by SR Jones
He’s still beautiful. I believe, deep down, he has a good soul. I believe, deep down, he’s still that boy who protected me from the bullies. Life, though, has roughened him, knocked him about, and now his surface is hard.
When I saw those scars, my God. The pain must have been immense. He was only young still, just nineteen. A boy really, and those bastards did that to him. They’re animals. I always told him to get out, but he said his uncle would protect him. Seems like he didn’t do a very good job.
I can understand why he’s blamed me all these years. He got the beating after I found him cheating on me; only days later, I left. He’s spent all this time thinking it was me.
Why is he here?
Why take my case when he’s hated me for so long?
Because maybe he loved you a little bit too, a hopeful voice whispers.
At least the shaking is subsiding. I’ve never done anything so reckless. I’ve never had such amazing sex either. It was intense, harsh, passionate. I felt alive. Really alive. I felt things I normally only get to experience when dancing.
Despite it being the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, I already want to do it again. What a rush. A high like no other.
Bohdan is danger and sin in one pretty package, and I know I won’t be able to resist him even though my life might, very literally, depend on it.
My phone buzzes, and I take it out of my bag and glance at it. My blood runs cold. Talk about a reminder of why this was such a bad idea.
I’ve had a call from Lilliana. I’m on my way to a meeting, but I’ll swing by you and fill you in. See you in five.
Jasper is coming here, and Bohdan is wearing his too-small jumper because his own shirt is ripped. I glance at the floor and fall to my knees, picking up the scattered buttons. Shit, shit, shit.
I rush to the door, open it, and pull Bohdan inside again.
“If you want round two, you only have to ask,” he says with a sneer.
I want to slap that sneer off his face. Or maybe kiss it off; I can’t decide.
“Jasper is on his way. He’s going to be here in five minutes.”
He glances down at the jumper and raises one brow. “Well, shit. He’s not going to like this, is he?”
“Bohdan, this is deadly serious. My husband is not who you might think he is.” I take a deep breath and trust in the universe because I’m as lost as I’ve ever been right now, but I need someone on my side. Will Bohdan be that person? “He’s dangerous.”
“I’m not scared of him,” he says.
“No, Bohdan,” I say softly. “But I am.”
Something steals across his face and if I didn’t think it were ridiculous, I’d say it almost looked like triumph.
“Why?” he asks.
“He hurts me. Abuses me. Honestly, you have to know two things. I did not tell anyone about what you and your uncle were doing. I swear it on the Virgin herself. I will take a damn lie detector if that’s what it takes to make you believe me.”
“Why does it matter if I believe you? I’m leaving, aren’t I? It’s what you want. I’ll get someone else to cover you.”
“It matters to me. Even if you walk out of here and I never see you again, I can’t bear thinking you believe that of me. I’d never have done that to you. No matter what.”
He narrows his eyes but blows out a breath as if he’s been holding it for the longest time. “You said there were two things.”
“The second is that my husband is quite capable of putting me through the fires of Hell if he thinks he’s been cuckolded so publicly as this. I doubt he cares if you and I have had sex, he’s not been near me in years, but he will hate we did it here. I’m taking a huge risk in telling you this, but you can’t be here in his jumper when he arrives.”
“I can’t not be here, though,” he says. Then he thinks for a moment. He looks back at me. “Did you tell him you were here?”
“No, I mean this morning when I left, but not since.”
“Fine, grab your bag, we’re leaving.”
“What?”
“We’re going to buy me a shirt.”
“But I need to rehearse.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have a set time, right?”
I don’t; that’s true enough. I nod my affirmation.
“Fine, so we get out of here now. Head to a shop nearby where I can buy a shirt and you can phone or text your husband and tell him you’re shopping.”
“He’ll think it’s really weird. I never go shopping. I hate it.”
He leans into me, takes something out of his pocket, and the next moment, my leggings are ripped right down the thigh.
“Damn pesky nails sticking out of things and ripping your clothes,” he says with a wink. “Come on, grab your bag; times-a-wasting.”
He pockets the army knife, and I follow him out the door.
As we walk past one of the dancers, she gives me a knowing look, and I die a little inside. “Ripped my damn leggings, and I need a new pair,” I say lamely.
“Wow, they call it ripping leggings these days. That’s a new one.” Barry, one of the more senior male dancers, who dislikes me, makes the joke.
One moment he’s laughing, the next he’s up against the wall, his shirt bunched in Bohdan’s fist, the material right against his throat. “What do you mean?” Bohdan asks.
Barry’s eyes go wide, startled like a deer who has heard the hunter in the woods. Too late for Barry that he only just realized there’s a predator in his midst.
“I don’t know what you mean?” Barry splutters. “It was a joke, dude.”
The hold on him tightens, and he coughs. One of the other men walks over to Bohdan, but Bohdan puts out his other arm and holds him off. “What. Are. You. Insinuating?” Bohdan asks.
Barry shakes his head. “Nothing, man. Nothing. Honestly.”
“Good.” Bohdan lets go, arranges Barry’s t-shirt, then slaps him, pretty damn hard, on the cheek as if he’s patting his cheek but with added fury. “Good, because if I hear any of you have said a word of innuendo about Mrs. Felix here, I’ll fucking ruin your spoiled little lives, got it?”
“You don’t get to threaten us,” one of the girls says. “Who do you think you are?”
He turns to her, blue eyes cold as glass. “Who do you think I am?” he says, voice low. “Or rather, maybe I should ask, what do you think I am?”
Her expression falters at his words.
“Let me tell you what I am not. I am not someone who makes idle threats. I am not someone who puts up with gossip raging about them, ever. Or about their client. There is a life or death security threat against Mrs. Felix, and you lot gossiping could make my job a million times harder. If you think I will hesitate to get into your life and fuck it up, just because you’re a nice upper-class girl, you’re dead wrong.”
On the words dead wrong, he taps her forehead with his pointer finger.
Oh my God, what is he doing? No one behaves this way here. Clearly not caring that he’s crossed all sorts of lines with my co-dancers, he grabs my hand and shoves his way past them and out the side door.
“Bohdan,” I say, no other words coming to me.
“Don’t worry about it.” He glances at me briefly. “They hate you, so they aren’t going to do what I ask out of any sense of loyalty. Hence, I scared them into compliance.”
He scared them into compliance.
I file that disturbing line away to examine later.
We reach the stores nearest the opera house and choose one of them to go into. Once inside one of the big department stores, I fire off a text to Jasper.
Only just saw your message, darling. Had an accident this morning and ripped my leggings to shreds on a nail. I’m okay, but I’m not at the opera house. I popped to the store to buy some more.
Dots appear, disappear, and appear again, then go. Shit. He’s not responding immediately, which might mean he’s suspicious.
I’m still afraid he’ll find out from one of my colleag
ues what I’ve done.
“How do you know they hate me?” I glance at Bohdan over the racks of leggings and casualwear.
He shrugs. “I can read people. Seems to be an ability I developed too late in life, after one too many beatings.”
I wince, but he smiles easy. “Not a dig, Dasha. Contrary to all common sense, I believe you, which means someone else fucked me and my uncle over, and I haven’t a damn clue who it could have been.”
“So you can read people?” I prompt, hungry to learn more about him. “Must be interesting.”
“Yeah, I get a feel for people. I suppose there aren’t many people I consider close to me. Maybe a handful if that, and most other people are enemies or adversaries of one sort or another, so you get good at reading them. Plus, when I was on the streets of Moscow after I had to leave St. Petersburg, you had to learn to read people real fast.”
“What do you see when you look at me?” I ask in a whisper, afraid of his answer.
“I see a lost girl,” he says, his eyes sad.
I nod and bite my lip because what can I say? I am a lost girl. Totally lost. Utterly lost.
“I’m lost too,” he says.
I meet his gaze again, and my heart clenches.
A memory hits me then, and I smile. “We always were,” I say.
“Yeah, we were.”
We used to play Peter Pan sometimes in the woods when we were young. We said we were a lost boy and a lost girl, and one day we’d fly away to Neverland. I’ve not thought of that for such a long time.
“We can’t do that again,” I say. “I mean, what we did in the changing room.”
“We can,” he replies.
“No. It’s wrong. I’m married.”
“You’re married to an abusive asshole who treats you like shit.”
I suck in a breath. “How much exactly do you observe?”
He looks away from me and shrugs. “It’s pretty obvious in the way he treats you every day. You’re his possession. His cash cow.”
I flinch. “Ouch, don’t sugarcoat it, will you?”
“It’s true. I’m trying to figure out why you stay.”
I sigh and shake my head. “You don’t know me, Bohdan. Don’t think you do from a week in my life. You don’t get to judge me either.”
He narrows his eyes. “I’m not judging you. If you want to leave, I can help.” Then he leans in close, brushes a hair from my forehead, and tucks it behind me ear, as he whispers super quiet. “If you want him gone, I can do that too.”
Then he turns and goes to stand against the wall, letting me browse.
Who has my beautiful boy who scattered me in pixie dust become?
Chapter Fifteen
Bohdan
Aged Eighteen.
I finish putting the last of the money into the wall and then screw the wooden boards into place. I drag the heavy chest we use to cover this bit of the wall in front of it and sit down, out of breath.
My heart is racing and not from the physical exertion. This is as dangerous as fuck. My uncle is playing with both our lives doing this. No one skims off the top from the Bratva and gets away with it. I should tell him to stuff it each time he gives me a bag of money to come hide in the wall in this ramshackle garage, but I don’t. He’s the only person who ever stood by me. Everyone else betrayed me, had no interest in me, or left.
My uncle killed my father, for me. I can’t say no to him. I sigh and rake my fingers through my too-long hair.
I leave, closing the door behind me, and fasten the padlock. We don’t own this garage. No one knows who does. It’s the same place I used to come sit and smoke with Abram, and later would come hide away with Dasha before she left. Her father got a job in Tomsk, Siberia, and they left years ago.
I head on home, wondering what state I’ll find my mother in. Pushing open the door to our small apartment, I smell it before I see it. Vomit and maybe piss.
She’s passed out on the sofa, and the bottle of homemade vodka is mostly empty.
Fuck. I can’t deal with her today. I should leave her lying in her own damn piss. I don’t. Instead, I haul her up from the couch and carry her into the bedroom. I strip off her clothes and wipe her down with a towel before putting her into bed. She doesn’t deserve my care, but she’s still my mother. She gave birth to me so without her, I wouldn’t have a life.
At this rate, she’ll be dead in a few years, if not a few months.
When I’ve cleaned up the living room, come bedroom, I sling on a jacket and head back out. I can’t stand being in the dingy space a moment longer. She’ll either sleep it off or choke on her own vomit, and sue me if there’s part of me that secretly hopes for the latter. She’s a millstone around my neck. She never protected me, never cared, but some sick sense of duty keeps me looking after her.
My uncle doesn’t have anything for me to do this evening, but I have some money, and I might go burn it in a bar. I broke up with my girlfriend last week, which probably isn’t helping my shitty mood. The only girl I’ve ever fucked. Not from lack of opportunity, but I don’t find screwing around something I like the idea of. I don’t know why, but I see the way men and women look at me, and a lot of the time it turns my stomach. It reminds me far too much of the way my father’s fucking sick friends would look at me.
When I hit the downstairs of the apartment block and turn right into the spacious but worn foyer, I spy a group of girls. I glance at them, uninterested, but see a flash of red hair amongst them.
The hair reminds me of Dasha so much. Then the girl turns, and pale blue eyes hit mine. What the fuck?
“Dasha?” I step forward.
The girls part like the red sea, and Dasha is all I focus on.
It is her, and she’s grown up. She’s still the shiny jewel she always was, though.
“Bohdan!” She runs to me and throws her arms around me.
She smells divine, like strawberries and bubble gum mixed with a tiny hint of something darker and sexier.
I pull back to look at her. She’s got thick, pale pink, gloopy gloss on her small mouth, her eyes are ringed in kohl, and her hair is wavy.
She’s not the little girl I threw leaves over and told her they were pixie dust when she was upset or scared. This is a young woman.
“You want to go for a walk?” she asks me.
“Yeah, okay,” I say. Fuck the bar, hanging with Dasha seems a better idea. I want to know what she’s been up to.
As we walk side by side, suddenly both seemingly unsure, I catch her glancing at me.
“You’re very handsome,” she says finally.
I burst out laughing at that. I don’t mean to, but come on, who says very handsome.
“You’re all proper now,” I reply with a smile and a tug on her hair. It’s different, thicker than it used to be.
“Well that’s what a few years in Siberia will do for you. I spent most of my time watching old TV shows and reading historic British novels. I’m surprised I don’t sound like someone from Vanity Fair.”
We pass the small food stores, the pharmacy, and the bakery and then turn right without even consulting one another. We’re heading to our place. The woods.
When we reach the copse of trees, we head into the center.
“It’s still here,” she says with a smile. “I worried it might have been concreted over and built on.”
“It allegedly is going to be,” I inform her.
“Oh, no. That’s awful.”
She scuffs her toe on the ground, glancing at me from under long, reddish-brown lashes. “So… How have you been? What are you up to?”
“I’m good,” I say. I can’t stop looking at her eyes. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as this new version of Dasha.
“Is that all you’ve got to tell me?”
“Well, what about you?”
She starts to rattle off all sorts of news. Most of it about her family. She tells me how cold it was in Siberia, and how long the hours were that her f
ather worked at the power plant, and that things are hard now and her parents aren’t getting on. Then she tells me she’s going to be a ballerina.
She always wanted to do that, but it seems time and growing up some haven’t dulled her desire for it.
“You always wanted to be a dancer,” I say with a smile. I lean in and take hold of her hair again, fascinated by the length and weight of it. I let it trail through my fingers, silky and soft. Dasha blushes and looks away.
I let go and step back. “Sorry.” I shrug. “Your hair is gorgeous.”
“Let’s go look at the lake,” she says. And we do. We go look at the lake, and we talk most of the evening until darkness falls. In summer, it is light for much of the night, so I miss midnight, when I officially become nineteen.
I don’t care for once that I won’t get any presents. I don’t care that I’ve an alcoholic mother waiting for me at home.
Everything seems a bit brighter. We talk for hours, and it’s late when we get back home.
I go to bed, and for once life doesn’t feel hopeless and dark.
My bright shiny jewel is back.
Chapter Sixteen
Dasha
My sexual appetite is like some mythical beast asleep for centuries and now awakened with a ravenous desire. For three days I avoid even looking at Bohdan as much as I can, because I know I’ll do something highly inappropriate, like ripping his clothes off again.
Things are strained between us, but a couple of times, he’s tried to talk to me. I’ve shut him down, though, because really, what is there to say? And yet there’s everything to say. I don’t know how or where to begin. We’re strangers really, but I feel as if I know him better than anyone.
Bohdan always seemed to see deep inside me, right down to my very soul.
On the third evening after our impromptu moment in my dressing room, Jasper slithers into the lounge and comes to sit by me. Like always, the moment he gets close, my body goes onto full alert.
“I’m leaving for a few nights,” he says.
This isn’t unheard of, and he’s done it before for business. Now, though, it means I’ll be alone with Bohdan. I can’t be alone with Bohdan. I don’t trust myself. “You can’t,” I say without thinking. “There’s a threat against me.”