“Fine. I can’t lock this door from the outside, so there’s nothing stopping you from leaving. But if you do, I’ll have to come find you. Remember, you’re carrying my kid now.”
He leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
I jump to my feet, lurch to the door, and then grip the handle. Just turn it. Just turn it and get out of here. Go to the police. You don’t know this man. You can’t trust this man. So what if you had one glorious night five weeks ago? What the hell does that prove?
But I don’t leave the room, because I remember all too well the masked man, and Les’ death spasms. And there was something in Roman’s eyes, too, a fierce determination buried within the startling blue, an animal instinct: protect.
I am glad when he returns, five minutes later, robbing me of my choice. I am too tired for choice. He brings in a plate of chicken strips and mashed potato, which I fall on like a starving woman. My hunger beats my nausea aside, kicking it to the curb, and in the space of two short minutes I have devoured the entire plate. Roman watches, impressed, and laughs when I lie back on the bed.
“Thought you were running?” he says.
“Fuck you,” I snarl.
He laughs. “Hate me all you want, as long as you and—as long as you're safe.”
Chapter Ten
Lily
Roman drives us from Summerlin to the west of the Strip. We pull up in the damp summer evening—the thunder and rain has ceased, suddenly and unexpectedly, as it often does—outside a three bedroom house situated on the end of a suburban street which looks as though it should be a million miles away from the Strip, not twenty. Looking down the street, I see kids’ playhouses in the front yards, large sedan cars, yellow lights shining from front rooms into the night.
“Why are we here?” I say. “Moving us into suburbia? I thought you didn’t want to start a family.”
Roman grimaces, but it’s a grimace touched with an amused smile. “It’s a safe house, Miss Sarcasm. I’ve got them dotted all over the place. We’ll hole up here while I continue with my work and you—and you stay safe.”
“I know where we are,” I tell him. “I’ll just drive east back to the Strip, back to my apartment—”
“Back toward the man with a thousand guns?” Roman shakes his head. “I doubt it. Anyway, I’d find you.”
I fold my arms. “I hate you.”
Roman squints at me, searching my expression. “I don’t think you do,” he says. “But if you really want to hate me, go right ahead.”
We stare at each other for few moments, and then I look away. “Let’s just get in the house,” I say.
I’m surprised after I’ve taken a tour of the place. There are a few cobwebs, a thick layer of dust over most surfaces, but other than that it’s a well-furnished, nicely-decorated suburban home. I expected some kind of rat den, some kind of army refuge (or Marine, or criminal, or CIA, I still have no idea and he won’t tell me).
“Where’s my bedroom?” I ask, as we stand on the landing upstairs.
Roman moves close to me as I say that, so close that I have to back up against the wall. My pussy gets hot as he presses his chest up against my body, his hard, rock-hard chest. Memories swirl around my mind, of something else, which was just as rock-hard as his muscles . . . He takes another step, pressing me so hard against the wall that my ass cheeks push flat against it. Then he leans down, a cocky smile on his face. After everything, I welcome the smile. After the death and the fear and the belief that I may die, seeing Roman’s cocky smile is about the sweetest thing there is. He breathes, his breath caressing my face. I close my eyes and let it linger for a while, as I did that night, that night which seems long ago, now.
“I thought we’d share rooms,” he says.
My body screams out for me to accept, roars out at me to throw my arms around him and wrap my legs around him. Back in the store cupboard, at the hospital, I had the same urge. It came over me all at once, as he was standing there with his huge cock dangling down between his legs, visible in the gown. But I fought it then, and I will fight it now. Why? Why fight it? Why not just give into the animal pleasure? I think about how he reacted when I told him about the baby: dismissive; his first instinct to make sure I knew he wasn’t going to be a good father; offering to pay but not offering to care.
“No,” I mutter, placing my hand on his chest and pushing. At first, he’s like stone, immovable, just gazing down at me as I try and push him away. Then he takes a step back.
“Alright,” he says. “Whatever you say, Lily.” He gestures to a room on the right. “That’s the master bedroom. You take it. Get some sleep. I’ll be gone in the morning. I’ll be gone most mornings, actually.”
“Where?” I ask, but he’s already turning away, making his way down the stairs. “Roman, what are you? Government? A criminal? What?”
He stops when he’s halfway down the stairs, but he doesn’t turn around. Moonlight shines in through a window, silhouetting him in the semidarkness. “You know who I am; I’m your baby’s father. There are linens in the closet. Sleep well.”
With that, he paces down the stairs, leaving me to stare after him, wondering why he would say that. Why he would push the idea away and then bring it up like that. Some deranged manipulation technique?
I go into the bedroom, make the bed, and then lie down on my back, gazing up at the ceiling. I no sooner close my eyes that it’s morning. I search the house for Roman. The dust is more obvious now in the morning sunlight, thick layers of it resting on every surface, sometimes piled half-inch high. I search all over the dusty house, but there’s no sign of Roman. I find a laptop, and I’m surprised to find that the place has a working internet service. I access the internet, thinking I’ll check my work email. But then I slam the laptop closed. No, if I do that, I’ll only be tempted to go back . . .
“But that’s good, isn’t it? Use the internet!” I whisper to myself. I’ve searched all the rooms and Roman’s nowhere in sight. “You want to go back; you’re a prisoner. Don’t you want to escape? Of course you do! You want to get the hell out of here! You want nothing to do with this madman!” But then I remember the guns, so many guns, and the cleared-out hospital wing, and the twitching ginger-haired man.
I spend the first few days cleaning the house. I turn on the TV, crank it up loud: cartoons, the news, sitcoms, whatever’s on. I find an old vacuum cleaner under the stairs and some dusters and cleaning spray which looks like it was left here ten years ago, but is still usable. Roman is always gone before I wake up, but he returns around six o’clock and we have dinner together on the dining table, takeout containers laid all around us. Pizza, Chinese, Indian curry, all kinds of treats. The takeout food does wonders for my nausea. Boy or girl, my baby’s going to have an appetite. We don’t say much over dinner, not for the first few days, but Roman brings me little treats. Each day he brings me a red rose, which I add to an ornate glass vase I’ve filled with water. At some point I mention to him that I love chocolate-covered raisins. The next day he brings me a huge bag.
One night, I am cleaning up the table, Roman sitting back in his chair with his eyes closed (muttering to himself so I know he’s going over his day’s work, whatever that is), when a sudden urge comes over me. He just looks so manly sitting there as I clean the table. I’ve never been one of those desperate-for-a-home women, one of those ooh-let-me-get-that-for-you-dear women, but in this instance, I feel it. He sits there, arms behind his head, muscles tight, chest heaving, as I clear away the dishes. It’s almost like we’re a couple. So I drop the dishes and walk around the table. He opens his eyes, looks up at me: turns two glinting blue pearls up at me. Then I drop into his lap with a squeal, rub my ass cheeks against his groin. He moans, brings one hand to my back and grips my thigh with the other. But before it can go anywhere, I jump to my feet, and we go on like nothing happened.
Sometimes I want him so bad I think I might scream. As the next week wears on, I’ll often sit in the front room
with one of the paperbacks I found in the cellar, propped up on the armchair and looking out of the window. I know that I’m technically a prisoner—that Roman said he will come after me if I leave—but as I sit here, half lost in a world of fiction and half lost in a world of waiting, I do not feel captive: captivated, perhaps, but not captive. He’ll pull up in the car, climb out, and walk to the house. A simple series of movements, but a series of movements which become thrilling to me. Arms spread, hands hanging dangerously at his sides, jaw clenched, body tight, yin-and-yang tattoo shifting with the pulsing of his muscle, pacing toward the house with his broad shoulders swaggering from side to side. I imagine myself throwing myself at him when he comes through the door, I see myself naked, I see him taking me all over again.
But then my hand comes to rest on my belly and I remember how he rushed to tell me he was never going to be a good father figure. The lust dies. By the time he has walked through the door, I have turned back to the book. He’ll poke his head in to tell me he’s going to shower and then go to one of the takeout places down the street. I’ll nod, and we’ll go on with our lives: our strange caricatures of suburban drudgery, I should say.
I often wonder about where he is, what he is doing. I ask him several times what his exact job is, but he won’t say. I know it’s something dangerous, something which most likely involves violence. I lean toward government at first, because he has that military look about him, close-cropped hair, square jaw, but then I begin to wonder why a military man would be out here on his own, chasing up leads on his own, without any sign of backup. Why I would be here, and not at some government safe house. So a criminal, then? But what kind of criminal? We get criminals sometimes, in the hospital. None of them are even remotely similar to Roman. Roman is too well-behaved, too disciplined. I wake early some mornings and come downstairs to see him doing his exercises: push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups in the doorframe, shirtless, sweat dripping down his muscles . . . And once, I even creep back upstairs to touch myself, hormones going into overdrive at that oh-so-temping sight.
One night, about three weeks after the hospital, I am feeling angry for no particular reason. I snap at him across the takeout-container-covered table: “So you want nothing to do with our child. Why even bother with me, then?” I honestly can’t explain where this outburst comes from. The question is fair, I think, but the way I say it—my voice harsh and accusing—comes as such a surprise that Roman sits up in his chair, eyebrows shooting up.
“Eh?” he mutters.
If I was picking a fight for no reason, now I have a reason. Eh? Eh? Is that really how he wants to respond to a question like that? A voice in my mind whispers: “Perhaps your pregnancy hormones are flaring and you are angry and now you—” I quiet the voice in my head with my real voice: “You clearly don’t give a damn about me or this baby—you made that quite clear back at the hotel—so why are you keeping us here? What’s the point? I don’t understand. I know; I could leave. But every time I say that, you say you’ll come after me.”
“I will,” Roman says, laying his food aside. “I’d have to. I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“So you want to protect our child when it’s in my belly but once it pops out you want nothing to do with it!” I growl, the anger real now, even if its origins were contrived.
“I said I’d provide for that child, Lily.”
“The child needs a father, not a bucket of fucking cash!” On the last two words, I leap to my feet and slam my fist down on the table. Plastic knives and forks fly to the floor. “Do you know what happens to men without a father figure, Roman? They go fuckin’ insane. They either get way too tough for their own good or way too scared. They never know who they are. They never have any clue. And do you know what happens to girls? Well, I never had a father figure, and let me tell you. They start throwing themselves at any man they can find. That’s right! When she was a teenager, the mother of your child was a whore!” I hardly know what I am saying, the pent-up hormones and confinement storming out of me. “I had a wild stage back then, Roman, because I never had a dad and I just needed someone to latch onto! Oh, I grew out of, but not all girls do!”
“I don’t need to hear this,” Roman mutters.
“Why?” I feign a sarcastic smile, but my lips tremble too much for the sarcasm to be believable. “It’s not like you give a fuck.”
“Of course I give a fuck!” Roman snarls.
I jump back, his voice so loud it cuts through the room, shakes the walls. He jumps to his feet and leaps across the room, at the door, and then punches the wall. His hand disappears into the plasterboard up to his wrist. He stays like that, shaking his head, growling, muttering, and then slowly removes his plasterboard- and blood-covered hand.
“Of course I give a fuck,” he repeats.
Eyes averted, he leaves the room.
I gaze at the wall for several minutes, listening to the sound of Roman stomping up the stairs and throwing himself on his bed, the springs of the mattress and the creak of the floorboards. I gaze at the blood sliding down the wall. And then I wonder . . . What the hell came over me? Why do I care if he cares? Why did I start that? I begin to wonder if I really care for this man, if I care for him so much and so suddenly that I can’t help but want him to care for me with the same intensity.
“No,” I tell myself, turning away from the wall and starting to collect the dishes. “Just hormones. That’s all.”
Chapter Eleven
Roman
“The last time I saw him, I didn’t even really see him. I swear it. We were talking in a dark warehouse, much like this one, actually, yes, yes, much like this one—oh, please, man. I swear to it. We were talking in here about some drug deal I was trying to push. He wasn’t interested. He was wearing a hat pulled down low over his face, and a scarf pulled up high over his face, so only his eyes were visible.”
The man, some half-life scumbag drug dealer named Christopher, is tied to a chair. I’ve zip-tied his wrists behind him, and his ankles to the chair legs. When he moves, as if to shrink away from me, the chair moves with him. He’s forced to stay still unless he wants to topple over. The warehouse is abandoned and cave-like, a stretching cavern of utter darkness. Far away, something drips, echoing endlessly in the high rafters. The smell is of old metal, disused machinery, and dust. I’ve spent the whole damn day searching for Christopher, having heard from Boss that he might have some leads. Boss is getting impatient, but he also understands that Darius is a hard fuckin’ man to find, so he’s helping out a little.
Christopher’s eyes are wide. He looks more like a little boy than a hardened criminal, even with his tribal tattoos and his silver chains and his flat cap, his bushy survivalist’s beard, his chop sideburns. It’s all in the eyes, and in his eyes I see terror. Good.
Far back in my mind, I think of Lily. That’s happening more and more lately. She’s always there, running on one set of tracks whilst reality runs on another. My knuckles still burn from where I punched the wall. Don’t hardly remember doing that. All I remember is that I couldn’t stand the idea of her thinking that I don’t care, ’cause I do damn care. I care a lot. I just . . . fuck, man, how am I supposed to go about making her see that? It’s not like I’ve had much practice.
“Why are you just staring at me?” Christopher asks, his tone that of a desperate beggar.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me something interesting,” I say, reaching into my pocket barehanded and taking it out with a knuckle-duster cradled around my knuckles.
Christopher’s eyes go even wider. “You think Darius deals with a man like me on the fuckin’ regular? Jesus Christ! I met the man a couple of times back in the day—”
“And once four months ago,” I say. “I have that on damn good authority.”
“I’ve told you about that!”
“You met him in a warehouse in the dark. Yeah, I know. And you expect me to believe that a clearly intelligent man like yourself noticed not one thing abo
ut him that might be of use to me? Think back. Details, Christopher. I need details.”
“I don’t know any fucking details! I swear to God, man, you’re lucky I’m in this chair! You’re lucky I’m in this chair! You’re lucky I’m in this goddamn chair—”
I take a knife from my boot. Christopher starts to scream, a high-pitched, pathetic noise, but I don’t cut him; I cut his zip-ties, three quick cuts. Then I stand up, drop my knuckle-duster and knife, and grin at him. “You’re not in the chair anymore, tough man.”
To his credit, he doesn’t fuck around. He’s a big guy, a head taller than me, and packed with muscle and fat. He charges at me, arms wide. Furious, committed, a fuckin’ rookie. I take a step back, aim, jab him in the nose. He reels, swings blindly. I step aside and jab him again. He coughs, blood dripping down his face, his chin, his neck. He swings, big over-arm bearlike swipes. I dodge, and then go to work on his belly, a series of quick, thudding jabs which cause him to slump like a boneless lump of jelly to the floor. I kneel next to him, picking up my knife, and hold it to his throat.
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