by Alyssa Cole
“I have to go home soon,” she said quietly.
Ouch. That wasn’t what he’d hoped for. Because sometime between waking up with the certainty that it could never work out between them and collapsing to the bed in sheer bliss, he had realized something: things had to work out between them. He had helped take down some of the most ruthless gangsters in the world. He could figure out how to make Salomeh forgive him for lying to her.
“Traditionally, I should be the one making awkward pillow talk right now,” he said.
“Sorry,” she said, rolling away from him. The cool breeze from the air conditioner chilled the length of his body where she had lain. “I have a lot of things to deal with today.”
“Is there anything I can help you with? If you tell me, I can try,” he asked, running a finger over her back since she wouldn’t face him. He wondered how she had pulled away from him so absolutely in such a short time. He couldn’t even stop touching her, let alone think of letting her go alone into a world where men like Bardhyn meant her harm for reasons unknown.
She didn’t respond for a long moment.
“Salomeh, please. I can help you more than you know if you’ll just tell me what you need.”
She turned and assessed him, hope warring with despair in her tentative gaze. He thought she was going to tell him. All it would take was So I was set up in the media, and I don’t know who did it, and Julian could start the process of clearing her name. He would do it regardless, but this way would be easier for him. She wouldn’t have to know he had behaved like a total asshole. And then maybe one day when they were married and divorce would be too messy, he could tell her the whole truth.
“I need you to get me my purse so I can text Marta and let her know you’re not a serial killer,” she said, feigning a casual tone.
Dammit. Of course that would have been too easy. He silently rolled out of bed and brought her the purse he had seen lying in his spartan living room. He knelt beside the bed and dangled it in front of her. “If I give you this purse, will you hold off for two minutes while I shower? I want to walk you home.”
“Why?” she asked.
“You know, Marta told me that you were the smartest person she knows. Perhaps you can figure out why I’m reluctant to leave the side of the beautiful and mysterious woman who’s trying to escape my bed.”
She gazed at him, something unbearably sad in her eyes. “Maybe the mysterious part is something you don’t want to know about. Maybe it’s something out of your depth. Ever think of that, secret agent man?”
“No,” he said firmly. “Text your friend. I’ll be done in a minute.”
Julian rushed into the shower, and it was only when the cool spray hit him in the face that he realized he had been making a miscalculation in getting Salomeh to tell him her troubles. Even if she did like him, even if he could charm her, he was expecting her to just willingly tell someone she might be interested in that she had been accused of molesting children. The thought of how terribly alone she must feel spurred him to action.
He stopped the shower, barely toweling off as he headed back to the bedroom. He had to tell her, now, not at some hazy point in the future. She wouldn’t be thrilled, but she would have an ally. That would help mitigate her anger, he hoped.
When he stepped into the bedroom, he already knew from the unnatural silence that she was gone, but he said her name aloud anyway, feeling like a fool.
“Salomeh?”
Silence.
You really are getting soft, Tamali, he thought as he pulled on his underwear.
Chapter Ten
Salomeh lay in bed and held her purse to her chest, staring after Julian, although he had already closed the bathroom door and started the shower.
It was absurd, but she wanted to tell him everything. Even before she had mentioned betrayal, he had seemed to sense something was very wrong. He hadn’t presumed or pushed too hard. Instead he had listened. And shared a bit of himself. Maybe he wouldn’t judge, and the way he had said he could help… It didn’t just seem like idle talk. She knew there was something he wasn’t telling her, something beyond his family tragedy. Maybe they both had secrets they thought they couldn’t share.
And maybe she was romanticizing a one-night stand to deal with her problems.
She sighed in frustration.
It wasn’t as if she had ever needed a man to help her deal with anything. In fact making men feel superfluous was kind of her thing. Was now really the time to change the status quo? She should just leave while he was in the shower before this situation veered any more out of her control.
A subtle vibration in her purse startled her out of her reverie.
Probably Marta looking for juicy details, she thought as she bought the phone to her ear, not checking the number despite it having become second nature over the past few weeks.
“Hello,” she chirped.
The voice that replied knocked any lingering trace of happiness out of her, sandwiching her heart between guilt and fear.
“I’m sorry.”
A young girl’s voice. Yelena’s voice. It was low and slurred, an ugly caricature of her regular tone. “I wanted to tell the truth…but they said they’d kill me if I didn’t tell Watkins and the police what they wanted.”
“Yelena? Where are you? Please tell me where you are.” Salomeh fought to keep suppress her panic. She held the phone to her ear with a shoulder as she jumped out of bed and frantically pulled her clothing on.
“I don’t know,” Yelena said, whispering now. “I’m with some other girls and they’re making us…” Yelena let out a shuddering breath ending on a hiccup—the sound of sobs being held back.
“Give me any details you can think of about the place they’re holding you,” Salomeh urged. “I’m going to come for you, okay?”
“Alexi brought me—”
There was a sudden clattering as if the phone had been dropped. A female voice, cold as ice, asked, “How did you get in here?”
Yelena cried out sharply, and then there was silence.
Salomeh’s stomach dropped as she slipped into her shoes and ran out the door. She tried reverse-dialing the number as she pounded impatiently on the elevator button, but it showed up as “unknown” in her call log. Finally the elevator doors opened, and she rushed inside, angrily shoving her phone in her purse.
All her guilt from earlier in the morning came blasting back full force. While she had been wallowing, Yelena had been held somewhere against her will. While she had been partying, who knew what Yelena had been experiencing?
At this point she only knew three things for sure. One, Yelena was not the only person in trouble—other girls were apparently being held captive as well. Two, Alexi had something to do with it. Three, the woman who had taken the phone from Yelena was unmistakably the same woman who had called and threatened Salomeh a few days earlier. She could never forget that razor-sharp voice.
Salomeh didn’t know where Yelena was, but she sure as hell knew where to find Alexi. She headed toward her apartment at a determined clip. She had an appointment with a Russian thug, whether he knew it or not, and heels and a minidress were not appropriate attire.
Sorry, Julian. She allowed herself to feel the deep sadness that enveloped her at the thought of never seeing him again, but only for a moment. As much as she had enjoyed the night, she had to think of what was best for everyone. Great sex, sparkling wit, and a bangin’ body were all well and good, but Julian was only a consultant. He would probably blanch at the world of thugs, setups, and kidnapping that she had somehow gotten herself into.
He couldn’t help her.
* * * *
A couple of hours later, Salomeh found herself on a nearly deserted Brooklyn street, flattened against the façade of a neighborhood bodega as the driving rain of a sudden summer storm pounded on the metal awning overhead.
She was keyed up. The drops had come down without warning, hitting the awning with such ferocity that for a split
second she had imagined the worst—that she was on the receiving end of a hail of bullets.
Stop letting your imagination run away with you, she chided herself.
In that first conversation about Alexi, the one that had drawn Salomeh into all this trouble, Yelena had let it slip that he sometimes made her go on work outings with him. Apparently this boss of his was in charge of the illegal gambling room located in the social club across the street. He’d make her sit on the customers’ laps as he collected the daily takings.
Salomeh could hear the girl’s frightened voice in her mind. “When the men asked about me, he said I was a virgin but that I wouldn’t be for long. He says stuff like that all the time. My mom hears him, and she just tells me to stop acting like such a little slut.”
Salomeh shook the thought away as Alexi appeared in the club’s doorway with a couple of other large men; they were smoking cigarettes and talking jovially. He was preening and chatting animatedly, seeming every bit as arrogant and attention-hungry as he had when she’d first seen him. She’d come across many men with his personality—egotistical, ignorant, and certain he was someone who should be worshipped—but never one so callous and amoral. Remembering that Alexi answered to someone he considered much stronger and more vindictive than himself was a frightening reminder that she was in over her head.
There was no room for such thoughts now, though. Maybe after Yelena had been freed, Salomeh could worry about her own safety, but not yet. She had to move before Alexi went back inside. There was no way they would let her in, but out here she could at least grab his attention. And there would be witnesses if he thought of trying anything too creative.
Steeling herself, she drew a deep breath and darted through the rain, jogging up to the group of men.
“Alexi?” She tried to sound authoritative, but her voice emerged how she actually felt—weak.
Alexi was tall, with a build that was just on the line between beefy and eats-too-much-beef. But she’d had the unfortunate opportunity to see him topless when she’d made her surprise visit to Yelena’s apartment, and she was under no false impressions. There was pure muscle under that layer of fat.
He looked down at her, his blond brows creasing in annoyance as recognition flickered in his eyes. And then he smiled, a reptilian smirk that made Salomeh’s skin crawl.
He swaggered toward her. “Aren’t teachers supposed to be smart?” he said, shaking his head sadly. “I thought so, but yet I have some dumb cunt standing here in front of me like she thinks she’s invincible.”
“Where is she?” Salomeh asked, ignoring his question. “I know that you know, so tell me. I won’t go to the police—it’s not like I expect them to help. I just need to make sure that she’s okay.”
She clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking as another man began to circle behind her. Alexi’s hand flew back against the man’s chest, restraining him.
“I don’t know why some black bitch cares about some little Russian whore, but I’m gonna say this only once: if you’re too fucking stupid to have learned from what Birdie already did to you, you might as well kill yourself now,” he spat out, seeming to enjoy the way Salomeh recoiled from his hateful words. “If I tell him you’re sniffing around here, he’s going to make your life even more unpleasant. And then he’s going to end it.”
Salomeh could feel her heart beating against her rib cage, but something flashed within her, galvanizing her fear into pure rage.
“Is that supposed to scare me?” she asked incredulously. “I don’t care what you and your boss do to get your rocks off, but I care about Yelena, and I want to know where she is. Now.”
He laughed, ignoring her to shoot an amused look to his compatriots as he took a drag of his cigarette.
An adrenaline surge stoked her anger further. This was the bastard who had managed to bring a lifetime of work crashing down around her ears.
“I know that you’re a small-dicked troglodyte who gets off on trying to rape little girls,” she said, unable to stop the bitter words before they left her mouth, “but I’m asking you a very simple question. I’ll repeat it for you: where is Yelena?”
Quicker than she could react, his cigarette was on the ground and he was reaching for her with his beefy arms. His fingers bit into her shoulder, and then she was whirled around, hitting the side of the building so hard she was surprised she didn’t leave an indentation. He encircled the long fingers of one hand around her throat from behind and began slowly squeezing. He whispered as he squeezed, his voice obscenely intimate when compared to his actions.
“If you have the nerve to show your face around here again, I’m not going to wait for my boss. I’m gonna kill you myself.”
With his other hand, he pulled her body against his and began grinding against her as the other men watched with expectant gazes. Salomeh was focused on trying to pry his hands from her neck so she could breathe. Her need for air was so desperate that Alexi rubbing himself against her had become a secondary problem.
“Actually, I think maybe you like me,” he whispered. “Instead of waiting for you to annoy me again, I’m gonna take you inside and show you what your little friend missed out on. My friends might wanna join in too.”
Those words jarred her. She frantically tried to remember what she had learned in the self-defense class she had taken a couple of years back, but her mind was blank. Her primary objective of getting air overrode her logic.
“Alexi,” one of the other guys cut in. “Remember what Birdie said. We need to lay low. We don’t need some dead tabloid bitch on our hands.”
Alexi released her, and she gasped harshly, drawing in ragged breaths that burned her throat as they filled her lungs. Her forehead bounced off the surface of the brick building as she fell to the ground, and she could feel the stinging scrape as she struggled to draw herself into a defensive position.
“Yeah, she’s not worth it,” he said, turning away casually. “Can you get the guys to handle this?”
One of the other men motioned toward the alley next to the social club. Headlights flicked on, and a police cruiser pulled out, coming to a halt in front of Salomeh and the men.
“Would you care to escort this lady out of the neighborhood?” Alexi asked, his voice congenial once again.
“You can either get a ride from us, or you can use some common sense,” the disgruntled-looking officer in the driver’s seat said to her. His young partner had the grace to look shamefaced but did nothing to help her.
“I’ll walk,” she rasped as she stumbled to her feet. The rain had stopped, although Salomeh almost wished it was still pounding down. She could still feel Alexi’s touch, the thought of it making her gorge rise.
The police car slowly followed her for two entire blocks before blipping its siren and turning a corner. Again, people looked at her like she was a criminal, even though she was the one who had been wronged.
By the time she made it to her apartment, she was barely holding it together. She had been confident, assured that because she was right she would eventually win, but nothing she had done so far had advanced her position. In fact she was probably worse off than before because now Alexi knew she was aware of Yelena’s captivity. Had she really thought she could take on Alexi alone? Now the girl might suffer for Salomeh’s hubris.
I must have been truly terrible in a past life to deserve this, she thought miserably as she approached her apartment.
She stopped short when she saw a figure sitting on her stoop. Such a sight was normal in her neighborhood, but the fear she had tried to abandon the previous day had returned, redoubled. Now she wary of every one. But then the figure raised his head, and she saw it was Julian.
“Lucy, you got some ’splainin to do,” he joked, wagging a finger at her, and it was only then that Salomeh started to shake. With fear and anger and, most perplexingly, with relief. In the madness of the morning, he seemed an anchor in the waves threatening to drag her out to sea.
Ju
lian’s expression changed from amusement to concern as he approached, and his last two steps were bounding. He pulled her into his arms.
“What happened?” he demanded and then leaned away from her to examine her face. “You’re bleeding, and there are bruises on your neck. Salomeh, you have got to talk to me.”
She looked around fearfully, wondering if Alexi or the cops had followed her.
“Let’s go inside,” she said. “And maybe I’ll talk to you after you explain how you know where I live.”
Chapter Eleven
“Birdie, the little Mexican tried to slit her wrists again,” Linda said, her voice maintaining the haughty tone she had worked for years to perfect. Cold, refined, and implacable—a necessary armor in her world.
She strolled into Bardhyn’s luxurious office without knocking; she was the only one who could commit such an offense without fearing for her life, and she knew it.
He leaned back in his chair, one hand holding the cell phone to his ear. The other slowly rose in her direction, fingers beckoning; the motion was graceful. Almost gentle. In that brief moment, he could have been any man reaching out for his lover. He was dashing in his tailored black suit, his hair slicked back so his clear blue eyes seemed impossibly large and all knowing.
Linda remembered when she had first seen those eyes. She had been younger than the girls she now handled for him, and even more naive. Most of these girls had at least been promised a new life and a future, even if those promises were blatant lies. She had known what Bardhyn was capable of from the beginning, and the only lies were the ones she had told herself.
Yet she loved him still.
Linda walked around the desk and leaned her thin frame against it. She wore a floral cap-sleeved dress accented with a pale yellow silk scarf, one of the many in her collection. She was never seen without one.