Not me. I’m not the girl they get to take up to bed in a hotel room or slam against the tiled wall of a shower. I’m not the girl they’ll bend over the pool table. No. I’m the girl in the restaurant. The bright, smiling trophy at the theater or the opera. Arm candy when the big-time gangster needs to look respectable. Meeting a senator. Dining with bankers and their wives.
No sex for me, oh, no. I still have the ‘jewel.’ You’re the prize, Marco tells me. I should be used to it. If I’m not used to it now, maybe I never will be. Who knows. Enduring things is something I’ve learned. Getting used to them, no I never did get that.
And everybody talks about love. All the time, like it’s some magic super drug and you’ll get swept up and it will transform you into a being of magical light or some such horseshit. Even if there is such a thing as ‘falling in love,’ which I seriously doubt, after everything that’s already happened to me, I wouldn’t be eligible for any man to fall in love with.
I’m sure there’s a reason Marco wants to be rid of me in such a hurry but I don’t know it. He’s only had me a few weeks. It was just a month ago he came to St. Petersburg to buy me and bring me here. He spent money on clothes, beauty salons, on my keep, and he hasn’t seen any return yet.
He is sure to have paid a lot for me. I think almost all of my owners have paid heavily in one way or another. I’ve cost some of them their lives.
First, second, ring, pinkie.
My eyes slide over to Medved. Then they snap back when I catch him looking right at me. His mouth is a little open on one side. I have to hold onto my breath so that my shudder isn’t too obvious. His wife looks like she would kill me with her nails.
The ceremony is due to start. I feel it stir in the air. I can endure the swelling organ, the beautiful choir, the robes and incense, and all the emotion and sentiment. Through it all, as much as I can, I’ll avoid thinking about how nothing remotely like this will ever be for me.
And again. First, second, ring, pinkie.
Then there’s a movement, a wave that starts at the entrance to the cathedral. It’s not her. It’s a man. I can tell. I can smell it. This new change in the atmosphere is a shift of feminine attention. I don’t turn but I feel it.
I get a chill when I do look to see him. I’m sure that’s him. The man. I hate him already. A silhouette in the big cathedral doorway all the way at the back.
shoot my cuffs and stride up the steps, into the high gothic doorway, into the cathedral. The bride has not walked up the aisle yet. While my eyes are adjusting to the gloom in the back, I can make out the groom in his place in the front pew on the right. My shoes clip on the stone floor and a few heads turn part way. Men give me sideways glances, nods. Or a slow, respectful blink.
Women turn their heads a little further. Look a little longer. Eyes flash.
The taste of blood always lingers after a killing. The tang stays in your mouth a while. And the same mix of intense emotion. I love the rush of a bold, simple plan, executed without hesitation. No hitch. And I love to win.
Vovo should just have kept to his side of the street. I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt his business but that didn’t matter to him. He was one of those men, he sees something, he starts to want it. If it’s something another man has, it makes him want it all the more.
He saw something, he wanted it. He couldn’t rest until he got it. Well, he didn’t get it, but he’s resting now.
I can certainly understand that; I feel that same way. I’m a man, and it’s how we all are. The difference is, I don’t let my lizard brain rule my life. I can defer my gratification. I know how to wait. I look to the long term. Somebody would have put Vovo out of business soon enough. I’m not particularly sorry it was me.
All the same, I hate killing. I hate the mess that always comes after. The more important the target, the more the mess. Everybody you kill is important. Otherwise you’d have no reason to kill them.
Mikhail appears at my side. Sleek and immaculate in a suit that’s two steps ahead of fashion. His cufflinks always make me wonder if I’m paying him too much. I trust Mikhail, though, and you can’t put a price on that.
“Boss.” I can see that he wants to know where I’ve been. Perhaps he’s heard about Vovo. He stands close. My height, built and fit like the covert warrior he was. Still is in his heart.
“Boss, I have to warn you. Marco really wants to see you. He keeps saying you’re going to buy a girl from him.”
“What?” I almost laugh out loud. “I don’t buy girls.”
“I know, boss. Everybody knows.”
“I wouldn’t ever do that. Buy a person?” I’m holding back a laugh. “These Sicilians are animals. And if I did,” I’m looking around for Marco. I don’t see him straight away, “If I did, Marco would be the last person I would buy a girl from. He really must be crazy.”
Mikhail nods. “I know, Boss. If you could, you would buy them all, just to set them free. He says this one is special. He told me to tell you that when you look in her eyes, you’ll have something to dream on forever.”
I blink. Pause. Look at Mikhail. He isn’t joking. “Marco said that? ‘Something to dream on,’ he used those words?” Mikhail’s head nods again and there’s a look in his eyes. I ask him, “Was he drunk?”
“Probably. I don’t know.”
“It’s kind of poetic. For a Sicilian at any rate.”
“He told me, ‘She’s more beautiful than you’ll ever be able to believe. And she’s unspoiled. Innocent. Fresh.’ Seriously, Boss.”
“Have you seen her?”
“I think so, Boss. But I’ll let you make up your own mind.”
“Mikhail,” I am almost laughing. Tightening my lips to hold it in. It’s fine to laugh at a wedding but I don’t want to attract attention. I don’t need anyone listening in or speculating. “It’s never going to be an issue. My mind’s not going to change.” Enough of that silliness. I want to move on to the real business.
Already I was too distracted and starting to think about weddings from the past. Back in the days when all I would think about was to see how fast I could fuck all of the bridesmaids.
Last summer I rated the value of weddings with the number of bridesmaids at each and how beautiful they were. How their hot, eager bodies felt. In the elaborate dresses and then sliding out of them. The most bonus points went to a wedding in July where the maid of honor was a head cheerleader and the bridesmaids were two sets of twins. What a night that was. All five girls and endless champagne in the hotel suite with a massive whirlpool.
Now there is business to be done and I’ll be lucky if I can find time to let a girl give me a blowjob. Maybe I should look out for Marco’s girl and allow her the honor.
Female heads are still turning, challenging me to keep my mind focused. A gorgeous blonde tipped her head around to peer back at the church door. Her eyes stopped to give me a welcoming flash before she turned back. It may not have to be too dull an afternoon after all.
Still, back to business. “Now, Mikhail. Tell me about Konstantin. Things are going to change now. Nothing happens without Konstantin’s approval and I need to know if I’m going to have a problem with the big boss man.”
“What’s going to change, Boss?” He’s fishing and I’m not going to tell him anything. He will find out when he needs to know. I trust him completely but there’s no point getting into it before it’s necessary. It would just be a distraction. I need Mikhail to be my eyes and ears. I don’t need his head drifting off into speculation.
“The balance of power.” It wouldn’t have been my choice. I’ve got a good business and a tight operation here. I had no interest in upsetting the status quo, but I was left with no choice. No use pretending there won’t be consequences, though.
One of the groom’s brothers hurries toward us with a cellphone in his hand. He’s going to ask us to take our seats. The bride must be about to arrive. I share a look with Mikhail. A cellphone. In church. Our heads shake as w
e move to our places.
As I’m about to sit, I catch a glimpse of a girl in a seat at the front. The light makes a glow around her platinum blonde hair, like a halo. She’s facing forward and she doesn’t look around.
Even from this three-quarter angle, I can see the face of an angel and a look that makes me think of devilish deeds on a long dark blue night. When she shifts in her seat, her body moves like a sea under the couture dress. She makes me want to claw it off. Shred it with my hands and teeth. Her eyes make me want to go wild and let go, to lose control. She looks around with eyes that have seen too much.
Her face is beautiful like a doll’s. I hate that too-perfect, put together look.
rect, standing in front of the altar, Bruno the groom is sleek. His tight suit and his slightly pudgy face make him look like a little boy in a man’s clothes. Like a teddy bear. Maybe also because of the way that he tries to look relaxed while his eyes are almost fixed straight ahead of him. But a very big little boy. Even the big ink on his neck, the star and cross with barb wire, looks cartoonish, like a kiddies temporary tattoo.
I’ve seen him at the salon and I didn’t know whether to tell Irina or not. Then, after the last fitting, she told me that she knew he goes there. He’s told her, it’s all very fine. Because he said that he’s not ‘doing anything’ and he only goes there because all of his friends go. It could even be true for all that I know. Although it doesn’t seem very likely. Whenever he’s challenged, I see his head make that sly dip and his shoulder slopes like a boxer’s.
I didn’t press any harder. She knows that he goes there, she believes what he tells her. I don’t know anything more for certain. When she asked me what I thought I told her that I wouldn’t trust a man who came to the salon. But she just said that I wouldn’t trust any man and I couldn’t argue. So, there wasn’t too much more that I could say.
Bruno’s shoulder slopes down as his father, Medved, steps out to stand beside him.
Bright blasts from the organ give the signal and all of the congregation rise as one. The sea of heads turns and everybody stretches their necks to watch Konstantin escort Irina from the back of the church. I hadn’t seen him step out of his pew. Maybe I was too busy looking for Marco’s mystery man. Just thinking about him makes my spine tingle. I don’t even know why.
Another man, another owner, what difference would it make to me? You’re free or you’re not. That’s all that matters. And I’m not.
I’m sure I did catch a glimpse of him, though. Near the back. A beautiful man with killer’s eyes. I’m sure it’s him. The man that Marco says I’ll fall in love with. As if it would be better, to be bought by a man and to fall in love with him. And like I’m ever going to fall in love. If I was ever capable of love, my life hardened me against it long ago.
The organ pipes lifts the air like the trumpet call of the archangel’s. Irina, the beautiful bride carries a bouquet of white lilies, and little boys in miniature suits carry her train.
When she stops to stand next to Bruno, she is radiant. Beautiful. But she is tense. Of course. Maybe not how you should feel on your wedding day, I would have said. Nervous perhaps. Thrilled, for certain. Perhaps she doesn’t believe him quite as much as she says she does.
Her eyes look to me as if there’s a trace of fear there. Maybe it’s all just the stress on her from carrying the weight of the huge occasion. She told me that her father Konstantin doesn’t trust Bruno. And I did hear that Medved is overjoyed at his son Bruno marrying upward in the hierarchy.
The choir lift their voices and their angelic faces in the glow of the light, streaming in through the stained glass.
The priest dips his chin down to nod into his long gray beard. His white robes are thick and stiff. The red sash looks heavy with gold threads and decorations woven through the red embroidery. His slow, clear voice is deep and it carries through the echoing cathedral, low and somber.
He holds the big book open. The gold and brocade on his robes catch the light as he raises his arm up as high as his pointed hat. His palm makes a sweeping sign of the cross. His voice intones ritual blessings. Then there’s a hymn. The bishop’s singing voice carries clear and strong above the choir.
When he smiles and says that he now pronounces the couple man and wife, then, “You may now kiss the bride,” a sigh lifts from the congregation. The whole ceremony is a grand performance, executed to perfection.
When the priest intones the final blessing through his sad smile, even my cynical throat has a lump.
That’s exactly what these ancient rituals are supposed to do.
Then the organ swells to begin the final rousing march.
As she turns, Irina catches my eye.
After the bride and groom pass, the guests move out in a slow, thick surge to follow them down the aisle. Sun streams in through the gothic arch of the cathedral doors. I make my way with the throng toward the receiving line. Marco is by the side of the big doors, waiting. His big smile seems almost genuine as he reaches out to me. “Katya.” And I’m almost pleased to see him. Until with his arms still outstretched, he says, “My matryoshka.”
I thought that I had left that name behind in St. Petersburg. I hate hearing him use it out loud. I don’t want a reputation, not of any kind. And that name reminds me of too much. Too many things I really want to forget. Marco wheels me around and straight into a face-to-face meeting with Konstantin. Up close, he is even more aristocratic and elegant. His smile has a small, cruel twist at the end which I try not to find attractive.
Squeeze the key. I remind myself to think about how many people he must have had tortured and killed. How many men’s lives he must have taken. Not to mention the ones he must have ruined. That isn’t making him any less interesting. Damnit.
It seems whatever I go through, whatever I have to endure, however deeply I see into the depravity in men, especially the men in this world of brutal crime, still the little girl deep down inside me looks to the worst possible man and hopes he will be the one man who is not like all the rest.
The one who seems black on the outside but has a burning heart of gold in the center. The man who will care about me enough to protect me. It’s a dream. I know that it isn’t true and it never can be. And I can see that this man is exactly like all the rest and probably worse.
What can you do with a childish heart? Protect it. Try to keep it safe. That’s all that I know.
Through everything I’ve had to endure, all I’ve done to survive, the only way I can keep my feelings on the inside, safe and secret, is to face them completely. I can only hide who I am on the outside by being honest with myself on the inside. However much it hurts, it is all mine. It’s part of me. I will not let any of it show.
The little girl inside me, the girl who was a princess, who was taken from the castle in the burning night, taken to be stolen by evil men, the girl who lost all of her innocence, passed from one owner to another and kept in their prisons, I will protect that little girl. I will keep her safe. She lives inside me and I will protect her, whatever it takes.
Konstantin’s eyes gleam into mine as he lifts my fingers. His gracious, formal gesture pours a thrill and a terror over me at the same time. So close together, they’re almost the same sensation. He thanks me courteously for coming, for helping his family to celebrate this wonderful day.
I see the flicker in his eyes as they slip to his left, toward Medved’s unruly hair and his big teeth. They make him look like an alley cat that slipped in through a crack and fooled a poor old widow into giving him the last of her cream.
Medved is next in line. As I approach, he seizes both of my hands. His eyes shine brightly and he nods as he looks me up and down, twice. Maybe three times. As he nods, his grin even wider, his nod is to Marco, not to me.
If he said anything, I didn’t hear it. I knew exactly what he meant, though. Standing next to him in a lovely cream suit, his wife’s eyes practically hiss at me. All I think is, If I had a man like that, I know that I
would want him to stray. As far as possible. I’d stay up late, hoping he wouldn’t come back.
Vassily: Perfect Pain - a Bad Boy Mafia Dark Romance Page 2
