by T. L Smith
“Why?”
“Because you’re the lesser of two evils when it comes to me.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Elina.” I sit up and turn her to face me, a tear leaves her eye. She doesn’t bother wiping it away when she looks at me.
“Your wrath is from love.”
“You think I love you?” I ask her.
“I know you do,” is all she replies.
“How so?”
“Because if you didn’t, I’d be dead.” And that’s it, that’s the most truthful thing she’s ever said to me. She would be dead. If it was Freya, I would have put a bullet straight between her eyes and walked away like I didn’t know her nor care. Elina—I have trouble pulling that trigger, even though I want to. I get up from the bed and walk away because I have to. I have to separate myself from her. I can’t be near her, and not want her. I can’t be near her and not touch her. She’s carved in me now, and there’s no escaping it.
I walk to the kitchen, opening up the cabinet and smash everything. Glasses fall to my feet, shattering where I stand. Plates break around me. I keep doing it, opening up every cabinet, smashing it all till nothing’s left, so it’s as exposed and bare as I am. And as I feel.
When I get back to the room with a first aid kit in hand, she’s sitting up naked, her eyes on me. She looks to my hand, then back to my eyes. I walk to her, then drop down in front of her removing the bandages from the kit and placing one on her leg. Then I repeat it with the other. Placing another where I scarred her. She sits up straighter, knowing her stomach is next, blood is dried up all around the wound. I knew it would bleed longer, it was deeper. I wanted her to feel the pain she inflicted on me, the hurt that she caused by lying to me. Even thinking about it now makes me want to cut her again, just to watch her bleed. When she bled, I knew she was real, that she wasn’t my ghost.
She is real.
No, she is it.
Chapter 22
Elina
He’s on his knees in front of me, and as much as I want to push him away and run for it, I know I can’t. I know it would be no use, he’d catch me every time. And being here with him, even if he does hurt me, is better than being at the alternative. He tends to the cuts, the wounds he placed on my body, and he tends to them with so much kindness I think it scares him. He isn’t used to it, he isn’t used to being soft, especially not with me. I make him bleed every time I kiss him, so for him to fix my bleeding is something new to both of us. He sits back when it’s time to check the cut on my stomach, it hurts the most. The towel that’s under me on his bed still has the blood drying on it.
His hands touch my stomach, soft yet hard calloused fingers linger when he covers the cut. He sits there staring before he stands. Then he looks down at me, a look I haven’t seen before crosses over his face.
“Go,” he says while walking back to his side of the bed.
I sit there, having no idea what he’s talking about. Surely he can’t mean for me to leave, can he? I eventually turn to look at him, that remote he had earlier clicks, and he lays his head on the pillow staring up at the ceiling.
“Go Elina, before I change my mind,” he says it this time with more of a struggle in his voice.
I don’t hesitate as I stand, taking the towel with me, and running to the door. It unlocks. At first I think it’s a trick, like a cat and mouse game. But as I stand there, I notice he hasn’t come for me, and no one is at the door ready to push me back in. So I run, in bare feet, with only a towel wrapped around me.
****
My brother grips the steering wheel tight, his hands clench then unclench. He looks to me then shakes his head as he turns back to the road. I managed to find a phone, a phone box wasn’t too far, and reverse charge called the house hoping it would be him who answered.
He wasn’t happy, then he was even unhappier when he saw me, in a towel, with bandages covering my thighs. He keeps on looking, like the answer will magically appear for him, but it won’t.
“Just tell me.”
I shake my head, I won’t tell him. I don’t want to protect him, a part of me does, but I don’t want him to know everything. Because if he did, he wouldn’t treat me the way he does, he wouldn’t show me respect, not like father.
“Did Padre set this up?” I look at him, shock written all over my face. He shouldn’t know any of this. He shakes his head, taking it as the answer. “Stop letting him use you. He does it because you let him. He may say you don’t hold value, but you do Elina.”
“He told me all I was good for was my body. I was best to serve the family now while I had it,” I tell him straight. Those words have echoed in my head for two years, ever since the day he told me what I had to do.
I basically had to make Kazier love me, then I was to destroy him. I never could, I pushed it for as long as I could, always lying, saying it wasn’t time, he didn’t trust me yet. But it’s all a lie because Kazier would have gone anywhere I told him too. I’m glad he knows as it was getting harder and harder as time went on. I couldn’t continue to lie to both, sooner or later one of them would have cracked, or I would have slipped.
“Why do you let him treat you like that? Stop it, Elina. Just stop letting him push you.” He shakes his head at me. “Next time, come to me.”
“You can’t fix everything, Maso,” I say turning away from him, looking out the window.
“I’ll kill him you know… Kazier. I will bury him ten feet under the ground.”
My body turns fast. He’s watching me, he knew he’d get a reaction.
“I didn’t think you could love him. I guess I was wrong,” he says as we pull up to the house. My father is standing on the doorsteps. Maso looks to him and climbs out of the car, he waits for me, and we walk up together.
“He found you,” is all he says, shaking his head at me in disappointment. “We had a lot riding on this, Elina. I told you to not leave the house. Yet you sneak out knowing he was looking for you.” He’s right, I knew he’d find me. I also knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant, but I couldn’t stay in that house a second longer with my father always looking over my shoulder.
“Stephon got shot,” I tell him. He should know the man who’s paying him to off his own cousin, will more than likely not pay now.
“I don’t care about that Russian scum. He was just a backup with a hefty wallet.” My father steps down the steps till he’s in my face. “You fuck him again?” I try to step backward and his hand comes up around my head. “He beat you, too? Your eye is turning black.” My free hand comes up to my eye. He didn’t do that, and I’m glad he can’t see the extent of the other damage to my body.
“No, he didn’t.” He pushes me back like he doesn’t have a care in the world for me. I should have been born a man he tells me often.
“Leave her,” Maso says, standing quietly to the side, watching. Our father turns to look at him, his lips turn down in disgust as well.
“She’s a whore, nothing but that. She will go back to him, beg him for forgiveness, and you will make him love you, Elina,” he says with a flick to my chest.
“No, she won’t.” Maso steps up to him, but my father laughs at him.
“You’re not the head of this family! You both do as I say. Do you understand me?” His finger pushes Maso. I can see Maso is about to crack, his temper is slower, but he isn’t good at concealing it.
“Inside,” Poppa’s voice booms from behind. Our father turns to him and doesn’t argue, he doesn’t look back as he walks into the house. Poppa looks down to us, his eyes lingering on my legs, noticing the bandages. His eyes soften. “Princess,” he says staring at my eyes. He opens his arms and I walk straight into them, his hands wrap around me pulling me into his chest. My father was never one to coddle me, my poppa did that enough for everyone else. He protected me, even Maso did. They treated and respected me as the woman of the house, just never the man I wanted the respect from.
“Don’t go back to him,” Poppa says. He knows who
we were talking about, he knows everything. I don’t answer him because there’s no way to respond to that.
We walk inside the house and I make my way to my room. After I enter I lock it, like I do every time. I don’t want anyone in here, especially my father. I walk into my bathroom, adjoining my room. Looking in the mirror I notice a split lip, and my eye is almost black. But what hurts the most, can’t be seen, it’s inside. I throw on an old shirt, his shirt. I took it one night when he slept and never gave it back. Now I sleep in it every night.
A knock comes on my door when I lie down. I pretend to be asleep until I hear Maso’s voice. When I open the door, he’s holding my bag. I’m shocked, to say the least. I had my bag at the club, I remember seeing it on the floor of his house when he had me tied to the couch.
“Where did you get this?” I ask him pulling it to me.
“A girl dropped it off to the guards,” he says eyeing me. “Why did a girl do that? Then she told me to tell you ‘sorry for the black eye.’”
“She punched me, obviously,” I state.
He cocks his head at me. “And you let her? Don’t act dumb, Elina, if I punched you you’d kick me in the balls and drop me so you could continue.”
I smirk up at him, he knows me well. “She had an unfair advantage,” I say, pulling the door shut to go back to bed.
“His number is in there. Don’t call him.” He shuts the door the rest of the way, and I drop it all on my bed. Everything’s still there. He must have gone through my phone, the sneaky bastard.
I leave everything where it is and lay back on my bed. My hands run over my stomach, feeling the cut that’s bandaged, wondering if it’s something I could ever forgive. Wondering if it’s something he could ever forgive me for.
Chapter 23
Kazier
I haven’t seen her or touched her for four days. I didn’t want to let her go, I wanted to keep her here, locked away just for me. Someone so wild like her, though, can’t be contained. I saw it the minute I was bandaging her. The look of loss, hurt written all over her face. I’ve never seen a look so sad in the two years that I’ve known her, and it shocked me to the core. So I knew right then, no matter how much I wanted to keep her locked away in my house, I couldn’t do it. I thought for a second she’d choose to stay. She said her father is a prick. I thought perhaps I’d be the better devil out of the two, I guessed wrong. Because when Freya took her things back, she was there.
I shake her from my thoughts when I enter my father’s house, he’s sitting at the head of the table, a glass in his hand, his wife by his side. She doesn’t look up at me when I enter, her hand brushes his shoulder, showing affection that’s totally fake.
Useless fake cunt is what she is.
Another reason I let her go. I never wanted to force someone to be with me. I want them to choose me, not for my power, not for my wealth, but because she wants me. I want what my father had with my mother. He loved her, she loved him. Up until the day she died. He changed then, grew harder, more distant. Sometimes I don’t even recognize him. All I see is a man who thinks with his cock, and his balls are sitting right next to him, touching his arm like she loves him. What a load of shit.
“Sit, Kazier,” he says looking up to me. I take my seat and the evil cunt looks my way, a smile etches across her lips, and I know whatever is about to leave his mouth I won’t like one little bit. “You will marry her, and you won’t argue about it. Ever since I found out about that girl, it’s not acceptable. Not at all. So you will marry the Russian.” His hand comes down on the table in finality, indicating the end of the conversation.
I start to laugh because he’s serious. His face scrunches up, and so does Catara’s as she watches me.
“Go fuck yourself!” Both mouths fall open. My father’s snaps shut fast. He stands, knocking the chair backward while Catara’s hand goes to her mouth as she watches him.
“You speak to me that way?” He raises his voice. I can basically see plumes of smoke leaving his face. He’s not angry, he’s infuriated, and I like it. I stand as well, matching him.
“You’ve had your control over me long enough, old man. No more.”
His hand comes up, and before he can strike me with it, I capture it and hold hard. “You don’t run anything anymore. You can’t control me any longer. Stop and think! Do you want to be killed at the hands of your son? Because the way you’re going that’s what will happen.”
“Get out of my house, Kazier.” I drop his hand and he points to the door.
“My pleasure, just remember who’s in charge now. I may be your son, but I am also much more than that. You know that. You’re even scared of it. So stop while you’re ahead.”
He doesn’t say a word when I walk out. I hear her voice as I leave, reassuring him. It won’t work. He knows. He knows he can’t win over me. It’s just a matter of time before I prove it to him.
****
I end up on Death’s doorstep, I haven’t been here since I was a teenager. He’s the only person that I know that won’t have an opinion on any of this. Actually, I doubt he cares. When he opens the door he’s dressed in an apron, a very heavy duty black apron. His hands have sturdy black gloves covering them. A mask covers most of his face. He lifts it when he opens the door for me, nods, and walks in letting me follow. I shadow him all the way to the basement, where the smell is so bad that I lift the shirt I’m wearing to cover my mouth and nose, but it doesn’t stop the stench from permeating through.
“Fuck! Death,” I swear at him. He walks to the table I didn’t see when I stepped inside the basement. But now I’m looking and it’s revolting. He doesn’t acknowledge me as he turns the stereo back on, blasting it through the walls, then continues on with what he was doing before I knocked. I watch in fascination. He’s dismembered a body, pieces of it all over the table. He lifts a hand, dunks it into a big bowl, then that’s when I hear it, and remember his earlier comment about torturing Elina. He’s using acid. The place stinks, like literally death. Now I understand why the people who work for him don’t like to be around when he does his work, it’s disgusting, and he doesn’t seem to have a care in the world.
He repeats this process with feet, torso, and I sit there and watch each one in fascination just as much as him. No wonder he’s the clean-up guru, no one would be able to trace anything, especially after the acid bath.
He places the head in last. Looks like a man, mid-thirties. Once it’s in there, he removes the apron and gloves and smirks at me.
“Acid… isn’t it beautiful,” he says walking past me to the door we just came in from. I follow, turning back when I hear the sizzle. He waits at the door, as he holds it open waiting for me. “Did you use it on her?” he asks as he steps through the door and back up the stairs to his house. He goes to the sink and starts washing his hands, over and over again. Like he can’t seem to get them clean enough.
“No, I would never.”
He stops, grabs a towel to dry them and turns to face me. “She is only meat,” he says with a shrug. “All meat can melt… die… age.”
“Do you like anyone? Or love anything?” I ask him amused at his reaction to people.
He thinks about it for a second. “No.” And that’s it, that’s his wisdom to his answer, just no.
“So, never loved a woman?”
He shakes again. “It’s just a chemical in your brain that tricks you. If I ever get that chemical reaction in my brain, I will slit the woman’s throat.”
“That’s not exactly how it works, Death.” He pulls a bag from the drawer and starts popping peanuts into his mouth, looking at me amused.
“You watch me. The second, the minute that happens…” His hand lifts up, his finger makes a cutting action across his throat. Fuck! Would hate to be that person who falls in love with him. “What about you? You love that bird?” He pops another peanut in his mouth.
“Possibly.”
He nods his head. “You want me to slit her throat?”
>
“Fuck off, man.”
“I’m serious, it would help ya in the long run. Women are fucked. Men are such easier creatures to work out. We fuck. We shoot. We eat. We sleep…” he pops in another peanut, “…and we’re even more natural in death. No tits to work around,” he says nodding his head.
“Do you have friends?” I ask him because I’ve never seen him speak to anyone outside of me. Fuck! He hardly speaks to Anton and Viktor, and we’re all related.
“Nope, I don’t have time for that shit.”
“What am I then?”
He drops his head to the side, and looks at me before he answers, “You are Pakhan. So for you, I have time and respect.”
“And if I wasn’t?”
A simple shrug of his shoulders is all I get. Just as I’m about to ask him more, my phone starts ringing. I notice the caller ID and my hand freezes, my mouth drops open, I don’t even know if I should answer it. I look up to Death, and see him opening another packet of nuts, he doesn’t care.
“Yes…” I programmed her number into my phone when she was passed out, knocked out, whatever.
“Kazier, it’s me.” Her voice not as strong as it usually is.
“I know who it is, Elina, I have your number.” I turn and walk away, out the front door without saying a word to Death when I leave. “Why are you calling?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that the most truthful thing you have ever said to me?”
“Yes,” she replies with honesty. “If I come there, will you behave? You have to promise me you will?”
I stop at my car door, my hand is frozen on it. “Come where?”
“To your house, I think we need to talk.”
“How long?” I ask jumping into my car.
Could I ever really say no?
“I’m here now,” she replies ending the call. I drive like a dickhead just like Anton does all the way home. As soon as I reach my driveway, she’s there, standing against her car, her phone in hand, sunglasses covering her eyes.