by Ariel Arnold
I sipped on my coffee, deciding to enjoy a cup before I started on my way home. It was already almost five pm and my shift was over almost an hour ago.
Finishing up my coffee, I went into the locker room. One of my fellow rookie officers, Bobby Kim, stood inside with his shirt off. I took a little peek—he had a nice body—before opening my own locker. I took out my bag that contained the clothes I would change into after a quick shower. "When are you going to take pity on me and take me up on that offer for a date?" Bobby asked once he had his shirt on and was standing beside me.
"You don't need a pity date. We all know you have plenty of ladies tripping over themselves to date you," I told him and it was true. Bobby was an extremely attractive Korean guy with girls trailing after him. But like most guys, once you reject them, they see it as a challenge to get you to change your mind.
Taking my bag, I walked to the back of the locker room where the showers were divided into two sections. On the right was for men and the left, women. I stood under the shower head, letting the hot water stream down on me and sighed in pleasure. It felt extremely good on my tense muscles. Once I'd finished the shower, I threw on my black yoga pants and a snug sweater with my ever-present sneakers. I flipped my phone open and saw that I had a missed call from my dad and a few texts from friends. First and foremost, I called my dad back first.
"Hey, Pa, what's up?"
"Just seeing if you'll be able to make it by for dinner tonight?" he asked, hopeful.
I'd just recently moved out of my childhood home around six months ago and my parents were feeling the loss. I felt bad that I rarely had time to go home and spend time with them, but as a rookie officer, we got all the crap hours. Right now, all I could think about was getting home and collapsing on my bed for some much-needed sleep.
"Sorry, dad, I'm exhausted. I was just about to go home and sleep. I don't have to work tomorrow, so I'll come by then, ok?" I told him, knowing that he would be disappointed.
"That's fine, sweetie. I'll tell your mother. Get some rest and be careful."
"Always," I told him. "Love you."
I took the subway to my neighborhood and immediately turned in the opposite direction of my apartment. On the ride here, I realized there wasn't any food at home and I was starving. So, I had to make a detour and my destination was to the little pizzeria a few blocks from my house. My mouth was warring for a calzone.
As I walked to Antonio's Pizzeria, I had a direct line of vision to the park. My mind immediately flashed back to the man from last night. Ughh. Would I ever get him off my mind? How could I develop a crush on a guy I'd only briefly met? It was ridiculous.
Trying to shake him out of my thoughts, I plugged my headphones into my phone and listened to music as I walked.
Antonio’s was busy when I walked in. It usually was. Whoever the cook was here was amazing. I was beating myself up for not calling ahead and ordering, though. The wait time for my calzone was now thirty minutes. I sat in one of the booths and scrolled through my Twitter timeline to see what nonsense people were talking about now. I was chuckling over a particularly funny tweet including Donald Trump and a goat with a toupee when a hush came over the restaurant. I looked up curiously and followed people's line of sight to the door leading to the kitchen. A very attractive tanned skinned man with dark hair was speaking to another man with his back to me. The other man was massive, towering over the first, and he was pretty tall also. But my mom says anyone is tall to me since I'm a midget. I wondered why the people in the restaurant were so enraptured with the two. Was it because the man was so attractive? I'd decided that I didn't really care and was about to turn back to my phone to re-tweet that tweet when the second man turned.
I gasped aloud.
It was HIM. The man from last night.
Chapter Five: Nana
His eyes connected with mine and he treated me to a slow grin. He recognized me.
Without taking his eyes off me, he said something to the other man before making his way over to me. I felt like a deer caught in headlights as I sat there and watched his approach. He looked so out of place in this little diner with his expensive suit and loafers on. However, the sleeves of his suit were rolled up, revealing several tattoos on both arms. As he neared, I nervously smoothed my short hair down and absently wondered how I appeared to him. Did he find me as attractive as I found him?
Finally, he reached my side and smiled down at me from where he stood. "So, we meet again," he said in that thick accent of his. My body seemed to become boneless and I wanted to roll around in his voice as if it was a pool of melted chocolate. OK, maybe not chocolate. That could get kinda messy… Unless, he was willing to lick my body clean.
His eyes twinkled smugly as if he'd just read my thoughts. Flushing, I forced my eyes to conceal the lust that was no doubt apparent. "Uh, yeah," I said stupidly, wishing I'd come up with something better as a reply. He smiled as he sat down in the seat across from me. He lounged back as his dark gaze ate me up. He didn't say a word and just watched me. I started to feel uncomfortable and I took my eyes off him and looked around the restaurant. People had gone back to their conversations and their meals, but most of them were discreetly trying to watch us. I turned back to Mystery Man and tried to figure out what this situation was all about. What I wanted to do about him.
"Come on, little one, are you just gonna stare at me all night or ask all the questions swirling around in that pretty little head of yours?" he asked, smirking.
"What's your name?" I fired out as soon as he finished talking. It was what I most wanted to know.
"Ilya," he said simply. No last name, just Ilya, and it fit him. I rolled his name over and over in my mind, saying it and loving the way it caressed through me. Like I was meant to call him.
"Ilya," I said, wanting to hear what it sounded like on my lips. He watched my lips and a slow, sensual smile played out over his.
"Say that one more time."
"Say what?" I asked, feigning confusion.
He rose an eyebrow mockingly as if he knew that I was lying. "My name. Say it again."
Just to be contradictory because I didn't like being ordered around and I didn't like how he kept commenting on my size, I ignored his dictate. "My name’s Nana."
"I know," he said simply and he watched me, waiting for me to ask the inevitable. How did he know?
As I studied his features closely, I got the sense that maybe I had met him before. That I'd seen him somewhere before last night. "Do we know each other?" I asked, just as the man at the counter called out my order. Reluctantly, I stood with my slip and carried it up to the counter to collect my food.
When I turned back around, Ilya was standing at the restaurant’s entrance, waiting for me. I crossed the restaurant until I stopped beside him. He opened the door and said, "After you."
"So, are you going to answer my question?" I asked after five minutes of silent walking. Five minutes might not seem like a lot, but five minutes of awkward silence with a guy you barely know can feel like five hours.
He shook his head. "No, we don't know each other."
I narrowed my eyes and stopped walking. "So, how do you know my name?" No way was I about to lead some guy I didn't know home. He said he knew me, but we don't know each other. This is the second time we've run into each other in a span of two days. How could I know that he wasn't a stalker?
He shrugged easily. "I have my ways."
"The ways that you have must be illegal and I'd have to mention that I'm a cop."
He smirked. "I know that also, that you're a cop."
I watched him, totally exasperated. He didn't even try to deny the fact that he had gone through illegal means to find out stuff about me. He didn't even blink in fear about admitting that to a cop. Though I guess truthfully, he didn't confirm it with words. Smart.
"What else do you know about me?" I should be hustling as far away from this man as possible, or at least threatening to arrest him, yet here I was,
holding a conversation.
He gently took hold of my arm and urged me to begin walking. "Enough to know where you live. Come on, I'll walk you home. These streets are dangerous."
And somehow, I think he was the most dangerous thing on these streets.
"Now wait just a minute!" I hollered and yanked out of his grasp, forcing him to stop as well. "How the hell do you know where I live?" I waved my hands in the air as if trying to erase my previous question. "Actually, I don't care how you know. Stay away from me and if you try anything, I will shoot you."
Instead of backing off in fear as I had hoped he would, he laughed.
He motherfucking laughed!
"You think this is funny? I'm deadly serious. I'll shoot your ass!" I threatened, even if there was no way I’d actually do it. You can’t just shoot people for maybe having stalked you. He hasn’t done anything that would warrant it, but he didn’t know I wasn’t serious.
Getting his laugh under control first, he spoke, "I don't doubt it. But don't worry, little one. I won't hurt you. I'm just offering to walk you home. Can't I be a gentleman?" he asked with a boyish smirk and a twinkle in his eyes.
"Gentlemen don't mysteriously know the name and address of women they've never met," I retorted with a raised eyebrow.
He silently watched me for a minute, studying me. "Come on, Nana, let me walk you home."
He held his hand out to me. I looked at it and then him like he was crazy. He must be crazy. I don't even know him, so why would I just accept whatever he tells me? Just let him follow me to my house?
I didn't take his hand, but I did turn and begin walking again.
"Let's go," I told him. "I must be the crazy one," I muttered to myself as I walked. I’d just told myself how this wasn’t a good idea. I don’t know this Ilya, and I’m a woman who lives alone. I shouldn’t be letting him walk me home like this. And yet, still, we walked down the city streets side by side silently.
I took quick peeks at him as we walked, wondering about this man.
He seemed completely content to continue walking without speaking a single word to me, but I couldn’t contain myself for a second longer. “So, you already know that I am cop…” I said, leading into what I was about to ask. “What is it that you do, Ilya?”
“Besides saving small women in parks at night?” he asked with a slight smile.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, besides that.”
“I guess you could say I work in communications, finding things out. Information that people don’t want everyone to know. Among other things.”
“So, you’re a private investigator?” I asked skeptically.
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
I stopped and huffed out a breath. “Do you ever give a straight answer or is it all evasiveness and smoldering silences?”
He laughed outright, his white, even teeth sparkling at me. His laughter lit his whole face up in a way I couldn’t have imagined possible. He seemed like such a stoic and stern type of guy, so this outburst of laughter was a shock. A good shock though because he looked completely gorgeous.
He grasped my wrist, his large palm wrapping all the way around it as he pulled me along. “Come on. I need to get you home.”
“Don’t think I don’t realize that you didn’t answer my question,” I told him defiantly as I was forced to let him lead me to my apartment.
Outside of my apartment doors, he stopped and turned me towards him. “If I didn’t have something important to take care of right now, I would have asked you to come up.”
I snorted at his arrogance. That he would think I’d allow him to enter my home when we’d just met. “Well, be glad that you didn’t. You saved yourself the embarrassment of hearing me say no.”
He smirked a little and shook his head before he slowly began to back away. “See you around, Nana Valencia,” he said, his eyes on me intently, then he abruptly turned and strode away in the direction we had come from.
Chapter Six: Ilya
I shook my head in wonderment as I strode away from Nana’s apartment. I don’t know what it is about her that has me acting so out of character. I’m not the type to talk so intimately with someone I don’t consider a friend. Yet, I couldn’t deny that I was interested in little Nana. That I was flirting with her and antagonizing her at the same time. The look on her face when I told her that I knew her name already and what she did, I smiled again, thinking of her reaction. The girl was something else.
My phone beeped and I knew without looking that it was probably Nikolai. I was supposed to be back over an hour ago, but I hadn’t planned on running into Nana. And once I did, I had to speak to her; it wasn’t an option not to. I answered Nikolai’s call with a simple, “Yeah.”
“Where the hell are you, man? You had me worried that something went down,” he replied in a particularly strained voice.
It was then that I felt guilty about not checking in when I realized that I would be late. I’m never late. If I’m ever not where I said I would be, it was because something had happened. Of course, Nikolai would jump to that conclusion. With all that’s happened lately, Vidor being killed and Jason too, of course, he would be worried. “Sorry, man, I was distracted. But everything went as planned. I’m on my way back now and I’ll tell you about the meeting when I get there.”
I returned to the Italian restaurant that I had met Paul Rigotti in and circled around the back to where I had parked my car. It was business as usual. Ironing out respective areas of the city, re-discussing any zoning concerns and the such. But it was also more than that. I was feeling out if maybe the Italians did have something to do with Vidor Prakenski’s murder as Nikolai suspected. We already knew that HBD was responsible for Jason’s death, but the blow of having Vidor killed shortly after had slowed the processes of retribution, but retribution would be coming. HBD might think we have no idea that was them who had gunned Jason down coldly, but Nikolai had plans for those involved. He was just biding his time. The pain of his beloved grandfather being killed taking his tole, he could only concentrate on so much loss at a time. Thank God he had Amanda, though. She was keeping him sane, keeping him from going off the deep end and murdering anyone and everyone he even suspected was involved.
I arrived at Cherish and as I walked to the front door, I paused. Standing there was the new door guard, a guy named Isaak. He was young too, only about twenty-three if I remember correctly. It was still so strange seeing him there, standing in Jason’s place. Yazmeen refused to come to the club anymore. She didn’t like seeing someone else standing there. I shook my head as I went to pass him. It was a damn shame what happened to Jason; he didn’t deserve it. Yeah, he did some stupid shit, made some idiotic decisions, and that’s why I was so suspicious of him towards the end, but he was essentially a good guy just trying to look out for his family. “Sir,” Isaak said with a slight nod as I passed him. I didn’t acknowledge him, keeping my gaze fixed in front of me. I could feel the kid’s dislike of my disrespect of him and his weariness of me.
Just the way I liked it.
I liked to keep people guessing when it came to me. I didn’t like just anyone to feel like they were close to me, that they knew things about me. I don’t get close to people, with a few exceptions. The way I am, the way I present myself, has worked for me in the long run, especially in my line of work. Often now just the fact that they hear Ilya Volstolv is looking for them sends people scrambling to confess all their sins. Most times, I don’t even have to break a sweat to torture anyone anymore. Which is kind of sad. I mean I don’t enjoy torture as much as Nikolai does, but a guy still needed to blow off some steam sometimes. I sauntered through the club, taking everything in as I headed for Nikolai’s office. “Ilya,” Lydia called out to me from the bar. I didn’t want to make Nikolai wait any longer, but I figured it must be important if Lydia was flagging me down, so I took a detour to the bar.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Lydia’s eyebrows rose and she
smiled slightly. “Does something have to be wrong for me to want to talk to you?”
I cocked my head to the side. “Generally, that’s usually the reason people talk to me,” I told her, which was true. I’m a fixer, I fix things. Anyone has a problem and I can take care of it.
She laughed and her eyes trailed over me. I knew that look well. “I just wanted to speak with you, Ilya,” she said lightly.
I kept my expression neutral as I began to back away. “Well, I don’t have the time. Nikolai needs me,” I told her, walking away before she had the chance to say anything else. For a while now, I’d noticed Lydia’s interest in me, but I didn’t do anything about it. She was a nice woman, not bitter and hateful like most, but she just wasn’t for me. I didn’t like to mix with women I’d have to see on a semi-regular basis. Almost every night I was in this club and I didn’t want her getting ideas about us if I ever did let myself fuck around with her. But another huge reason was Nikolai had already fucked her. My pride wouldn’t allow me to let my dick go anywhere near where Nikolai’s had been. The man was my boss, my friend, a brother, but that didn’t mean I’d easily be able to accept his cast offs.
For a split second, I wondered if I should knock on Nikolai’s door before entering, but quickly decided I didn’t care enough about proper policies to make the effort. I pushed the door open and entered, closing it behind me. Dimitri and Gavril were already in attendance. “Ahhh, my favorite son has arrived,” Nikolai said with a smirk that had me smiling in return and rolling my eyes. We were the same age and the fact that he often tried to refer to himself as my dad cracked me up. But I couldn’t let him know I found it too funny or he’d never stop. Gavril gasped.