by Zoey Parker
The teenager returned with a bottle of vodka and two glass tumblers in hand, looking like he’d just run up a dozen flights of stairs.
“Here you are, Ivan,” he mumbled as he set the items down in front of his boss.
“Ach!” Ivan said. He smacked the boy in the back of the head and the kid recoiled, then stood there shame-faced. “What good are you? Taking hours and hours just to find the goddamn drinks? Get the hell out of this room. I don’t want to look at you.” He turned to me and gave me an apologetic shrug of the shoulders. “My apologies, Ben. My son is often useless. You have no children of your own, no?”
“No.”
“Well, perhaps one day you will. You will see then how you love them so much and still want to slap them in their stupid heads every time you see them. Anyway, here, drink.” He poured a few fingers’ worth of vodka into the tumbler and slid it across the table to me. I reached out and brought it to my lips.
The smell almost made me vomit. Tangy, brutal, cold, it was everything I felt personified in a drink. “To old friendships,” Ivan said solemnly, toasting me. I inclined my glass towards him and threw the drink back in one gulp. He smacked his lips and let out a satisfied, “Ahh.”
“Thanks for your time, Ivan,” I said in a low voice.
“For you, Ben? Always. Must you be off? Can I interest you in anything else? Drugs? Girls? Perhaps a girl. You look so pale, my friend. Maybe a good blowjob will improve your color. Petrov, go get Kisha!”
The boy turned to leave, but I held up a hand. “It’s okay, really. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? This girl gives head like your dick is a straw and there is only the littlest bit of water left! It is incredible!” He guffawed and slapped the desk.
“No, I’m all good,” I repeated. I set the glass back on the tabletop and stood. “I gotta get going anyway. It’s good to see you. Thanks for the drink, Petrov.”
Shit. That didn’t go the way I wanted it to go at all.
# # #
“So now what?” Jay asked me. We were standing outside in the simmering heat of the late afternoon, smoking cigarettes and racking our brains for just what the fuck we should do next.
“I don’t know,” I replied. This had admittedly been a bit of a Hail Mary, and one born out of nervousness, too. “The problem is that we would gain way more from a defensive partnership with the Bratva than they would gain from us. Especially since, you know, we were the ones who took the money from James in the first place.”
Jay snorted. “Ivan believed you?”
“I never know what that bastard is thinking. He’s as cold-blooded as they come.”
“But you didn’t tell him the truth.”
“We didn’t exactly get that far.”
“He knew.”
“Probably.”
He shrugged. “Could have been worse. At least he didn’t threaten to rat us out to the Kings.”
“For the right price, that Russian motherfucker will do anything. I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”
“Says the one who just lied to the man’s face.”
I turned and glared at him. “Whose side are you on here?”
He took a long drag on his cigarette, then dropped it to the sidewalk and ground it out beneath his booted heel. “I’m just sayin’.”
“Yeah, well, don’t. It ain’t helping.”
“So, the question remains—now what?”
A long sigh came whistling between my teeth. “Even if it hadn’t been us, James’s going to suspect it. He hates us like we’re the fucking plague.”
“He ain’t exactly our favorite, neither.”
“True. I just wish the bastard would react already. Do something, you know?”
“Yeah. I don’t like the silence.”
“I wish Olaf was still around to convince Ivan to reconsider.”
“Yeah, the old man had a real soft spot for Olaf.”
Olaf wasn’t around, though. He was six feet underground, and therefore very unlikely to come running back to give us an easy fix for the current situation. But Jay was right; Ivan did love Olaf, almost like he was his own son. Olaf had been a Dark Knights member for years, had grown up in the club. He used to work a bit of gun running on a patch of territory near where Ivan first set up base in the city, and over the course of a few months, they’d struck up a friendship, bonding as they reminisced about their homes back in Europe over straight vodka and cigars. When Ivan became the boss of the Bratva, one of his first calls was to Olaf. Their connection had led to some very profitable business between the Kings and the mob, one that left us both much richer and better off than we would have been without it. It looked like we would have a long future of mutually beneficial partnership ahead of our two organizations.
Then everything changed suddenly. Olaf was murdered in the same attack that got James Sanders’s wife. It had taken us all by surprise, and without Olaf around, our friendship with the Bratva had faded somewhat, though Ivan and I both did our best to keep paying it lip service whenever a convenient opportunity arose. But it just wasn’t the same.
“You been to see Dina lately?” Jay asked me. Dina was Olaf’s widow. I still remembered how goddamn happy he’d been on the day they got married. I’d been at the ceremony, along with the rest of the club. The bastard couldn’t stop smiling. Every time he looked at her, it was like he was seeing her for the first time. I’d chuckled, thinking he was a lunatic. Now, though, I had an inkling of what that might feel like.
“No, not in a long time. I should go by there. See how she’s doing.”
“Yeah.” Jay checked the time. “Gotta go,” he said. “Duncan and Spark are getting back from the long haul mission. I’m gonna check in and make sure they had a miserable time.”
I chuckled. “We’ll knock some sense into those kids yet.”
“Or die trying.”
“They ain’t worth that, Jay. Don’t you dare die on me. You’re irreplaceable.”
He looked at me somberly. “Get some rest, Ben. You look tired.”
I didn’t say a word. Instead, I stood and watched as he mounted his motorcycle and pulled away down the road, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Leaning back on the brick wall behind me, I closed my eyes. It felt good to soak up the summer heat and feel my muscles unclench one by one. I was so on edge without even realizing it. My breaths were short and shallow; my fingertips were always drumming on my leg or the desktop. Sleep was damn near impossible. Something in the air just didn’t feel right to me, and I couldn’t find a way to let go of it. For now, though, I had a few moments to sit in the sun and rest.
Those eyes. Grey. Bright. Staring at me. Blonde hair falling over them. Dark lips, open in a moaning O…
I shot them open again, feeling more restless than before. Growling, I turned and walked down the street to where my bike was parked. Dina lived just a few blocks away. I figured I’d go pay her a visit.
Chapter Nine
Carmen
I slammed the textbook shut and threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a thump and slid down to the floor, pages fluttering, as I buried my head in my hands and let out a silent scream. How was I ever supposed to learn this stuff? The information just refused to stick in my head. I’d spent God knew how many hours with my head stuffed in the freaking book and yet what did I have to show for it? Nothing except a grade hovering right on the edge between passing and failing. If I bombed this class again, there would be hell to pay.
Of course, it was my own fault. I should have just passed it the first time around. But that was what happened when you stayed up all night with a handsome biker instead of studying for your exam. Ten out of ten academic counselors advised against doing something that stupid. I should have listened to the voice in my head, the one that had screamed at me to stay home instead of going to that party.
But I hadn’t. I’d listened to Lori instead, and ended up in a world of hurt. I still remembered Daddy’s voice
, booming and slicing into my eardrums even though he barely raised his volume above a whisper.
You’re in a lot trouble, Carmen.
That hadn’t even begun to describe it. The wrath he’d unleashed upon me that night and the days and weeks following was like something out of the Bible. He alternated between a cold fury and the most insane bellowing I’d ever seen or heard. There were a few moments where I was legitimately scared for my life. And when he’d slapped me…
I shivered. The phantom pain of his hand across my cheek still lingered. He kept his ring on when he did it. I wondered often whether that was on purpose or not. Either way, I had a little scar on my jaw to show for it. A little memento from Daddy, a bright warning to the next guy to stay far, far away from me. I was damaged goods, but I was his and no one else’s.
I’d felt horrible in the aftermath of the party. Nauseous, trembling, wildly emotional. It was like my nerves were permanently frayed and the whole system was going haywire. I didn’t know who to blame—Ben or my father.
Even now, almost four months after the fact, I was ashen-faced and sweating, even though the bedroom was well below seventy degrees. I closed my eyes and tried to draw in breaths steadily, in through my nose and out through my mouth, to calm my fluctuating heartbeat. Breathe, girl, I instructed myself. It’ll be okay. You’ve just gotta let things go.
I supposed the easiest thing to do would be to just accept that this was my life now. I’d thought I was kept under lock and key before, but that was a hilarious understatement compared to what things had become. Daddy had installed tracking software on my phone that gave him updates every fifteen minutes on my location via GPS and logged every single text message I sent. I had a strict curfew of eight p.m. every single night of the week, without exception. If he weren’t going to be home himself to make sure I complied, he sent one of his men to check on me and lock the doors behind me. I’d have said that it was like being a prisoner, but at least people in jail had a realistic chance of escape. I had none.
The breathing was helping to bring my heart rate back to earth. I noticed my skin start to cool down as I kept my eyes closed and focused on the feeling of the air rushing past my nostrils. It felt good to be silent and still, to not have to study or clean or anything. Just sit. Just breathe.
Suddenly, something jabbed inside my stomach. It felt like the whole thing just lurched, like a muscle spasm or someone poking me from the inside. I bolted upright in surprise. Just then, I heard a flush and the door to my bathroom opened. Lori flounced in. She took one look at the startled expression on my face and her eyes narrowed right away.
“Are you okay, Carmen?” she asked with concern.
I stammered to find words. “I’m, uh, yeah. I’m fine. It’s just, um, a cramp. That’s all.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” I said, managing to find some confidence to inject in my voice. “Totally fine. I’m gonna go to the bathroom, though.”
“Okay,” she said. She shrugged and flopped onto my bed, then picked up a magazine and started leafing through it. I clambered out of the desk chair and wound my way between the piles of clothing on the floor. Stepping into the bathroom, I shut the door behind me.
I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were wide and scared. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt a jolt like that, but it was the hardest one yet. I’d never felt anything like that until recently. And I was beginning to lose track of how many nights I’d spent sleepless in bed, counting up the number of weeks it had been since the party where I met Ben.
I hadn’t told Lori the full story. She was stunned enough that I’d taken Ben up on his motorcycle ride. For some reason, I didn’t want her to know everything that had happened after that. It seemed like a private thing, just for him and me to share and no one else. Maybe I just wanted to hold onto something between us. I couldn’t imagine he was doing the same.
At the time, it had felt so special, so unique. The way he looked at me, the way his hands and mouth grazed over my skin—I’d never had a moment that felt more real than reality. But with Ben, the whole night had taken on this otherworldly quality. I couldn’t shake it.
Yet in the four months since then, I started to doubt my memories more and more. He was a biker, a bad boy, a fuck-and-leave kind of guy. He sure as heck wasn’t sitting around reminiscing fondly about the wonderful lovemaking we’d shared. No, there was exactly zero percent chance that that was happening. More than likely, he was already onto the next girl, or the next dozen as the case may be. I was long gone from his rearview mirror. I’d be surprised if he even remembered my name.
It might have been the embarrassment of feeling so attached to a memory that he surely didn’t care about that kept me from sharing all of the details with my best friend. That would certainly have been a reasonable explanation, at least in my eyes.
But there was more to it. There were the symptoms.
Anyone who’d ever taken a sex ed class or seen a soap opera knew the signs. Nausea? Mood swings? Sudden pangs in the abdomen? I’d been fooling myself into believing that it was a physical reaction to the consequences of being discovered by my father, but deep down, I knew better. I knew the truth.
I was pregnant.
Chapter Ten
Ben
I raised my hand and knocked on the door. It was a crummy apartment building, infested with rats and the various low-life scum who populated a place like this on the shitter side of town. The decal on the door read 233.
I crossed my hands in front of me and waited patiently. A few moments later, the door opened, and a woman greeted me. She was small and had pale blonde hair tucked up into a bandana on her head. Her dress might have been pretty once, printed with colorful flowers, but the brightness of the fabric had faded away over the years. I noticed frayed threads poking out from the edges of the garment.
“Hey, Dina,” I said. “Hope it’s all right if I drop in on you like this. I was in your neck of the woods, and I thought I’d swing by and say hello.”
She smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Poor woman. She looked so worn through, like an old dishrag that needed to get thrown away soon. There were bags under her eyes that looked heavy and immovable. “Hello, Ben,” she said. Her accent had gradually lost its edges since she’d first come to the city, but if I listened closely, I could still hear the harsh Russian grate on some of her vowels. She opened her arms to give me a hug. I leaned down to let her and she gave me a soft, friendly kiss on the cheek. “It is good to see you. Please, come in.” She stepped aside to let me into the apartment.
I ducked my head under the low doorframe as I entered. It was hot and humid in here. I could hear the window A/C unit chugging away, but it didn’t seem to do much to take the edge off the summer heat leaking through the thin walls. A few potted plants sat wilted in the corners of the living room. Dina slid past me and into the kitchen, where I heard pots and pans start clanking.
I looked at the walls. A few pictures were hung up in cheap frames. One of them was slanted off-center, and I reached up to adjust it. The picture was of a man and woman on the back of a motorcycle. The girl had her arms squeezed tight around the man’s torso. Both of them had wide, beaming smiles. They looked downright ecstatic to be with each other.
“I love that picture,” Dina said as she emerged into the living room with a pot of tea and two mugs in her hand. “Olaf looks so happy there.”
I let my hand fall to my side. “Yeah,” I said. “He really does. You both do.” I turned and joined her on the striped couch pushed up against one wall.
She poured out a cup of tea for me and handed it over.
“Thanks,” I muttered as I took a sip and set it down on the table next to us.
“So, Ben, how are you? How are things?” she asked. Her voice was earnest, but there was still that undertone of sadness to it, lingering just behind every word.
“They’re okay. Up and down, you know how it goes.”
She nodded. “It isn’t an easy life you chose.”
“It kind of chose me, but I guess you’re right. It ain’t easy.” The dying sun shone through the thin curtains hanging over the window, lighting up the room in purple and red. It made Dina’s hair glow. “But anyway, I didn’t come here to complain about my job. How are you?”
“Oh, you know,” she said, brushing away an invisible speck of dirt from her knee, “I’m doing fine.”
“Do you need anything? Money? Help around the place?”
“No, no, please,” she demurred, waving a hand at the suggestion. “I don’t need anything.”
