by Amo Jones
I watch her with nervous eyes.
She spins back to face me. “Are you okay with letting go of what he did to your parents, Beat? Because even to me, that’s fucked up.”
I nod, chewing on my lip. “I love him, Kat. And I think the love I have for him trumps every single bad thing he has ever done to people. Whether they deserved it or not. I love him. I’m a better woman when I’m with him and I think he’s a better man when he’s with me.”
Kat drops back to the coffee table and brings her hands to my cheeks. “We can leave. Right now. You know I’m bisexual, right? Fuck Kyle and fuck my brother. Let’s just run away together. We can fuck each other and let dick in when we need it.”
I pause, my eyebrows shooting up in shock. Then we both burst out laughing. I tilt back, clutching my stomach and she giggles until she’s lying on the floor. “Sorry,” she murmurs. “God,” she exhales, wiping the tears from her eyes while trying to calm her giggles. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for so long.”
I swipe the dampness from my own cheeks. “It’s okay. I totally needed that right then.”
My laughter slowly dies out until my body is jerking from the after effects. “You know I love you too, right?”
She tilts her head to face me, a smile on her mouth. “I know. You just love him more and that’s okay. Truthfully, I probably wouldn’t be able to handle being away from Kyle anyway.”
“You guys?” I ask.
Laughter finally cuts out, her hand coming to her stomach. “I don’t know. It’s a little strange. God, I just want to kill him, and I’ve missed you. I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but I don’t have many friends.”
I snort. “Who would have guessed…” Though truthfully, I get why she doesn’t. Katiya as a person is everything you could ask for in a friend—if she likes you—which is where my problem lies. She doesn’t let many people in, but I think that’s why the people she does let in take their place in her heart so seriously.
She throws a cushion at me. “I’m serious! I have no one I can talk to about this.”
I sigh, leaning back in the chair. “Okay, well, shall we go out for some drinks, then? Maybe that’ll make you feel better? We can leave him here. Since you’re obviously not running from my brother, what harm can a little drinking do…”
Her eyebrows wiggle then she shoots up from the ground. “Sold!”
There have been times in my life where I put in a lot of effort into my appearance, and other times I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love feeling good about myself but it has always been a confused satisfaction when I think about why it has to be when I look good is when I feel good. They go on about feeling good and how it’s an inner self-love sort of thing, but it’s easier said than done.
I run the comb through my hair again until the ends flick inward toward my breasts and waist. It’s really long, I should trim it sometime soon.
“You ready?” Kat comes bouncing into the master bedroom, carrying a couple of shots.
I lick my lips, taking one from her and shooting it back. “Yes,” I say around a hiss of breath. “What in the hell was that? Satan’s semen?”
Kat laughs and then gives me a smirk. “I don’t know, did it taste like my brother?”
“Oh.” I scrunch up my face. “That came out so wrong.”
She chuckles, hooking her arm in mine as we both toss the empty shot glasses onto the bed. “We’re going to have so much fun!”
I bet.
We pass Kyle who’s laid back on the sofa eating Lucky Charms. “Have fun.”
I wonder idly if he’s mad at me for not including him in
Tonight
And
The discussion earlier this afternoon.
If he is, he’s not displaying his annoyance and that’s something Kyle is very good at doing.
I smile at him and just when I’m about to open my mouth to ask him if he’s okay, Kat is dragging me out the door.
This bar is pumping. It’s one of the well-known clubs in NYC, but of course, we bypass the line and get let through straight away. Usually, I would say that’s because of Katiya and her fame, but the way the bouncers straightened their shoulders as soon as their eyes fell on me has me thinking maybe they watch more E! News than they care to admit.
We make our way into the club, the flashing lights buzzing around us. There are cages hanging from the ceiling with dancers inside.
We head straight for the bar and Kat orders drinks. We drink them, one at a time and sometimes two at a time, and then she drags me to the floor.
“Cinema” by Skrillex and Benny Benassi starts playing and my body moves, pushing against Kat.
The room is spinning, and nothing is making much sense as far as atmosphere goes, but I don’t care. I’m feeling completely reckless. My hands go up above my head and I drop to the ground in front of Kat as the hook comes in. When the base drops, I let myself go completely.
I love this song. I don’t think I’ve ever loved this song as much as I love this song right now.
Kat hands me another drink and I take it, shooting it back.
“Easy, little Cub!” Kat growls into my ear. “That has absinthe in it, and not the shit kind, it’s the kind I got off the black market in Mexico.”
There’re so many things wrong with that, but I’ll leave it for another day, because the song mixes into another Benny classic.
That’s right. “I Love My Sex.”
Kat screams, running her hands up her bare stomach and then pulls me into her. I laugh, my head tipping back. I think I needed this. To be with someone who isn’t Manik or Lenny.
We both dance to the music. God save Benny Benassi. He’s like crack for all girls buzzing on alcohol. He’s a setup. He does this so guys in the club get laid because as soon as this song comes on, clits are singing.
That was awful, I can’t believe I just thought that. I’m drunk.
When the song ends, Kat pulls me into her, gesturing to herself. “I need to go to the restroom.”
I nod, needing to go too. She begins dragging me toward the back of the dance floor where a light flashes above the entry and M and F letters light up.
We carry on, pushing into the women’s and then wait in line. There are only a couple of girls, thank God.
“I needed this,” I voice my inner thoughts, looking back at Kat. “Seriously, I’m going to love having you in my life as well as your psycho brother, as Kyle says it—by the way, what is his problem with Manik other than him stealing me twice.”
A couple of the girls raise their eyebrows at me in judgment, or as in “you’re dreaming, sis.” Unlike the bouncer, they obviously don’t watch E! News.
Kat laughs. “It’s hard to explain, but basically he liked you.”
“Who? Aeron? I know.” Again, the girls glare at me. One of them disappears into a free stall as the other one bounces on her toes to try and contain her pee.
“Not Ae,” Kat says, rolling her eyes. “I’m talking about Kyle. He liked you…like, liked you liked you…”
“Oh no…” I mutter, gazing off into the distance.
“Oh, yes…” Kat further continues. “But it’s okay. He’s semi over it now that I’ve been keeping him occupied.”
The stalls become available and Kat and I both squeeze into one, taking turns at peeing. “So, what’s the problem between you two anyway?” I ask, scrunching up toilet paper.
“You’re a scruncher?” Kat scowls, her nose pinching.
“Yes,” I hiss. “Stop trying to distract me. Continue, it’s why we came out tonight.”
“So, I don’t know.”
I wipe and then flush, pulling my skinny jeans up and buttoning them.
Kat takes a seat. “I mean I have an issue because I very much like him and I don’t like anyone, and I don’t like how liking him makes me feel.”
I pause and then burst out laughing. She wipes and flushes, scowling at me. “Don’t laugh!”
“Gosh,
you and your brother are so the same.”
She shrugs as we exit the little stall, washing our hands. We head back out to the dance floor, but the entry is far more congested. Bodies are pressed up against us and at one point, we lose touch.
It’s then that I realize I’m actually getting shoved toward the back exit and not actually toward the center of the club.
I exhale in relief when I see Kat pop up beside me, as confused as I look. “What the hell?”
“I know, right! Someone must be here.”
“One guess.” Kat rolls her eyes. “Starts with M and ends with cunt.”
I laugh, and then just as we’re about to walk forward, a harsh load of cold air hits my back and I turn, seeing the exit now open with a van backed up to it. My eyebrows pull together in confusion, but before I can voice that, we’re both being shoved into the back, landing with a heavy thud and the doors are being slammed closed.
I try to launch off the floor but something hits me square in the face and I’m out cold.
“Renegade”—Jay Z, Eminem
“Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all…fall…down…” a voice sings sweetly from the corner of a room. My head thuds and when my hand goes up to touch it, wetness seeps through my fingers.
“Creepy, isn’t it, that children sing that nursery rhyme without a thought of what they’re singing about… sort of like your love…” the voice adds, but her words come through broken, jumbled and dismembered.
“Wha—”
“Shhh,” the voice says, coming closer. A warm cloth presses to my head and I hiss from the sting.
I still can’t see the owner of the voice though.
“No need to talk, I can fill you in. So, the song, is actually about the Bubonic plague, also known as The Black Death. You see, ring around the rosie is talking about the red ring that would raise as a symptom around the sores associated with the plague. A pocket full of posies is the ritual in which they would place posies in the pockets of the dead, and even the people alive because, in their heads, it helped stop the spread. Was probably total BS though. Ashes, ashes, is about how they would dispose of the victims, and we all fall down means that we’re all going to die.” She finishes patting my head, and it’s then I see the long strands of her blonde hair, waving above me.
Her oval jaw and frumpy cheekbones. She had a babyface from this angle.
Then her eyes locked with mine, a dark smile curling over her face. “You’re fully awake now I see. Good, because we have unfinished business.”
I suck in a breath. “Bindi? You’re—you’re ghost girl?”
“Ghost what—what?” Bindi asks, tilting her head. She’s changed so much since I last saw her, but of course she has because we were only eight at the time, but the years have not been kind to her. She’s pretty, don’t get me wrong, just like she was when we were little, but there’s something in her eyes that’s raw and touched.
“Get the fuck away from her, Darya!” Kat spits from the other side of the room.
Darya—no, Bindi—laughs, her head tilting back. “How about no, Katiya. I don’t have to take orders from you!” Her face scrunches in anger, then she looks back down to me and she softens. “Do you love him?”
“What? Bindi, what are you doing?” I go to yank on my hands, but they’re constricted by heavy cuffs that are closed over a couple of thick plumbing pipes. We look to be in an old warehouse of some sort, with nothing else in here but us, and a few old tables and chairs.
“My name is not Bindi, it’s Darya, and I was a Romanov before you had the name attached to your fake passport!”
Ohhh, she’s very angry about this.
Maybe I’m still slightly drunk, too.
“This makes no goddamn sense and someone better spill what the fuck is going on because I’ve had enough of being kept in the dark while being fed half-truths!” I look to Katiya. “Kat!”
Bindi sits back, crossing her boot-clad feet and crossing her arms. “By all means, you do the honors.”
Kat scurries up to a sitting position, bringing her knees up and resting her arms on them. I do the same, sitting up enough to face her. I feel a little more in control in this position, which is good. I might need it.
“Darya used to live with us when we were little. My dad actually rescued her—sort of—”
That earned a scoff from Darya. Bindi. Goddamnit. But I don’t miss how Darya’s eyes go up to behind my shoulder, slight worry flickering through them. It’s so obvious that I turn around to see who she was looking at, only my eyes meet darkness.
Kat continues. “You see there’s a whole world that you don’t know about, Beatrice, and you will never fully know about it because as a woman of a Vor, it is not your duty to know about it. I don’t know about it either—just FYI…”
“Oh, but I did,” Darya murmurs, flicking her fingernails.
“Fuck you!” That’s Kat again. “We did everything for you and you shit on it when you fucked my dad, became obsessed with him, and then tried to blow the rape whistle. Fuck you very much, but you are what is wrong with this world. It’s bitches like you who scream your lies, that have silenced the truth of real victims like Beat. Fuck. You.”
“Ah—” I try to add that I’m not a fucking victim, but Darya cuts me off.
She starts laughing, her head tilting back to lean on the concrete wall. “One, I don’t care, he sent me to befriend this twat until he burned down her house and then set her on the doorstep of—”
“—And hang on, so you weren’t an orphan? Those people—”
“—were on the Bratva’s payroll. Yes, they took me out of a shit situation and put me into a better one, but only for so long. I would have rather been sold, or kicked to some trafficking center…”
“You better watch your next words very carefully before I cut your motherfucking tongue from that mouth.” My head snaps up to the doorway to see Manik standing there. He’s wearing dark jeans, a t-shirt and his hat is flipped backward.
He also has his black bandana loose around his neck.
“Aw, look who cared to show up,” Darya says mockingly, and then laughs. “You don’t really think I got these heffas into the back of that van on my own, do you?”
“—Bitch, did you just call me a heffa?!” Kat looks feral, and if the situation wasn’t so serious, I would laugh.
“No, I don’t,” Manik says, coming farther into the room while stretching his neck.
I gulp. I’ve come to know the little giveaways he has that set off signals of war.
One is the neck crack.
Two is the slow exhale of smoke.
And three is the glint in his eye right before he takes your final breath from you.
“Do come out, Joseph, don’t be shy. I’ll deal with you soon.”
Darya mumbles again. “Finally.”
He lights a smoke, inhales while his eyes stay on her and then slowly exhales through his lips and nose.
Oh shit.
“Seems you’ve lost touch with who the fuck you’ve just messed with, D, and although I didn’t come alone either,” he gestures to the back of him where a couple of men, one I recognize slightly from the first night at the bar, but the other two I don’t. The final one as Vlad.
I gulp through my fear. Vlad’s eyes come to me, and just when I think he’s going to give me that icy look he usually does, he gives me a curt nod and then takes his attention immediately back to Kat. A silent conversation passes between the two of them, but I catch the corners of Vlad’s eyes softening. It is only for a second, and in a blink, it’s gone and he’s back to being the boss he always is, but it was there.
Manik continues. “I think you and I both know I don’t need them and they’re just here so I could prove my point that that fucker there,” Manik points to the shadows behind me and chills set off over my flesh when I see a figure step out of the dark wearing a long trench coat. “Has been infiltrating the MS-13 for a couple years now.”
I’m suddenly aware of how very serious this situation is. I could die. I wouldn’t, surely Manik wouldn’t allow it, but I could. Oh God, something could go very wrong right now and it would be game over.
Sober up, Amaya!
Yes, I think I like my old name a little bit more.
Manik whispers toward Darya, but loud enough for us all to hear. “You’ve done a good job, young buck. Now get the fuck out of here.”
Darya suddenly relaxes, and then her eyes change as they come to me. “I’m sorry, Beatrice. It had to be done to get him here. I’ve been working with Joseph for Manik to get intel taking down someone in your family isn’t easy.” She exhales and then continues. “Joseph hit them pretty hard in the van, Ae.” Then she looks back to me. “There were times when I wanted to tell you, but I love—and Manik, Manik has been planning this since—”
“—Since before you planted that set up of a killing in the back of the club, Pops!” Manik straightens, his eyes going to Vlad.
I stiffen. What the hell is going on right now?
Vlad’s eyes slant, and then he shakes his head in awe. “You knew?”
“Knew what?” I say, confused as all hell.
“Did I know that she was Amaya Corvo all along? Yes, and I needed to prove to you that for years now, this fucker has been going behind your back and doing shady shit that you didn’t know about. I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone.”
Manik slowly backs up, pulling out a pistol, he points it, and the loud shots hit my ears right before my arms are set free.
He shoots a look over my shoulder, raises the gun, and pulls the trigger.
Pop!
A scream reaches out from behind me and plays like an electric guitar inside of my head.
Manik turns back around, only with me now pressed firmly behind him. “I knew, Pops. I knew who she was the second I laid eyes on her in that club. I knew that it wasn’t a coincidence that you had suggested that club. The dots started connecting in my head pretty quickly, but I went with it because I had my own plans.”
Vlad stepped closer to us, grabbing Darya and snatching the keys from her grip. He unhooks the cuffs from Kat’s hands, who is standing and watching with eager eyes.