by Kendall Duke
“You are a beautiful American girl,” the one with auburn hair said, smiling easily. “You stay all alone in this big house? All the time?”
“It’s got a lot of security,” I mumbled, realizing how easily they’d gotten through. “And… I’m used to it. Besides, I took a self-defense class in college.” This made the other men chuckle, but the dark one was just staring at me. Did I say something wrong?
Abruptly the others stood up. The one with the auburn hair gave me a lascivious smile, and I could’ve sworn the dark one bristled. “Thank you for dinner. We are leaving—Petyr, my father and I.” Both the dark one and I jolted, staring at him. His smile was now gently mocking. “When your father gets home, Ivan will call us.”
The dark one—Ivan, I guessed—rattled off a long string of Russian in his deep voice, and the conversation went back and forth between the four of them for a full five minutes. When it was over, the leader looked me in the eye. “Your father has one week, Julia. We are waiting.” He paused, so I understood the gravity of his words. “We do not like waiting.”
I couldn’t speak. The implication was clear. Something was desperately wrong. The two of them sauntered out of the room, and I heard the front door click behind them as they left. Ivan followed, and I heard him change the security code and turn it back on before he returned. I’d puddled into the same seat where I sat for dinner, staring at nothing. He hung back in the hallway for a long moment, and when I looked up at him his dark eyes were searching my face. After another minute I heard him walk up the stairs, presumably to the master bedroom where my father stayed during the brief interludes he spent in the house.
It was another fifteen minutes before I could find the strength to stand up and put the dishes away. I made a hot cocoa, turned out all of the lights in the futile hope that this would warn my father that something was wrong in case he did come home, and went upstairs.
I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. For several reasons.
~~~
The morning was a bit of a shock.
Not because any of the terrible things I’d dreamed of came to pass—my father did not appear and get murdered in front of me; no one at all was murdered, in fact, and in spite of my terror and exhaustion I slept deeply, if only for a short while. No, the morning was a shock because when I stumbled downstairs for coffee I found a half-naked Russian giant standing in the middle of my kitchen, looking around like he was lost.
I felt my mouth hanging open, and snapped it shut. It took me a minute to speak, though. “Can I get you some breakfast?”
Ivan had clearly just finished a grueling work-out. His giant muscles flexed and glowed from the exertion; a line of fine, dark hairs, probably soft as silk, trailed from his massive pectorals to the waistband of his sweats. His skin was the color of copper. He was covered in tattoos—and scars. Lots and lots and lots of scars. So many scars! And he was staring at me, probably with about as much confusion as I’d felt when I saw him.
I was wearing pajamas; I hadn’t actually thought to put something else on, and they were kind of…Skimpy. Just a camisole top and jersey pants, long enough to hang around my ankles but the fabric did kind of…Cling. I suddenly felt very self-conscious. I wasn’t wearing a bra. I wasn’t even really wearing a shirt!
To hide my blush and my embarrassment I immediately went over to the coffee maker and got to work. I found the fruit salad I’d made the day before and pulled out the bacon, then brought the bread back down and put butter and jam on the counter. I’d almost forgotten about him when I heard a soft sigh and turned around to find him settling himself at the table. Ivan pulled a plate towards himself and brought his eyes up to meet mine. His gaze was almost shy.
“You are…Very good cook. Make very good food. You very… Nice.” He clearly struggled a bit to pronounce the words.
I thought about how to respond as I set a plate full of bacon and fruit down in front of him. “Thank you. Your name is Ivan?”
“Da,” he said, and glanced up at me. His eyes were large, absolutely beautiful, with the longest lashes I’d ever seen. He blinked once and then looked back down at his plate. “My English…Is not…Not very good.” He pronounced the ‘v’ as a ‘w.’ I understood him perfectly, though, and said so. He nodded briefly, swallowed the food in his mouth, and met my eyes again. The cold, arrogant expression he’d worn last night was gone, at least for now. “I understand more. To speak, not so good.”
I soon realized he was absolutely right; I could immediately tell that if I spoke a very clearly and a little slowly, Ivan could understand everything I said. He asked me about the house, which room was mine, whether I spent time outside, and again grilled me about who might be coming by to clean, garden, or drop off groceries.
“I do all of that,” I explained. I was beginning to find the incredulous expression on his face kind of funny, but I wasn’t comfortable just laughing out loud at the disbelief evident in his countenance.
“You mow grass?” One of his silky black eyebrows was creeping towards his hairline.
“Yes,” I said, and this time I couldn’t help it. I did laugh. Just a small one.
“You rake leaves? You, with these arms?” He pointedly looked at my skinny arms.
“Yes!” And this time I did laugh. “Yes. It takes a long time but I get it done.”
“Your father… Your father never rake leaves?” He spoke a little softly now, as if aware that this might be delicate. I just shrugged.
“No. He’s not here often enough to do things like that anyway but… I don’t think it would occur to him to do it. He doesn’t think like that.”
Ivan watched me for a long minute. The ghost of laughter I’d seen on his face was gone now, and after a while he looked down at his plate. “I rake leaves. Today. You make… Very good food. So I rake leaves.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, suddenly realizing I might have guilted him in to this. “I can do it—I don’t mind—”
“I rake leaves,” Ivan said, and there was no mistaking the finality in his voice.
I thought about his offer. There was some justice to it—he was an uninvited guest, and he was going to be here all week. I’d be feeding him that whole time, supposedly. I felt my appetite rapidly returning; I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to more of Ivan shirtless, and I hoped, given the occasional flash of heat Virginia still experienced even in October, I’d get to enjoy this view again. “Okay,” I said, plopping my newly packed plate down in front of me after another trip to the counter. I piled some more bacon on his plate too. “Then thank you,” I told him, and I couldn’t help smiling at him. “Thank you so much.”
That seemed to surprise him more than anything else. More than my meager but necessary cleaning, more than how hungry I suddenly was, more than anything that had happened. He sat and watched me eat, silently, until it was time for me to go to class. “Julia,” he said as I stood up and automatically started to gather the plates. “Please. Leave them.”
“No, Ivan,” I told him, testing out how it felt to say his name aloud. “I can get these.”
“Julia,” he said, and this time he stood up. “You cook. I clean.”
I looked at him again, feeling like I’d entered a parallel universe. “You clean?”
“I clean dishes. Only dishwasher—I not clean house.” He waved an arm to show me that the extent of his housework ended in the kitchen, but I was distracted by the incredible jolt of his muscles when he moved. He had almost no body fat. “Julia,” he said, drawing my attention back to his lovely face. “I clean.”
It felt weird, but I moved aside when I remembered what he’d said, and he nodded once and took care of everything. I watched him while I drank my coffee and I can honestly say I felt… Content. I did not know watching an absolutely gorgeous man do dishes could make me feel so good, but I was learning.
“So weird,” I said, shaking my head. He almost smiled at me—I could tell—and I went upstairs to change for class. When
I was ready, I returned to the kitchen, grabbed my books from the table in the hall and told him I would be home later. He stood up at once to follow me and before I knew it he was blocking the front door.
And somehow, in the time it took for him to clean the kitchen to the time I’d made it to the entrance, he’d gotten dressed in his standard issue Russian mafia bodyguard garb. Two thousand dollar suit, shades, and no doubt there was a gun somewhere under there. I just looked at him. “What’s going on?”
“I go with you,” he said, cocking his head as if I’d said something strange. “You don’t leave house by yourself?”
“I’m going to class,” I said, frowning at him.
“Nyet,” he said, staring down at me.
“I knew you were too good to be true,” I said, rolling my eyes and moving to walk past him. That did not work. I froze when I realized it had taken a few compliments and one load of dishes to completely disarm me. We weren’t friends. I needed to remember that… But I also needed to go to school, and there was no way he or anyone else was going to take that away from. “Okay,” I said, seriousness creeping in to my friendly tone. “Listen. Breakfast was… Nice. Not having to clean afterwards was even nicer. But this? Not nice. I’m going to be late for class.”
“Why are you going to class?” He had trouble even saying the phrase, as if it were entirely new to him. “You are… Denis Ragulin’s daughter. Russian royalty. You don’t… Go to class.”
Russian royalty? Come on. I squared my hip as I stared at him, and I wasn’t sure if it was my American or Russian heritage that crackled with attitude at the idea that I wasn’t going to get to go to my Human Anatomy lab because my dad was a gangster.
“Why wouldn’t I go to class?” I stared at him. “It is literally the only thing in life I get to do. I fought with Denis Ragulin tooth and nail to go to class. It’s all I have.”
“You hit father?” Again, that eyebrow was climbing up his forehead, and it should’ve made angrier, but the disbelief was coupled with something else: respect. It made me want him to understand me.
“No. I just explained to him, every day—multiple times a day—how important my education was to me. I begged him, I yelled at him, I…” I’d done everything I could think of, made every argument, until he finally just got tired of it. “I wore him down. I made him agree.”
“You wore him down?”
“Yes… Like… I wore him down.” I used my palms to demonstrate friction, then pointed to my head. “In here.”
“You like go class?” Disbelief again, but in a way that told me he couldn’t imagine enjoying college.
“Yes, very much.” I sighed and took a moment, trying to think of how to explain again. “It’s mine. It’s what I have.” I waved to the ceiling, to the kitchen, even towards the car outside. “This is not mine. No help, no friends, no family. Just school. That’s mine.”
Darkness flashed over his features, and I was frightened for a minute. I’d said something wrong. He was probably just as much of a jerk as my father—he was probably going to lock me up again--I started backing away from him with my hands out, and the panic in my voice was humiliating, but I couldn’t help it. “Please, don’t hurt me—we can talk about it, I just--”
“—Hurt you?” Whatever I’d seen in his eyes a moment before, Ivan was completely overtaken with concern. I stopped backing away from him, and he slowly approached me. “Julia, I never, not ever—there is no way…”
“No locks, then?” I said it meekly, but I was serious. I hadn’t had to endure it in a long time, and I never wanted to again. You don’t forget being locked in your bedroom for days. Kind of sticks with you. My Russian babysitter—or whatever she was—would do that when she had somewhere to go. I’d just be locked in my room, and if my food ran out, well, it ran out. There was no one to help me, no one to save me from my loneliness. It’d been years, but I remembered every second.
“Locks?” There it was again—Ivan’s face was swept with a fury I’d never seen on anyone before. He looked absolutely terrifying. I could see the dangerous mob boss painted all over; the air practically shimmered around him, as if he was brimming over with rage. I made myself stop backing away from him and stand still; he wasn’t going to hurt me if I showed strength. I had to believe that, or the next few minutes were going to be absolute hell. “What you mean locks? Lock you up?”
“My dad and the babysitter…” My voice trailed away as I watched his face. I might have just signed a death warrant. I genuinely felt guilty. “My dad never told her to, I’m sure, she just—it was a long time ago—"
“I will go with you, Julia,” he finally said, visibly attempting to calm himself. His hands flexed, and I almost—almost—kept worrying about my dad. But I really wanted to get going, so I put away that fear.
“Okay,” I said, taking in his outfit for a second time. “But you’ve got to wait in the car. I don’t even want to think about what security would say if they got a look at you.” Or what he would do to them, once they did. We made our way out the door, finally, and I felt a real sense of pride that I’d managed to maintain some small sense of freedom while under what was undoubtedly beginning to seem like Russian mafia house arrest.
~~~
Unbelievably, we… Got along. I don’t know how else to put it. He was good to me. He shouldn’t have been—he should’ve been firm, cold, even cruel, if what I knew about his business and his general presentation were the typical reality of his life. But he wasn’t. Not at all.
For the first two days, we were careful around one another. Very polite, courteous, and making friendly gestures when we happened to be in the same place. By the third day, though, I noticed that Ivan was in the kitchen every morning when I arrived to make breakfast; he would give me a polite nod when I came down the stairs, never meeting my eyes, and then speak with gratitude about whatever meal I made—any meal I made. He even thanked me when I burned muffins on the second morning. He also started drifting in to the family room, where the television was, when I was in there; to be fair, I’d never watched TV before he arrived. And the evening of the third day, he sat with me while I did my homework at the kitchen table, and asked me questions about my classes.
“Why you…” He paused, struggling. “What you study? You like to become a…” He waved his hand, trying to cue me to finish his sentence.
“You mean, what job am I hoping to get with these classes?” He nodded and gave me a brief glimpse of one of his half-smiles. I gave him a big one back, and he blinked and looked down at the table. I knew he was listening, though. “In my wildest dreams, I get to be a nurse. A surgical nurse, at a private clinic that performs neurosurgery.” He was looking at me again, his brow furrowed. “Did you catch that?”
“You want… You want work on brain. Surgery. To fix—” He moved his hand in front of his face, and I nodded. He still looked confused.
“What is it, Ivan?”
He took a deep breath when I said his name and tried again. “You want work on surgery team, but you no want be surgeon?”
It was my turn to blink. “Um…”
“You want be nurse, but not surgeon?” Now he was looking at me closely with those piercing eyes…I’d noticed, in the days we spent together, that his hair was more chestnut, the lightest possible dusting of gold haloing out from his head in only the most perfect light. His eyes definitely weren’t black, as they’d appeared to me in the very first moment I saw him—they were hazel. They were the most unusual color grey I’d ever seen, swirled with the darkest chocolate brown. And his body—every firm inch of it—was lithe and sleek, like a panther. Now, for the first time, I began to realize the intensity of his mind as well. He was smart. Very, very smart.
“I…” I found myself swallowing, the words hard to say. “I would love to be a surgeon, Ivan.” Every time I said his name, it was like a little piece of him opened up to me. I watched as his eyes widened. “I just never thought it was possible—I still don’t think it
’s possible. It was so hard just to be able to go to school… My father would never let me go. He would never allow it.” I looked back down at the pages of my book, but his next words snapped my head upright.
“You are prisoner.”
“What?” I almost laughed, but the sound died in my throat. “No, I…” I gulped, remembering his expression earlier. “No, he’s just… He takes his business very seriously.”
“He is late,” Ivan said, his voice hard. “He not taking business seriously now.”
“He is, I promise, I’m sure of it,” I said, and I sounded like I was pleading because I was, begging for my father’s life without consciously meaning to. Ivan leaned back in his chair, examining me. After a minute, he began to stand. “Ivan,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “what’s happening?”
He sat back down, but didn’t meet my eyes. “Julia, if you know where your father is… You should tell Alexei.” He traced something on the table with his fingertip. “You make deal with Alexei.” Suddenly his gaze met mine, and it was fierce. “You no more prisoner.”
“I’m not… I’m not a prisoner, Ivan. I promise.” I couldn’t stop shaking. This was not good news. “And besides, I really don’t know where my father is, or when he’ll be back. Are you sure this isn’t all just some kind of misunderstanding?”
He pushed his chair away from the table. I fought off sobs, feeling a pain in the back of my throat that told me I needed to get to my room before he could hear. I ran past him, up the stairs, and I could swear that he stood outside of my bedroom door for a moment. A moment was all I could wait before the tears came.
The next morning, we were eating breakfast together, as usual, and I had fully recovered. I was even a little embarrassed. And even more bizarre, I was really getting used to having Ivan around. I was getting used to having a bodyguard there with me on the drive to school, and afterwards, to talk about what I’d learned. He didn’t exactly feel like a bodyguard to me anymore, and because I didn’t have to hide being a Russian mafia member’s daughter from him our conversations were much more interesting than anything I could talk about with anyone else. I wasn’t lonely, for the first time.
