“Like a hitman?” she asked, surprised he had even suggested it, or maybe her alcohol-laden mind was coming up with the suggestion.
“Mercenary. Assassin. Same shit, different title.”
Mariya blinked, turning to face him more fully. She didn’t know a thing about him besides his love for junk food and alcohol, but it was becoming abundantly clear she really didn’t know who she was dealing with.
“You’re crazier than I thought.”
“But you’re thinking about it, no?”
“Even if I wanted to—and I’m not saying I do—I don’t have that kind of money.”
“How would you want it?”
“Sorry?”
Setting the bottle on the ground beside him, he sat up further. “Your revenge, how would you want it? Don’t tell me you haven’t given this any thought.”
“I told you. It would be im—”
“Nothing is impossible when someone you love is taken away from you. It’s in those moments you learn exactly what you’re capable of.” He shrugged, as though his words didn’t have a profound effect on her. “You might have never thought you wanted to feed a man to pigs, but if that’s the revenge you want, shit, you run with it.”
“That’s slightly terrifying,” she said, her stomach twisting at the thought.
“Revenge is never supposed to be clean.”
“I think my revenge would be simple.”
“Simple is boring. Complications make you feel alive.”
“You’ve obviously given this some thought,” she said, spying what looked like a smiley face tattoo on his bicep, but where the smile was meant to be, there was an X.
His sudden laughter, genuine and unabashed, made her smile though she hadn’t a clue what was funny—she just hadn’t ever heard him laugh like that before. “You have no idea. Sometimes, it’s the only thing that keeps you going. So until you can act on it, make it as bloody as you can because the alternative is worse.”
“Which is?”
“Not pretty and not nearly as fun.”
Mariya blinked slowly. “So what do you do exactly?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“I used to work for an organization as an independent contractor.”
“Like a spy?”
He snapped his fingers. “Exactly.”
“Right …” she said, not believing that for a second. “So what do you really do?”
“What do you think I do?”
A dozen possibilities ran through her mind, but none of them fit. “Nothing ordinary.”
“Fair enough.”
Blinking, she looked down at him, and this time, she really looked at him—or as much as she could now that the alcohol was taking effect.
Maybe it was time to go inside.
As she tried to stand, everything tilted, but he caught her as she stumbled, and unable to help herself, she giggled. “This isn’t good.”
“I’ll help,” he said, looping an arm around her waist.
But while his reflexes were far better than her own, he was still suffering from the effects of alcohol too, which made getting back inside and down to the first floor a bit of an event.
“Did you want to come in?” she asked before her brain could catch up with her mouth.
Maybe she would regret the decision later, but as she stepped to the side, waiting to see what he would do next, she felt a smile blooming as he moved forward.
For the last month or so, Christophe had contented himself with buying bottles of vodka from the liquor store down the street.
During his first month in Brooklyn, he had the tendency to lash out when he was drinking in bars, and after one too many brawls in midtown, he’d been banned from more places than he could count—which was bullshit since he hadn’t started all of them.
But even that had lost its appeal, so he’d preferred to self-destruct in private.
Yet even still, that had proven not enough, either.
Until tonight.
He knew the pain of loss and how it could slowly destroy your own will to live and the desire to do anything besides let the feelings eat at you until it was all you could think about.
It was written all over her face the moment she stepped out onto the roof.
Aidra had always detested crying—she thought it made her look weak, and if nothing else, that was the last thing she wanted to be. Instead, she bottled it all up until the moment she couldn’t take it anymore. But instead of an outpouring of grief, it had turned to anger, and the results were never pretty.
Seeing the vulnerability on Mariya, he’d felt an odd sort of protectiveness for her. When she hadn’t known he was watching, she’d cried freely. Once he’d made his presence known, she’d quickly tried to erase the evidence.
She was a contradiction.
In that moment, the only thing he’d wanted more than to stop the voices in his own head was to see her smile.
Maybe getting her slightly drunk hadn’t been his best idea, even as she seemed to be in better spirits. Her smile came more freely; her laughter echoed within the walls of her apartment.
At least for the time being, death didn’t burden her.
But the drunken version of her seemed to be the opposite of who he thought she was.
Once she walked into his life, he couldn’t help but notice her now.
She was careful when she walked home at night. He rarely saw her engaging with anyone outside the bar where she worked, and he would bet every dollar to his name she was running from someone.
It was the way she looked over her shoulder, and the anxiety in her face when her phone rang.
Not to mention the tattoo she tried very hard to hide. A star was all he had been able to make out without having a very good look at it; an inscription in Cyrillic letters was also visible, but he wouldn’t be able to read it unless she offered to show him.
Maybe his curiosity was the reason he had accepted her offer to come inside her place.
At least, he would keep telling himself that.
Unlike his place, she had made an effort with hers—to make it feel like a home.
Despite it being a studio, she had found a way to make it seem bigger with strategically placed furniture to divide the space, and she had even gone out of her way to paint the walls a bright white.
As Christophe sat on the couch facing a small television perched on a dresser, he listened to her move around behind him, humming under her breath.
“One moment,” she had called before disappearing into her bathroom, the light flickering on before the door was shut.
For someone to be as cautious as she seemed to be, he found it interesting that she’d invite him in and leave him alone without fear of what he would do to her.
He didn’t know whether to be glad she trusted him this much or worried that she did.
“You know,” she yelled from the bathroom, “I have a question for you.”
“Ask it.”
The bathroom door opened again before she came back out sans uniform, now wearing cotton sleepwear that might have been hideous had he given a shit to look, but instead, his gaze had dropped to her toned legs, following them all the way up.
He didn’t even realize she was speaking to him until she was suddenly sitting beside him, waving her hand in his face.
“Fang?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what I’m asking. Why do you want to be called Fang?”
He thought of the school, of that fateful day when he’d snapped before he even had a mind to do it. Even now, he could taste the blood in his mouth.
Because of that day, he’d been punished within nearly an inch of his life.
But they didn’t let him die—then how would they have their fun?
Aidra didn’t even know the full story behind it—she’d always thought Nix had given him the name, and he’d never corrected the assumption.
Others
just thought it was because of the silver in his mouth that he’d gotten once he’d been with the Lotus Society for a year.
It fit the name.
“Probably not something you want to hear while you’re eating,” he said with a smile and a nod at the chocolate she was unwrapping. “Are you going to tell me why that Irishman calls you princess?”
He might have only heard it the once, but he figured it happened often.
Her smile dropped, like a vat of cold water had been dumped on her. “Just a nickname.”
Christophe doubted that.
As quickly as her mood had dropped, she perked back up. “You have kind eyes.”
“Do I?” Definitely drunk.
Her hair fell over her shoulders as she leaned toward him, inspecting his face. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him.
Did she see the killer he had become?
Did she see the lost orphan boy who’d nearly lost his soul?
“You don’t seem as dangerous as you look,” she said quietly, and he couldn’t help but laugh.
She saw what she wanted to see.
“I’m not dangerous at all,” he agreed.
Not to her.
Or anyone close to him.
But for those who weren’t—if they had a price on their head or crossed someone he cared about, then he could be someone else entirely.
“And you’re not sad today,” she said, almost as an afterthought. She touched his face, the contact making him draw in a breath. “You frown a lot when you’re sad.”
“No,” he said, taking her hand in his but not letting it go. “I’m not sad today.”
“Davie’s is —”
“You,” he started to say, feeling the weight of the words in his chest. “You made it better.”
Her smile lit up her entire face. “I’m glad you were up there today with me. Spasibo, Christophe.”
Hearing his name on her lips … he couldn’t describe the feeling, only that he wanted to hear it again.
He hadn’t even realized she knew it until now.
Her eyes had fallen closed, her breathing slow and even. He hadn’t even a chance to respond before she was fast asleep.
The vodka had caught up to her.
Fighting a smile, he eased off the couch, slipping one arm beneath her then the other around her shoulders as he carried her back to her bed and tucked her in.
She mumbled out a protest, waving him away, but she didn’t open her eyes, and as soon as her head hit the pillow, she was out again.
Pulling the blanket over her, he stopped at her waist, his gaze caught on the ink of her wrist. He didn’t even think.
Gently, he turned her arm over until he could better see the eight-pointed star, running his thumb over it and feeling the lines there. Whoever put it there hadn’t been gentle. It hadn’t just been about the tattoo; someone had wanted to scar her.
The star was familiar, a memory tickling at the back of his mind, but it wasn’t until he read the wording beneath it that he realized just what it was.
Свойство
Svoystvo.
Property.
Someone had marked her as Bratva property.
Who the hell was she?
Chapter 5
July 9-11, 2017
Christophe came awake gradually; the sunlight bleeding through the cracks in the blinds forcing him up. Disoriented, he tried to piece together where he was, his foggy brain slowly catching up with the rest of him.
He wasn’t nearly as drunk as he should have been, considering the nights he’d been having lately, but he had a good guess as to why as he felt the feminine body beside him stir.
Unable to help himself, he let his hand roam over the curve of her hip, almost smiling at the way she shifted against him.
Curled up next to him, with her arm tucked beneath her head like a pillow, Mariya was fast asleep, lips slightly parted as she breathed slow and even. It didn’t matter how he moved or shifted, she merely adjusted around him.
She wasn’t Aidra.
He expected that thought to bother him. Even thought he’d wake up uncomfortable simply because she wasn’t Aidra.
It went beyond their physical appearances, though—that too was on opposite ends of the spectrum. Whereas Aidra’s hair had been shoulder-length, naturally blonde, and straight as could be, Mariya’s was a rich shade of brown with the very ends lightened considerably, and her curls fell over her shoulders in waves.
Aidra had been willowy.
Mariya had curves he found himself following with his eyes even as he didn’t mean to—she was just hard not to pay attention to.
There really was no comparison, though his mind tried grasping at even the slightest of similarities.
He wanted to believe his attraction to her was because she reminded him of his lost love, but even as he tried to spin it that way, the pieces didn’t fit.
He liked her.
What the fuck was he even thinking?
It was her proximity. She was too close, and this was all too fucking intimate.
He remembered the way she had smiled at him the night before. As soon as she was asleep, he could’ve gone back up to his place; he doubted someone would have come into her place uninvited … but then he hadn’t wanted to take that chance.
It wasn’t as though he had a key and could lock up himself.
That was the excuse anyway.
Lying there next to her, he knew how it looked, and the last thing he needed to be doing was giving her the idea that this was something it wasn’t.
But what was it?
Even he didn’t have an answer for that.
He could have easily left her sleeping soundly, or even woken her up to tell her to lock up behind him, but instead, he lingered there, silent and thinking until she stirred on her own.
“Fang?” she whispered, as though she were expecting someone else.
Was she expecting someone else? “Yeah.”
Mariya sighed in relief, the rest of her relaxing as he pulled away.
“Hungover?” he asked, glancing at her.
“Actually, no. I feel pretty rested.”
He’d felt that way in the beginning too. The alcohol had helped get him through the nights, but now the allure was fading.
“Good,” he said, rubbing a hand through his hair. “I wouldn’t want to have to hold your hair back.”
Laughing as she got up, she looked at him over her shoulder and said, “I’m fully capable of holding my own hair back.”
Her words made the smile freeze on his face.
Aidra had said those very words to him the night before she’d died when they’d been lounging in the hotel room. She had always been a lightweight, and despite what she thought, she definitely couldn’t drink him under the table, so he’d wisely made her stop trying.
“Fang.”
Christophe blinked, seeing the concern on Mariya’s face. “Yeah, shit. I need to go.”
“But—”
He couldn’t wait to hear what she was about to say.
He just got the hell out of there.
He’d managed to make her forget, if only for a short time, what Klara had called about.
The next day, she’d still had Christophe’s presence to focus on, though he’d acted a little strange once he’d left, but now, the sadness crept back in.
It was impossible to feel a death hundreds of miles away, but it felt like she could.
The funeral wasn’t reported on nearly as thoroughly as the initial shooting, but an overzealous reporter had already uploaded snapshots of her family walking into a church.
By chance, the photographer had captured Klara walking through the front doors, a black sheer veil covering her face with Akim carrying Ana behind her. Near the bottom of the stone stairs, though, Feliks stood with a cigarette in his hand.
Seeing him had brought rage simmering forward, her hatred burning anew. He shouldn’t have been there, not after what he’d done.
Mariya wished more than anything she could call, to be with Klara today, but knowing it was impossible only made her feel worse.
She was sure she would be alone in her apartment all day, lost in her misery when a knock sounded on the door.
Even before she reached it, she knew it was Christophe, and even as she felt a flutter in her stomach knowing he was out there, it still couldn’t erase the effect of the day.
Turning the locks, she got the door open, forcing a smile when the sight of Christophe standing on the other side in a black shirt and well-fitted jeans greeted her.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels as he asked, “Wanna take a ride with me?”
She could blame her momentary lapse of silence on surprise. Christophe, who’d seemed as secretive as she was, wanted to take her somewhere that hopefully wasn’t the bar, but even as she hadn’t the slightest idea of where they were going, she still found herself nodding.
It was better than sitting in her apartment and thinking about the funeral.
“Let me get dressed.”
He nodded. “You know where to find me.”
As he disappeared upstairs, she slipped back into her apartment, practically ripping her top and shorts off as she grabbed a pair of her favorite jeans and another midriff-baring top, though she did pull on a white and green floral kimono as well.
Leaving her hair to fall in messy waves and applying enough makeup to look like she had made an effort, she deemed herself ready and headed out.
Christophe looked like the type of man who drove a truck—a Wrangler, or something else rugged that looked like it could survive an apocalypse—but instead, she was greeted by the sight of a two-wheeled death machine.
Eyeing her as he fiddled with a helmet, Christophe asked, “Have you ever ridden one?”
“Not if I could help it,” she responded warily, studying the motorcycle.
Polished matte black paint with chrome detailing, it looked far more expensive than any she had ever seen.
Passing her the helmet, he walked back over to his bike as she followed reluctantly, at least until she realized he fully intended to climb on without a helmet of his own.
“Wait, is this your only helmet?” she asked, even as he swung a leg over and sat, looking unbothered, though she couldn’t see his eyes through the dark shades he wore.
Crooks & Kings: A Wild Bunch Novel Page 7