by Lana Sky
Run.
I roll onto my side first, biting a groan back as sores and wounds rip open. It’s dark in the room. Maybe just after dawn, before the sun has fully risen. I know at a glance that Maxim isn’t here, lurking within the corners. To be sure though, I crane my neck, straining my ears against the silence, and don’t hear the sound of anyone in the rest of the suite, either.
Logic warns me to crawl into my bedroom and wait. Ride the contract out for as long as I can.
But, at the moment, my brain feels too fucking wrecked for logic.
Bit by goddamn bit, I wrestle my limbs into submission and crawl to the edge of the bed. When I finally manage to peel the covers back, I find that he left me naked. A quick scan of the room doesn’t reveal my clothes anywhere. I have no choice but to limp over to his closet and wrench the sliding door to it open.
Any bravery I managed to muster up drains from me in one go. Even his clothing intimidates. Crisp dress shirts hang neatly in shades spanning black, navy, gray, and the purest white. My fingers shake as I grab one at random along with a pair of boxers. I pull both on while simultaneously staggering for the door.
He isn’t in the foyer when I tiptoe across it. Neither do I hear him working in the sculpture room. His absence leaves an almost eerie, unnatural silence, broken only by my ragged breaths and the slight click of the front door when I finally pull it open.
I take the stairs down to the first floor and slip through a fire exit. Barefoot, I flag a cab down before realizing I don’t have any money to pay the fare.
Go fucking figure.
Maybe the driver takes pity on me, because he sighs when I paw through the pockets of Maxim’s shirt in a half-assed search for cash. “It’s all right, miss.” His eyes skim over my bruised, battered face and he quickly looks away before letting me off near a random street at the edge of Horn Hill. “Consider it on the house. Just take care of yourself out here.”
This area is close to my old house. I should go back and regroup—think of a way to get the kids back home, if Maxim doesn’t kick them out first. Or worse…
I start heading in that direction. But, somewhere along the way, I take a wrong turn and wind up in a back booth of some rundown diner. It’s a slow time of day, right before the midmorning rush. A waitress patrols the aisles, brandishing a fresh pot of coffee. She offers to pour me a cup, but I shake my head and pray she’ll walk away without looking at me twice.
Unlucky for me, I can’t ignore my own fucking reflection. It’s splashed over the metallic border of the window beside me. Splotches of blue and purple. Bits of garish red. I’m a fucking smorgasbord of color and wounds. I try smiling and look even worse.
It’s only once I finally start to warm up beneath the building’s artificial heat that I realize exactly what I’m doing: hiding out in the shitty part of town, wearing a madman’s stolen dress shirt, and why? Because he hurt me. He scared me.
He’s scaring me.
He’s haunting me…
I look up when the bell above the door chimes and it’s like his entrance is perfectly timed to create the most impact. At a glance, it’s easy to tell that the figure entering the diner isn’t the typical patron. His head is bowed, his face partially obscured by the hood of a gray sweatshirt, but his clothing is of the highest caliber, and his black boots are polished to a shine, clean enough to eat off of.
I’m already scrambling to the edge of my seat when his voice reaches me, a low but irresistible rasp.
“Don’t run.”
I’ve never heard him this coarse, absent his usual poise. When I freeze, he jerks his head toward the table.
“Sit. We will talk. Can you give me that much, kotyonok?”
Can I?
My arms shake as I wrestle them around me, struggling to hide the shape of my body beneath his shirt. I picked white, of all fucking colors. Despite its quality, it’s thin enough to see my nipples through. I’ve already stained it, too; streaks of red are blooming along my hip. Though maybe he won’t miss it, considering how he switched up his style today.
I track every motion of his body as he claims the bench across from me and adjusts his bulk to fit within such a small space. His legs reach my side of the table, and he hunches over the width of the booth, his face so close that his breath scalds my cheek. That sweatshirt isn’t the only change in his typical attire. Underneath it, he has on a gray tee-shirt that’s soaked through with sweat. Drops of it glisten over his forehead as well and slick his hair back. Wherever he’s been, he’s been sweating. Sculpting? Working out?
His raw, bloodied knuckles give the answer away.
When he notices the line of my gaze, he casually tucks his hands into fists and moves them beneath the table. “So this is how you run, kotyonok?” He tilts his head just enough for me to see his face clearly through the shadow cast by the hood. “Frankly, I’m surprised. You seemed more like the type to press me for money before voiding your contract.”
He’s devastatingly polite, even in his harshest insults. Press. I know what he really means: blackmail.
But is he that far off base? Maybe not.
Any other time, I’d try to deny it. I’d pull out the main tricks Melanie always used in her arsenal. Bat my eyes. Feign ignorance. I’d promise, never intending to keep a single goddamn word.
“You are afraid.” The statement comes as the seconds tick by and I don’t answer.
He’s right. Fear is wired through my every nerve, and I nearly jump out of my skin when he reaches across the table. The pad of his thumb hesitates near the side of my face.
“I hit you,” he says, eyeing the swollen welt beneath the black eye already there. “I apologize for that.”
Shock could be blamed for the way I shudder, which makes him pull away in response. It’s not every day that men—anyone—apologize to me.
The most terrifying part though? I think he means it.
Or maybe I’m just dumb enough—desperate enough—to believe him despite everything my life has taught me about the pervasive nature of violence. Apologies don’t mop up blood. If my throbbing eye accounts for anything, they don’t make your boo-boos magically feel better, either.
Though who the fuck knows? Again, I’ve never been presented with one before.
“I was rough,” he adds, drawing my attention back to him. “But I don’t think it will scar—”
“That’s not the point.” Of all the things clawing up my throat, desperate to be said, I don’t expect what winds up spilling out. “I…I didn’t sign up for this.”
He sits up straighter as my voice breaks.
“And not the violence,” I add as warmth spills down my face, impossible to stop. “You’re a man. I’ve learned my whole life that men are violent pieces of shit—”
“We all ready to go?” Oblivious, the smiling waitress appears beside our table. She makes a show of convincing Maxim to order a cup of coffee, and—whether because he needs the caffeine or rather to just make her go away—he accepts two mugs, which the woman places between us.
As I watch the steam waft from the drink on my end of the table, I consider throwing it on him. Taking my chances. Running. But my own imagination isn’t even on my side: I wouldn’t make it very far.
His eyes narrow, honing in on the way I’m huddled against the back of my bench, as far from him as the space will allow. “Something tells me that this is about more than my…” He seems to mull over the nicest words to describe it: more than my fucking loss of sanity. “My brief lapse in composure.”
Despite everything, I nearly choke out a scoff. Composure—that’s what he calls it.
So what do you call it, Frankie? a part of me wonders. What has you so fucking spooked? All you have to do is say the magic words…
“I’ve shown you worse.”
I stiffen at the accusation lurking within his tone. Almost a challenge: I nearly beat you to death before and you stayed. Now, you run.
“You threatened to kill me. Yo
u tried fucking someone else in front of me.” My throat threatens to close up against those words. Gritting my teeth, I force more out. “I may like pain, but not like that.”
“So,” he says, his tone low and careful. “Are you saying you want to end this?”
He doesn’t sound angry—that’s the observation that worries me most of all.
“You don’t throw away the people you say you want to keep.” More tears. They come down like a fucking waterfall, blurring my vision. Within seconds, Maxim Koslov is a massive, indistinguishable shadow over red vinyl. “You told me… You said you’d never let me go.” His words rasp over my tongue, nearly drowned out by the sudden laughter from a group of truckers seated two tables over. I let them linger in the air regardless, tasting their impact. Hearing them said out loud should mean something. It should resonate with some stubborn part of me that wants to bide my time.
He’s a monster.
“I did,” Maxim admits. Seconds pass without him saying anything else and I shift, attempting to stand.
“I-I don’t know what you want.”
“Wait—” His hand slams onto the table before I make it the end of the booth. Gone is his blank mask of politeness. A feral fire flickers underneath, growing brighter with every word he grates to me next. “Let me explain. That night… You never looked like her,” he rasps almost as if to himself. “Not until then. Like how she did. Her eyes…”
What are you talking about? That’s what I try to say. A gasp crawls out of me instead. His face is in shadow, his body heaving, his breaths mingling with mine. My heart slows to a crawl; I’ve never been more terrified of him than I am right now.
He’s never looked more human.
“I spent years telling myself that I wasn’t like him,” he says haltingly, as if picking the words one by one from some place deep inside himself. “It’s the lie we feed ourselves as children, you see. The one we tell ourselves every fucking night. The same damn lie: It could have been different. If they were different. The world. You. Fuck, who knows? But you say it anyway, like a prayer: They could have changed. It could have been different…”
That dangerous, unstable edge creeps into his voice, triggering every flight response my body possesses. Run, Frankie! He’s not talking about us in this moment. He’s far away, beyond this room. Just when the panic becomes unbearable, he blinks and reality reels him back.
“Only now do I realize that it was just a fucking lie—” He forms a fist and smashes it against the table. His heavy sigh negates the violence of the act though. It’s like he’s too tired to feel a damn thing. So he just bleeds, spilling more of himself in words than he ever could of my blood. “She would never leave him, even at his worst. She was broken. So was he. So am I. And so are you. You still hear that little voice yourself, don’t you, kotyonok?” he wonders, flicking his gaze to my face. “‘Maybe I can change,’ it tells you. ‘Maybe I won’t be like her.’”
I know just who he’s referring to. Melanie. Maybe I won’t be like her…
No. I want to shut him out. But he’s speaking to a part of me too primal to control. The one place inside my soul that still thrives?
Unsatisfied with throwing me away, he has to kill the one thing of value I have left.
Hope.
“It’s a lie, kotyonok,” he says as if reading my mind. “You know it. So do I. It’s inevitable. This is who we are. We’re fucked, just like them. We will end, just like them. And do you know what else?” He laughs. “We will never change. Why? We do not want to. Hell, even now, you’ve yet to say your safe word.”
“I want to say it now.” The confession feels like the equivalent of striking a match over a pool of gasoline. One wrong move and the world will erupt in flames. Not for the first time, I have Maxim Koslov’s full, rapt attention.
But, as the seconds race by, I’m starting to realize that the infantile plea wasn’t directed at him. Say it, a part of me begs. Pleads. Desperation sets my throat on fire, burning no matter how much I swallow.
“I…I’m—”
“No, I owe you an explanation,” Maxim says over me.
My eardrums pick up the subtle distinction, and curiosity steals my voice. I owe you. Not: I want to give.
“I forget that you are not used to this arrangement. You don’t understand how it works.” He makes it sound so complicated. So clinical. I’m a faulty piece in his cold, brutal machine of a life. “Your body is all I ever required from you,” he clarifies. For a second, he gets that lost look again. Then he blinks, his gaze settling over my chest as if he can see my rapid heartbeat through paper-thin skin. “Nothing else.”
His meaning takes an eternity to register. My body. Sex. Just sex. No moaning his name during said fucking, unbidden. No understanding his fucked-up childhood. No pitying him. Crying for him.
I wasn’t supposed to glimpse the human beneath the monster’s mask.
A funny sensation leaves me feeling dizzy—like he flipped the world upside down when I wasn’t looking. Only he can do this to me: make me risk breaking my own damn rules. His past shouldn’t matter. His fucked-up reasoning shouldn’t matter. The pain that crosses his gaze for a brief moment shouldn’t catch my attention.
Too late. My mouth opens. “So why keep me?”
He frowns, flexing his fingers as if flicking the question away. “I will make you an offer.” In the blink of an eye, he’s composed again. He scans the brightly colored upholstery behind my head as if the conversation is starting to lose his interest—but I’m not fucking fooled. One of his hands clenches the edge of the table, and the knuckles are stark white.
He waits, letting the gravity of the temptation sink in. Like the greedy bitch I am, I wait too, taking the bait. The devil is about to offer me another deal—and God, I should run.
“I’ll let you go,” he tells me, his eyes cutting into my own. “You can take the full amount in your contract, along with any extra owed to you. You will keep the house, and our arrangement will be null and void.”
“Why?” I nearly choke on my confusion.
“I’m through with you,” he says. “Don’t think too much of it. It eventually happens with every woman I am involved with. Again, I will fulfill the payment promised in the contract.”
It’s a better offer than I could have ever asked for—in theory. But it doesn’t feel that way. My chest aches like something tore through each rib, muscle, and bone. Maybe logic. Nothing in life comes without a pesky caveat: There’s always a catch. I lick my lips, feeling them scrape against my tongue like broken glass. “If?”
He sits back against the booth, folding his hands before him. “Your pimp’s name. What was it?”
Of all the people to be mentioned now. “Benny,” I say.
“I remember now. Benjamin Ireland.” He nods and steeples his fingers. “You will tell him that you will never work for him again. In exchange, you may stay in the home I’ve bought for you. However, I expect you to maintain our confidentiality.”
I know what he really means: I stay away from any other man and keep his dirty, bloody secrets.
“And if I don’t?” My breath catches, and my imagination takes off again. I picture him taking a new toy, fucking her on my bed—no. His bed.
Would he call her kotyonok?
“Tell me something.” He leans forward, his accent thick, his breaths drifting across the table, heavy and hot. “And you do not want to lie to me now.” He reaches out, cupping my chin, holding me captive, and I can sense the danger coiled in his touch, barely restrained. “What you said. That I’m not like… You were pretending, hmmm?”
I flinch as his thumb grazes a path over my throbbing cheek, deceptively soft, as if to coax the truth out.
“To save your life. I can forgive you that much,” he says, “if you admit it.”
My heart lurches in my chest. Of course I was lying. I was…
“I see.” His hand withdraws, curling into a fist that he quickly shoves into his pocket. “I
will give you a week to make your decision.” He stands, leaving his untouched cup of coffee there on the table. “You can have the money in the meantime. My protection. The house. All of it. Return to your normal life if you want. Live as you would away from me.”
I’m holding my breath—even before he tacks on the dreaded but.
“But I ask that you obey my request.” His eyes find mine, drilling in the unspoken threat.
This isn’t a negotiation. I know there’s no point in arguing. Still, I lick my lips and choke out, “Can I ask why?”
“You are naïve,” he says as though it’s the most obvious explanation. “My enemies wouldn’t be above fucking you for leverage.”
In other words: You’re a liability.
“And what about you?” My teeth chatter as if they’re fighting to keep this line of questioning locked away. It’s a dangerous, stupid game to play. But fuck it, he’s the one who called me a masochist. “Will you get someone else?”
To fuck.
To toy with.
To beat?
He looks away while rummaging through the pockets of his sweatshirt. After a few seconds, he tosses a bill onto the table. “Stay. I’ll arrange to have you taken home. Consider the house yours to do with as you wish. Lucius will settle your finances.” He lingers near the booth, casting a silence that seems to ensnare the entire fucking café in a net of tension. There is more he wants to say. Confirmation of my suspicion?
No matter what he wants me to do, he will get a new woman.
He will fuck someone else.
And there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
Why?
He is the dominant master, drawing eyes from every single patron as he heads for the door.
I’m the invisible, worthless submissive: a cheap whore, easily thrown away. He may have let me keep my dollhouse, but that’s all I’m worth to him.
A bribe.
Hours must pass after he leaves, but I just sit here, staring at the empty seat across from me. When I finally slink out of the diner, it’s dark out.
But there, idling just alongside the curb, is a familiar black car. The driver meets my gaze through the windshield and nods just once in a silent gesture. At your service.
