by Evie Monroe
And what had I done? I’d let another day go by without calling to wish her a good morning.
Cursing myself, I quickly dialed Viktor’s number. I let it ring four times before deciding he must already be working and didn’t want to be disturbed. I ended the call and texted: Sorry. Late night last night. Hope everything is ok with Alena.
A moment later, he responded with: Y.
That was it. Just: Y.
Which told me he was pissed at me. Right. Because my having a career and working late wasn’t important in his book. Also, though I knew there was no way he could have known what I’d been up to after work, I still felt a little guilty. I didn’t have time for Alena, and yet I’d had time for Zain. And also, I couldn’t help feeling like Viktor had found out. He’d once told me, right before I’d left him, that he had eyes everywhere.
No. If he’d found out what I’d been up to, he wouldn’t just be pissed.
He’d probably be so jealous, he’d kill me. Maybe not kill me, but he’d rip me a new asshole and make me wish I were dead.
My mouth went dry at the thought.
Somehow, I managed to buckle down and work the rest of the day without incident. I worked an extra half-hour, too. Long enough to make up for arriving fifteen minutes late, but not long enough to avoid Marina’s, “Oh, Sasha, are you taking a half day?” when I tried to slip out unnoticed.
But I had to get to Alena. I missed her so much, my heart hurt.
And I also felt guilty. Like I’d abandoned her and put my needs in front of hers. I tried to remind myself that wasn’t the case. The court had her visiting her father on weekends, and I’d had to work late yesterday. I hadn’t just skipped out because I wanted to shack up with Zain. I’d never do that.
As I drove, my route took me along the beach. The setting sun painted orange rays across a canvas of pale blue sky. I loved California. Even though I threatened Viktor with taking Alena back to Russia, I didn’t think I’d ever truly go. Moscow was dreary. The California sun, the ocean, the people . . . this was my true home. I’d never been close to my family, so there wasn’t anything in Moscow to go back to. I’d been such a shy, sheltered little mouse back then. In so many ways, I’d become a new woman since leaving there.
And I’d become even more different since leaving Viktor.
Now, I was independent. I was confident. I was an American woman. The kind of woman I wanted to be for Alena’s sake.
I smiled as I stopped at a traffic light. My eyes trailed out the driver’s side window, to a series of one-story warehouses on the wharf. Nothing very intriguing. I passed this way almost every day, and it was usually the same scene. Men in work clothes, going home from their jobs, a few seagulls, strutting around on the pavement looking for scraps, and beyond that, the placid ocean, glimmering in the sunset.
But today, something made me pause.
I blink, refocused, and looked closer.
A stocky man stood on the pier in a dark suit, his phone pressed up against his ear. He looked like a million dollars.
I’d been married to Viktor for years. I knew him when I saw him.
But I also knew the man standing beside him, too. Not as well, but just as intimately.
No one could mistake that physique. The way he filled out those jeans. The way the long part of his hair caught the breeze.
Zain.
I watched them, transfixed. In many ways, they looked like opposites—the successful, buttoned up businessman and the rough-and-tumble, laid-back working class man. Why were they together, in the same picture? It made my mind go haywire. Surely my mind was playing tricks on me, with these two different parts of my life thrust together like this.
I blinked and watched as Viktor brought the phone from his ear and said something to Zain. In a moment, Zain said something back.
They knew each other.
My lover and my ex-husband knew each other.
How in the world did they know each other?
I momentarily forgot how to breathe. I found myself gasping as I watched the pair of men open a door to one of the warehouses and go inside. I kept staring at that door, even after it closed. I stared, until the driver behind me beeped his horn, and I realized the traffic had moved on.
Pressing on the gas, my head swam. My heart beat madly in my chest. Maybe Viktor really did have eyes everywhere. Maybe Zain was his eyes.
Had Viktor hired Zain to spy on me?
No, that couldn’t be right. I didn’t put it past Viktor to hire someone to spy on me, but if Viktor found out that that person had been fucking me, too? He wouldn’t be alive. Viktor would have already killed him.
Unless Viktor didn’t know.
And he couldn’t know.
As I drove to the daycare to pick up Alena, my neck prickled. I felt like I was being followed.
I went inside and breathed a sigh of relief and joy as Alena rushed up to me. I wrapped her in a hug, but she didn’t greet me with a smile as she usually did. Her eyes were rimmed with distrust.
“Where were you, Mommy?” she asked, pouting.
“I’m sorry, honey,” I replied, inhaling the scent of her sweet shampoo. “I got caught up at work. Chicken nuggets and ice cream?”
She contemplated this. “Cookies and cream?”
“Of course.”
Her face brightened. Instantly, she forgave me.
I tried to savor that moment, the exquisite perfectness of being with the little girl I adored, my baby, but something still tugged at my nerves.
Whatever reason Zain and Viktor had for being together, it wasn’t good. It couldn’t have been. I couldn’t trust either of them.
And whatever Zain and I had? It couldn’t continue.
It ended now.
Chapter Fifteen
Zain
After doing a little song-and-dance and kissing a little more Russian ass, we finally got Viktor to calm down.
It wasn’t easy.
When I went outside with a plastic bag of garbage and tossed it in the dumpster, Viktor was on the phone with the syndicate, talking a mile a minute in Russian, while Cullen tried to get a word in edgewise. Eventually, Viktor hung up and started listening to Cullen. As usual, diplomatic Cullen was able to talk him off the ledge and get him to continue backing us.
I backed Cullen up, playing nice, even though what I really wanted to do was throw down with the Russian asshole who thought his shit didn’t stink.
Then, I went back home. Took a shower. Realized it was too late to text Sasha at work and throw off her concentration, since she was probably at home by then. Didn’t care. Thought of her squirming a little when I typed in: I want you under me right now.
I stared at the screen, expecting a response right away. Didn’t get one.
I wasn’t too worried. It was nearly dinnertime, so she wasn’t chained to her desk at work.
When I looked again, she still hadn’t responded. Not only that, it said the message had been read.
All right. She was ignoring me. That was when I started to think something was wrong.
It wasn’t normal for women to ignore me. It wasn’t ego speaking, that was just my reality. Women came when I called. They didn’t turn down my invitations. Hell, I usually didn’t even have to invite them. They came after me.
And I sure as hell never had to wait when I sent a hot text to a woman.
I told myself it didn’t fucking matter. I had plenty of other women out there that I could fuck.
I didn’t like surrendering control to this woman, but hell. It made me want her all the more. Her, and only her.
As I made myself dinner and sat down to watch the ball game, I drank a beer and tried to convince myself I wasn’t horny as hell.
When that didn’t work, I tried to convince myself that any woman would help satisfy the need.
That didn’t work, either. I dreaded calling any of my usual women. They wouldn’t fill the need inside me. Only Sasha could do that.
And that was
fucked up.
I’d told myself long ago, I would never let a woman matter to me like that. I had women out the ears, and I liked that about my life. I liked having my choice, never getting too serious about any of them. This huge house of mine wasn’t a bachelor pad, but that sure as hell didn’t mean I wanted a girl coming in and making it look all special. I loved living alone.
What I really needed to do? Fuck her again. Fuck her once more, and maybe that’d get her out of my system.
Deciding on my new plan of attack, my blood started pumping. I picked up my phone, and this time, I called her.
No answer.
Fuck it all.
I clenched my hand into a fist so hard that it shook. Then, I called again. This time, it went right to voicemail.
What. The. Fuck.
Was she ignoring me?
Nobody fucking did that to me. Nobody.
Fine. If she was going to ignore me, then I’d do it right back to her. Delete her number. Forget about her. Done.
I hovered my finger over the delete contact button for about thirty seconds. Then I decided that maybe I was being too quick with my trigger finger.
Maybe she was just in the shower, or busy.
I’d call her again tomorrow.
If she didn’t answer, then I’d delete her.
***
The following morning, when she didn’t answer, I nearly threw my phone against a wall. But that was it. No more calls. I’d be fucked if I let some hot Russian chick do that to me. Who the fuck did she think she was? She wasn’t that gorgeous. She had a little space between her two front teeth. She had nice tits, but she was a little soft, no definition in her muscles . . .
I shoved those thoughts away when I realized I was getting hard, just thinking of her.
No use denying it to make myself feel better. My Russian princess was hot as fuck and. . . clearly not mine anymore.
This kind of torture went on for a full week. I’d call, she wouldn’t answer. I’d flirt with deleting her number, but never could. I’d send her a text, she wouldn’t respond. I’d hurl curses into the air, tell myself I should go to The Wall, grab any girl, and fuck her brains out, to numb the self-destructive feelings biting at me. Then I’d only feel worse, because I knew it wouldn’t work.
Suddenly I felt a little guilty for treating all the women in my life that way. Because getting this little dose of my own medicine was a pain worse than death.
Finally, I decided that if I endured much more of this, I’d go batshit crazy.
Viktor was giving us shit and kowtowing to him and doing his bidding was really starting to get old. So not only was Viktor fucking me, I felt like Sasha was fucking me, too. So basically, I was being fucked in every hole by the Russians, and still as horny as ever.
I knew I had to do something about it.
So, as soon as I pulled into the parking lot for the clubhouse, I punched in a call. One last time, I told myself.
It didn’t go through.
I frowned and typed in a text to her, wondering what that meant. A little red exclamation point showed up next to it, saying it could not be delivered.
Wait . . . had she blocked my number?
Oh, fuck no. I couldn’t let her get away with that. I stormed into the clubhouse on a tear. The guys said hey to me, but I ignored them, staring at my phone like I was trying to decode all the mysteries of the universe.
While we all sat there at the clubhouse watching Viktor go over the latest inventory with Drake, I Googled, Sasha Aveline Bay.
I got a huge number of search results. Fuck. Why hadn’t I found out her last name? Why had I not insisted I meet her at her place? This would be impossible.
Then I remembered what she said she did for a living.
I typed in: Sasha paralegal Aveline Bay
Suddenly, her picture popped up, as part of a website for Simms & Simms, attorneys at law. They had offices at the business complex right down the street.
I smiled and closed my hand into a fist, pumping it under the table in silent victory. Shifting in my seat, I took note of her last name: Kotov.
I typed into the search bar: Sasha Kotov, Aveline Bay.
Several search results popped up, the first ones for those criminal background check services that allow a person to research another person for a fee. But I didn’t need to do that. One of the websites gave her whole address. Cavendish Village, 1201 Monterey Lane, Apartment 2B.
Jack-motherfucking-pot.
The second the meeting ended, I jumped up and said goodbye. I had somewhere to be.
She could ignore me all she wanted, via the phone. But no way in hell could any woman ignore Zain Miller in person.
At least, I sure fucking hoped so. I’d gone insane enough as it was.
Chapter Sixteen
Sasha
I was beyond happy the following Monday after I picked up Alena from daycare.
Happy, but not exactly satisfied.
Seeing her face always filled me with joy. She was the light of my life. But having a light in one’s life didn’t eliminate the need for the dark.
The dark in the form of my delicious badass. The lying, scum-sucking, but yes—still delicious—badass that I’d had to force out of my thoughts.
Zain had called me a few times and texted me, too. But I’d made the decision that I couldn’t trust him. And as much as I wanted to be with him, as much as my every pore seemed to scream for the way he’d made me feel . . . I couldn’t. So I deleted his number. And then, when he called me again, I blocked him.
Done.
Gone.
But not forgotten.
Oh, definitely not forgotten.
Luckily, though, Viktor hadn’t mentioned anything about Zain to me when I’d dropped Alena off for her weekend visit. I’d gone there, bracing myself for the onslaught, but it never came. And because Zain had still called me up until a few days ago, I knew Viktor hadn’t killed him yet. So my hope was that if I waited long enough, everything would blow over, and I’d be in the clear.
Well, not fully in the clear.
Because even though I’d deleted Zain’s number and done my best to force him out of my head, I was still crazy for him. Work sucked. Being a single mother sucked. Dealing with Viktor sucked. It was all so stressful. And he was my sweet release.
Now, I felt like a volcano, ready to blow its top.
I thought that it was only a matter of time before I showed up at his house, begging for him to take me, one last time. However he wanted. Viktor be damned.
“Mommy, look at this!” Alena called for the thousandth time from the living room as I stood in front of the stovetop, stirring the macaroni for the Kraft dinner we were about to have.
“That’s nice, honey!” I called, throwing the chicken nuggets into the oven as I mentally searched the freezer for a vegetable that would go with tonight’s gourmet dinner.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”
It was always this way, whenever I got Alena back from her weekend trips to her father’s. Alena came home from her daddy’s starved for attention because at Viktor’s, everyone ignored her. She knew how easily she could get my attention when I hadn’t seen her in a few days. And she milked it, constantly wanting to show me everything she did. I loved this time. I wanted to plaster myself to her side and never let her go, but I also had to get her dinner, give her a bath, read her a story, and tuck her into bed at a decent hour. None of these things would get done unless I hustled.
“That’s nice!” I called again, reaching into the freezer for some carrot medallions and noticing that I’d finished off the cookies and cream ice cream. I’d hear about that from her later.
I threw the carrots into a dish and filled it with water, then shoved it in the microwave. My mind stayed on Alena, thinking that I should probably sign her up for some ballet lessons at the school right near the daycare. They offered a class for four-year-olds on Tuesdays. Viktor and I had always agreed ballet would be a good activity
for her. He’d told me that he’d pay the tuition, too, which was a plus.
“Mommy! Look at me!” Alena called from the doorway.
I whirled to set the table, grabbing the dishes and napkins off the counter when I caught sight of Alena, standing there. “That’s nice, ho—”
I stopped, dead. As did my heart.
“Mommy! I was murdered!”
I shrieked.
For a split second, I thought she really was. I thought she was covered— head-to-toe—in blood.
But her smile was bright white among all the red, and there was just too much blood for anyone to come out smiling.
Suddenly I remembered the acrylic paint her father had bought her for her fourth birthday, complete with an easel that didn’t fit so well in my tiny apartment. Alena had been thrilled; I’d been cautious. For this very reason.
“What did you do?” I cried, ready to break down in tears. I braced myself as I went to the doorway and peered into the living room.
It was worse than I expected. It looked like a murder scene, if the killer had chopped the person up into tiny pieces and smeared the blood all over the walls.
I fell to my knees, all the while fighting the urge to bawl. I couldn’t let Alena see me like that. Not after I’d worked so hard to be a strong role model for her.
I blinked back the tears. “Alena!” I said in my sternest voice. “What did I tell you about those paints?”
She started to pout.
I surveyed the damage and realized she’d gotten paint all over the sofa, the coffee table, the television—every piece of furniture in the damn room was covered in red. “I told you that they were for the paper! Not for painting yourself!”
“But I was murdered!” she repeated, as if trying to convince me.
I tilted my head. What four-year-old knew about murder? “Was daddy letting you watch some of his movies?”
Viktor loved those stupid gangster movies with high body counts and lots of gore. That was all he used to watch when we were together.