking problem. Let her deal with it. Take the car and whatever else she offered and fucking take my losses. It’s not the first time some asshole’s run out on a debt. Matt Russell isn’t that fucking smart; he’ll turn up and I’ll get my payment in blood.
I made the mistake of falling for a mark once before. Long time ago, another life. I was so young. Stupid. Hadn’t learned a goddamned thing about human nature yet. And she fucked me over royally.
Selena Russell is not that woman, of course. And I haven’t fallen for her. But still, a good cautionary tale never hurt anyone, and I need to get this done and over with as soon as possible. Wash my hands of this whole fucking mess.
Once I see her tail leave, I step out the back door and head back to my car. I’m suddenly famished, so I go straight over to my favorite diner, just blocks from Selena’s work.
Tina, one of my favorite regular waitresses, comes over to greet me with a steaming cup of coffee. “Hey, stranger, long time no see.”
“Yep, it’s been, what, twenty-four whole hours?” I ask jokingly.
“I assume you don’t want a Reuben at seven in the morning?” she asks.
“Nope,” I say, “How about the breakfast special? Over easy eggs, wheat toast?”
She nods and walks off to put in my order. I send a few texts to some of my contacts in Brooklyn to see who’s around. I want to make a few inquiries into the Kovolov family, see what I can come up with that might help our plan.
“You look deep in thought today,” Tina says, putting my breakfast plate in front of me.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve got a … friend … I’m kind of worried about. She’s got a boss that she’s afraid of and I’m trying to figure out who this guy is.”
“Someone local?” Tina asks, her gossip-meter buzzing.
“I think so. Guy keeps an office not too far from here,” I say. “Kovolov?”
She makes a distasteful face, her button nose crinkling. “No wonder she’s scared. That guy’s got a bad reputation.”
“You know him?” I ask.
“I know of him,” she says. “Nasty piece of work, from what I hear. Girls came in from the club down the street maybe a month ago. Said he came in and paid royally for a private party. Had guards blocking the doors, asked them to do all kinds of abnormal stuff.”
“Abnormal?” I ask. “Like?”
She actually blushes. And this woman has a mouth like a sailor, so it must be something insane. She shakes her head and lowers her voice, slipping into the booth across from me, leaning in close. “Like, he cut one of them … with a knife … down there. Then made her ride him while bleeding. Not a deep cut or anything and she said he paid her some crazy amount of money to do it, but who the hell does something like that?”
“Whoa,” I say. “Anything else?”
She grimaces. “He wanted the other one to lick the blood off of his … you know. She refused. You know, said it was unsanitary, and he grabbed her by the hair and shoved her face into his crotch. Laughed at her when she screamed. I guess he was real rough with her. And he made the girls sign an agreement that they wouldn’t talk about it.”
“But they did talk about it,” I say.
“Yeah, I suppose they did,” she says. She goes a little pale and slides back out of the booth. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen those girls in a while …”
She heads off to check on another customer and I feel pretty damn good about my decision to intervene in Kovolov’s effort to rape Selena. I didn’t feel too bad about it in the first place, but now that I know just how fucked up his sexual tastes are, I definitely don’t mind that I broke that fucker’s nose.
I am a little worried for Selena today, though. I can only hope that he’ll keep up the charade of businesslike behavior while he’s in the office. As I eat my breakfast, I think about all the clowns I’ve dealt with in my career. I started in the loan business after my dad died. I was only about twenty-two and I’d helped out in his payday lending shop in Queens since I was a teenager. Saved up enough money working for him in high school that I bought my first car, a used and really beat-up Porsche 911. It had a busted muffler and a body that looked like it’d been through the demolition derby but I thought I was hot shit because I was a senior and had a Porsche.
I learned how to restore cars and fixed it up over the course of a couple of years; thought I might actually open a body shop or something. But my dad died and left me his business, which was fine but boring. I got a little restless and took on a side loan with a guy I knew was into organized crime. This guy, Lenny, he was a worm of a guy and I guess he wanted to invest in a side shipment of weapons to sell. He ran his mouth all the time, about how the mob didn’t pay him enough and didn’t give him big jobs and he was going to build up his own clientele and show them he could be in the big leagues and blah, blah, blah.
Well, his bosses found out. They paid triple on his loan to keep me quiet, killed him, and then took his shipment. I made so much bank that I thought, “Shit, I should do these side loans all the time.” And a loan shark was born.
I’ve had really violent deals before, too. Been in a few nasty fights that, by all rights, should’ve buried me. But I’ve never tried to extort anyone. I’ve never done a shakedown like this one, and I’m sort of thinking I’m a brainless idiot to be trying it for the first time with a guy like this.
However, seeing as this guy cuts women for fun, I feel even more resolved that he needs to go down. I could just kill him. Go in and blast him up in his office and be done with it. But then I’d have his guys after me and no money. No, I need to take him for what he’s worth and leave him with nothing, just a pissing, crying, naked baby on the floor.
Af
ter I eat, I head out to see a customer and collect a payment. Ernie’s an all right guy, usually makes good on his payments, especially when I visit in person. While he opens his safe, I ask him what he knows about Kovolov.
“Fucking prick,” he says. “Ruthless. Watched him bash a guy’s head in just because he looked at him sideways across the bar.”
“Really?” I ask. “Just … for looking at him?”
“Yep,” he says. “Guy side-eyed him while he was talking in Russian on his phone and he put the phone down mid-call, walked over, grabbed the guy by the neck and shoved him into the bar like, three, four, times. They had to call the squad.”
“Jesus,” I say.
“Jesus ain’t gonna touch that creep with a ten-foot-pole,” Ernie says, handing me a stack of cash. “You don’t want to do business with him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Nah,” I say, “Just have a friend who works for him. Curious.”
“Well, get your friend a new job and get un-curious,” Ernie advises. “Stay as far from that shit as you can. Guy’s bat-shit crazy.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I say. “See you next month.”
I head to the car and send a text to check in on Selena.
Me: U Ok?
Selena: All good. He cursed your name but bought my story. Apologized for last night. Said he drank too much.
Me: Right. Text if u need me. See u after work.
I head out to collect on some more loans but I can hardly focus as my thoughts keep looping back to Selena. I sent her into the lion’s den. I put a pregnant woman in danger, and to what end? My own greed? Certainly not to protect her, certainly not to put her in a better situation.
I’ve done a hell of a lot of things I’m not proud of. This might be the worst.
Chapter Seven
Selena
Thankfully, morning sickness passes before Sergei comes into the office. I throw up the milk and breakfast bar I ate at home, then dry heave for fifteen minutes before I can finally stumble back out to my desk. Thank God for the peppermint candies I keep in a bowl on my desk.
When Sergei comes in, he’s wearing sunglasses that only barely cover the two black eyes he sports, courtesy of one Finnegan O’Hare. He’s got tape on his broken nose, too. He looks like shit.
He looks at me over the top of his sunglasses. “I didn’t expect to see you this morning,” he says.
“I’m so sorry about last night,” I say. “That guy … I told you Matt owes him money. He’s crazy. Took me to his apartment, tied me up … I managed to get away when he fell asleep.”
I show him the marks on my wrists from the zip-ties. He touches them lightly and his jaw clenches.
“I acted like an animal last night, Selena,” he says. “I want you to know I find you attractive. I do want to fuck you; I won’t lie about that. But I was a brute. Too much to drink maybe. Will you accept my apology?”
“Of course,” I say. “I just … I really need this job. I just want things to go back to normal.”
“Well, as much as I’d like that, too, Selena, I see what kind of man your husband did business with. And now I am involved, whether you intended for me to be or not. When someone physically assaults me, I strike back tenfold.”
My stomach clenches. I’m so nervous, I can hardly breathe. Sergei takes off his sunglasses and says, “That fucker is dead. But I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now. Hold my calls until after lunch. We’ll talk more then.”
I nod and he heads into his office and shuts the door. I can hear him on speakerphone, multiple voices in Russian coming through, so I don’t know what the point of shutting the door is. It makes me more nervous, somehow, than I think I would feel if he left it open so he could watch me.
But since he’s got the door shut, I wander over to the filing cabinet. There’s a locked drawer that I stumbled across on one of my first days. Sergei laughed it off and said it was for personal files, like dental records, but I wonder …
I use a letter opener to jimmy the lock and rifle through the papers. He wasn’t joking, there are some dental records in there … but not his. They seem to be for other people. I make a couple of quick copies and then shut the drawer. I’ll try to get more when he leaves the office.
In the meantime, I do a web search on a couple of the names and find all of these people listed as missing. Two are women who worked in a local strip club. They’ve only been missing for a few weeks. I print the article and shove it and the copied records into the center pocket of my bag as my heart beats wildly in my chest.
I work at my normal pace. That’s what Finn told me to do. He told me not to try to be more efficient, or to try to impress Sergei because it would make him suspicious. Best to just do what I always do, at the pace I always do it. I make a few calls on his behalf, to clear his morning calendar, and then reschedule a few meetings for him. I make coffee at ten, his usual time, and knock on the door of his office. All the voices continue from the conference call he’s on. I set his coffee on the desk and he pulls me down onto his lap. I freeze.
“This call is boring,” he whispers in my ear. “Move your ass a little.”
“I’ve got …”
He puts his hand on my breast. “You work for me. You owe me for that motherfucker last night. Wiggle a little. I’m bored.”
I honestly feel like I might throw up, and I’m sure it’s not morning sickness at this point. But I need to make him trust me, so I wiggle my ass in circles, feeling his cock get hard underneath me. He moves his hands to my hips and guides me, whispering how much he likes my ass, how much he wants to fuck my ass.
I’m terrified. Is he going to ask me to bend over right here, while he’s on this call, and try to fuck me in the backdoor? I’ve never done that. Ever. Matt and I had a decent but very vanilla sex life. It’s not that I wouldn’t get kinky with someone; it’s just that it wasn’t something Matt ever wanted. And I don’t want my first time to be with someone who makes me want to heave under circumstances that could be classified as rape.
Someone says Sergei’s name and his attention is back to the call. He answers in Russian and lets me get up. He doesn’t let me leave, though. No, he pulls his erect penis out of his suit pants and strokes it, hitting the mute button on the phone.
“Watch me, Selena,” he says. “Take off your blouse.”
“I’ve got work to do, Sergei,” I say.
“Just take it off,” he says. “Watch me come.”
I bite my lip. This is humiliating. But the alternative is making him angry. He doesn’t seem to want sex right now, so maybe I can do this just to keep him happy. I take off my blouse and stand in just my bra, skirt, and shoes. His eyes go dark at the sight of my black bra, with my breasts so ample and spilling out.
“What a sight,” he says, still stroking himself, picking up the pace as the voices on the phone continue to talk. He hits the mute button again and speaks in Russian. Everyone on the call laughs and he hits the mute button again. “I told them my beautiful secretary is half naked and watching me cream in my coffee cup.”
I feel my cheeks go hot with embarrassment. I try to look away but he orders me to watch him, so my gaze snaps back to him, cock in hand, as he pumps his hips, a determined look on his face. It’s not just determined; it’s violent. It’s dark. I can tell that creaming into his coffee cup isn’t all he’s thinking about and I feel my stomach clench with nerves.
When he comes, he spurts right into the coffee I just brought him, laughing. “I would rather it was those luscious tits,” he says. “But such is life. Perhaps next time.”
“Would you like a new cup of coffee?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
When I wander over to take his cup, he puts his hand on my wrist. “You drink this one.”
I open my mouth but I’m not sure what to say. His grip on my wrist gets tighter, rubbing against the marks from the night before. I make a tiny noise of pain and Sergei levels me with a look that says to drink
the coffee, or this pain will be nothing.
I take the coffee and sip it. He smiles and releases my arm. “Get the fuck out of my office now.”
I do as instructed and shut the door behind me. I hear Sergei say something else, and everyone laughs again. This is sick. He’s sick. What the fuck?
I feel the familiar stab of panic and anxiety start in my stomach. I take several breaths, trying to calm myself, but I can’t. My vision goes spotty and I have to put my head between my legs as I take deep, centering breaths to get through this panic attack.
Sadly, I’ve been having these attacks more and more often since Matt left. The side effect of having to be a grown up and take care of myself. I feel so stupid for letting Matt stop me from having a career, from managing our finances. I’m smart enough for both, but I let him treat me like I wasn’t. And now, the reasons he kept me in the dark are crashing down around me, piling up and I feel like I’ll never unbury myself.