THIEF

by A. Zavarelli

  Alexei retrieves the phone from his pocket and wakes the screen. “I have a photo of her. Let me show you.”

  It’s probably not appropriate of me, but I stand and move to the other side of the table. I’m eager for the opportunity to leave this house, even if only temporarily. The idea of having a friend fills my heart with hope.

  Alexei hands me the phone, and I stare at the photo, cataloging the details of the woman on the screen. She is beautiful, but there is also something heartbreaking about her. The gray eyes staring back at me are haunted and sad, and I’m left to wonder if she’s happy with her husband. And then I wonder why I would even question it.

  What mafia wife is ever happy?

  I want to assure him that she’s beautiful, which is probably what he wants to hear, but instead, I tell Alexei that she looks like she could use a friend. He nods, and it takes him some time to drag his eyes away from the photo.

  “She has not had an easy life,” he admits. “And I don’t know that I make her happy, but I try.”

  The profound level of sorrow in his voice provokes me to do something I probably shouldn’t. But I reach out and touch his hand, if only to let him know there is always hope.

  “Will you tell me about her?”

  For the remainder of the meal, we get lost in conversation. He opens up about his wife’s background, giving me intimate details about someone I’ve yet to meet. But I can see that it’s what he needed, and when I hear her heart-wrenching story, I feel like we are friends already.

  After such a deep subject, the natural progression is to move on to lighter topics. Alexei explains his position within the Vory, their hierarchy, and some of their customs. The things he tells me are not so different from my own family’s codes, and I’m surprised to learn that I even find some of their practices more agreeable.

  It’s when we are on the matter of children that Nikolai chooses to return. The timing isn’t ideal, considering he left us as strangers and returns to find me leaning in to study more of the photos on Alexei’s phone. The flash in his eyes as he examines the narrow distance between us warns me that his mood has only darkened, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m enjoying myself, and I know he’s about to ruin it.

  “You are dismissed, Nakya,” he thunders. “Go to your room.”

  Not about to argue with his tone, I move to get up, but Alexei halts me with his hand on my arm. “She can stay.”

  A silent war rages between the two brothers while I remain in my seat, hands clutched in my lap. The game of trying to provoke Nikolai is no longer fun, and at the end of the day, it is him I must answer to.

  “Perhaps I should go to my room,” I volunteer.

  “I think perhaps you should stay here,” Alexei argues. “It’s not a problem, is it, bratan? You trust me, yes?”

  Nikolai’s nostrils flare, and I can’t be sure, but I’m beginning to think I have become the proverbial stick between the two.

  “With my life,” Nikolai answers. “As blood should.”

  Sticky silence descends over us before Nonna suggests we all move to the sitting room for drinks. She is quick to follow our movements, already prepared with fresh beverages. It’s my third vodka cranberry of the night, and I am feeling it more than I should.

  I don’t drink often. Only on a few occasions did I steal a sip from my father’s liquor cabinet or nurse a beverage during a dinner party, but in general, I don’t make it a habit of imbibing. In the past, it was partly because my father had high expectations for my behavior, but mostly, it was because there were too many calories.

  Tonight, however, I am not thinking of the caloric content. I am only thinking of the impending doom that awaits me if this tension does not dissipate before Alexei takes his leave.

  Watching Nikolai as he speaks to his brother in Russian, I’m cursed to wonder what made him this way. Volatile one minute, and placid the next. His emotions do not ebb and flow like a ripple in the sea. They are either a tidal wave or the eerily calm silence before disaster strikes. I have known him to be kind, and I have known him to be cruel. But it’s apparent I am not the only recipient of his mercurial mood swings.

  He is self-destructive in his own right. For someone constantly surrounded by people, his relationships are shallow and meaningless. He seems to have sabotaged the only ones that stand a chance at a deeper connection. I have an intense desire to understand what caused the rift between these two brothers, and more importantly, why their shared DNA needs to be kept a secret.

  While I’m attempting to sort through these thoughts, Alexei’s attention drifts back to me, much to Nikolai’s vexation. It’s deliberate at this point. Alexei wants to provoke his brother, and it might be amusing if I wasn’t the one who will bear the brunt of it.

  “Enough.” Nikolai moves in front of me, obscuring Alexei’s view. “I thought we could be civilized, but it’s obvious that you can’t let go of the past.”

  “Perhaps when I am dead,” Alexei answers. “I will let go of it then.”

  Nikolai curses his displeasure in Russian. “You never listen. You would not listen when I told you she was a whore. You would not listen when I told you she was servicing your Vory brothers. You needed to see it for yourself.”

  “And you needed to take what was mine,” Alexei sneers. “Because you couldn’t allow me to have anything. You are just like Sergei.”

  Before I can comprehend what’s happening, the two men are grappling with each other on the floor. Rage-soaked insults are hurled between punches as I watch on in horror. Drink glasses shatter, and the coffee table splinters across the room as I take shelter behind the sofa. I am not immune to violence, but this is pitiful.

  “Stop it!” I scream.

  Nikolai is the one to turn and look at me. His eyes lance right through me, piercing me with blame.

  “Come.” Nonna tugs on my arm, and I’m not even sure when she entered the room. “Leave the men to their business.”

  Any hope that a hot shower would dissolve some of the tension in my body is lost when I climb beneath the sheets. My muscles are fatigued, my eyes are heavy, and soreness has taken a stronghold over me.

  The house is quiet now, and I’m left to wonder how the evening ended. It should make little difference to me, but I’m curious how Nikolai fared in the gladiator sports downstairs. Reason dictates I care only because he’s my captor and he’s in charge of my fate. But if I’m honest with myself, I know it’s more complicated than that.

  I’m not left to wonder for long. When I’m on the verge of sleep, the bedroom door thunders open, and Nikolai emerges from the shadows. The light from the hallway creates a halo of orange around him, illuminating a swollen jaw and blackened eye. But it isn’t his face I’m worried about.

  When I meet his gaze, an edgy, twitchy feeling crawls over me. I need to get away. Far, far away.

  He stalks toward the bed, and I scramble to the other side. I’ve got one foot on the floor when his arm comes around my waist and captures me from behind. His lips ghost over my ear, breathing fire into my skin.

  “Where are you going, little doll?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, desperately seeking shelter from the storm in his. The strength I need to endure has abandoned me, and I won’t survive him this time. He’s going to wreck me.

  He drags me back to the middle of the bed, immobilizing me with the weight of his body. His skin is feverish, and his breath is laced with whiskey. But it’s the tension rippling through his muscles that scares me the most.

  “Perhaps you would rather go home with my brother. Is that it, pet?”

  “No,” I whisper.

  “You spent the evening flirting with him.” His booming voice vibrates against my chest. “So why shouldn’t I send you home with him?”

  “Please.” I cling to his arms. “That isn’t what I want.”

  “Guess what, kitten?” His words blow over my throat. “I don’t care what you want.”

  A te
ar falls down my cheek, and Nikolai collects it with his tongue. His fingers take ownership of my face, and he forces intimacy by staring into my eyes.

  “Tell me that you want me.”

  “No.” It’s a faint protest, drowned out by his mouth crashing into mine. The first thing I taste is his blood, and the second is his whiskey.

  My first kiss. He’s taken my first kiss. The shock anchors me to the bed, rendering me a prisoner to his lips. Swollen and rough, fiery and insatiable. He has the will of a fighter and the artistry of a lover. Right now, he’s both. And I’m a slave to my weakness. A slave to him. He squeezes my jaw open, and his tongue clashes with mine. It’s intimate. It’s a violation. Yet I thirst for it.

  “You are my angel,” he murmurs. “And if I want, my whore too.”

  My body arches against him, and my fingers tangle in his hair, wishing for the strength I don’t possess. “I hate you.”

  “I think you wish that you did.” He forces his leg between my thighs.

  I’m not wearing any panties, and my nightdress has migrated up over my hips during the struggle. A flush sweeps up the back of my neck and over my face as I endeavor to put myself back together again. The thought of him seeing me spread open is terrifying. Humiliating. But Nikolai doesn’t care about my modesty.

  His lips are lazing over my throat now, his angry cock straining against his trousers. I’m supposed to remain pure. There was a reason, I’m certain, but I can’t think of it now. Not when he’s pawing at me, licking and biting and kissing my flesh. My nails sink into the rigid angles of his back, searching for my sanity. My breath comes in waves as I wonder if this is it. If this will be my damnation. His mouth reaches the swells of my breasts, and I stop breathing altogether.

  “Fuck these tits,” he grunts as he squeezes them together between his fleshy palms. “Fuck you and your pretty little tits.”

  The lashing of his tongue softens the harshness of his words when he lowers his head to suck my nipples through the silky fabric. A thousand jolts of lightning arc through me. I don’t want to want him, but he is manipulating me with his touch, his sounds, and the drugging scent of his body.

  The same way he manipulated all the other women before me.

  “Nikolai.” I shove him. “We can’t. I can’t. You were with her. You chose her.”

  My protests stall when his fingers move between my legs and drag against my bare sex. The place no man has ever touched before. The place only my husband is supposed to touch. Logically, I know this, but I’m so wet for him that it doesn’t matter what my mind knows is best for me. My body doesn’t want what’s best for me. My body wants to lay down and sacrifice for him.

  “You are mine to play with.” He pulls down the nightdress and kisses each of my breasts. “Mine to toy with. And fuck. And use. And degrade. You belong to me now, zvezda, and I’m going to let you know it.”

  My head rattles against the pillow, but my protests have dried up. He’s right, and I know he’s right. He can do anything he wants to me.

  To further prove his point, his hands grip the back of my thighs, pushing them up until my knees kiss my chest. Cool air passes over the most intimate part of me, and embarrassment colors my cheeks as his eyes drink me in like this. I’m on display, just like the doll he says I am. It’s lewd, and it’s dirty, and I try to squeeze my thighs back together, but they don’t budge.

  “Nikolai.”

  “You can call me Nikolasha,” he tells me. “Whenever I eat your pussy.”

  His mouth comes down on me, and I yelp. But when I feel him bury his tongue inside me, spasms rock my body. I squirm against him, fighting for each ragged breath as he laps at me without restraint. My knees buckle, and I feel like I’m falling. I’m out of control, and I’m falling, and there’s nothing to save me.

  My fingers coil in his hair, twisting with the intent of pushing him away, but instead, I pull him closer like a deviant. He kneads the flesh of my ass cheeks in his hands and drinks from my body like I’m the sweetest nectar he’s ever tasted. I’m hypnotized. Strung out. Drunk on a pleasure I never realized existed. But I know it’s a lie. I’m not the sweetest nectar he’s ever tasted. Every time my eyes fall shut, I see him with her. I see him with all the others who came before me. And I hate it. I hate him.

  I tell him so.

  He grunts. “You won’t hate me when your pussy is raw from my lips.”

  Sharp teeth pinch the most sensitive part of my flesh, and I reflexively yank on his hair. His grip dominates me, and I am left to thrash against him as he schools me in the art of control. I claw at his arms. His shoulders. Even the back of his neck. I tell him in one breath that I hate him and beg him not to stop in the next.

  None of it matters. Nikolai has his own agenda.

  “You are going to come on my face,” he murmurs. “And you’ll be filthy just like me.”

  I don’t want it to be true. But it is. The onslaught is sudden and explosive. With the tug of his puppet strings, the master fractures the good girl inside me. All that’s left in the wake of his devastation is a broken doll who wrings out every ounce of pleasure from his mouth before she deflates.

  I’m bankrupt. Devoid of contrition as he kisses my thigh and smears the arousal from his face into my skin. Tomorrow I’ll repent, but for now, the devil’s got his grasp on me.

  Nikolai unzips his pants, and my tongue darts out to wet my lips as his cock springs free. It’s a violent pulsing monstrosity. I watch his face as he strokes it in his fist. Eyes half-drunk, he soaks in the sight before him. I’m still spread wide, my sex wet and swollen and tender from him.

  He edges his body between my parted thighs, and I try to squeeze them shut, but he just pries them back open. I think this is it. This is where he will ruin me. This is the moment that my life will be over.

  He drags my body closer to the giant throbbing dick, and I shiver. It’s going to hurt. I might cry. I don’t know how my body will ever accommodate him. The piercing heat thrusts against my sensitive flesh, dousing his cock with my arousal. I take a breath, and the world doesn’t end.

  He doesn’t violate the sacred barrier, even if I secretly wish he would. Instead, he reaches for my hand and guides it down between my legs, wrapping it around his heavy flesh. He shows me the way, teaching me how to touch him. How to grip him. How to force the sounds of agony that rip from his throat. Lusting for that power, the student quickly surpasses the teacher. The tides have changed, and now it is this savage of a man who is a slave to me.

  He collapses forward, his palms coming to rest on my knees as his head falls back in a drugged daze. His hips move disjointedly, jarring his cock into the tiny opening of my fingers. He’s fucking my hand, and not my body. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I’m in control, and he can’t stop himself.

  I watch his face, cataloging every detail. The tension pulling at his drooping eyes. The five-o clock shadow feathering over his sharp cheekbones. The tousled hair that I attacked. He didn’t look this way with her. He didn’t look this way with anyone.

  I’ve left my mark on him.

  And now, he’s determined to leave his on me. His cock pulses, and he yanks it from my grasp, jets of hot cum spraying against my sex. I wrench at the unexpected sensation, and he offers me a lazy smile as he smears the fluid inside me with his fingers.

  “What are you doing?” I demand. “You can’t do that.”

  He isn’t reactive to my protests, and I’m not even sure he heard them. His eyes are dazed and heavy as he squeezes the head of his cock into my opening, seating just the tip inside.

  I jolt at the foreign intrusion before falling eerily still. His skin is on my skin. His cum is inside me, and if I even breathe, he could push past the point of no return.

  Murmurs of his approval rumble from his chest as he glides back and forth with the slightest of movements. It seems to go on until my lungs are about to burst, and only when his dick is soft does he pull out and tuck himself away.
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  “Next time, zvezda, I will empty myself inside you.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you think your future looks like,” Sarah suggests.

  Nakya gazes out the window, rapping her fingers against the bottle of water in her hands. She is curled into herself, so small the chair swallows her whole. After last week’s tantrum, I feared she might need to be placed on the tube again. But her doctors assure me she is back on track.

  The shadows darkening her eyes don’t inspire confidence, but I’m not privy to her current mental state. The last I saw of her was the night I stole into her room and sampled her virgin pussy. I can still taste it on my lips, and against my better judgment, I still want more.

  “I don’t know what the future looks like,” Nakya says finally. Her voice is bleak, and I fear that the little dancer has lost her light for good.

  “Do you see yourself back onstage? Or perhaps in love? Married? Children? What does the future look like for you?”

  She takes too long to answer, and I should not feel so desperate to hear the words spoken from her lips. But more and more, I find that I want to know her. I want to tame the chaos in her mind, and that is a problem.

  “I was supposed to marry a man who works for my father.” Nakya tugs at the corner of the wrapper on her bottle. “But now I don’t think I will.”

  “Does that upset you?” Sarah asks.

  It’s the question I would have asked myself, had I believed she’d give me an honest answer. Nakya is not naïve to the surveillance at my disposal, but regardless, she has been forthcoming during her sessions. She probably assumes that I have better things to do than watch her, which would be correct. Yet here I am.

  “The decision was made for me already,” Nakya says. “But I do not love Dante as a wife should love her husband.”

  Her answer leaves me to question her authenticity when so many times, she has chosen to use Dante as her invisible shield. At every opportunity, she has thrown him in my face. If she does not love him, I can only draw one conclusion from her actions. She will do anything to keep me away.