“It’s ‘seventeen.’”
“You think he is doing trafficking after all? Seventeen women?” My guts twisted. “Jesus, ‘seventeen years old?’”
He looked at my screen. “It says to seventeen. And it has capital letter, like a person.”
“Who’s called ‘seventeen’?”
“I don’t know. But I know someone who will.” Then he pressed his lips together, tracing the shape of the steering wheel with his fingers as he thought.
“What?”
“We will have to go into my world.” He shook his head. “It is not a place for you.”
“For me, a woman?”
He turned and looked at me and I saw that flash of blue in his eyes again, the fierce fire of emotion under all that cold. “For you.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.
He considered, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “What about…?” He indicated the outside world through the windshield.
“Better than staying on my own.”
He looked at me again, this time for longer. Eventually, he seemed to make his mind up. “OK, then. But you do just what I say and you stay right the fuck beside me.”
I nodded quickly, trying to ignore the building fear inside.
And I tried to ignore something else, too: the fluttering in my chest when he’d turned all protective of me. “Where are we going?” I asked.
Alexei started up the car. “Little Odessa.”
Alexei
Little Odessa. A little bit of Russia, right in the heart of Brooklyn. It had always felt like home...but I knew that would already be changing as word got around of what I’d done. By tomorrow, it would be hostile territory...and that tore me up inside.
We pulled up outside a place called Soblazn, with a broken neon sign of a cocktail glass and a heavy, steel-reinforced door. I’d been there twice, when Nikolai wanted something delivered to Vadim, the owner.
I looked between Gabriella and the door. “Stay right beside me,” I told her. “Okay?”
She nodded. Then said, “Why? Who’s in the bar?”
“It’s not a bar.”
I led her up to the door. We were still a few feet from it when one of Vadim’s thugs filled the doorway. He seemed to have no neck, just a line where his chin met his muscled chest, and he was rolling a lollipop from one side of his mouth to the other. “Alexei,” he growled. It could have been affectionate or threatening—he made it deliberately difficult to tell. “Business?”
I nodded. “Is Vadim in?”
The guy clacked the lollipop a few times against his teeth, looking at Gabriella. “Artur is in.”
Artur was Vadim’s number two. We could start with him. I nodded and the doorman stepped back out of the way.
There was another guy, sitting behind a Plexiglas window with a pay slot at the bottom. He didn’t ask us to pay the cover fee, but he nodded at Gabriella as she passed. “She here to audition?” he asked with interest.
I squeezed Gabriella’s hand a little tighter. “No.” We pushed through a door and I heard Gabriella gasp in surprise. I think it was the fact it was broad daylight outside, as much as anything. She must have imagined these places only operated at night.
Soblazn means “temptation.”
We’d stepped into a world lit in purple, pink and blue. The room wasn’t big, but every bit of space was used, the tables and chairs deliberately arranged so that you had to spiral around to get anywhere. It made movement predictable—you could see where someone was heading long before they got there. That made it easier for the security guys to spot trouble and easier for the women to home in on customers.
There were two working the poles, one of them a long-legged blonde who looked as though she might be Polish, the other a curvy redhead who was probably Russian. A third woman, dark-haired with long legs, was stripping on a small stage while Artur watched. She must be auditioning.
Gabriella squeezed my hand. I turned to see her gazing around in horrified wonder, her eyes going from naked breast to shaved pubis to the floor and then back again.
There were plenty of customers in the place, even in the middle of the afternoon. Businessmen enjoying a “long lunch,” a few people who’d been out all night and didn’t want to go home, or were starting tonight early. Everyone except for Gabriella was Russian and male.
Gabriella swallowed and then whispered to me, having to put her mouth right to my ear to be heard over the throbbing dance beat. “Are these women...do they want to be here?”
“They aren’t trafficked. It’s a job. They get paid.” I looked around at the seedy surroundings. “But want is strong word.”
I could see a few of the customers start to notice Gabriella. At first, they just looked up in surprise and there was even a quick flash of guilt, as if all women were connected and she might be a hotline straight to their wives or girlfriends. But then they glanced over at the dark-haired woman Artur was watching and, when their eyes returned to Gabriella, they slowly slid down her body. They were making the same assumption as the guy behind the pay window. They assumed they were going to be seeing her naked in a few minutes.
I walked her quickly over to Artur. Vadim owns the club but he lets Artur run it for him so that he can focus on more important things, like getting drunk and fucking his mistresses. Mistresses plural.
Artur was sprawled in a chair, intimidatingly close to the stage, his eyes fixed on the woman who was auditioning. The club lights painted his close-cropped blond hair purple and lit up his pale skin blue and, with the complex, winding tattoos on his arms and chest revealed by his tank top, he looked like some war-painted warrior.
“What do you want?” asked Artur, barely looking up.
I opened my mouth to speak, but he put up his hand to stop me. “Who’s she?”
I looked around at Gabriella. “A...friend. She’s okay.”
But he shook his head and gestured her away. He wasn’t going to talk with a stranger around.
I sighed and turned to Gabriella. “Go get a drink at the bar. Stay where I can see you.”
She nodded nervously and walked off, still glancing in amazement at the dancers.
I hooked a chair with my foot and dragged it over beside Artur’s. “I need to see Vadim,” I told him. “Urgent.”
“It’s always urgent.” He raised his voice, speaking to the woman on stage. “Bra off.” He dropped his voice again. “What does Luka want now? Or is it Nikolai?”
“It’s...personal.”
For the first time, Artur turned properly around and looked at me. “Personal? You don’t do personal.” He frowned. “Is it ‘personal’ to do with her?” He nodded at Gabriella.
“It’s personal and private,” I said. I didn’t know who Nikolai had spoken to, so I didn’t know who was still on my side. The fewer people I talked to, the better.
Artur looked back to the woman on the stage. “Take your panties off, now.”
She slowly complied.
“Can I see him?” I asked Artur.
He glanced at me for a second, then sighed with resignation. “Because it’s you,” he said. “But you owe me one.”
I nodded.
“He’s in the steam bath,” said Artur. “You know the place.”
I got up, clapped him on the shoulder and we briefly embraced. I liked Artur. He could be a mean fuck, but you always knew where you were with him.
I turned towards the bar and lifted my hand to wave Gabriella towards the exit.
But she was gone.
Gabriella
I still couldn’t believe I was in a strip club, or that all this was going on: naked women writhing around poles, half-drunk men throwing dollars at them—when it was broad daylight outside. I’d always imagined these places only faded into existence in the early hours of the morning and vanished by dawn, like the magic shop in a story.
I went to the bar, as Alexei had instructed. With my non-existent social life, i
t had been literally years since I’d had alcohol and I figured starting now would probably be a bad idea. The bartender seemed as surprised by the request for a mineral water as he was by the sight of a woman with her clothes on. But he poured me one and I stood by the bar sipping it while desperately trying to fit in.
Having Alexei close by was helping to soothe the panic a little, but this place—this whole area—still felt very alien. As I stood there listening to the chatter around me, it started to sink in that everyone else in the place was Russian. I knew rationally that I couldn’t be all that far from my apartment, in terms of miles. But it felt as if I was in a different country. And even the thought of my apartment didn’t calm me. It had been violated—literally stained with blood. It wasn’t safe anymore.
My only safe haven now was with the huge, muscled Russian across the room.
I tried to focus on the dancers to distract myself. God, they were beautiful—tall and long-legged and glamorous in a way I’d never be, with perfect boobs—maybe too perfect to be real, but men didn’t care, right? I watched the way they slunk around on their podiums, lithe as cats and untouchable as goddesses, yet always with that sultry, heavy-lidded look of promise: another dollar, another twenty dollars, another hundred dollars and I can be yours. What would it be like, to dance like that for men, or just for one man?
What would it be like to dance like that for Alexei?
A bolt of heat stabbed straight down to my groin, unexpectedly powerful and urgent. I remembered the way he’d looked at me in the car, even when I’d been doing something as unsexy as eating. How would he look at me if I did that: lean back against a pole with my arms above my head, arching my back and thrusting my breasts out? Or that: sliding down to my knees, the pole between my thighs as if it was a lover who was—I blushed and looked away. But the heat in my groin didn’t fade.
A group of men approached the bar, all wanting to be served at once. Alexei had said to stay right there, but I didn’t want to be in the center of a group of drunk Russians so I moved away a little, deeper into the club. There was a quiet, shadowy area where I felt a little less exposed so I stood there, my eyes still glued to the dancers. Why did Alexei keep looking at me in that way? I was nothing special...and he’d seen what a fuck-up I was.
“Vy mogli by.”
I spun around. The man was standing beside me, so close that my elbow knocked against his, but he didn’t seem to notice. I hadn’t heard him approach over the music. “What?”
“American?” He blinked, then recovered. His Russian accent was heavy and I could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Not many Americans, here. I said: you could.”
“I could what?”
He smiled and nodded at the nearest dancer, the one I’d been staring at. It took me a second to realize what he meant and then my eyes widened. “Oh! Oh, no. I wasn’t—”
“You have body for it. Good tits. Good ass.”
I felt my face flush red. The man grinned again. He seemed half drunk, his tie was missing, and his collar was unfastened. But he didn’t sound as if he meant to insult me. He sounded as if he was trying to pay me a compliment.
“...thank you,” I said at last. “But I wasn’t—”
“Ona pozzhe?” A new voice, on my other side. I turned to see a similarly drunk businessman, ignoring me and talking directly across me to his friend. Then he grinned at me and I realized he was talking about me to his friend. The first man shrugged and laughed. “He asked if you were on later,” he told me.
“No, I’m not a dancer. And I’m not auditioning!”
The men looked at each other, frowning, then back at me. “You like the girls?” the second man said. His Russian accent was even heavier than the first. “You like to…”—he mimed rubbing his body up against another person’s. The mood was still friendly, jokey. They were being a little drunk and coarse, but I didn’t feel threatened, just embarrassed.
“What? No! I’m here with a...friend.” I looked for Alexei, but the men were between me and him, now, and they were both big enough to block my view.
“A boyfriend?” the first man asked.
I hesitated. “No…”
“So you’re single?” The men’s grins got wider.
I was about to speak when Alexei barged between them. He looked panicked, which was something I didn’t think was possible. It clicked that, just as I hadn’t been able to see him because of the two men, he hadn’t been able to see me. “Come on,” he said brusquely.
The first man said something in Russian, a half-hearted plea.
Alexei ignored him and reached for my hand.
The second man made an appeal, nodding at me and then at the club.
Alexei suddenly turned, grabbed the man’s shirt and hauled him up into the air. Then bellowed and threw the man at his friend. Both men went crashing to the floor. I gave a yelp of horror and grabbed Alexei’s sleeve.
The entire club stopped to watch.
Alexei pulled out of my grip and marched over to the men, his face twisted with rage. He snapped something at the men and got a hastily groaned apology.
The man he’d sat down with a few minutes earlier, the one who’d been watching the stripper, ambled over. He looked tiredly down at the two men on the floor. “Perhaps you and your friend should be leaving, Alexei,” he said mildly. A couple of security guys were walking towards us.
I ran over to Alexei and grabbed his sleeve again. “Come on!” I said. “It’s okay! Leave them!”
I studied his face as he stood there glaring down at the two men. I’d never seen him so angry, even when we’d been back in my apartment. He looked as if he’d almost lost control, something I didn’t think was possible.
Then he grabbed my wrist and stalked out of the club, forcing me to hurry to keep up. We were in the street before he spoke. “I told you to stay by bar!” he snapped.
I gaped at him. “I—What? I couldn’t! A whole load of guys came over and—”
He pulled on my wrist, spinning me around to look at him. The anger was bubbling up inside me, scalding hot, and I was ready to yell at him for being so unreasonable—
And then I saw it: underneath the anger, the concern. And I remembered the look of panic on his face. He was worried about me. And he didn’t know how to do that, didn’t know how to be concerned about someone other than to rage and shout and hit people.
I just stood there and stared at him, shocked, while he glared and panted and…
...looked as if he wanted to wrap me up in his arms and kiss me.
“Are you okay?” he said at last, his eyes burning into me.
I wasn’t capable of speech. It felt as if my heart had ballooned in my chest, blocking my voice. “Mm-hmm,” I managed. Alexei!
“You need to be more careful,” he muttered. And with that he got into the car and slammed his door.
I quickly got in beside him. He pulled away immediately and I waited a few minutes for him to calm down before I asked, “Did you find out who Seventeen is?”
“No, but we’re going to see a man who will.” He was gradually relaxing and something else was replacing the anger. “He’ll see us, but….”
“What?”
He swallowed. “Something I need to tell you, about place we’re going....” He was looking very determinedly out of the windshield, avoiding my eyes. Was he...was Alexei embarrassed?
“What?”
For just a second, he glanced at me. Yes, he was embarrassed and...something else. A hint of excitement he was trying hard to hide. “We won’t be able to wear any clothes.”
Alexei
Her first reaction was to grin. Then she realized I was serious. “No clothes?”
I nodded. And tried to keep looking at the road because I was worried she’d see how excited I was at the possibility of seeing her naked again.
Idiot! All I was doing was torturing myself. I still couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d looked through the sniper scope. This would be up close
and in person. Close enough to...touch.
Except I could never touch her. I could never even let her know how I felt about her. I couldn’t start something because, with this girl, once I started there was no way I’d be able to turn back. I wouldn’t be able to stop until I’d kissed every inch of her sweet flesh, until I’d plundered her body in every conceivable way. But the thought of her innocence, ruined by my sins, didn’t bear thinking about. I had to get her out of this thing, alive and unharmed, and give her back the life she should have had. Let her go back to that civilian world where things are safe and warm and comfortable.
A little voice inside me asked if that was true, if she’d ever really lived in that world...or if she’d been eking out an existence in a kind of limbo, holed up in that apartment with no contact with anyone. It asked me if maybe, she was just as lonely as me.
I crushed the voice down. Even no life was better than the one I could give her. She shouldn’t have the hands of a killer—
Running down her back, over her ass—
Cupping her breasts, thumbs stroking her nipples—
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Stop thinking like that!
The more I got angry with myself, the more I found myself back in the strip club. Come on, the drunk guy had said. She belongs here.
Even as I’d tensed with rage, the second guy had joined in. She’d look great up there.
I’d lost it. I never lost my temper and now I’d done it twice in as many days. I’d wanted to pound them both into the ground, render them just stains on the carpet for even daring to suggest that Gabriella belonged in that filthy, criminal place.
But not all of the anger had been directed outward. I’d been kicking myself for ever taking her there, and for leaving her alone, and for one more thing….
Kissing My Killer Page 7
