by Jagger Cole
I step out of the shower into a swirl of steam. I grab a towel and dry my hair off, then my body. I wrap it around myself and turn to the mirror.
I scream.
But then, I jolt into action. I grab the plunger from under the sink—the closest thing to a weapon available. I yank the bathroom door open and bolt into the bedroom for my gun, which is locked in a box in my underwear drawer. With it in my hand, I whirl and storm through the apartment, trigger finger ready.
But it’s completely empty.
The front door is still locked. The windows are locked. But when I pull on the sliding door to my balcony, it slides open. My heart grows cold as I glance around. I know this was locked before the shower. I know it was.
My heart is pounding so hard I swear I can see it thudding against my chest. My senses are tuned, adrenaline racing. I do one more sweep of every room and closet. But when I’m sure I’m alone, my pulse still won’t slow.
Numb and trembling, I turn and walk slowly back to the bathroom. The steam from the shower is mostly gone, but the mirror is still fogged enough to see the word written by a finger across the glass.
“Soon…”
My pulse skips. My breath catches.
The message terrifies me. Of course it does. And yet, it also excites me. It paralyzes me, but also floods me with a forbidden heat at the same time. I read the single word over and over, letting the swirling mix of anger and arousal percolate inside of my chest.
He’s alive. The dark, terrifying stranger who haunts my dreams and has me waking up wet and aching for him at 4:30 in the morning, is alive.
And I should not be this turned on about it.
3
Kostya
Moscow, Twenty-five Years Ago:
“Again!”
Blood clouds my vision. Pain overwhelms me. But I blink them both away when he roars at me.
“Hit him again, you little pussy!”
I draw my fist back, but I hesitate. I don’t want to hit the other boy again. He’s my friend, not my enemy—the closest thing to a brother I’ve known. Just as the man screaming at me to hit him is the closest thing to a father I’ve had.
“I—”
“I said hit him, you little bitch!” Fyodor screams in my face. I tremble, still hesitating. But Dimitri doesn’t. I may be bigger than him, but at twelve, he’s still two years older than my ten. And right now, he uses that.
The older, bloodied boy snarls as his fist slams into my ribs. I groan as my breath leaves my body. Dimitri uses the moment and loss of focus well. He rolls us, his knee catching me hard in the balls. I cry out, but then his fist crashes in my face. A tooth loosens. My lip splits. I feel my nose break, and the blood almost chokes me.
Dimitri does not have the hesitation I did. He keeps hitting me until I’m numb. Until my hands fall to the floor. Until Fyodor finally taps his shoulder with a chuckle.
“Good boy,” he grunts. “No mercy, not ever.” He turns to me, and his proud smile fades to a sneer. “Don’t you forget that lesson today, Kostya. When I say hit him again, you will hit him again until I say stop. When you show mercy, you show weakness. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Dimitri climbs off of me. I’m barely conscious, but I nod slowly. Fyodor smiles a warm, almost fatherly smile at me as he reaches down to help me up. Weakly, I take his hand and groan in pain as he hauls me up.
The older man smiles again as he squats down in front of me. He uses a towel to wipe the blood from my face.
“Are you okay, my little soldier?”
I nod. “Da.”
“And did you learn your lesson?”
I nod again. “Da.”
He smiles. “Good.”
Suddenly, his fist slams into my stomach. I double over in pain, dropping to my knees. Fyodor leans close, his mouth by my ear.
“Don’t you ever disobey me again,” he snarls. “When I say hit him, you will hit him. Is that understood?”
I say nothing as he gets to his feet. But suddenly, the anger is overwhelming. With a roar, I get to my feet and rush at him, fists clenched. I swing like my life depends on it, but it’s wild. Fyodor dodges it with ease, smiling as he turns to hit me again. This time when I drop on my ass, I stay there.
Fyodor laughs. He turns to Dimitri, who’s cleaning himself up in the kitchen sink. “Can you believe this ungrateful little shit, Dimitri?”
My “brother” looks at me with concern. But quickly, his face hardens. His lips curl into a grin.
“You should show more respect, Kostya,” he grunts and turns away to open a beer.
“Da, respect, Kostya,” Fyodor growls. He walks over to where I’m sitting on the floor and looms over me. “I didn’t need to take you or Dimitri in, did I?”
I shake my head.
“Answer me,” he snaps.
“No,” I mumble. But then I catch myself. “No, sir,” I correct.
Fyodor smiles. “Where were you when I found you?”
I look down. “The orphanage, sir.”
“Da, the orphanage. Not a good place. Tell me, Kostya, do you know what happened to the other boys there, who I did not take from there?”
I nod.
“I took you and Dimitri, because you are strong, like me.” Fyodor pounds a fist against his chest. “I took you because you show promise, and you have fire in your balls.”
He took us because we were the biggest boys at the orphanage. He took us because on weekends, Dimitri and I fight other boys our age in the “junior leagues” of Moscow’s underground boxing world. Fyodor bets heavily on these fights.
And yet, I know he’s right. I know the hell that would have been my life if I’d stayed there.
“This roof over your head, the food you eat, this life I give you?” Fyodor shakes his head. “You’re not out there on the street taking it in the ass, are you? No?” He glares at me. “No, you are not. Because you have family, with me. You might think I am a cruel man, Kostya. But I am just preparing you for a cruel, cold world. A world that will fuck you and hurt you every chance it can.”
He frowns and glances from me to Dimitri and back.
“With me, you will learn to be men. You will learn the way of the Bratva, and how to fight for what you want in life. Da?”
“Da,” Dimitri nods solemnly. “Yes, sir.”
Fyodor turns back to me and offers me a hand. I take it, and he brings me to my feet.
“Respect, Kostya. Respect, strength, and no mercy. Da?”
“Yes, sir.”
He grins. “Good boy. Now, go get me a beer.”
“Da.”
The slap comes hard across my face. I wince, but I already know how I’ve failed him.
“Yes, sir,” I grunt.
He smiles and reaches out to ruffle my hair. “Good boy, Kostya. Remember; we are family. No one else will care for you or help you. Only me. You understand that, yes?”
“Da,” I nod firmly. “Yes, sir.”
“Good boy.” He turns to walk over to the TV. “Don’t forget my beer, Kostya.”
Present:
She moves like an angel through a dream. I watch her through the lens of the telescope, as I do most nights. Tonight, she’s wrapped in a towel, and I groan at the sight of her smooth, creamy skin—the way her long dark hair hangs wet down her back.
The urge to take that hair into my fist, to pull her head back enough to have her moaning for me is overwhelming. I’m throbbing hard, my balls aching for a release that only she can bring.
This is how it always is, with her. This is my life now. Watching her; protecting her, as she once protected me. Though I’m quite sure she doesn’t remember that. Or she’s blocked it out, as any normal person would after the trauma and horror of that night more than ten years ago.
She was so young then. And yet so brave. She was broken—as broken as I was, perhaps more. And yet still, she found mercy in her. She saw a beast, and she saved me.
That was then, though. Now, we are here;
ten years later. Now, she’s no longer such a small little creature. She’s grown up. I suck in a breath as my lust surges inside of me. She’s certainly grown up.
What I felt for her back then was not what I feel now. When I felt her small arms around me, and when I thought of her all those years away in my hell, it was not lust or desire I felt. Fuck no. I knew men like that in prison. I killed those men, slowly.
No. What I felt before for this angel was something closer to love of a sister. Love for God or religion, perhaps. The devotion or reverence you might feel for a surgeon who pulls you back from the eternal black abyss of death.
That has now changed. What I feel for her, and about her, has changed. Radically. Many things changed that night, three months ago.
I watch Nina through the big floor-to-ceiling windows of her living room. She prowls through her apartment, curiously with a gun in her hand. But I smirk when I see it. I know that gun well. Its muzzle is imprinted on my goddamn chest.
Bullet-proof vests are good, but they won’t stop a .45 at point-blank range. They will mangle and slow the bullet, though. They will turn it from a death sentence into a torture session lasting months.
I wince at the memory of the pain—the pain that still lingers from time to time. I’d managed to haul myself through the chaos of the shooting to a service elevator that night. I’d dragged myself, bleeding my life out through the hole in my chest, through alleys and darkness. But finally, I’d found my way to a doctor loyal to the Volkov Bratva.
He helped me that night. He patched me together and kept me alive with the blood loss. He took most of the fragments out, too. I’m healed now. But my obsession has grown darker; deeper.
Before, I revered her. Now, I crave her. I look at the woman my angel has become, and the desire to claim her is almost more than I can stand. I know now that should I get my hands on her, I would never, ever have my fill of her. My beauty. My queen. My obsession.
Her shooting me in the chest and almost killing me should have, well, stopped the desire for her I felt when I laid eyes on her the night of the party. It should have me hating her. But it’s done neither of those things.
It’s only made me crave her even more. It’s made me lust for her. It’s made me hard for her, for months now.
I went to that party to take something Viktor Komarov held dear. What I found was something I held dear and had lost ten years before. I can’t trace the paths the universe has taken. I don’t have the pieces of the puzzle to show me how the bruised and damaged angel who saved me from death in a dirty alley in Moscow ten years ago is now the sister of one of the richest, most powerful men in the Kashenko Bratva.
Shot in the chest or not, the memories of that night on the rooftop are forever etched in my psyche. I grabbed her. I meant to take her. And then when she turned, and I saw her eyes, my whole world broke in two.
And then, she shot me.
I groan as I watch her. She steps back from the window. But I can still see her. I watch her move to her bedroom and turn the lights on. I hiss quietly as she drops the towel, and my pulse thuds.
I’ve been watching her through my entire healing process. It’s not the first time I’ve seen her undressed. But every time feels like the first time I’m drinking her in. Seeing her bare for me is… enticing. It’s what I hunger for, daily. It’s what I dream about, every night.
She slips into pajamas, hiding herself from me. But still, I throb for her. My lust surges between my legs, thick and hard and needy. The urge to unzip and release myself grips me. It won’t be the first time I’ve relieved the pressure that watching her fills me with.
But movement catches my eye. I turn, tensing as I scan the roof of the building next to hers. I quietly raise the rifle in my hands, training it on the shadows. My pulse slows, and I breath. But soon enough, I see that there is no threat; just a plastic bag twisting in the night breeze.
I might be watching her now. But I’m watching around her, too. My plans changed the night I tried to take her. When I realized who she was, my world fell apart. When I realized the danger she was in, my resolve hardened.
I want her. I crave her. My lust and desire for her is eternal and overwhelming. But the need to protect the one who once protected me is even stronger—strong enough to stay my hand from actually taking her again. Not yet, at least. Not until I understand the danger and the threat.
She could have been hurt that night—a stray bullet, anything. I can tell myself that’s why I watch her, but that is not the whole truth. She is why I watch her. I watch her to protect her, yes. But I also watch her because she has become my obsession.
Slowly, Nina walks over to the glass door of her balcony, in pajamas and a robe. She slides the door open and steps onto the patio. She’s still carrying that gun, and I smirk.
Smart girl.
She hugs the robe close to her as the wind picks up. Her long dark hair twists and blows in the breeze, and she brings a hand up to quietly push it from her face.
Ten years ago, she saved me from death. Now, it is my turn to protect her.
She turns to go back inside, locking the door behind her, and checking it. Good girl, I think. She slips out of the robe and hangs it on her bathroom door. She pads barefoot to the bed, siding her pajama pants down and kicking them off as she walks.
I groan as my eyes sweep over her—t-shirt and panties, looking like a goddamn meal I want to devour whole. She slips under the covers and turns out the light. I switch to night visions as I settle in for the night of keeping watch on the roof across from her.
Soon, little one, I growl to myself.
Soon, I will take you. I will keep you. And I will make you mine.
4
Nina
Moscow, Thirteen Years Ago:
The front door to the apartment slams shut. I wince as if I’ve been stuck. Maybe it’s Pavlovian at this point—the slammed door means he’s drunk. Drunk means he’s angry. Angry means I’m going to get hurt.
When I hear nothing else though—not him screaming at Dima, my foster mother, or opening more alcohol, I exhale. Maybe I’m lucky tonight. Maybe this is one of those rare nights where he comes home drunk and furious and merely passes out on the floor.
As the silence goes on, I let myself sink back onto the hard, threadbare mattress. Bogdan and Dima have money from the government to take care of me—I know that’s part of how the foster system works because I read it in an article at school. But either the money doesn’t come to this apartment, or else Bogdan is drinking it before it can be used for silly things like food, clothes without holes in them, or bedsheets.
But when I think of school, my lips curl into a smile. I like school. I know other kids dread it or skip it daily. But I love the excitement of going to learn something new every day. And if nothing else, it’s a sigh of relief. A breath of fresh air. A sanctuary from this hell.
Plus, I’m smart. I’m actually very smart. One of my teachers called me “gifted” two years ago and moved me up a couple of grades. I’m ten, but I’ve just started in an eighth-grade classroom.
School is where I just learned about Pavlovian responses. The scientist, Ivan Pavlov, a Russian, researched things called conditioning and reflex actions. He saw that dogs could be trained to react to a signal, expecting a treat.
In a way, I am those dogs. Except it’s twisted in my world. When I hear or see the signal, I know what’s coming. And it is not a treat.
By now, Bogdan is almost certainly asleep on the sofa or the floor. I start to close my eyes. But suddenly, the footsteps thunder down the hall. My heart lurches, and I yank the thin sheet up over my face as if that may hide me—as if I am a toddler who thinks not seeing means you cannot be seen.
There’s no door on my room for him to kick down—that was months ago, and it’s still sitting propped up against the wall. But when Bogdan comes lurching into the room, hell and thunder come with him. I can smell him even before he yanks the sheet away from me. I scream and curl
into a ball as the first crack of the belt whips across my back, cutting me through my shirt.
“Eto byl ty?!” He roars. Was it you?
I don’t know what he’s talking about, and I shake my head quickly. “Nyet! Nyet!”
“Do not lie to me!” he bellows. “You think you may steal my beer? You think it is for you? No, you little bitch. It is for me to drown out the disappointment of having a little fucking whore like you under my roof!”
I shriek as he hits me with the belt again, and again, and a third time. I try and block it out—to numb it all by retreating inside. But when he stops, and I hear his low grunt, a worse fear takes hold.
He hasn’t yet. But he’s threatened; promised, actually. The beatings are awful. Being starved for days when I drop a bite of food stings. But I know there’s a worse torture a man can inflict on a woman, or a girl. When I was in the orphanage years ago, before Dima and Bogdan took me, I heard other girls talking about it.
I don’t want that. I don’t even fully understand what “it” is, but I know I’ll take the beatings over it. So when I hear him pause, I know what I have to do.
“I do not have to hit, you know,” Bogdan slurs. “Maybe you and me, Nina… we can learn to be friends, yes? We can be good friends. Close friends…”
I feel him reach for me, and I whirl. I know it’s suicidal, but I do it anyways. I spit in his face, and then I smile at his red-faced fury.
“Da, it was me. I drank some, and I poured the rest of them down the—”
His fist slams into my mouth. I fall back on the bed, blinded by pain, the taste of blood in my mouth. He snarls and lurches to his feet. The belt rises, and I curl into a ball before it comes slicing down on me.
I close down. I shut out the world around me, numbing all of it as the belt rains down again and again. He hits me until he grows bored. And then with a final curse my way, he turns and staggers out of the room.