The Soldier

by Renee Rose

  Ms. James gives me a broad smile. “No, please.” She beckons with both hands. “Tell me more. I love this show, too.”

  “Well, you’re doing everything right. It’s smart, it’s sexy, it’s fun. The fact that it’s already a cult favorite speaks volumes.”

  “I was kidding, but thank you.” Lottie winks at me. “I like you already, Kayla. Okay, Jenny will give you a tour and introduce you to the cast. They are all coming off a long day of filming, so don’t take it personally if they don’t stay for more than a minute.” She breezes out, leaving me with Jenny.

  “Thank you. I won’t. Again, I’m thrilled to meet you,” I call to her departing back.

  Jenny shows me around the space, pointing out the different sets and the dressing rooms and makeup. I meet the costume crew, the tech crew, and finally each of the actors.

  Ms. James was right, no one has a lot of time for me, but everyone is friendly and welcoming. A half hour later, I’m back outside in the parking lot, waiting for Pavel to pick me up. It all seems too easy. Too perfect.

  I should have known that nothing in this industry works like that.

  I should have known that pretty little not-special actors like me don’t get handed parts out like it’s a high school musical.

  “Looking forward to seeing you on set,” the lead bad boy actor, Brad Lowell says as he walks out with two of the other actors.

  “Thank you so much!” I call out.

  “So what part is she playing again?” Ryanna Jones asks him as they walk away.

  “I don’t know. I guess they created a part for her. She’s Blake Ensign’s niece or something.”

  Blake Ensign’s niece.

  Oh God.

  Oh my fucking God.

  I didn’t get this part. It wasn’t my fantastic audition or my post-play openness or my talent that got me here.

  It was Pavel’s fists.

  Or his gun.

  God, I don’t even know what he did to get me this part.

  Tears blur my eyes as I start speed-walking in my heels and skinny jeans out of the parking lot. I don’t know where I’m going, all I know is that I need to leave. I can’t be here when Pavel arrives. I don’t want to be anywhere near him or this studio at this moment.

  I wish the pavement would crack open and swallow me down.

  I sense rather than see a car pull up beside me.

  “Kayla.” Pavel’s deep voice holds alarm.

  When I keep walking, the tires screech. I still don’t look. I can’t do this right now.

  I just. Can’t.

  A door slams and then Pavel catches me around the waist. “Hold up. Kayla, what happened?” There’s a dangerous edge to his voice, but I know by now it’s not for me.

  I turn and try to shove at his chest. “You happened!” I shout then look around, realizing that making a scene in the parking lot is not going to win me any more points around here. I turn and try to walk away again, but Pavel catches me again, pulling me by the waist until my back hits his front.

  “Hold up.” His voice is soft in my ear. This man never raises his voice. It’s part of that perfect dommy charm, but right now, it infuriates me.

  “Let go of me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, so you do know what you did?”

  He holds me tight but is still. “What happened?”

  “You told me we didn’t lie to each other. You asked for my honesty, but you didn’t give me yours.”

  “I didn’t lie. I’ve never lied to you.”

  “You let me believe I got this job based on a good audition. You didn’t tell me because you knew I wouldn’t like it, Pavel.”

  “Kayla, he offered. We were sweating him, and he threw a job for you in the ring. How could I turn that down? You’ve told me your dreams, malysh. How could I possibly block an opportunity?”

  “Let go of me.”

  Pavel’s arm around me loosens slowly then eventually gives way, and I spin to face him. “It was wrong, Pavel. Beating him up—or whatever you did was wrong. That’s not the way normal people do business.” It’s a low blow considering I pretty much sanctioned it at the time, but everything seems different now. “I don’t want a job that I got because of my connection to the Russian mob. I wanted a job because I was good enough.”

  Pavel spreads his hands. “You are good enough, blossom. You’re twenty times over good enough.”

  I scoff and shake my head. “How would you know? You’ve never even seen me perform.”

  “I just know.” He sounds so sure.

  “No. You know absolutely nothing about my career.”

  And that’s when Ashley’s words come back to me. The promise I made to her.

  This relationship is interfering with my career. Big time.

  It’s definitely clouded my whole life. Turned me upside down and inside out. And my career is far too important to me, far too fragile for me to not have my head in the game.

  “I’m calling red on us.” The moment I speak the words, everything in me goes dead. Like the soundtrack to my life suddenly got cut off. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Pavel shoves his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t speak.

  “You said when I was done, you’d let me go.”

  Pavel’s throat bobs. “Of course.” His voice comes out raspy and hoarse. “Let me drive you home.”

  I want to refuse—to schedule a rideshare instead—but it’s dark out, and I know Pavel won’t leave me here alone. I nod, ignoring the tear that skates down my cheek.

  A cocoon of pain wraps me on the drive home. White noise blaring in my ears, heaviness pushing against my chest. Neither of us speaks.

  Pavel pulls up in front of my apartment and starts to get out.

  “Let me go.” I’m surprised at how clear and firm I sound.

  He shuts his door again.

  I throw mine open and get out. “Goodbye, Pavel.”

  He’s looking straight ahead, both hands on the wheel. He doesn’t answer. As I close the door, I see his lips move and hear the murmur of something soft in Russian.

  Later, I would wish I’d listened. Asked him to translate. But by then, it was too late. He was long gone. He set me free as he promised, and he wasn’t coming back.

  18

  Pavel

  It takes my housemates a couple days to notice that the lights are out inside my head. I’m still eating. Still speaking although not much.

  It wouldn’t be hard to argue that I was dead inside before I met Kayla. Now, there’s no doubt. I don’t allow myself to think. Or to feel. Or to do anything but the most mechanical of actions.

  After I dropped Kayla off that night, I returned the rental car. Flew back to Chicago.

  Found Ravil and told him I was staying. And then I went out on the roof to let the cold bite of an April night soak into my bones. Freezing all my organs exactly in place.

  It’s not until Sasha asks me how the apartment building hunting is going that anything even moves in my chest.

  Not that my heart flopping like a fish on land is anything worth celebrating.

  “The deal is off,” I tell her, without looking away from the television we are all gathered around.

  She hits pause on the Game of Thrones episode. “Wait… what?”

  Dima looks over from his work station, stopping his usual incessant clacking of keys.

  “Turn it back on.” I lift my chin toward the television like I actually care about some dragon queen.

  “Oh my God, what happened?” Sasha gasps.

  Now everyone looks—Nikolai, Oleg, Story, Maxim. Apparently Ravil hadn’t shared my failure with the rest of the suite.

  “Did she break up with you? She found out about the part, didn’t she?”

  The pain I hadn’t allowed myself to feel seeps in through the cuts Sasha makes.

  “Turn it back on.”

  Maxim leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  “I’m sorry, Pavel,” St
ory says softly. Oleg circles his fist over his chest in the sign for sorry.

  “Wait—what Kayla ended things? Is that why you flew back there Monday?”

  I shake my head, shocked by the pain in my chest, my ribs, my gut. “I was wrong for her. It was a bad idea to move out there, anyway. This is for the best.”

  Sasha stands and throws her hands out. “So what, you’re not going to fight for her? You quit just like that? Well, damn, I’m glad I didn’t go into business with you if that’s how you approach challenges.”

  “Sasha,” Maxim warns.

  “Pavel doesn’t quit,” Dima says quietly from his work station. “He’s stubborn as hell.”

  “I don’t keep my women against their will, unlike you mudaks,” I snap.

  Maxim straightens, probably offended, since he kept his bride prisoner here until he tamed her. So did Ravil.

  “There’s a pretty large area between keeping a woman captive and trying to work things out,” Nikolai counters.

  I shake my head. “No. It wasn’t a good match to begin with. It’s better this way.”

  “Really, dude? Because you both seemed pretty smitten when I saw you two together,” Dima says.

  Fresh pain rips through my chest, so sharp I can barely breathe.

  “Pavel, give her some time, but don’t give up. She’s mad that you interfered, right?”

  I drop my head into my hands. “It’s more than that, Sasha.” The sound of Kayla’s hiccuping voice over the phone replays in my head, and I’m suddenly bone tired. “That’s why I won’t fight for her.” I get up and stalk to the penthouse door to go to my room across the hall. “And don’t interfere,” I warn, turning back and pointing a finger at Sasha.

  “You’re an asshole, Pavel,” Sasha calls as I shut the door.

  No argument here. I stalk to my room and stand at the window that overlooks the city. I’m definitely an asshole. Why I thought I could navigate a relationship when I literally know nothing about keeping a woman happy is beyond me.

  All I know how to do is hurt people. That is literally what I do for a living. What I did for Kayla. What we had wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t right, either. I don’t know how to love. How to heal the scars this life has given me. I thought maybe I could with Kayla, but that was just a fantasy.

  Maybe if I’d learned faster. If I’d talked more. If only I’d told her sooner that I planned to move out there with her, maybe we’d have a more solid base when I broke her trust. Maybe she wouldn’t have fallen so hard when I left at the end of the weekend. A submissive needs to feel safe, but I didn’t give her much to hold on to. It’s no wonder her roommates didn’t like the relationship. It’s no wonder she threw in the towel at the first bump in the road.

  One thing I do know now—me moving back to Russia wouldn’t fix anything for my mom, either. I’m too broken to heal her. She doesn’t need my physical protection anymore. No one’s coming after her but her own shadows. She needs help from people who do know how to love. How to give and share and be happy.

  I get on my phone and book a ticket. I’m going to go back to Russia to get her and bring her back here to the Kremlin. It’s one thing I can do that might be right.

  Kayla

  On Saturday the surge of righteousness and determination I rode since my break-up dissolves, and I’m left gutted and empty. The knowledge that Pavel won’t be coming this weekend, or any weekend in the future, unravels the last bit of certainty I had that I was doing the right thing.

  I force myself to get out of the house for fear I’d stay in bed all day, but of course, when I set off on a walk, all I can think of is the incredible sweetness of Pavel coaxing me outside to look for beautiful things.

  I try it for myself now to combat the approaching tears.

  The only problem is that everything beautiful I see I want to report back to him.

  My phone rings, and I jerk it out of my pocket. Not because I hope it’s Pavel. I know better than to hope that. He made it clear he would let me go when I asked him to.

  It’s Sasha. She’s been calling for the last few days, but I haven’t taken her calls. I haven’t even listened to her messages because I didn’t want her to change my mind.

  Now though?

  It’s already changing.

  I answer. “Hey, you.” I sound ancient. Tired.

  “Kayla, what the hell? Are you okay? Why haven’t you called me back?”

  I want to ask about Pavel. A million things. But I can’t. So instead, I squeeze my eyes closed to keep the tears from coming out.

  “Are you okay?” Sasha’s voice is quieter. “What happened? Please talk to me. I’m so worried.”

  “Did you know?” I ask, tears clogging my throat.

  “That you broke up? Yes.”

  “No, about the part. Did you know?”

  “Oh. Well, I suspected, yes. I mean, he is Pavel. He makes men piss themselves and weep for their mothers.”

  “Did he tell you what they did?” my voice raises. I don’t know why I’m mad at Sasha right now, but I am.

  “No, of course not,” she says immediately. “They don’t tell me anything. That would make me an accessory.”

  The green-eyed monster settles down.

  “How could I be so naive? I thought I got that part on my own.”

  “Who cares how you got the part, Kayla?” Sasha protests. “It’s always who you know in show business. You know that. That’s why you’ve been working those promotions—hoping to get out there and meet the right people. Well, the right person got behind you this time. It doesn’t matter why.”

  “It does matter. I thought I was good enough to do this, and now...” —I choke back a sob— “...now, I know I’m not.”

  “Bologna,” Sasha says, making the word sound cute in her accent. “You are good enough. Pavel got you the part, now you do the rest. Show them how great you are. Get yourself the next part all on your own. Don’t you dare walk away from that part, or I will fly over there and kick your ass myself.”

  “I wasn’t going to walk away from it,” I sniff. “I wanted to be that proud, but I couldn’t bring myself to make that call.” I think of the other call I’ve been burning to make. “I think I overreacted with Pavel.”

  “You did. I mean, I’m sure there are many things I don’t understand about your relationship, but I do know the guy was ready to move out there to be with you. I mean, he was head over heels in love, Kayla. I don’t see why you’d throw that away so easily.”

  My knees go weak, and I drop onto a park bench. “He was ready to move out here?”

  “Yes! We were going to finance his real estate venture out there. He was working on a plan.”

  Hope skids across my chest and then flares to life like a match strike. All the desperation that’s crowded in this week starts to lift.

  He was going to move here. He wanted to be with me full time.

  And I ended things. Oh God, I made such a terrible mistake. The totality of it comes crashing down on me from every side.

  “I gotta go, Sasha.” I rise to my feet, a surge of adrenaline suddenly running through me. “Thanks for calling.” I hang up before she can answer and dial Pavel as I walk swiftly toward my apartment.

  He doesn’t answer.

  Dammit.

  I end the call, then change my mind and call back to leave a message.

  “Pavel?” I croak into the phone. I’ve reached the front of my apartment building, and I stand in front of the planter I’d never noticed until he made me look for beautiful things.

  That’s the thing with relationships, too. Just like life. Whatever you look for, is what you see. When you look for beauty, you find it. When you look for problems, you can discover those, too. What Pavel and I had was something unusual. Special.

  I finger one of the leaves now. “I’m sorry. I, um, I probably overreacted about the part. Can we talk?” I hang up, my heart pounding.

  I go up to my apartment, which I thankfully have to
myself for once. I pace around the living room for the next hour, but he doesn’t return my call.

  Gah.

  What do I do now? I send the same message as a text.

  Still no reply.

  I wait another hour and try to call again, knowing I’m acting desperate and not caring. Hell, I am desperate.

  I threw away my relationship with Pavel because it wasn’t normal. It didn’t fit in a pretty box that could be tied up with a bow. It wasn’t a romance novel relationship. My friends didn’t understand it. It challenged my moral compass.

  None of that has changed. I don't know how to fix all those things. But what I do know is that I want it back. I want Pavel in my life. I want to soften his edges and draw strength from his hardness. I want him in my corner, backing me up, protecting me, making me swoon with his soft, dommy commands.

  Pavel doesn’t answer, so I try leaving another message. “Pavel?” I can’t stop the tears, and I don’t try. “I’m sorry I ended things. Please, can we talk? I was so muddled; I had sub-drop that day, so my emotions were out of whack, and Sheri had made me promise that morning not to let the relationship interfere with my career, so I guess when it did, I just overreacted. Can you call me back, please?”

  He still doesn’t return my call.

  I try seven more times, and finally, at midnight Chicago time, I text Sasha to ask if Pavel’s around.

  Her reply shreds me: He’s gone. He went to Russia.

  I sink to the floor and sob.

  I lost him.

  I had him—he was going to move here to be with me—and I ruined it. He was so sure he was bad for me that the moment I agreed, he backed off. He backed off so far, he left the country.

  I drop my forehead to my knees and cry for the man who holds my heart. The man I love.

  The man I lost.

  19

  Pavel

  When I arrive back in the States with my mother, I see all the messages from Kayla, but I don’t listen to them. I can’t bear to.