by Tessi, Zoya
“You can’t keep me locked up here like a prisoner!”
“Take some of those gossip magazines to read and time will just fly by. It’s for your own good, Princess.”
“Screw you. Stop calling me that!” I shouted and thundered to my room.
Slamming the door behind me, I went to sit on the side of the bed, all the while asking myself what on earth was going on. One moment he was holding me tenderly, and then next he seemed hell bent on driving me nuts. Irritated, I grabbed a pillow and sank my face into it, letting out a loud but muffled scream. Feeling at least a little better, I let myself lie flat on the bed and looked over to the window, wondering whether I might be the irrational one after all.
This is not normal...
I’d never been so attracted to someone that I’d gone off the rails and acted stupid. Nor had anyone ever made me so angry. The fact that Alex worked for my father was really just the icing on a cake made from all the worst possible ingredients; he was ill mannered, rude, stubborn, aggressive, morose and arrogant. And even if I hated when anyone called me Princess, I literally melted every time when Alex did.
“You need to sort yourself out, girl, or you’ll go cuckoo,” I mumbled and covered my head with the quilt.
Maybe it’s unusual for a girl, but I had a pretty good collection of sci-fi books on my shelf and eventually I spent some time re-reading one of them. It didn’t hold my interest for more than a couple of hours and I decided to zone out with a movie instead. I found ‘Die Hard’ still on my laptop, so I watched that from start to finish. Bruce outwitted the bad guys yet again and near the end, when the bombs started going off, I almost turned up the volume so as to wake Alex. I thought better of it, though. No matter how irritating he might be, he had spent the whole night watching over me. When the final credits started rolling, I heard my stomach growl and realized that hunger was most definitely at my door.
I went to the kitchen and took some bread out of the cupboard, reached over for a tub of jelly on the counter top and froze. The next moment, before I could catch it in my throat, I let out a loud high-pitched scream.
There, near my hand, was the biggest cockroach I’d ever seen. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere, either.
Hearing footsteps from behind me , I turned and almost screamed for a second time. With a knife gripped in one hand, Alex was poised in the doorway, ready to attack and looking mean. The pose didn’t hold for long, maybe only a fraction of a second after he realized there wasn’t any danger, and then all his muscles relaxed at once.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“I... I was hungry, and I saw...”
I felt ashamed when I realized I’d acted like such a sissy over a bug. With a hangdog expression, I regarded Alex in silence for a few moments, while he stood waiting for an answer.
“A cockroach.”
“What?” he asked in disbelief.
“A cockroach. A big ugly black one.” I bent my head and pointed my finger over to the sink.
“A bug ? Jesus! I’d thought they’d come for you or some shit.”
“I'm sorry, I didn’t mean to get you in here, but… since you are, can you kill it? I mean, you’re here now…”
He cursed loudly and raised one arm, then brought it down fiercely, sending something whistling through the air towards me, its progress ending in a sharp snap. I jerked reflexively and looked in his direction to find that he wasn’t moving any more. Turning back to the cockroach, I saw his slick knife buried first through the bug and then into the counter.
Approaching in a hurry, Alex pulled it out by the handle, complete with the bug, which he scraped off on the rim of the trashcan. After that, offering no further explanations he just left the room, weapon in hand. With my mouth open in disbelief, I could only stare at the mark on the surface where the roach had been. I stood for a full five minutes like that.
The first wave of shock having passed, I left the kitchen and balled my hands into fists, determined to find Alex and give him a piece of my mind. I found him smoking on the balcony, still just in his sweat pants, his legs up on the small, wooden table. He noticed me watching, put his smoke out in the ashtray, and turned to me, looking nonplussed.
“What are you, some circus freak and me your assistant?” I yelled. “You could have killed me in there!”
He didn’t grace me with an answer, but raised his pierced eyebrow in genuine disbelief, like I’ve just said something utterly stupid. Then he rolled his eyes and looked over towards the building next to ours.
“Hey, I'm talking to you. Don’t ignore me.”
“And don’t you scream for every nonsense thing!” he shot back at me. “You asked me to kill that deadly beast of a cockroach. Good job too, they can be bloodthirsty little bastards. Probably would have had your arm off pretty soon. They’re ferocious predators, roaches. Why are you complaining?”
“You could have just whacked it with a shoe or something…”
“I was barefoot... I used what was to hand...” he explained, sounding ultimately quite rational.
“What? Don’t you think you need to see a psychiatrist?”
“An interesting suggestion... coming from someone who had us sleep in the hallway…”
I felt like someone had poured iced water over my head and like a child, felt my lower lip tremble ever so slightly.
“That was low...” I whispered and turned to leave.
I didn’t want to be near him a moment longer, and even less to show him that he’d hurt me. I hadn’t even reached the door when he appeared in front of me and reached for my hand.
”You're right,” he said quietly. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
“Back off!” I tried to take out my hand from his, but he held it there.
“I'm sorry. I mean it...” he gently drew me to him, reached his arms around my waist and made me turn to him.
“I want to go…” I started hitting his chest but quickly realized he wouldn’t release me in the state I was in. “Let go of me now…” I tried once more.
“Shhhh... there’s no need to fight me. I said a stupid thing and I’m sorry. I just want to know that we’re OK.”
“You have three seconds to let me go, or I’ll scream. I'm serious.”
“Why don’t you think I’m serious too?” he smiled a little. “And believe me when I tell you that you won’t scream.”
“Just watch me! One... Two...” I jerked a few more times without effect, “Three...”
He was right. I didn’t scream. Whether I meant to or not, I couldn’t because he pulled me close to him and pressed his lips against mine. I stopped breathing, feeling something that was way beyond surprise. My brain rebelled only once, calling to me from a distance that this would be the moment to kick out and wriggle free. My body didn’t listen. All my anger dissolved, and I was filled with another emotion. I felt complete.
I forgot everything else and was conscious only of Alex’s lips on mine. Feeling his warm tongue gently touch against my own, I pressed myself even closer and wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. It was like floating high above the clouds and I was sure I’d never felt a sensation like it. Feeling his mouth slowly move away from mine, I opened my eyes to look at him.
“No more idle threats about screaming the house down,” he said and moved back a step. “Drawing attention is not a very good idea in current situation.”
With those words, he sat back on his chair and took a cigarette out of its pack, as if nothing at all had happened. Speechless, I stamped one foot on the ground, probably looking like a schoolgirl, turned on my heels and ran to my room.
Standing at the window and staring down, I watched the trees sway against the strong wind howling through the streets. It looked like another storm was on its way, one not unlike the whirlwind of emotions raging in my head at that moment. I lifted my arm to press my lips against it and shut my eyes.
Anger coursed through my veins like electricity and I wanted to smash th
ings up, but not because he’d dared to kiss me. It was myself I was angry with, because I’d liked it so much. And because I wanted more.
***
Curled up on the couch in the lounge, I was watching TV and literally devouring a cheese sandwich, which was the only thing I could manage to fix from what was left in the fridge. It had taken a couple of hours for me to get over the cockroach incident and put any food in my mouth. It would probably take a lot longer for me to get over the day’s other events. Finishing off the last crumbs, I pulled a nail polish from a drawer and started doing my toes.
Almost done applying the second coat, I heard the door open and watched from the corner of my eye as Alex approached and took a seat on the other side of the couch.
“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you mean” I replied, not looking up from my feet resting against the edge of the table.
“Green, I mean, I would have expected pink...”
“Well, that’s me... Green nails... Sleeping in weird places... A real basket case...” I hoped it sounded sarcastic.
“I apologized for that.”
“Oh, forget it...”
“Why are you doing that?”
“Painting my nails?“ I threw a condescending look in his direction.
“Sleeping in the hall? It hasn’t happened before, so far as I know. Why last night? Bad dreams or something?”
“Something like that.”
“Like what?”
“I had a panic attack. There.” I breathed the words out heavily. “And I don’t want to talk about it, OK?”
“Maybe you should... To face your fears, you first have to admit what it is you're afraid of. That’s also the hardest part, though.”
“And you feel you’re the right person for me to bear my soul to?”
”Probably not, but I am the only one here. And I’m a very good listener too,” he leaned toward me, put a hand under my chin and forced me to look him in the eyes. “Tell me what’s upsetting you Princess.”
From his touch and his closeness, the now familiar burning feeling rose up through my body. Alex was the last person I wanted to open my heart to, but probably the only one who could hear the whole truth. Before I realized it was happening, words came pouring out on their own.
“Two years ago I was with my mom in Paris. For months I’d been begging her to take me to the Louvre, but Nikolai didn’t want to hear anything about it. He said it was too dangerous, like he was some real paranoid freak. In the end I talked her into taking me in secret, ‘cause what the hell could happen in one weekend, right?”
I shook my head and stared at nail polish on the table, feelings of guilt, remorse and something much darker welling up inside me as I tried to keep them all under control. Alex's hand came to rest on mine and I looked up to find him watching me carefully, as if expecting me to spring up and dash to my room at any moment. It obviously wasn’t clear to him either, why I’d decided to tell him my story.
“The evening before we were due to leave France there was a storm, so we decided to stay in the hotel. I went down to the shop in reception to buy a souvenir, and I couldn’t have been gone more than fifteen minutes, really. When I got back to the room, all the lights were out, so it was pitch black. I thought a fuse must have blown and that mom had gone to look for a maid, or someone to fix it. The doors to the balcony were open wide, which was real strange ‘cause rain was blowing into the room and soaking the curtains. So what I did first was, I hurried over to close them.”
Feeling his eyes bore into me with their intensity, I had to get up from the couch. Pushing my hands deep into the pockets of my pants, I started pacing up and down the room, not looking in his direction.
“… and then I found her, you know? She was lying still on the floor, and the carpet all around her was soaked in blood and it was on my hands. I don’t know what happened after that, only that I started screaming and then soon after I was home again, in my room. Everything in between’s a blank... I was probably in shock or whatever,” I shrugged my shoulders, sat on the couch next to Alex and breathed out very slowly.
“Since then, I fly into a panic when there’s a storm outside and I see lightening. Like last night. It all comes back... like it’s all happening again. Like I have to relive it. That’s why I went to the hallway. There aren’t any windows and...” I mumbled and turned my attention to the TV because I didn’t feel there was any more to say.
Without any warning, Alex reached out an arm and pulled me closer wrapping it around my shoulders. With his other hand he started to stroke my hair and I let myself move further towards his lap.
“Nikolai told me what happened to your mom, but I didn’t know you were the one who found her.” he said quietly.
It was hard to believe that I’d finally told my story, and a huge sense of relief came over me at that moment, like a great weight had been lifted from my mind. As I willed my breathing to return to normal, some part of my consciousness longed to spend the whole night wrapped in Alex’s warmth, letting his strength push away the grief that still pressed hard upon my chest.
After some time had passed, I worried that I might be resting too heavily against him, and though I really didn’t want to, I moved away and brought my knees up to my chest. Alex didn’t make any moves to stop me, but went on staring at the screen, seemingly lost in some shadowy thoughts of his own.
“Well...” I found myself trying to break the silence, “now you know all of my secrets, you should share some too.”
“Do I have to?”
From the look on his face, it was obvious he didn’t like the direction our conversation was going. When I looked at him, it seemed like I might not really want answers to the questions in my head either. I guess curiosity was too powerful a force and I suppressed my inner warnings to keep quiet. It was time to wake some sleeping dogs.
“What exactly do you do for my father?”
“You mean, besides playing the babysitter when necessary?” he looked at me askance.
“Exactly.”
It was obvious my question had caught him off guard from the way he took a deep breath and looked over towards the window. Carefully, I observed his sharp profile and saw him hesitate. It seemed he was trying to find a way to answer me without revealing anything. He surely didn’t suppose that I was naïve about Nikolai’s dealings.
“I supervise some part of the work, and you might say I make sure certain deals don’t go wrong.” he said finally.
I looked at him through narrowed eyes and thought for a moment, realizing maybe for the first time that Alex really didn’t seem like a standard bodyguard, all muscles and zero gray cells. Oh, no... he was far from that. The way he scanned a room when he entered, sizing up new people, you could almost see little wheels turning in his brain, analyzing everyone and everything around, as if only a glance was enough to tell him everything he needed to know.
“Interesting. How come he sent you to protect me? He could have sent anyone.”
“Probably because he trusts me more than anyone else.”
“That doesn’t sound like Nikolai. With so many men who’ve worked for him for years... decades even... he had a reason for sending you. How could he be so sure that you’re loyal when you haven’t been with him very long?”
“You'd have to ask him, Princess,” he’d clearly started losing patience, “Are you wondering whether I can be trusted, or am I imagining it?”
“No... I was only saying. No need to get offended.”.
“Good.” he took the remote and started flicking through the channels, but it was obvious from his mouth that he didn’t like my observation at all.
“Well...” I continued, “how come you never carry a gun? I mean, given that you’re now my protector, I’d have thought you’d have one all the time.”
Sighing like he might have heard this question a thousand times, he bent down to raise one leg on his sweatpants half way up his calf m
uscle. There was a narrow black strap holding two knives identical to the one he’d nailed the roach with. They were smaller than the one Vova used to carry, but looked much deadlier, if anything.
“You see... there’s nothing to worry about,” he clenched his jaw and pulled his sweatpants back down.
Holly shit! He is crazy. He is really crazy. Probably crazier than Vova. No sane person would sit in front of TV armed to the teeth.
“Well...OK. That’s nice. I guess... that’s just for wearing around the house...” I waved a hand in the direction of his ankles.
“Guns tend to be too loud indoors.”
“I see... very good... now I’m feeling a lot better... “ I shivered once and pulled a cushion from the couch close to my chest.
Great. I’m living with a madman.
“Women... impossible to please...“ he remarked and turned his attention to a movie that was about to start.
I pretended to be engrossed in the movie on the screen. It was some made-for-TV from the eighties, but I actually couldn’t follow the action. Secretly, I watched Alex as he sat buried in the couch, one leg bent over a knee, his arms resting along the back and his bare feet showing beneath his sweat pants. Relaxed as he seemed, there was still something about his posture that said you’d be wise not to turn your back on him.
It wasn’t that I felt afraid for my safety any more. The fact that Nikolai had chosen him meant I wouldn’t be harmed while he was around. More worrying was the amount of damage he might do around, especially if anyone gave him a reason to get angry.
The memory of the fight behind the club was still fresh in my mind, and hadn’t got any less shocking. I knew how good Tyler was with his fists and that even with three guys on him he’d come out on top. Alex had beaten him with one punch and that was a frightening thought. What might he really be capable of, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
I fidgeted nervously, wondering what his job for Nikolai really involved. ‘Making sure deals didn’t go wrong’ explained almost nothing. I’d been consciously avoiding one thought, but it rose to the surface insistently now.