I swing my head around, looking for the bathroom, but it only makes me dizzier and I nearly go down. Valac’s hands are on me, holding me up, but I shove him away.
“Bathroom,” I wheeze out.
Valac motions to Ophelia.
I’m praying I can make it out of the room without passing out or throwing up.
Ophelia tucks under my arm just before my knees buckle. I try not to lean on her, but I have to. We limp toward the solid-gold entrance door but then veer to the side. Another door opens as we approach it, and I release Ophelia to brace my hand against the doorframe and step through. It’s an expansive, tiled room with frosted glass walls and what looks like a small pool. I don’t realize it’s a bathroom until I spy a pedestal sink and stumble toward it. The white marble cools my hands and gives me something to hold on to.
Ophelia’s hand slides up my back, and her fingers fork through my hair. “Lirium, baby, come here.” She slips her other arm around my chest and urges me to turn around. I comply, shifting so that I lean against the sink and hold Ophelia in my arms.
Her soft fingertips brush my face. “Boost with me, baby. It’ll all be better soon.” She pulses five fingerpoint transfers into my cheek, and I turn until my lips brush her palm. She shifts the transfer there, which feels like an electric kiss. It shocks me awake and chases away the spots still crowding my vision. I move my kiss to her cheek, then slide my hand to the back of her neck, holding her close and returning the transfer.
The golden feel of the boost fills me. The shakes calm. The tightness in my stomach relaxes. I keep holding her until I have enough. By the time I stop the transfer, her cheeks are rosy, her black eyes sparkling. I steal a quick kiss just because I’m high, and it seems like the thing to do. Plus she’s rescuing me, even though I’m supposed to be rescuing her. Again.
“How are you feeling?” My thumbs brush the red apples in her cheeks.
She grins. “I think I’m supposed to be asking you that.”
“You were a little too high there for a while,” I say softly. “I was worried.”
She huffs a small laugh. “You still have a lot to learn, guppy. I’m fine.”
I ignore the nickname for the moment. “I’m going to get us out of here. I promise. There’s a firedoor by the elevator that I think—”
She puts two fingers on my lips, stilling them. “Baby, we’re not going anywhere. Don’t get any crazy ideas about running away.”
“But I think we can—” I say around her fingers until she shakes her head. A sinking feeling, like I’ve missed something terribly important, settles into my stomach. I narrow my eyes. “You don’t want to leave.”
She drops her hand, pulls out of my arms, and steps to the side of me, checking her hair in the mirror and avoiding my stare. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Lirium. But I didn’t survive this long by making stupid mistakes. We do what we do; does it really matter who we do it for? Life in the mob is… not terrible, once you’re used to it. There are even certain advantages.”
The cold chill in my stomach turns into a knot. “You’ve been in the mob before.” Her lack of response confirms it, but it still takes a moment for that to sink in. “You set me up!” I say it even before I believe it, because it seems too… how could I be so stupid? My anger just starts to well up in my chest when she turns to me with wide eyes.
“No, Lirium.” She touches my arm, and the electricity of it sizzles even though she’s not transferring. Her dark eyes ask me to believe her. “I didn’t set you up. I had no idea Kolek’s men knew where I was or that they were coming for me at all. I thought… I thought I had left all of that behind.”
I don’t know if I believe her or not, but the anger caps off at a slow simmer. “So you worked for Kolek before?”
She closes her eyes, like the past is reaching out to cause her pain in the present, then opens them again. “No. I worked for Emeryk, his brother. I was his debt collector; he was my mob boss. I was also… he had a special interest in me.”
My eyebrows hike up, but it’s not hard to picture. “You were lovers with a mob boss? Why does this not shock me?”
She gives me a bitter smile. “We weren’t lovers. I told you, I didn’t make it this long without making stupid mistakes. Besides, Emeryk was no fool. He would never allow a debt collector into his bed. I was a sort of… pet. But that didn’t stop him from having certain feelings about me. The mistake I made was…”
She stops and closes her eyes again. The set to her jaw… the crinkle around her eyes… something happened, and she’s carried it inside all this time, hidden under sultry smiles and a truckload of confidence. I want to reach in and smooth away whatever’s making her brow crease with remembered pain. Suddenly I can see it: an ice-cold mob kingpin falling for a beautiful debt collector he can never have.
I tell myself I’m not doing the same thing.
But I reach out to touch her anyway, brushing her hair back from her face. “I thought you didn’t make mistakes.”
She opens her eyes. “My mistake was being lovers with someone else. He was a debt collector. My mentor. Eli was… different than anyone I have ever met. He helped me survive once Emeryk found me. He taught me everything I know about collecting. He was Emeryk’s chief collector, but he was more than that. He was Emeryk’s friend, and I…”
Her hands grip one another, and I grit my teeth. Half of me wants Ophelia to stop talking because I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to know about her other lovers. The other half of me wants to bring her closer into my arms.
That half wins.
I slip my arm around her waist and pull her next to me. She stops twisting her hands and lays them on my chest. That touch does strange things to my insides.
“Did Emeryk find out?” I ask.
She stares at my shirt. Just when I think she’s not going to answer, she says in a very quiet voice. “He found out when I killed him.”
I’m not sure I heard her right. “You killed Emeryk?” I’m about to be more impressed than ever with Ophelia.
“No.” She splays her hands, spreading her fingers wide. “I killed Eli.”
I don’t say anything, stunned and slightly confused. “But you… I thought you…”
She looks up at me, her face now close. My hands slide across the back of her sliver dress as she eases into me, her hands trapped between us.
“I loved him. And I killed him.”
She drops her gaze back to my shirt, playing with the button. “Being in the mob means you collect a lot.” She says this like she’s reading a manual, some distant thing that’s removed from the intimacy of what we’re talking about. “You get stronger with all those lives stacked up inside you. You pay out, but you get to keep even more. It adds up. Over time, you have… a strength that you didn’t have before. I don’t know why—it’s like your body is in a constant wash of life energy, and it becomes more resistant to everything. You don’t get sick. You don’t age. You learn how to transfer at a rate that would leave scars on most men.”
I think about Ophelia’s beautiful hands and her time in the mob. She doesn’t have a burn mark on them.
“I shouldn’t have loved Eli,” she continues, but now her voice is filled with that pain again. “I should have known better. I did know better, we both did, but I thought… I thought I could control it. But I was stronger than him. All those lives inside me. I was stronger than I even knew.” Her breath catches, and although her head is tipped, I can see a small tear fleeing down her cheek. “So, you see, there’s a reason I don’t…” She looks up at me with eyes brimming in tears. “I can’t ever do that again.”
Something inside me breaks for her. And a distant echo breaks for me. I really can’t ever be more than a stolen kiss for Ophelia. I have dizzying, warring sympathies for both a collector who thought he was safe loving her and a mob boss who knew he never could.
“How did you get away from Emeryk?” I ask, hoping to direct this back to where we starte
d: getting out of the mob. Because no matter what Ophelia says, and no matter what kind of relationship we can have, this is no place for us to be.
“You can’t get out, Lirium.” She fists one hand on my chest and lightly pounds it. “They will never let you go.”
“But you got away,” I say, confused. “All we have to do is—”
“Emeryk let me go!” She pushes away from me. I try to hold her but she insists on being free of my arms. It leaves a cold chill where she used to be pressed against me.
She shakes her slender finger at me. “He let me go because he couldn’t stand the sight of me, and he didn’t want to kill me. It was a fluke, Lirium. Most collectors do die in the mob. Those mutilated bodies they show you in training? Those tortured collectors that have been left to die in a back street? That is how you will end up if you try to escape. I’ve seen it happen.” She crosses her arms. “I’m not going to be one of them, Lirium.”
I run both hands through my hair. “We have to try.”
“No,” she says. “We don’t.”
“If we can just get away—”
“They’ll find us.”
“We’ll move,” I say, mostly out of desperation. She can’t give up this easily. “We’ll leave the state. Get Candy to relocate us to another jurisdiction. Debt collectors do it all the time. We can go together…”
She’s shaking her head when there’s a scream from outside the bathroom, and we both swing our heads to look at the door. It’s closed, which means the scream is even louder outside.
She looks back at me.
“There’s a fire escape door by the elevator,” I say. “I don’t know what’s going on out there, but if we get a chance I’m taking it. Are you coming with me?”
She shakes her head back and forth in small motions, like I’m a complete idiot. Which I probably am. And if she says no, I’m not leaving without her. But we have to take this chance if it comes.
She takes a breath and looks at me with those deep, dark eyes. “You’ll never make it, guppy.”
“Not on my own.” I give her a small smile, hoping that will win her. “I am kind of an idiot, you know.”
She rolls her eyes, then wipes the last of her tears. It’s not a yes, but I take her hand anyway and pull her toward the door. I figure if the chance presents itself, she’s got to take it with me.
Outside, the apartment is in chaos. Women are crying. Valac is giving mouth-to-mouth to Mrs. Kirchoff, who is sprawled on her back, hands lying on the floor, upturned and cramped, like giant insects that died with their legs in the air. One of Kolek’s thugs shouts into his palm, calling for help from 911 or somewhere. The other thug grips the shoulders of one of the sobbing women. He asks her something, but I can’t hear what over her incoherent mumblings and crying. She’s probably scared half to death.
Having the host go code blue in the middle of her life hit party will do that.
I edge closer to the door, Ophelia’s hand still in mine. No one’s noticed us yet, but I’m sure if we open the door, they will.
I lean back to whisper in her ear. “Has this ever happened before?”
“Once,” she says. “She probably was high when you dosed her.”
I peer at Ophelia. “If she dies, Kolek’s not going to be too happy with me.”
She shakes her head in a small motion.
“Probably better if we don’t stick around, don’t you think?” I ask.
She bites her lip, then frowns. I’m not sure if that’s a yes or a no.
“Will they call for an ambulance?” I ask.
She nods, then whispers, “They probably have a doctor on call in the building. High potentials never want to be too far from their medical practitioners. He’s probably the one who supplied her with the drugs too.”
I frown. “Doesn’t he know the risks?”
“He probably didn’t realize she was doing life hits too.”
At that moment, the door slides open, and a man with an open-collared shirt and bright silver bag bursts through. He immediately spies Mrs. Kirchoff on the ground and heads for her. I grip Ophelia’s hand tighter. The doctor arrives at his patient’s side and yells at people to give him room. All eyes are on him. I walk sideways to the door, trying to catch it before it slides closed again. Ophelia holds me back, tugging at my hand, but I pull forward just in time to catch the door. The elevator down the hall still stands open. If we run, we could catch it. I open my mouth to whisper to Ophelia, when the thug with the burn mark glances at the door. Our eyes meet.
Shit.
“Run!” I say to Ophelia. I shove her through the door, but she’s not running. The thug is closing fast on us. I leave the door and rush at him, meeting him half-way. His eyes go wide, not expecting me to attack, but I already have one hand on his throat and the other slipping inside his jacket. I suck life energy out of him, freezing him up as I fumble for his gun. Once I have it, I back away, gun pointed forward.
I have everyone’s attention now.
Valac stands rigidly over the doctor and his patient, watching me with a crazed look. Kolek’s other thug has his gun out, but no one moves. The thug I attacked holds his throat, hunched over, still recovering from the momentary shock of my quick-hit drain. He gives me a look that says I better escape, or I’m not going to live much longer. I back quickly toward the door, my gun-free hand reaching for Ophelia. I don’t dare take my eyes off any of them.
“Ophelia!” I say, my voice harsh, when my hand finds nothing but thin air. I’m at the threshold of the door, when her soft fingers slide across my palm and grasp my hand.
And then the world dims, and I double over with the despair of it.
Ophelia’s draining me of life energy in a massive gush that has me nearly folded to the ground. The gun slips out of my cramped hand and slides to the floor. I follow after it, falling, but I'm unable to get my hand loose from hers.
She hovers over me where I’m crumpled on the slick polished wood of the entranceway. “I’m sorry, Lirium,” she says, but I can barely hear her. She’s still draining me. I try to draw the life energy back, but she’s far too strong.
She stops when the thug recovers his gun and stands, pointing it at my head. My body is still cramped, but it’s not like I’m going anywhere now. My brain is a dark vortex of confusion, still trying to process what happened.
“Nico!” Valac’s voice stops the thug’s inching movement toward my head with the gun. Valac arrives at his side and gives me a look that makes me think he’s considering shooting me himself.
Instead, he says, “Nico, I don’t think Mr. Kolek will want to lose a collector on top of today’s client problems.”
Nico lowers his weapon, slowly, but he doesn’t holster it. A shaky breath works its way out of me. Ophelia tries to help me up, but I automatically flinch away from her. My brain is fighting it, but my body understands.
Ophelia betrayed me.
I’m back at the Kolek estate, locked in the room next to Valac’s. I assume Ophelia returned to her room, but I can’t be sure. There wasn’t an opportunity to talk on the way back, and even if there was, I had no words for her betrayal. Now, after pacing for two hours, I finally have a few choice thoughts I would like to share, but no one is letting me see her. I wonder how long they’ll keep us separated, or if I’ll just have to wait until they let us out to collect again.
Or maybe they’ll just decide to kill me and be done with it.
Without a warning tone, my door slides open.
Valac walks in, his steps slow and purposeful. I turn to face him, hands clenched at my side. I don’t know if he’s paying me a visit to drain the life out of me, but if so, I plan to get a few punches in first. He keeps his distance, studying me. He passes a slow look from my dress pants to my clenched hands.
Since he’s not attacking me immediately, I ask, “Where is she?” I’m not sure if I really want to see her right now, but I can’t help asking.
He draws in a deep breath, ignorin
g my question, then pulls a trimly upholstered chair near the bed. “Please sit down,” he says, indicating that I should sit on the bed next to it.
“No thanks.” I have no intention of letting my guard down while Valac’s in the room.
He pushes the chair back, carefully sits in it, and leans forward, elbows on knees, fingers laced. I’m still standing.
“We’re made to take life, Lirium.” He stares at his hands, as if he’s talking to them. He unlaces them, then touches each fingertip to its mirror on the other hand, one at a time. His hands are a cage, as if he’s holding an invisible bird. “It’s our purpose: to take life. To move it from one place to another. And if all you’re made for is to take something, then you damn well better become the master of that. Or it will be taken from you.”
He looks up at me, his blue eyes deadly serious.
“Is that why you’re here?” I ask, standing straight, ready. “To take it from me?”
His face softens, and he gives me a small smile. “No, little bird.” He stands up from the chair. “Do you know why Ophelia is such a strong collector? Why you, and even I, had a hard time fighting off her attack?”
I smirk. “Like you said: she’s just better at it than you.”
“She used to be,” he says. “But not anymore. She used to be strong enough to break the strongest collector. Because she understands what she is and she doesn’t fight it. She takes from the weak and gives to the strong: it’s what we all do; she’s just more honest about it. She takes what she needs and doesn’t squander life on the weak. She doesn’t fritter it away on trade or excess or sex workers. She’s not foolish,” he smirks, “not like you and me. She’s a survivor. She hoards and waits and becomes strong. If you’re smart, you’ll learn from her.”
Broken (Debt Collector 4) Page 4