Promise Me Forever (Top Shelf Romance)

by Kate Stewart

  I’m back in Massachusetts. My mind is too fragile right now to accept that. So I tell myself it isn’t real. That none of this is real. But even so, my lips repeat the words again.

  “I’m not going back to Boston.”

  Alexei gives me a curious look, but does not answer. And so I am satisfied with his silence. My thoughts slip away into the cavernous spaces of my brain and I just watch. The rolling expanse of trees outside of the window are an explosion of colors to my dull eyes. It is Autumn. And this is how I know Alexei’s words are true. There is nothing like Massachusetts in Autumn.

  But it’s not real. And I’m not here.

  The drive is long and quiet. Almost to Alexei means over more than an hour. I just watch the scenery fly by outside the window until my eyes hurt too much and I have to rest them again.

  When we finally arrive at our destination, comfort surrounds me. The house is a fortress in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but wilderness. I am away from the people. Away from everything. Everything but him.

  The car pulls to a stop and I try to get out on my own. I realize soon after that my legs don’t work. Alexei heaves me up into his arms like a child and carries me inside. He’s wearing a soft blue sweater that rubs against my face with every step. It smells like him. Like oak and cloves. And cognac too.

  He leads me through a series of halls and rooms before we reach his destination. I don’t have time to absorb the details of the house in the time it takes for him to open the door and set me onto a bed. A real bed, with two mattresses and a frame.

  The softness is alien to my body, and everything about this room overwhelms me. I have lived in darkness so long, and this room is bright. The curtains are drawn back, sunlight spilling across the floor. I want to shut them. To stay in the darkness. But I don’t move.

  My eyes roam over the room, taking it all in. There’s a bookcase, stuffed with books. And a table with art supplies. An oversized chair next to the window. Rich colors and cold stone walls. It is too big, and still too small. And it all caves in on me.

  I claw at my throat, feeling claustrophobic, but stop when Alexei calls out to someone in Russian. When I flinch, he steps in front of me and frowns. And then an older woman enters the room with a flourish. She gives a little smile and bow, her eyes darting straight to me.

  She is older than Karolina. And she does not look at me the way that Karolina did. She has soft brown eyes and dark hair speckled with grays. She wears it in a bun, and an apron covers her floral dress. If I had a grandmother, I imagine this is what she might look like.

  “Talia, this is Magda,” Alexei tells me. “She keeps the house in order.”

  I frown and move my attention back to him. Because he said my name. And I never told him my name. I’m confused and my head hurts, so I rub my temples. I haven’t had a pill in a long time, I realize. Not even half of a pill. And everything hurts.

  I need at least half a pill, to keep the numbness. And the rest I can save. I wonder how many Alexei will give me, now that he knows my secret. It worries me, but I don’t have time to consider it.

  Magda steps in front of me, giving me a small sympathetic smile. “Hello, Talia,” she greets me in English, though her accent is very much Russian.

  I stare blankly at her.

  Alexei clips out a few short sentences in Russian and then moves towards the door. But before he goes, he stops, his gaze drifting back to me.

  “Remove anything sharp from the wash room,” he tells Magda. “And no baths either.”

  Magda frowns at me, but nods. And then Alexei leaves. I’m still staring at the door when Magda takes me by my hand and leads me to the walk in closet.

  “There are clothes in here,” she says. “So you can choose what you like, until…”

  I don’t hear the rest of her words. I stare at the clothes but don’t touch them. There’s too many. Too many colors. That claustrophobic feeling is back, so I move away from them, bumping into the wall.

  “Miss Talia?” Magda asks, concern evident in her voice. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”

  I shake my head.

  “Very well.” She nods. “Mr. Nikolaev wants you to get cleaned up. There is a shower you can use, and I’ll be right outside if you need some assistance.”

  She leads me towards the door of the adjoining bathroom, but I halt before I step inside.

  “Miss Talia?”

  I can’t look at her when I speak. I can’t allow her to see that the numbness is slipping away again.

  “Is there a mirror?” I ask.

  “Yes, of course,” she answers. “I will show you.”

  “I don’t want to see.”

  The room is quiet. She’s considering my words. And then she slips away, returning a few moments later.

  “There,” she says. “I have covered it over. No more mirror.”

  This time, I let her lead me inside. The bathroom is large, and like everything else, overwhelming. But when my eyes move to the bathtub, there’s a sense of familiarity and longing. The same lyrics begin to play through my mind. My mother’s voice. Angels in the morning. Four angels. And me, too.

  Soon…

  “No baths,” Magda destroys my reality with two simple words.

  She urges me towards the shower and turns it on for me. And then I watch her remove the razors and anything else I might hurt myself with.

  “Once you have washed, I will tend to your wounds,” Magda states.

  And with that, she takes a seat in the chair across the bathroom where she can reach me quickly if she needs to. It only confirms that thought echoing through my head.

  This man is never going to let me go.

  Chapter Six

  Talia

  I take my time in the shower, letting my sore muscles soak up the warmth. I cannot remember the last time I felt hot water on my skin. When Karolina bathed me, she spared me no luxuries.

  There are a lot of toiletries in this shower. The choices overwhelm me, and pressure builds behind my eyes. The numbness is slipping away from me, and pain is taking a greedy hold of my body and mind. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this.

  I just want to be free. Like them. Like my family.

  But he won’t let me.

  I reach for a bottle without checking the label and use it on every part of my body. I keep squirting the flowery scented gel into my hands and washing, over and over, but I never get clean. When I blink my eyes open, my skin is raw and I’m shivering.

  “That’ll do,” Magda tells me, appearing outside the door with a towel. “You’ve scrubbed too hard.”

  When I step outside, my knees nearly buckle. Magda grabs me by the arm and helps me to the chair across the room. She wraps the fluffy towel around me, but it doesn’t help. I’m still shivering. It’s getting worse.

  “Miss Talia, are you alright?”

  “I n-n-need a pill.” My teeth clack together.

  She shakes her head and frowns. “No pills. It will pass.”

  “It won’t,” I argue.

  She ignores me and gathers a few items from the cabinet before she makes her way back to me. She starts to dab at my wounds. Her touch is gentle, but it feels like fire on my skin. I cry out everywhere she touches, and the pain is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

  “It hurts,” I tell her. “It hurts so much.”

  I know something’s wrong when I blurt those words. My pain tolerance is high. Usually, I can dissociate. Float away to somewhere else. But not now. My heart is racing. I’m sweating. And the room is spinning.

  “Give me something,” I beg. “Anything.”

  Magda presses her hand to my forehead and grimaces. “You’re burning up.”

  She opens a bottle of Tylenol and hands me two. Instinctively, I know they aren’t what I need. But I take them anyway and wash them down with the glass of water that she hands me. And then I promptly heave myself over the toilet and vomit them back up a moment later.

/>   This is when Alexei reappears, frowning at the scene before him. I’m sprawled out on the tile floor, naked and shivering as my brain spews words out of my mouth.

  “Just let me die!” I scream. “Give me something. Anything. End it. Please.”

  I’m crying. For the first time in too long to remember. There’s no numbness, no comfort for me. I feel everything now. Even the weight of his concerned gaze as I writhe on the floor. I don’t want his concern. I want his mercy.

  He takes four quick steps and kneels down to scoop me up into his arms. He clips out something in Russian to Magda before she scurries out of the room to do his bidding.

  “You are going through withdrawal,” he tells me. “It will pass.”

  I shake my head and sob into his chest. “I can’t. I can’t do it. Please…”

  “You can and you will.”

  His voice leaves little question. He’s sending me straight to hell.

  And then we’re moving. He carries me into the other room and places me into the bed which Magda has prepared just now. The covers are folded down to the end, and he gingerly places only the sheet over my skin. It still feels like knives, so I kick it off, and he doesn’t argue.

  “The doctor will be here soon,” he tells me. “It won’t last forever, Solnyshko.”

  “I hate you!” I scream in a demonic voice.

  He flinches, and it surprises me. There is something on his face that looks familiar. Pain. It hurts him to look at me this way. It hurts him to hear those words. The fucked up part of my brain latches onto that information and takes note of it before he gives me one last glance and then leaves the room.

  Magda sets a glass of water on the nightstand and smooths back the tangled hair in my face the way that I’ve seen mothers do to their children. Not mine. Mine kept us locked away where we couldn’t disturb her.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and tell Magda to stop. She does.

  “It’s okay, child,” she murmurs. “Everything will be okay now. Mr. Nikolaev will take very good care of you. You are safe here.”

  Her kind words anger me and I want to tell her so. I want to tell her that she’s a liar. That you are never safe. That you can never count on anyone to protect you. Only yourself. And even then, you will fail. But I don’t say anything. Because another sharp jolt of pain seizes my body and I flop onto my side and curl up in a ball.

  “Try to get some rest,” she tells me in a soothing voice. “I will be right here.”

  I hear her soft footfalls move to the chair by the window, and a weak thought enters my mind. Even though I lashed out at her, I am grateful that she is there. Because if I’m going to hell, at least I won’t be going alone.

  Pain.

  I understand now that the word truly meant nothing to me before. The thing I thought I knew well was merely a shadow of the demon that courts me now. Howling inside of me, clawing at my insides, desperate for more poison. My body is at the mercy of this demon. The sanctuary inside my head no longer exists. Nothing exists. Only the pain. The want. And the demon I cannot control.

  I continue to beg Magda to end it for me. To kill me. I say horrific things that I didn’t even know I was capable of. At one point, I hear her sniffling from her chair across the room.

  I think I black out for a while. Everything is fuzzy when I wake, and Magda is shaking me.

  “Miss Talia,” she says, “This is Dr. Shtein. She is here to give you an exam.”

  A groan is my only answer. I can’t move. I can’t even see anything but the fuzzy figure of a woman hovering over me.

  “She isn’t going to hurt you,” Magda says gently. “Just making sure you are alright. It won’t take long.”

  The poking and prodding that takes place over the next twenty minutes barely registers. The pain is gone, and now there is only exhaustion. I think I’m hallucinating too. My limbs don’t feel like my own as she lifts them and examines every inch of me. I’m still naked. But there is no shame anymore. There is nothing.

  The numbness is starting to return, and I am grateful. Magda and the doctor speak in murmured Russian and then Magda translates to me.

  “She will give you something for the pain. Something to help with the withdrawal.”

  The pain is gone, but I don’t argue. I’ll take anything I can get.

  “It will be back,” Magda adds. “She says this is normal. This liquid will help you.”

  They help me sit up long enough to ingest whatever it is they are giving me. And then I flop back onto my pillow, my eyes rolling up towards the ceiling.

  “She needs to do a vaginal exam as well,” Magda says.

  There is a note of concern in her voice. As though I might react unfavorably. There is nothing they can do that is worse than what’s already been done. My body has not been my own in so long, I don’t remember anything else. So I keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling and come up with a new number in my head. Thirty. I will give myself thirty days to find another way. By then, Alexei will let his guard down. I will convince him I am better.

  There’s a snap of latex gloves, and then an instrument inside of me. It doesn’t hurt. But then the doctor is moving the IUD around inside of me, and I cringe at the sensation. Arman had it placed when he purchased me.

  Dr. Shtein murmurs something in Russian, and her and Magda talk quietly for a few moments, coming to some sort of conclusion. And then Magda squeezes my hand tighter and says something in English that I don’t hear.

  Something shifts inside of me, and then the Doctor pulls away and pats me on the leg. Magda covers the lower half of me over while the doctor prepares for something else. My eyes fall shut, and a needle enters my arm.

  “A blood test,” Magda explains.

  When that part is over, Magda covers me completely.

  “You did very well.” She pats my hand encouragingly.

  I don’t want her to be kind to me. I don’t want any of this. Those are the last things I tell myself before I fall asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Alexei

  I’m pouring over the reports on the computer screen when Franco taps on my desk to get my attention. I glance up at him through bleary eyes.

  “You needed me?” he asks.

  I nod and use the remote to pull up the information I’ve retrieved on the monitors across the wall. Franco turns to examine the faces on the screen as well as the names and addresses beneath them.

  “What is this about?” he inquires.

  Another click brings up the screenshots of the bets I flagged a month ago. While Viktor does not trouble himself with what kind of bets make him money, I do. There are certain things in this life even I will not abide by.

  “They are running a sports bet under a false category.”

  I bring up the images of the illegal dog fighting ring I uncovered, and Franco doesn’t ask further questions, except for the most important one.

  “What would you like?”

  “Make theirs a double.” I point at the men to the left. One in the head, one in the heart. “And then bring Abbott to me.”

  Franco nods, but before he goes, he gestures to the monitors again.

  “Nikolai is waiting for you downstairs.”

  My fingers contract around the glass of cognac in my hand as I flip over to the house cameras and observe him on the screen.

  “What does he want?”

  “To speak with you,” Franco replies vaguely. And then he leaves the room, allowing my rage to consume me in peace.

  I temper it with the rest of my drink before I am calm enough to face him. My half-brother, Nikolai. Though we do not carry the same surname. My father’s shame of me was too great to allow such a thing. So I carry the name Nikolaev of my dead mother’s heritage, while he carries our father’s name Kozlov. It is fortunate for my father that we look nothing alike, to avoid speculation. His greatest fear is that the truth will be revealed to his brothers in the Vory. That they would know he has a son who is defective. Nikolai is his pride
and joy, and I am nothing.

  When I reach the sitting room, Nikolai is waiting for me, hands folded in his lap. He has fairer hair and complexion than I do, and when I meet his gaze, his eyes are an exact replica of my fathers.

  “Is this a business visit?” I ask.

  “Yes.” He stands up and extends his hand, which I ignore.

  I gesture to the bar across the room. “Help yourself to my drinks if you like. As you do everything else.”

  The insult does not go unnoticed, but he ignores it. Viktor is unaware of the tension between us, and this is the only reason I allow his presence in my home. He has only been here one other time since the incident six months ago, and then he left with a broken arm and a blackened face. If Viktor had been aware of the incident, Nikolai would be lucky to escape with the loss of a few appendages at best.

  But despite the bitter rivalry between us, he is my brother. And he has never dared to share my secret to the Vory or anyone else who could easily use it to their advantage. For that reason alone, I feel I owe him the same courtesy.

  “Anatoly sent me to inquire of a good date for an engagement party,” Nikolai states.

  “Then this was a wasted trip,” I inform him. “You should know that.”

  “I have no excuses to give for my actions,” Nikolai tells me. “It was a mistake, Lyoshenka. I know I deserve to die for what I have done to you. And sometimes, I wish you would tell them. Tell them the truth. I don’t want to carry on this way. I want to repair the damage I have done. So please tell me how.”

  “This discussion is over,” I inform him. “So unless you have other business with me, you can leave.”

  Nikolai frowns and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “What should I tell him then?”

  “That is up to you,” I reply. “I’m sure you will think of something.”

  An odd expression takes over his face, and his eyes move to the ceiling. Though I cannot hear it myself, I know exactly what it is. The girl. She is having another episode. Which I’ve watched from the monitor on my wall for far too long today.