by Jagger Cole
My body shakes. My back feels like it’s on fire. But I stare out the small, dirty window of the room, and I know this will not be my life. I don’t know how, but I know it. I will not die in this place, by Bogdan’s hand.
Someday, somehow, I’m getting out of here.
Present:
I tremble under the soft cotton sheets, sinking into the deep, cozy bed. My pulse thuds in my ears—both in fear, and in excitement. The wheels turn and grind in my head, and my body is still trying to figure out if it should be fleeing the state, or unbelievably turned on.
But through all of the chaos, there’s one reality that I know without any doubts: somehow, he’s alive.
Just that part alone should terrify me. It shouldn’t matter that I’ve been fantasizing about the gorgeous beast of a man who tried to take me almost non-stop. In fact, that should make it worse. The fantasy has come back from the dead to haunt me. Or to hunt me.
I shiver under the covers, panting heavily in the darkness. My gun is in my hand. I’ve triple checked the doors and windows.
Like that stopped him before, I think to myself.
He was in here. He was in my fucking home. Actually, fuck that, he was in the bathroom while I was fucking showering.
I keep saying it over and over, like a mantra. And yet still, the fear I know I should be feeling just isn’t coming. I’m concerned. I’m worried. And yes, maybe I’m scared. But I’m not terrified, and that should scare the shit out of me.
That should tell me exactly how broken I am. A man who I shot, while he was shooting up my family’s party and while he was trying to kidnap me, is somehow not dead. Not dead, breaking into my home while I’m naked and vulnerable in the shower, and writing “soon” on my goddamn bathroom mirror. I should be peeing myself. I should be sobbing in terror on the phone with Viktor, begging for help.
Instead, I’m in bed. And what started to feel like fear is quickly turning into something else—and it’s something shameful.
It’s turning into excitement.
He didn’t hurt me. He could have; he could have done whatever he wanted to me, actually. I wasn’t armed in the bathroom, and he’s huge, and strong as a bear. But he didn’t touch me. He didn’t even let me know he was here. He broke in, wrote his message, and left.
Great. I haven’t been fantasizing about a murderous psycho who tried to kill my family and abduct me. I’ve just been fantasizing about a guy who breaks in, watches me shower, writes creepy messages on my mirror, and leaves.
Much better. Good job, self.
I try. I try so hard to be repulsed by the events of the night. I try so hard to be terrified, or to feel the abject fear I should be feeling. But none of it happens. And the more I think about what happened, the more excited I get.
He saw me. I blush when I replay the scene through his eyes. He was in here—in my home. He was in my bedroom, where I sleep, to get to the bathroom. And then he was in there, with me naked, wet, and utterly at his mercy. It was steamy, but my shower door is glass. And he certainly saw me; all of me.
I blush when the thought makes me wet. I scrunch my face up, desperately trying to conjure up the opposite feeling. But it still won’t happen. All I can possibly think about is what might have happened next, and it has me hopelessly turned on.
I squirm beneath the sheets. Lust surges in my core, and I tremble when I feel the heat pool between my thighs. My panties grow wet. My skin tingles. I close my eyes and imagine the hulking beast from the party ripping the door away and stepping into the shower stall with me. I imagine him pinning me roughly to the wall and taking everything he wants from me.
I picture him turning me and looking at me with those gorgeous blue eyes that I somehow know. My body twists and writhes under the sheets as I fantasize about him looking me in the eye as he takes me, as no man has ever taken me before.
When I realize the gun is on the bedside table and both hands are pushing down under the covers. I freeze. I hiss at myself and yank my hands back out. What the actual fuck is wrong with me?
But even without touching myself, the heat lingers. The filthy, fucked-up desires stay burning in my brain. The slick desire between my legs only intensifies. Until finally, I can’t stop myself anymore.
I give in, as I know I’d give in to him. My hands plunge beneath the covers. They slide over my stomach and push eagerly beneath the waist of my panties. I cry out when my fingers slide through my wetness. There’s no teasing needed—no slow burn or build up. I roll my clit desperately, hard. And in no time, I’m gasping into the darkness of my bedroom as I come shuddering against my fingers.
When I catch my breath, shame floods my face. I quickly hurry to the bathroom to clean up. After that, it’s straight to the kitchen for a very, very stiff drink.
My fingers tap the countertop as I sip the heavy pour of vodka. The Russian girl drinking vodka is a total cliche, but I don’t care. I drink, and I try to make sense of these urges—of these fucked up desires.
I’ve never been with a man because of the trauma of my past. I don’t need to see a shrink to know that, either. Bogan never touched me like that, even if he came close. But what he broke in me was the capacity to let my guard down. And even something fleeting and meaningless like a one-night stand involves some degree of intimacy. But I can’t bring that to the table. I can’t turn off my defenses or lower my walls; ever.
So here I am: twenty-three, alone, a virgin, and getting hopelessly turned on by… well, whatever he is. Whoever he is.
But one thing’s for sure: he’s out there. He’s alive. And he’s not done with me yet.
I finish my vodka and turn to walk quietly back to bed. I know sleep won’t come, but that’s not what’s about to happen in my bed anyways.
He might not be done with me yet. But I’m not done with him yet tonight either…
5
Kostya
Moscow, Twenty-two Years Ago:
“Are you ready, Kostya?”
I nod grimly. In the back of the van, I check the clip on the AK-47 in my hands. I glance back up at Dimitri and nod again.
“Ready.”
From the front, next to the driver, Fyodor chuckles. He takes a sip from his flask and glances back at me. “Da? You ready, boy?”
“Yes sir.”
“Today, you finally get your dick wet, da, Kostya?”
Dimitri snickers. I force a smile, nodding again.
“Can’t wait.”
Fyodor roars with laugher. “Eager little bastard, huh? Don’t you worry, Kostya. Soon, we pop that cherry of yours.”
The van swerves sharply around a corner and suddenly accelerates. Fyodor turns back to us again and grins.
“Here we go. Remember; no mercy. No weakness. Today, you make these fuckers bleed, da, my boys?”
We’ve long since graduated from underground junior league boxing. First, it was shaking down people who owed Fyodor money. That was easy. After that, we moved to petty theft, mugging wealthy people who walked down the wrong side-streets; that sort of shit.
Two months ago, we held up a liquor store. From there, Dimitri graduated to full-on soldier. Ever since then, he’s been regaling me with stories of gunfights, danger, and indulging in the spoils of victory.
“Ay, Kostya.”
I look back to Fyodor.
“Don’t you hesitate, boy. If I find a single bullet left in your gun, I put you out on the street, da?”
He grins at me, like he’s joking. He’s not. But I know he has to be hard on us. Life is hard. The world is cruel. This is what a father figure like Fyodor must do to prepare us: to make us hard, and bulletproof.
I worry at times that I’m not built for this. Physically, I am. At thirteen, it’s clear now that I’ll be even bigger than Dimitri. I’m bigger than half of the grown men under Fyodor’s command, actually. I don’t flinch at hurting when I have to. I’ve beaten crooked bookies, junkies who owed, rival Bratva underlings who stepped into the wrong neighborhood. A
few weeks ago, I went to town on a man with a length of chain who’d hurt one of Fyodor’s whores.
That I actually enjoyed.
But today is a step up. Today, there’s a real gun in my hand. With real bullets. And there are real men in the warehouse up ahead who will be receiving those bullets.
The van roars past a rubble-strewn empty lot. Through the single window in the back of the van, I can see other boys my age playing soccer, laughing.
“Kostya.”
I blink. My attention slides back to Dimitri, across from me.
“You with me, brother?”
I nod. “Da, moy brat.” My brother.
“Good,” he grunts. He leans close and pats me on the side of the head, grinning at me. “Today, you become a man, Kostya. Do not hesitate. Do not think this isn’t in you. It is. It’s in you as it’s in me. We are soldiers, Kostya. We are killers. And today, you will bathe in the blood of our enemies, da?”
I grin. “Fuck yeah.”
I don’t know if I am like him, though. I want to be. I strive to be. I’m the bigger one, but Dimitri is the true soldier. He’s unflinching. When he goes to fight, or to kill, it’s as if he turns his emotions off entirely. No fear, no mercy, no nothing.
The van roars around another corner and then suddenly screeches to a stop. Dimitri’s face turns gleeful, his eyes shining with a dark hunger. He racks his rifle and winks at me.
“Time to grow up, Kostya.”
“Go!” Fyodor roars from the front seat. “Go!”
Dimitri kicks the back of the van open and jumps out. I’m right behind him, my pulse thudding in my ears as we charge the front door. Dimitri is through first, but I’m half a second after. He starts shooting first, and when I turn, I stare at the way he’s laughing as he sprays the room with bullets.
Something catches the corner of my eye. I turn to see a man rushing me with a gun in his hand. But Dimitri was right: there’s no hesitation.
I lift my rifle, I stare him right in the eyes, and I pull the trigger. Just like that, my first kill.
After that, it’s actually easy. I turn, joining Dimitri as I start to fire into the rest of the men rushing us. But in seconds, it’s over. I’m still squeezing the trigger, even though I’m out of bullets. Dimitri is laughing as he claps me hard on the back and yells in triumph.
“Ay! Kostya!” He laughs, punching me in the arm. “You are a man now, my little brother. Not a boy anymore, da?”
I turn, numb as I nod quietly. “Da.”
“A man, Kostya. Now, you are a killer.”
Present:
I move like a shadow, crossing the rooftops like a wraith. It’s been like this ever since I started watching her, knowing she’s in danger. Knowing there’s a predator out there, hunting her.
The men her brother has watching her are a joke. Perhaps they’re trained Bratva killers, but I’ve snuck circles around them, for months. I’ve been close enough to some of them to kill with my bare hands, though I have not.
And so, it’s on me to watch her—to keep her safe, as she once kept me safe.
I never take the same route when going to keep watch over her apartment. I’m careful, I plan my moves four plays ahead. Tonight, I parked seven blocks away and took a fire escape up to the roof of another apartment building. From there, it was the roof of a grocery store, then a bank, then down into the mid-levels of a new construction project. From there, I used the angle of the construction crane to move to an office building. And from there, dropped to the roof opposite hers.
Danger is everywhere. The shadows hunting her could very well be hunting me. So I keep my senses tuned. I keep myself ready, for anything. These are the survival skills Fyodor drilled into me—day and night. And I honed them in the bleakness of prison.
When I finally stop, I look across the darkness towards the bright lights of her apartment. When I see her step into view, my mouth curls into a smile. Whatever hardships I’ve endured, whatever hell I’ve fought through—she’s worth it.
I look at my angel standing by the window, and the rest of it all fades. The cruelty of the world that failed me. The life that was taken from me. The ten long years in prison for two crimes—one I never committed, and the other I’d commit a million more times for her.
Across the way, Nina turns from the window. She walks slowly to her bedroom, and then the bathroom. When she steps back into her bedroom, from routine, I know she’s about to take a shower after her nightly session on the exercise bike.
But the lights in her bedroom stay on, and Nina walks towards the windows. I frown, curious. She reaches down and suddenly peels her tank top off. My jaw grinds as my eyes slide over her body, clad in the sports bra and bike shorts. She drops those, and I groan. The sports bra is next, and I growl when her utterly perfect tits are revealed to me.
She turns, and my pulse thuds as she bends at the waist. Her fingers slip into the thong panties she’s wearing, and she slowly peels them down. When she stands, she slowly turns—seductively, even. I can see her face blushing red, and her pink nipples hard as she slowly runs a hand over her hip.
She’s putting on a show.
Realizing it makes my cock throb and my desire for her skyrocket. Part of me wants to leap the divide between the building and crash through those windows to grab her. To pin her to the bed behind her and make her moan for me.
She knows she’s being watched. It’s the only explanation for the way she stormed through her apartment the other day with the gun, looking scared and wild. Somehow, she knows. And yet here she is, putting on a strip tease.
For me.
I groan, and my hand slips between my legs. I cup the bulging erection in my jeans and hiss. But when I look back up, I see Nina pause, and sigh slightly. She scans the night—not seeing me, of course. But perhaps looking for me. Then she turns and steps into the bathroom, and she’s gone from my view.
I scowl and sink back down onto the roof. My phone buzzes, and I angrily whip it out to answer it.
“What.”
The man laughs. “And a good evening to you too, sunshine.”
I frown. It’s Erik. It took some hard hunting to find a man like him in this city, but I did. He’s ex-military, and a bit of a gun nut. But he’s good at what he does—very, very good. That and he knows every other gun nut, arms dealer, and collector in the city. For the information I needed to know, there was no one but him.
“Do you have something for me?”
“Nah, brother. I just called to soak in that charming personality and those witty conversational skills.”
I scowl into the darkness. Erik sighs.
“Yeah, I’ve got something for you. I think I traced a lead on those pieces you gave me to take a look at.”
I freeze. “You think?”
“Nothing in this world is hundred-percent, my friend.”
“And how close is this one?”
“‘Bout as near to certain as I can be.”
I nod. “Good.”
Erik’s been looking into the machine guns I took from the roof across from the party, from that night. Viktor’s men found most of the tripod-mounted turrets with the timers and remote-control attachments. But they didn’t find them all.
“It’s, uh, it’s gonna cost you, brother.”
“I don’t care what it costs. Tell me what you found.”
“It’s going to be double the last price.”
I scowl. “Fine.”
There’s silence on the phone. Finally, I roll my eyes.
“I’m sending it now, for Christ’s sake.”
Erik chuckles. “You won’t fault me for waiting to see it first.”
I pull up the transfer app on my phone and send the money. Then I bring it back to my ear.
“It’s through.”
“I see it,” Erik says after a small pause.
“Now tell me what you found before I come to you to find out,” I growl. “And you don’t want me coming there.”
He chuckles again. “Relax, my friend. Relax! Okay, so the guns came from a local arms crew here in the city. They’re small time, but they get decommissioned military shit from a guy down south to re-sell up here. That’s where these tripod mounts came from.”
I grit my teeth as I turn to scan the night. It’s a good night for a hunt.
“Text me the address.”
“Listen friend, I—”
“We’re not friends. Send it.”
I hang up. When I look back across the way, it’s just in time to see Nina turning off her bedside lamp as she snuggles into bed. I glance around, trying to spot anything that may be amiss. But when I’m satisfied of no immediate danger, I turn and start readying myself for the hunt.
I don’t knock. There’s no need for niceties with what I’m about to do.
The door creaks and then shatters in under the force of my heel. I smash in, snarling as I whirl to take the first of them. I’m a monster to my enemies. A beast. But to these men—men who may have hurt her, or killed her?
To them, I’m a savage.
My fists pound like hammers, smashing faces, knocking my attackers sideways across the room. My hand finds a throat, and I feel it crush beneath my grip. Screams fill the basement clubhouse, and still, I crush through them as if they’re ants under boiling water.
And then suddenly, it’s over. Around me, the illegal gun dealers lie dead or rolling in agony. I feel nothing for them. They chose this way of life, and so it goes. And besides that, they sold weapons to someone who may have used them to hurt or kill my Nina. I cannot leave that unpunished.
I turn to one of them who’s lying bloody on the floor, wincing in pain. I stride over to him, and he recoils. He shakes his head, holding his hands up pathetically.
“Wait! Wait! Hang on, man! Hang on! We can work something out, bro!”
“No, we can’t,” I growl.
He blinks. “Shit, you’re Russian?”
I glare down at him. “And?”