by Paula Cox
But I can’t afford to think like that, no matter how much it hurts me. The door swings closed and the man wobbles toward us. White powder clings to his upper lip and he snorts repeatedly. He’s fat around the middle and wears a disheveled suit. When he sees Roma and me, he grins like a snake, all gums.
“Ah, the lap dance pair!” he cries. “I hope you are enjoying the ship, yes? Where are you going?”
“For a stroll,” Roma says. I’m impressed by how calm his voice is, ice, giving nothing away. He touches my shoulder. “Trying to teach this one some manners. Think a nighttime stroll above deck will do the trick.”
The Russian tips his head back and laughs. “Yes, yes, I imagine it will.” And then he waddles down the hallway, in the opposite direction to us.
Roma leads me up the stairs. We don’t encounter anybody else, but the noise of them is all around us. Screaming women and laughing men and clattering glass and one particularly loud snoooooooooort as yet another man snorts yet another drug.
We emerge onto the deck and stand at the railing. Roma strips off his clothes until he is down to his underwear. It is summer and the night is warm, but I have no delusions about the warmth of the water this far out.
Roma faces me. “I’m going to ask you again—”
“I trust you,” I say. I place my hand on his chest, secure and strong.
“Okay.” He nods. “You’re fit. You should be okay. Just stick close to me.”
With that, he grips the edge of the railing and launches himself over. There’s a splash.
I look down into the blackness of the water.
“Come on,” Roma calls up. “The water is bloody lovely.” His voice is grim.
I grip the edge of the railing. I don’t think. I just jump.
Chapter Eleven
Roma
The sun rises as we step onto the rocky beach, the stones cutting into my feet. I’m panting and salty water slides from my body. Felicity steps out after me, shaking water from her hair. She’s shivering, but her lips are not blue or cracked, and she doesn’t seem to be moving with any sluggishness. I go to her and take her by the hand, giving her what little warmth I can.
“Now what?” she says, looking out over the French countryside.
The beach extends for a quarter-mile before meeting a long, flat stretch of green, dotted here and there with stone-built cottages as far as the eye can see. In the distance, green hills rise. I spot the cottage about seven miles away, a hazy thing at this distance, only visible because of the flatness of the plains.
“Now,” I tell her, “we walk. I know a place.”
We walk down the beach, hand in hand, being careful not to step on any sharp stones. Felicity shakes her head again, water splashing me. Her ponytail, soaked, flips around and slaps her in the face. She giggles. It’s a beautiful sound, a sound so alien to the usual course of my life than I can’t help but smile. I’m in deep shit, make no mistake, but with Felicity’s hand in mine, the shit doesn’t seem so deep.
Soon, we’re off the rocks and on grass. The day is hot and our skin dries quickly. I try to see us as we would look from far away, a half-naked man and woman walking through the grass under the stark rays of the sun. We must look like nudists, I decide, but nudists who haven’t got the balls to go the whole hog. Amateur nudists.
After an hour of slow walking—she is fit, but I can tell Felicity is aching from the swim and lack of sleep—we come to a small cottage. As luck would have it, a clothesline spreads across the front of the house, clothes whipping from it. We crouch down low behind a rock and watch the cottage for a few minutes.
“Are we really going to steal clothes?” Felicity says.
“Of course.”
Felicity shrugs. After what she’s been through, stealing clothes must seem like nothing. Anyway, we can’t approach our destination naked. I reckon my reception is going to be frosty enough without adding that into the mix.
“Wait here,” I say, rising from the rock.
The cottage is empty. I creep up to the clothesline and snatch two pairs of pants and two shirts. I return as quickly as I can and hand a shirt and pants to Felicity. She pulls it over her head and pulls the pants on. I can’t help but laugh. She looks tiny in the oversized shirt and the MC Hammer pants.
“They keep falling down,” she says, ignoring my laughter, tugging at the pants with her hand.
“Hang on.” I go to the washing line, find a woman’s scarf, and return to the rock. I fold it over and then wave to Felicity. “Come here.”
She stands up next to me. I loop the folded scarf through the belt holes and then tie it tightly around her waist. Then I lean down and fold up the pant legs around her ankles.
“Better than naked,” I say.
“Barely.” But she’s smiling. Despite everything, she’s smiling.
“Let’s get out of here before trouble starts,” I say.
We leave the cottage behind and make toward our destination: the cottage at the foot of the hill.
He couldn’t have picked a better place for leaving the life, that’s for sure. It’s in the middle of nowhere. No, it’s even more hidden than that. It’s like the Middle of Nowhere had a baby with Where the Hell Are We and spawned this stretch of French countryside. When I boarded the yacht, I knew we’d be coming close to this part of the shore. I guess fate or luck or God wanted us to meet again.
“Do you have a plan?” Felicity asks me, when the sun is almost at midmorning point, slanting down its relentless light.
I turn to her with a wry smile. “I had a plan,” I say. “My plan was to play our roles until the yacht landed and take you back to the States without any suspicion whatsoever. That fat idiot Barinov ruined that. Now I have a new plan. A backup plan of sorts. But I’m not sure how well it’s going to go.”
She touches my arm. “You saved my life, Roma.”
“I did.” I don’t look at her. I stare straight ahead. I don’t do too well with affection, never have.
She moves her hand from my arm and touches my face, turns my gaze to hers. Without discussing it, we stop walking. She looks so damn cute in her massive clothes, like it’s the morning after and she’s wearing my clothes, like we’re not out here but back home, in my apartment, and she’s about to ask me how many rashers of bacon I’d like.
“What?” I ask.
My voice comes out snappish. I don’t mean it to. But being this close to a woman is so far out of my comfort zone I never dreamed it’d ever happen. I’d never let it happen. Quick, hungry embraces, sure . . . animal rutting . . . but this (whatever this is) . . . hell, no.
“You saved my life,” she repeats. “If not for you . . .” Her shoulders tremble.
Without thinking—if I think about it, I’ll freeze—I open my arms and embrace her, bringing her close to my chest. Remember who you are, remember who she is. Mr. Black’s voice again, chiding me. I ignore him and hold Felicity close to me, her cheek resting against my chest. She grips my back with desperate hands, digging her fingernails in, as if she’s scared I’ll float away. After all, I’m her only lifeline against the Russians. I feel something I haven’t felt for as long as I can remember: guilt. Hot, stabbing guilt. Guilt that I’m misleading her. But it’s more complicated than that, isn’t it? If I really only cared about the job, I would’ve let Barinov rape her. I wouldn’t have questioned it. But I couldn’t. And not because of the job; it had nothing to do with the job. It was simply because I couldn’t bear the thought. Without even realizing it, I’ve started to think of Felicity as my woman. But not in the twisted, sickening way the men on the yacht think of their purchases as their women. No, it’s something else, something deeper. I think again of the kiss and my lips tingle with hunger for another.
Felicity twists her head up. “Is something wrong?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “Surprisingly, everything’s right. How about we buy one of these cottages and stay here forever?”
She giggles. “Now, there�
�s an idea.”
I release her and we continue on our way.
Soon, we reach the cottage. It looks the same as all the others, a two-story squat brick-built building, the chief difference being the garden. Where the others are well-tended, this is overgrown, creepers and flowers and weeds spreading over the floor and the fence, ivy twisting up the brick of the house.
“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath. I’m nervous, I realize with a shock. Bona fide nervous. “You need to hide.” I point to the side of the fence, where a huge bush will obscure her from view. “There.”
“Why?” Felicity asks. “Who’s in there?”
“Someone who will either be very happy or very angry to see me. I can’t risk you being caught in the crossfire if it’s the latter.”
“Are we in danger?” Felicity asks.
“Yes,” I say honestly. “From the Russians, and . . .” From Mr. Black if he finds out what happened and maybe from the man who owns this cottage. “. . . and from everything else,” I finish vaguely.
Felicity nods. “I’ll hide,” she says. “But if you need help, I won’t stay hidden.”
She’s so fiery, I think, a fresh wave of admiration and affection washing over me.
“Okay.” I nod.
She jogs to the bush and crouches down. I walk to the fence, heart pounding like a war drum in my mouth. I haven’t seen him since he quit the life, since he bowed out of bloodshed and murder and all the filth that goes along with that.
I open the gate and navigate the overgrown garden, stepping over and around as though I’m walking through a jungle.
When I knock on the door, my fist is trembling. Knock, knock, knock. No answer.
I knock again, the door opens, and the barrel of a shotgun is aimed right at me.
“Roma. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Bear,” I say, looking at the snowy-haired man, his thick beard and his gargantuan muscles. One of his eyes is missing, a pink mass of scars and flesh, and both his pinkies are severed at the knuckle. He’s as beat-up and grizzled as I remember him. “I need help.”
“Hmm,” Bear grunts. He doesn’t lower the shotgun.
Chapter Twelve
Roma
“Are you going to shoot me, Bear?” I say.
I try to put laughter and disbelief into my voice, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Bear. Sure, he basically raised me, he trained me, he brought me into the life. He’s about as close to a father figure as I’ve ever known. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t changed in the interim. Maybe to him I’m not Roma, his adopted son, but just a reminder of the life he once lived.
“I’m not sure yet.” His voice is deep and crackly and his one eye watches me closely. “How the hell did you find me? I picked this place with care, Roma. With damn close care. No one from the life has found me . . . until you.”
“I’ve always known you were here,” I say.
His eye—and the mass of scars and flesh around his gaping eye socket—goes wide.
“Is that so?” he muses. “Thought I did a pretty damn good job at hiding.”
“You did, but I know you. You trained me. Of course I’d be able to find you.”
“And Mr. Black and his cronies haven’t swooped down, so I guess you stayed loyal. Gotta say, I’m damned surprise. Thought the life was deep in you, boy.”
“Does that mean you’ll lower the gun?”
Bear shakes his head. “Didn’t say that. Gotta understand, Roma, it’s been a helluva long time since I saw you. Don’t know what sort of man you are. Maybe Mr. Black sent you to finish the old bear off, aye?”
I spread my arms to my sides and take a step back. “If you think that, Bear, then you better pull the trigger.”
Bear takes a deep breath and looks down the sight at me. The barrel trembles and I’m shocked to realize he’s actually considering pulling the trigger. A thousand memories of Bear light up my mind. I remember him before he lost the eye, grinning over his white beard at me—though it wasn’t so white then—and patting me on the back at a football game. I hear his words: You’re a good lad, Roma. I remember him how he was when I was a kid, huge, tall, a giant to my child’s eyes.
“You won’t . . .” My voice cracks. I could probably grab the gun before he shoots, but I have no desire to fight with Bear. It’s Bear.
Bear shakes his head. “I’m done with the life,” he says.
Chapter Thirteen
Felicity
I watch as the old white-haired man shoves the barrel of the shotgun at Roma’s face. Odd, but I feel protective, like a lioness who’s just seen her lion threatened. He saved me, I think, and now he’s in danger. In my mind, I see how the next few minutes could go. I see the white-haired man pull the trigger and I see Roma’s head explode and the overgrown garden showered in red. Then what . . . I run, perhaps, and the white-haired man catches up with me. What if he’s just as bad as Barinov?
“You won’t,” Roma says, but his voice does not sound like his own. It breaks and I’m sure a genuine tone of fear enters it.
I watch, terrified, as the white-haired man shakes his head. “I’m done with the life.”
“I’d never ask you to come back to the life, you stupid old bastard,” Roma snaps. His fists are clenched, but he doesn’t lean forward or make any move toward the man holding the gun. I’ve seen him in action. He took out Barinov calmly and coldly; I’m sure he could snatch the gun away from the old man if he tried. I study the old man closer—through branches and leaves—and see that he only has one eye. Yes, Roma can take him. But he doesn’t even try, just stands there. “I want you to be happy, you oaf. I don’t want you in the life.”
“You just want me dead.”
The old man’s breathing gets quicker. It’s the breathing of a man who’s trying to key himself up, working himself up to something he doesn’t want to do but has to. It’s the breathing of a man who is about to cross a line he never thought he’d cross. He’s going to kill Roma, I think, and terror lances through me. He’s going to kill Roma!
I jump out from behind the bush, hands raised above my head. My heart thumps right to the tips of my fingers, making them tingle. “Wait!” I cry. When I lift my hands, the sleeves on this too-big shirt roll down to my shoulders, making me look like a little girl. Ridiculous, but maybe this huge white-haired ogre will feel bad about shooting somebody who looks like a little girl.
The man swings the gun to me and then immediately back to Roma when he sees I’m not a threat. “Wondered how long it was goin’ to be before she popped up. Gotta say, though, was expecting an armed killer.”
“I’m not here to kill you,” Roma sighs. “Bear, stop this. I need your help. What are you going to do? Shoot me and her?”
The old man looks down the sight of the shotgun with his one good eye, squinting into Roma’ face. “Tell me you’re not here to hurt me,” he says.
“He’s not!” I call across the garden. “I swear to it, he’s not. I was taken hostage on a yacht just off the coast by Russian gangsters. They were trying to use me as a sex slave. Roma impersonated an American politician and bought me. He saved me. He’s not a bad man and he doesn’t want to hurt you!”
The old man’s eyes flit to me and then back to Roma. “This true?”
“It’s true,” Roma says. “You remember Zherkov?”
The old man nods.
“What about Barinov?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, he’s dead. He tried to rape her and I snapped his neck. We jumped overboard and swam through the night. In a way, we were lucky Barinov attacked her when we did . . . right on the coast of your French slice of heaven.”
The old man continues to look down the barrel of the gun, but he seems more reluctant.
Roma sighs. “You’re not going to kill a woman, Bear. We both know that. And sure, maybe you could kill me. But I bet it gets awful lonely out here. How’re you going to sleep knowing I’m buried a few feet from your ho
use? It’s me, Bear. Do you remember the Arena?”
For a moment, the old man’s eyes glisten.
“What’s the Arena?” I ask, seeing the effect it has. I lower my arms, my shoulders aching from the swim, and the old man doesn’t seem to notice.
“He remembers it like it was something out of legend,” the old man says, a wry smile on his lips. “In his mind it’s a huge arena like out of ancient Rome or something. In truth, the Arena was behind a Chinese takeout place; I had an apartment above it. It was a few chairs gathered around a rain-soaked stone. We used to fight there. At least, he used to think we were fighting. I’d use one hand and train him up. Got good, didn’t you, lad?”