by A. Zavarelli
I should be checking out places online. Applying for jobs, looking up facts and figures on Google about the best places for lonely ex-strippers to live. But I highly suspect that Google isn’t going to have the answers to those questions. And something is still holding me back.
I grew up in this city. It’s all I’ve ever known. Even with all of its wrongs, the thought of leaving it just doesn’t feel right. When I’ve spent so many years having all of my decisions made for me through circumstance, trying to make them myself is overwhelming and even a little terrifying. This is my one chance to get out. Not to screw up my life anymore. And I’ve only got one shot to get it right. It’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself.
I walk down the hall to finish packing my bedroom when I notice Ronan’s old suit jacket still hanging on the door. Haunting me, the way he always does. And I can’t look at it anymore. I can’t have any of these things in my life, causing me confusion. From now on, I’m only going to move in one direction, and it’s not backwards.
With that thought in mind, I grab the jacket from the door and stomp all the way down the hall and out the front of my apartment building. The first homeless guy I find when I round the corner is the lucky recipient of the jacket and everything it represents.
***
“You can’t tell anyone yet,” Mack whispers. “But I’m totally knocked up.”
“No way.” I glance down at her stomach, but there’s no evidence there yet. She’s glowing in her wedding dress though. I’m emotional again, and I don’t know what to say. So I hug her.
“And married too.” I tell Mack with tears in my eyes. “I can’t believe you really did it.”
“I know,” she agrees. “I’m in it for life now.”
I glance down at her hand, which still has a tiny amount of blood on it from the ceremony. Something I would have once considered strange and barbaric is now oddly sweet to me. Watching them pledge their love and devotion to each other in front of all of their friends like that. The words weren’t enough. It had to be said in blood too. Not only is that the way of the syndicate, but that’s how strongly they feel about each other.
Her devotion shines in her eyes every time she looks at Lachlan across the room. I’m happy for her, but a part of me is sad too. The last thing I should want or need is a relationship. Or the kind of wild, stupid love that makes people go temporarily insane. I never thought someone as jaded as me could be touched by a love like that. For the few brief times I was in Ronan’s arms, I felt the way Mack looks right now. Dreamy and completely untouchable to all of the bad around me. The only thing she can see is him now.
At first, I wanted to warn her away from him. But now I know that I was wrong. Lachlan loves her too. Fiercely. And I feel truly sorry for anyone who ever tries to come between the two of them. I doubt there are any lengths they won’t go to for each other.
“You better go to him,” I tell Mack. “He’ll just come to you if you don’t.”
“That’s the way it should be,” she tells me with a grin. “Make them work for it every once in a while.”
I laugh, and then my eyes move on autopilot across the room towards Ronan. The smile on my face dissolves, and the only thing that remains is the act.
“You should go dance with Ronan,” Mack suggests.
It’s all I can do to shake my head because I doubt Mack has any idea of the events that have transpired recently. “Nah. He’s not the dancing type.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she agrees. “He’s more of the sit in the corner and brood type. Maybe you could go brood with him then?”
Lachlan sneaks up behind her as we’re talking and it isn’t long before he’s dragging her away. I’m grateful for the reprieve from that conversation. I have no intentions of speaking to Ronan tonight.
When I turn around again, I’m surprised to find one of the Russians has descended on me though. He’s a member of the alliance with the Irish, and a frequent client in the VIP area. I’ve seen him in the pit when I danced before and even delivered him drinks a few times.
His name is Niko, and although he’s handsome in a rough way, he doesn’t hold a candle to Ronan. Then again, nobody does.
“One must never drink alone.” He greets me by wiggling a vodka bottle in my direction.
“Wasn’t one glass enough?” I tease.
He shrugs and winks. “When the drinks are on the Irish, you take your fill before the bar goes dry.”
I laugh and Niko pulls two shot glasses out of his pocket. Before I have another chance to decline, he fills them both up to the rim.
I take my glass and hold it up to his while he utters a Russian toast. Then we both toss back our shots and the burn feels good in my stomach.
“What does it mean?” I ask. “The toast?”
Niko flashes me a boyish grin. “May you get drunk enough this evening to think me handsome.”
I’m smiling at him and shaking my head when a firm grip wraps around my arm. I look up to see Ronan, his eyes smoldering with barely contained fury.
His gaze flicks from me to Niko and back, filled with accusation. He yanks me into his side and leans down to whisper in my ear, never taking his eyes off Niko.
“Would ye like the lad to watch me give you a going over?” he asks.
“What the hell is your problem?” I fire back at him.
His response is to forcefully drag me away from Niko and pull me into an empty corner of the club, away from everyone else.
“Party’s over,” he says. “You’ll be going home now.”
“Like hell I will,” I argue. “You don’t get to decide that. Or who I talk to either.”
“You were smiling at him,” he accuses.
“So frigging what?” I retort. “We were just talking. At least someone around here knows how to use his vocabulary.”
We stare at each other in silence, both of us fuming now. He’s acting like a toddler. And after what he told Lachlan, he has no right.
I try to brush past him, but he just follows me. Niko has disappeared into the crowd which is probably for the best. So I take a seat at an empty table and Ronan pulls up a chair beside me.
We both stew in our own silences for a long time. I’m staring at the crowd, and he’s looking at me. I can feel it, but I won’t meet his eyes. Because my anger won’t hold up under that gaze. And I need my anger right now.
But then he does something that I can’t ignore.
His leg brushes mine, and it isn’t an accident. It might seem like such an innocent gesture, but with Ronan, it definitely isn’t. He doesn’t flirt. Or do anything in half-measures. He comes to me for one reason and one reason alone. To take what he wants.
I can’t recall a time he’s ever touched me unless it was for a purpose. But right now, the heat of his leg is pressed against mine, and it can’t be overlooked. I glance over at him, and he’s still watching me.
There’s a guilt and frustration in his eyes, but he doesn’t apologize. Instead, he leans a little closer, and his breath fans my face. For a second, I think he’s going to kiss me. My heart does a weird little flip, and I stare at him in confusion. I don’t know what he’s doing.
Apparently, neither does he. Because he looks as confused as I am. But his gaze isn’t on me now. It’s over my shoulder. Taking mental notes.
When I turn around, I catch sight of Scarlett and Rory across the bar. Sitting in the exact same position as we are. Rory is putting the moves on her, waiting for her to bite. And it occurs to me Ronan is trying to do the same.
“Are you mimicking him?” I ask.
A flush creeps up over his neck and he leans back in his chair. No answer. But what do I expect?
I could try to dissect his motives for following Rory’s lead, but that was the old me.
The new me isn’t supposed to care anymore.
“I’m going to have Conor take me home,” I tell him.
I don’t wait for his reply, and I don’t look at him again
.
Childish? Perhaps. But a girl has to be able to protect herself by any means possible. Even if it means using a silent wall of armor.
And until I’m burning rubber out of this city, I have no intentions on speaking to Ronan Fitzpatrick again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ronan
“Your strength has progressed considerably,” Farrell observes.
I remain silent as I was taught to do. Head bowed, knees resting on a bed of broken glass. The same ritual the trainees perform every day.
The pain does not bother me anymore. After a while, it became second nature, just as Farrell said it would. My training is going well, according to him. He believes I’m stronger than the other lads, but it isn’t true.
I feel too much rage. That’s where my strength comes from. The rage. It builds up inside of me until there’s nowhere for it to go. I release it in small amounts when they let me. When they have me kill the men they send into the pit. It usually works. But I can always feel it building inside of me, and I’m afraid that one day the small amount isn’t going to be enough.
They’ve stopped giving us the pills. A test of our loyalty. They question us. Beat us. Try everything to get us to break. They tell us we can have a pill if we just give them what they want. I can’t stop shaking. Or puking. My skin is covered with sweat, and I’m burning up from the inside.
I want the pill.
But I refuse to break. Farrell moves to the lad beside me. Alex. He’s smaller than me. Thinner. His body is slumped forward and his face is ashen. He wants the pill too. But Alex is smart. Smarter than me. He knows more about the outside world. He makes me question what they are teaching us here. He speaks of things that I try to block out.
It confuses and angers me. Sometimes, I just want him to stop. I tell him not to speak to me. But he does. And now I understand why we aren’t supposed to talk. Because I worry what they will do to him today. How much more he can take. He’s not my mate, but I don’t want him to die. Sometimes, that happens in training. Sometimes, the other lads die.
But it isn’t me. And that’s why bonds are forbidden. They aren’t supposed to matter. We should not be bothered if another lad dies because that means they were too weak to be a soldier. When I look at Alex, I do not see a soldier. I do not see him ever completing training. But I don’t want him to die.
He's the only person who’s spoken to me other than Farrell and Coyne. Sometimes, I think I’m going mad with nothing but the sound of my own thoughts. Down here in the dark, hungry and thirsty and tired all the time.
Alex makes me think that maybe I’m not going mad. But he says that’s what they want. If I’m mad, then nobody will ever fuck with me. That’s what he says. That’s how they keep the compound safe.
He tells me stories. Stories from books that he remembers. And they take me away from this place. I like his stories. But he couldn’t tell them to me for the last week because he’s not well. He’s been two days without water already.
But they just keep interrogating us. Trying to break us.
Asking us the same questions over and over. They say that if we are ever captured, they need to know we won’t break. So they keep at it. The only time it stops is when they turn out the lights and put those screams on the speakers again. And then the rats. So many rats. They crawl over our skin. They crawl on me everywhere.
Today Coyne choked us until we passed out. And then woke up. And then passed out. I haven’t a clue how long it went on for.
They just keep asking the same questions. Trying to test our loyalty. No pills. And the same questions. Over and over. I won’t give them what they want. I won’t break.
I want to smash my head into the concrete. But if I do, they will chain me up again. So I stare at the wall instead. But I can feel Farrell. He’s looking down at me. And then Alex. He knows I won’t break, but Alex is close. I think he will break. Because he wants the pills too much. He’s shivering too. Sweating. And he’s covered in vomit.
Farrell looks down upon him with obvious disgust. Before I can worry over the consequences of my actions, I blurt out something to distract him.
“I am only loyal to the cause.”
His eyes dart to me, and they are filled with suspicion. He’s onto me, and now he’s going to make it worse. He reaches for his bamboo cane and walks behind me. I close my eyes as the cane cracks across the soles of my feet, and I don’t move for the duration.
“Would ye care to take the lashings for your friend as well?” Farrell challenges.
“He’s not well,” I reply. “So I will take them.”
Alex looks at me in horror, and I tear my eyes away. Farrell cracks the cane over my back and legs until I collapse into the shattered glass beneath me. But it isn’t over. It’s already too late when it occurs to me that I’ve only made it worse.
He drags Alex from the glass and forces him over the bench. Alex sobs, and I hate him for it. I hate those loud noises. Those cries. I want to cover my ears. I want to tell him to shut up. I don’t want to see or hear any of this. Farrell pulls up his shirt and starts to beat him. He watches me while he does it, challenging me to speak out of turn.
When I don’t, he hits him harder. And harder. The cane cracks across his head and face, and Alex collapses onto the bench completely. This is a test. Farrell wants to see if I will challenge him. But he’s going too far this time. Alex has been without water. He is weak and malnourished. His body cannot withstand much more. I’ve watched the other lads hold up under torture. And I’ve watched the ones who didn’t survive. But this time is different. Because Alex spoke to me. And I know him.
“Please,” I say.
Farrell snarls at me and raises his arm again, striking out in rage across Alex’s head. Alex stops moving. He stops making noise, and I’m holding my breath, silently pleading for Farrell to stop. He doesn’t.
He continues to hit him. Again and again and again. Until blood sprays across his shirt and his arms.
Something about the sight of that blood makes all of that rage inside of me boil over just as I feared. I don’t know where it comes from. I haven’t any idea what I’m doing. But I’m moving towards Farrell, and he tries to turn his cane on me. He’s unprepared for me to fight back, because I never have.
I take the cane easily from his grip, and I hit him with it. Again and again and again until all I see is red. Beautiful, glorious, red.
***
For as long as I can remember, women have always flocked to Crow.
Even as young lads in school, the girls were always coming up to speak with him. He told me how it worked and tried to get me to speak with them too. But I knew they didn’t like me.
Nobody liked me. Except for Crow and his mammy.
I wasn’t very good at school. By the time I finally went, I was already fourteen. I knew how to read and write, but I didn’t know any of the other stuff. The other kids were always whispering that I was a freak. So I kept to myself. It didn’t bother me.
When we came to the states, Crow offered to help me get a woman. Told me it was an important rite of passage for a man. He was always with a different woman. Said he didn’t want to get attached. So I told him I was the same. I didn’t need him to find me a woman, and I didn’t want to get attached.
I’d followed Crow all my life. Did the things he did and tried to blend in. I thought it was all going okay, and I could have kept on with it for my whole life. But then I saw Sasha. It was her voice that caught my attention before I ever saw her face. I didn’t usually look at a woman’s face, unless I needed to. But Sasha had a gentle voice. I liked the way she spoke. She wasn’t loud like the other women at Slainte, but always soft.
That night though, she was waiting tables in the diner where we ate breakfast. Her arm brushed mine as she filled up my coffee cup, and she looked right at me and smiled. Most women were afraid of me, I think, and they never looked right at me like that. But she did. And she wasn’t laughing. She didn’t tr
eat me like I was different or make me feel uncomfortable. My arms were shaking, and my heart was beating fast. It reminded me of the pills they used to give us at the compound. And I hated that feeling. Hated her for making me feel that way again. But for the rest of the night I couldn’t stop staring at her.
I wanted her.
I’d never wanted anything as much as I wanted her. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I wanted to touch her. For weeks, I couldn’t stop jerking myself off thinking about the way she smiled at me. Wondering what it would feel like to have her beneath me. To be inside of her.
These sort of thoughts were doing me no good. I knew I couldn’t have her. I was a murderer. Even though it was the only thing I’d ever known, I’d learned after I left the compound that it wasn’t normal. And Crow explained that most women, they didn’t like it. We had to keep that part of our lives separate, for obvious reasons. But I didn’t know how to separate myself. I only knew how to paint the floor with blood and I could do that exceptionally well.
But I didn’t know how to speak with her. What to say. When I imagined letting her touch me, and the things I was supposed to do to her, I didn’t know what they were. There were some women at the compound. I remember Farrell told me they were whores and they were only there to bed the soldiers when they needed it. He said when I was sixteen, I’d bed one too. After I graduated training. But I never did. And I never wanted to.
But I couldn’t get the notion out of my head when I saw Sasha. Only before I could sort any of that out, Blaine started grabbing her like he had a right to. Touching her and asking her out. She brushed him off, but I knew he kept going back. Because I followed him. And I followed her too.
I couldn’t stop. At first, I just wanted to see where she lived. But then it wasn’t enough. I broke into her apartment. Went through her things. Watched her whenever she came to the club with Blaine.
