by R. J. Lewis
He buys his juice and approaches me cautiously, perfectly aware that I’m currently not myself.
“Three dollars and fifty cents,” I seethe through gritted teeth before he slides it over.
His eyes narrow when he catches my tone, aware now of the rolling anger I have toward him.
I hate him.
I really fucking hate him.
Because I know, deep down, I need him. I have no choice but to go back to him and feel those fucking things again. Bills and Natasha have wiped me out. Dear god, it’s never fucking ending.
“Are you alright, Alina?” he asks me tenderly after I bag him his bloody drink.
“Fine.”
“Have I done something to upset you, rybka?”
That fucking concern in him.
“Why do you care, Nikolai?” I snap.
He doesn’t reply; he just looks at me in the way I am beginning to loathe because it makes my heart quiver. Is this what he likes? To have me reduced to this senseless fucking puddle of want?
“Why do you come here?” I question suddenly, my voice tight with fury. I don’t care that Ivan is still locked inside his room within earshot, or that Oksana is feet away on her phone and probably watching. “What do you want, Nikolai?” I fume, feeling helpless as I throw my hands in the air. “Because it isn’t this juice, is it? Or the cigarettes behind me! You’re just here to torment me, aren’t you? Well, I’m not going back to you, do you understand? I’m not!”
His expression goes from gentle to stone cold in an instant. The change is so abrupt, it makes my stomach clench and my fingers shake. I expect him to respond, and I am desperate for it too. Half of me wants him to get the fuck out, and the other half wants him to warm my bloodstream and fuck me to hell and back.
But he doesn’t speak a word, and that’s worse.
With a blank face, he grabs at the bag without one ounce of aggression or feeling. He’s so fucking good at hiding it, I just want to claw beneath his skin and listen to his thoughts. He throws his shades back on, concealing his eyes, the same eyes that looked vulnerable when he moved inside me and brought us to pleasure. I shiver, an apology almost at the tip of my tongue, but it’s not coming out. I want him to be angry at me.
If he hates me, he’ll stop coming back.
He gives me a final look, and then he turns and walks out, that “do svidanya” missing from his lips.
Chapter Seventeen.
Nikolai
I shove the bag of juice into the chest of the nearest homeless man I see. My strides are brisk as I make my way to the shop. Not a lot of things get to me, but that damned girl has gotten under my skin without effort. Her cold nature should turn me right off, but I’m left with this intense need to understand what the hell I did wrong.
I had offered her a loan, and she passed it up. I didn’t force her to fuck me, and when she wanted to earn it, I left her an incredible chunk of change right before I left. Then I beat the ever living fuck out of Franco for her, and practically begged her to return to me the very next morning.
Where, in that mindfuckery, did I go wrong?
I whip open the entrance door and stomp in. I plaster a fake smile when a regular customer greets me at the jewellery counter with Vlad.
“Nikolai,” she squeals.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It’s one thing when someone like Alina moans my name, fucking it between her lips. It’s entirely another thing when this girl with her giant fake lips does it at ear-piercing volume.
“Briana,” I return civilly. “You’re looking very sharp this morning.”
“I need more diamonds.”
“You’ve come to the right place.”
As I walk past her, she throws in, “Let’s do dinner sometime.”
“Absolutely.” Not.
I disappear inside my office and while the sight of Andrei seated next to Uncle Dmitry on my couch should surprise me, I conceal it and look casually about the room. There’s nobody else here, but my blood rushes through me quicker as I coolly pin my eyes at Andrei.
“What is this?” I ask calmly.
Andrei looks panicked. “Uh, Uncle –”
“I need to speak to you,” Dmitry cuts in, his rat eyes looking me over with judgment. The man is old, his hair is bone white, his stature frail, yet he still thinks he can intimidate. And maybe he can, with people like my weak cousin Andrei, but he does nothing to me. He’s just an old man that is spreading rumours about my sexuality, hoping to sabotage my business for his own personal agenda.
This time my lips curve up. “Sure thing, Dmitry. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long.”
“Are you always this late?” he cuts back.
“It depends,” I tell him as I shove my hands into my pockets and stroll to him. “If I’m having a gay orgy, they tend to knock me out longer than usual. Especially if I’ve swallowed a lot of cock, it’s distressing on my throat.” Dmitry’s mouth parts in shock as I stop in front of him. “I have to do this standing. My ass is too chafed to sit.”
“You’re trying to wind me up,” he retorts, standing up to face me. “But I see straight through you, Nikolai Sokolov.” He sneers at the last name as he looks me over. “You’re a lie.”
“And what have I lied about?”
“You’re no Sokolov. You abandoned our family and you don’t deserve the title. Then you pull Vlad out after years of loyal service, and now you drag Andrei down with you, blowing any chance he might have joining the Bratva by joining you.”
“I haven’t forced Andrei or Vlad here,” I simply respond. “They may leave if they want to.”
Dmitry scoffs. “Yes, I know they can, because you no longer have the balls to commit the violent acts you threaten.” He comes even closer, snarling as he seethes, “Do you have any idea what I have done in my life? I have put those who have fled from us down without blinking.”
“If you’ve put any men like me down, I’d be very impressed.”
“Don’t be. You’re easy. A quick rise to the top and an even swifter fall to your demise. That is what awaits you if you don’t go back. Strength is in numbers, and you don’t have numbers when you’ve detached from the one sect that can take you beyond this filth of a place.”
“I’m not going back to the Sokolov,” I retort, standing my ground. “Strength may be in numbers, but loyalty are the bones of a home. And they have let me down.”
“What of your father?” he argues, looking at me desperately now. “Your father – my brother – suffers without your voice. You’ve not only turned your back on us, you turned your back on him.”
“This is not your business.”
“Both of you are my blood. You are my business.” He comes closer to me, the fight fading in his eyes. “Call him,” he pleads. “Call him, Nikolai.”
My face remains clear as I look back at him. “I am done with the Sokolov,” I tell him slowly and firmly. “I will never go back.”
“Who will replace your father?”
“Not me.”
He shakes his head, his old eyes glossy. “Nikolai, they all need you –”
“I don’t care. I lived that life and I’m done it.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
The fight in him is strong. “Nikolai –”
“You’ve disrespected me enough,” I cut in. “Don’t you dare come back to my shop, Dmitry. I don’t care if I have to have your legs broken, you will never enter my office without my permission.” I bare my teeth, leaning into his face and add, “And if you ever open your mouth about me again, dragging my name through the mud with your lies, I will cut your throat clean and watch you bleed out the Sokolov blood you love so much.”
Dmitry is trembling, his fear-stricken eyes tearing away from me. “You poor boy,” he whispers, shaking his head as he turns around and leaves on shaky legs. “You poor, poor boy.”
Andrei stands up and hurries to his side, helping him walk out of the room.
When he shuts the door behind him, I pour myself a glass of whiskey and take a sip, coolly regarding the couch the old man just sat in.
The tremors in my fingers worsen as I think on his words.
He talks like I’m the coward. Like I did the Sokolov wrong when they destroyed me with their lies about disloyalty.
I grip the glass tight and smash it on the ground.
*
Three days pass.
I don’t go to my shop.
I don’t see the girl.
Instead, I drink myself to oblivion, darkness weighing me down as thoughts of the past surface.
Mother and death.
Death and Father.
The cult that is the Sokolov, responsible for all that I grieve.
How could I have ever hated my mother for what she had done to my father? He cheated on her relentlessly, neglected her love and when she found it another, he murdered him.
Women are distractions. They said. Women are evil.
And I bought every scrap of that rubbish and my mother suffered as a result.
I moulded myself for them. I let them transform me into a killer. I took the lives of how many faces, always believing they were horrible people who’d done horrible crimes to us.
I loathe myself. I loathe what I am and all I have done.
I can’t run from my past, but I can drink it away for now.
*
I wake up hung over, pissed, and horny as fuck.
I don’t take a woman for how long? Too long. And then one taste of pussy and I’m itching to bury myself balls deep in the nearest hole. I resist, of course. I’m not going back to that, and it’s not because of the girl.
It’s not.
I kick back another bottle of rum and believe in my sorry bullshit.
By day three, I toss the bottles of alcohol out, shave my face, and carry on.
“On a detox now, are we?” Vlad asks when I get to the pawn shop on time, sober and with a migraine that makes me want to stab my skull with an axe.
“Fuck off,” I retort.
He follows. “Lay off the alcohol, Niko, it turns you into a prick, yeah?”
I glare at him over my shoulder. “So what am I now?”
He chuckles. “You’re back to normal.”
I do fuck all throughout the day, cringing when mid-morning passes, those minutes ticking by extra slow than normal. I could be at her store right now. I could be staring at her beautiful hair, into those hard eyes, along the curve of her neck where that necklace sits. I don’t do it, though.
Alina is worse than alcohol. There’s no detox to get her out of my system.
My men fetch the envelopes, something I normally do but I’m too coiled with unease, bloody Dmitry getting under my skin still with his words.
“You alright?” Vlad asks me in the afternoon, taking a seat on the other side of my desk.
He’s the only man that knows me. The only one I’ve ever trusted with my life.
I look at him and sigh. “Dmitry –”
“Dmitry is a fool,” he cuts in straight away. “You let him get to you and you become this shell all over again.”
“They might come knocking, Vlad.”
He shrugs. “So let them. They can throw as much guilt on you for leaving as they can. It doesn’t change what your father did.”
“And all that I did? I’m no better than him.”
“They lied to you. Brainwashed us both. Made us believe we were doing right by the brotherhood. We were kids when they took us into their world, Nikolai. At some point you have to make peace with that.”
*
I twirl my cigarette between my fingers as I exit the shop and head for my car. The last thing I expect to see is Alina leaning against my passenger door, waiting.
Her gaze is directed to the ground as people walk past her. Like she wants to be invisible. Like the entire world knows what she’s up to. She runs her finger over her healing lip, stopping the second my burgundy pair of cap toe lace shoes come into view. She slowly looks up, meeting my eyes.
She looks as beautiful as she did the last time I saw her, except her hair is a little messier and her eyes much more vulnerable. It’s bad when I get a rush similar to sex at the mere sight of this damn girl.
I remain reserved, because I know she’s hot and cold. Her walls so fortified, I’ll probably never break through them. I should dismiss her after our last encounter, but I’m hungry for the fat bruised lip she’s still trailing with her finger.
She waits for me to speak, but my lips stay sealed as I observe her. Straightening her tired spine, she stares back at me.
There’s this quiet moment of understanding between us. I know why she’s here. She knows why she’s here. Neither of us wants to acknowledge it out loud.
Cut her out, you fool.
For her own good, cut her out!
I glance up and down the sidewalk, a habit I can’t seem to shake. I don’t see any familiar faces, and my resolve hardens.
“You have everything?” I finally ask, pulling out my car key from my pocket.
“Yes,” she answers carefully.
With a brisk nod, I unlock the car with the key fob and order her to, “Get in.”
Chapter Eighteen.
“It’s not wrong to like it.”
I wash Nikolai’s release out of me. My legs are trembling. I have to squat down in my shower stall or else my knees will buckle.
The water is burning hot. I crane my head up to the spray, closing my eyes as I prod my fingers deeper inside myself, removing every single drop of him. I’m still so tender. My pussy is swollen and raw. I can barely feel it now.
Fuck, he took me hard and long, not one forgiving bone in his body. And I…I bent to him.
I shiver, reliving my evening because it’s all I can do to understand it.
I was nervous. I thought I’d had more time to reflect on what I was doing on the ride to his place. But, to my surprise, the ride ended almost immediately. I had originally expected a penthouse, or something equally as dramatic, but the apartment was modestly sized and in the heart of the Estate. Which baffles me. Because he has a lot of money, and while his building is relatively new, it’s not what I expected for someone who drives a high-end car and wears ridiculously expensive suits.
He didn’t make conversation. Maybe he knew I needed this quiet time to reflect. When we got there, he took me right up to his level and then answered a call, leaving me to wander his apartment while he spoke nearby, watching me intently as I circled the spacious kitchen, the living room, and then the short hallway to a large master bedroom.
I stood there for who knows how long staring blankly at a spot on the ground, feeling his presence behind me, the weight of his eyes over every curve of my body. Then he got off the phone and silence entombed the room. He didn’t even move. I turned to him very slowly and looked up at him. I think my heart nearly dropped to my stomach when I saw that look in his eyes. I never knew until today what it felt like to be under the ravenous eye of a predator.
“What’s going through that mind, rybka?” he asked, approaching me slowly.
I trembled, hardly able to meet his eye. “I…I don’t…” I took a few breaths. “I don’t know how to do this,” I pushed out, swallowing. “How do I do this?”
“You’re asking the wrong person.”
I gave him an odd look. “You don’t know?”
“Why would I know?”
“You…You’re the one that propositioned this. Haven’t you done this before?” The thought he might have twisted me, like I was nothing but another notch on his hooker bedpost.
He pressed his lips together, thoughtfully. “Women were always available for me when… I needed them. I never paid for sex.”
Were? As in past tense. I wanted to ask him about that, but I stopped short. I think he noticed too, because his eyes fell over my face and he frowned.
“You don’t have to be here,” he told me. “You can leave, Alina
, and you can still take me up on this loan.”
I scoffed, looking him dead in the eye as I shook my head. “No, Nikolai, I can’t. I’m trying to get out of debt, not deeper in it. I just have to know more about this and what it means.”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s pleasure between two consulting individuals.”
“With money involved.”
“You’re overthinking it. Money is just a perk.”
I made a face. “Money is the entire reason I’m doing this.”
His lips curved up slowly. “Don’t lie to yourself, Alina. Your body bent to me that night.”
I stilled – and thinking about that just now makes me blush harder than I did in that moment.
“It won’t feel like a chore when your toes are curling with pleasure.” His voice lowered as he added, “If you’ll have me, I intend to know every little touch that makes you tick, Alina. It will be nothing like the first time. I lost control, and it won’t happen again.”
I wanted to tell him I didn’t mind him losing control – because I lost control too – but I was trying to breathe as it was.
“We shouldn’t have done it,” I whispered to him. “It was dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“I’m not on birth control.”
He went quiet. Surely he didn’t just assume I’d be on it, did he? I couldn’t help glance at him. There was something tight in his expression, like he was troubled for a moment.
“I was careless,” he told me, “but not that careless, Alina. I can’t have children.” He said it so matter-of-fact, ending it there like nothing else needed to be explained.
I blinked at him in surprise. “Oh.” More like OH, THANK FUCK. “Are you sure?”
“What?”
“You’re sure you can’t….?”
His lips twitched. “When you’re lying on a surgery table and a man is prodding at your balls and giving you the snip, you’re fairly certain the tank is going to be empty.”