Dark Mysteries

by Jessica Gadziala

  Ellie took a deep breath, moving into the office and quickly slinking off to the bathroom. She needed a minute. She needed to get herself together.

  She was lucky there was a street fight.

  It was a thought she could have never anticipated thinking. But it was true. She was lucky there was a street fight. Because it had been like being doused in cold water. It had put an abrupt end to something she wasn't sure she was ready for yet or would ever be ready for again. She put her hands on the cool porcelain of the sink, looking at herself in the mirror.

  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes hooded and sleepy-looking. Her lips were swollen and redder than usual. She looked freshly kissed, she thought, a weird giggle lodging in her throat. Were grown women supposed to look like that? Confused and turned on at the same time?

  She heard the office door close and turned the cold water on, slipping her hands in the current, pretending not to notice that her hands were shaking. She cupped the water, bringing it up and burying her face in it before letting it slip away.

  She was going to have to face him. The thought made her lean forward, resting her head on the wooden frame of the mirror, banging her head into it a few times. Why had she kissed someone that she was sharing a very, very small space with? Of all the asinine ideas.

  And why had it been such a good kiss? She could have just shrugged it off it was mediocre. They could have gone on like nothing had ever happened. The sexual tension would completely dissolve too, making it even easier to co-habitate. But now she knew it was good. Oh, god. It was so good. She pressed her thighs together at the memory, closing her eyes tight against it. How was she going to walk back out there and pretend it wasn't perhaps the hottest thing she had ever experienced? How was she going to lie down on her silly red couch and keep herself from climbing into the bed with him and finish what they had started?

  Ellie sighed, splashing her face one last time. She stripped out of the jacket, pulled her hair out of her braid, finding the small acts comforting., grounding. She was a big girl. She was just going to have to do what all girls had to do at some time or other in their lives.

  She was going to have to fake it.

  She opened the door, walking into the apartment and folding the jacket up with her other clothes, making a mental note to ship it back to Faith some day in the future. She put her wallet back in the box too, shaking her head at her stupidity for going out in the first place. And last, but not least, she took the baton back to the closet, hanging it where it belonged.

  "Did you have to use it?" Xander asked, making her yelp and turn, her hand flying to her heart.

  "No," she said, closing the closet.

  "Good," Xander nodded, watching her. She seemed fine. He was a boiling cauldron of hormones and uncertainty... and she looked like she had just come back from brunch. No big deal. He shook his head, taking a breath. "I put on water for tea," he said.

  Ellie's head shot up, her brows drawing together, certain she had misheard him. "What?"

  "Water... for tea," he repeated, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. Christ he was uncomfortable. Why had he put on tea water for her? That was so weird. It was out of character. He just... he thought she had had a rough day and would need something to calm her down. He shrugged at her. "I put on coffee for me so I just..." he trailed off, waving a hand toward the kitchen and stepping further away from her.

  Ellie smiled slightly at him. It was really considerate of him. "Thank you," she said, moving over toward the kitchen to fiddle around, preparing her tea. Really she was just keeping herself busy, giving herself an excuse to not talk to him.

  Xander watched her as she moved, her hips swaying slightly as she walked. How had he not noticed that before? Her moves were precise, practiced. Countless cups of tea had been made the exact same way for years.

  Xander's face scrunched up at his own observations. Was he really thinking about her tea-drinking habits? What the fuck was wrong with him? He sighed, looking toward the office. "I have work to do," he said and quickly went out to the front, sitting down at his desk. He turned on the computer, brought up a search engine, and then just sat there staring at the screen.

  He covered his face in his hands for a long time, trying to think of all the reasons it would be wrong to go right back in there and help her out of her clothes, take her to his bed, and just lose himself in her.

  She wasn't his type.

  She was his client.

  She had just kissed him because of some surge of adrenaline.

  She hadn't meant it.

  But, damn, if she didn't seem like she meant it...

  No. He sighed. That would do him no good. He didn't need to think about it. That would just keep his mind looping back to her moaning, her grinding against him.

  He just needed to set his mind to the idea that it was never, ever, going to happen again. It was wrong. It would only complicate an already problematic situation.

  Besides, he needed to figure out who the hell she even was. Then he needed to find out who she was running from. Sleeping with her was only going to make that even more awkward.

  He turned back to his screen, typing quickly, clicking around, losing himself at what he was best at. Work.

  A few minutes, or hours (he had lost track of time) later, there was a small click in front of him and he looked over to see a fresh cup of coffee there. He glanced up to see Ellie who nodded at him once before walking back.

  "Jesus Christ," he mumbled to himself, picking up the coffee cup.

  He looked back at the computer. Work. He needed to think about work, not about how her lip still looked puffy from his mouth, his teeth.

  He needed to think of literally anything else in the world but that.

  Twelve

  Ellie spent two days on edge, stiffening any time she heard Xander walk into the room. But he never said anything. He never brought it up. Not the kiss, or the fact that she left the office and said nothing, that she came home freaked out.

  She stopped in the middle of washing her tea mug, staring up at the wall. Home? She came home freaked out? This wasn't her home. This was Xander's home. She didn't live there. She was temporarily crashing there.

  She never had "homes". She had places she stayed. She had hideouts. She had temporary shelters. She hadn't had a home since she was eighteen years old. That was with her father. in her small room with sunny yellow walls with overflowing bookcases, piled three volumes deep on each shelf, her twin sized bed with a yellow and white patchwork quilt her grandmother had made her. Every inch of that room had her touch on it. Memories were mixed into every fabric.

  That was what home was.

  "Ellie," Xander said, loudly, making her think she had been fazed out for a while. "You alright, sweetheart?" he asked, and she wanted to deny the little flutter in her belly at the word. The word that meant nothing. It was just a word he obviously used very easily on women.

  "Yeah," Ellie said, rinsing the soap off her cup, turning off the tap, and turning. "I'm fine."

  Xander watched her for a minute with drawn-in brows. He had called her three times. And she had just stood there, back rod-straight staring at the wall while the water ran over her hands. She was usually so hyper aware of everything going on. It was strange to catch her off guard, or completely closed off.

  He had meant for the past few days to bring it up. How she left the office leaving then came running back. Not the kiss. No. That really, really did not to be discussed. But where had she been? Who had she seen? She obviously expected trouble if she brought his baton. And she came home wearing someone else's jacket.

  But that night he felt too awkward about the make-out session to actually speak to her. He stayed up until it was almost morning, searching around on his computer. He waited until he was sure she was asleep, took a frigid shower, and climbed into bed. Then the next morning, it felt like he had let too much time pass. It would be weird to bring it up.

 
So he didn't.

  And the not knowing was driving him crazy.

  "Okay," he said, his tone disbelieving. "Well, I need to run out for a while," he said. To make phone calls about her. He certainly couldn't do that while she was in earshot. "Can you just..." he put his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels, feeling uncomfortable making the request.

  "Can I what?" she asked, keeping her eyes on safe places: the ends of his hair, his earlobe. Which she suddenly wanted to nip into. Okay. No earlobe. The collar of his shirt. Yeah, that was better.

  "Stay here today," he finished, shaking his head at his own words. It wasn't his place to ask, or demand, she do anything. She was a client, not his sister or his girlfriend. "Christ," he cursed, moving away. "Never mind. Do what you want," he said, going into his office.

  "I'll stay," she called to him. She had no intentions of going out again. And she was more than a little touched that it seemed like he was worried about her. Even if that worry was just as his client.

  "Good," he grumbled and she heard the door close.

  She scurried out to the office and locked it, taking her first real, deep breath in days. She moved into the apartment, slipping into a t-shirt and collecting all the cleaning supplies. She needed to get rid of all the nervous energy. She needed to lose herself in something to stop thinking about Xander's lips on her mouth and her neck, his cock pressed up against her heat.

  Ellie groaned, going over to the sink and filling a bucket. It was going to take a lot of cleaning to get him out of her mind.

  She was halfway through scrubbing the floor, her fingernails gripping the rag painfully, when she heard it.

  The front door unlocked.

  Her heart flew into her throat. She scrambled off the floor, frozen for the barest of moments. Xander always knocked. He knocked. And yelled. He didn't just let himself in. Without thinking, she ran across the floor and threw herself into the closet of pain, pulling the door closed silently. She reached for the brass knuckles, slipping her fingers through the holes and gripping it tightly. Slinking back further in to the closet, she listened to the footsteps. They were in the office for as long as it took to glance into the bathroom and the closets. Then someone was in the apartment, going over toward the kitchen, checking in the the other closet, closing it.

  She had only two thoughts breaking through the fog of her brain.

  It was definitely not Xander.

  And she was going to be found.

  The footsteps got closer. Then they stopped.

  The insides of Ellie's chest and stomach felt like they got turned upside down and shaken. She took a deep breath, spreading her legs to evenly distribute her weight, and cocking her arm back. The door knob turned. As soon as the door was open wide enough, she launched her fist forward, feeling the satisfying and equally sickening sound of metal on bone.

  "Fuck," the voice yelled, stumbling back a few steps.

  She didn't even register that it wasn't him or any of his men. All she could think was survival and escape. She burst out of the closet, bringing her arm backward again.

  But this time his hand grabbed hers, holding it, immobilizing her attack. "Easy tiger," the voice said, half amused. Then as she tried to strike with her unprotected knuckles, he said more forcibly, "Eleanor enough."

  She froze, her arm in midair for a second as her eyes finally landed on his face. Gabe. Her hand fell numbly down at her side. Her hit before had been true, landing just outside his eyes, making the skin underneath swell, turn red, and split open in one spot. It bled slowly down the side of his face.

  "Jesus," he said smiling, shaking his head at her, "that was impressive."

  "Let me go," she said, her voice firm. Her nerves snaked their way up her chest and to her throat, stopping there and strangling her. She hated being held down or detained in any way. She needed him to let go before she flew into a full blown panic attack.

  "Only if you promise not to hit me again," he said, giving her a charming smile.

  "No," she said, the word coming out low and vicious. She felt like her skin was tingling. She needed him to let her go. "Let. Go. Of. Me."

  Gabe tilted his head at her, seeing something: the anxiety, or the fear, or the determination. He nodded once, loosening his grip on her hand, but pulling the brass knuckle off her fingers.

  Ellie's hand dropped heavily and she immediately took a deep, steadying breath. She looked down at his feet for a second, pulling herself together. Whatever this was... it wasn't going to be good. For her.

  "What do you want, Gabe?"

  Gabe took a step back, sensing she needed the space. "I want to talk to you... Eleanor Piotrowski," he said, his tongue slipping easily over the soft guttural sound to her last name.

  Her eyes shot up to his. She felt the air just completely leave her body, making her feel almost dizzy.

  "Let's sit," Gabe said, motioning toward the dining table.

  Ellie followed numbly behind him, moving her box of belongings to the floor and sitting down across from him. "Okay," Ellie said, folding her hands in her lap. Damn him for looking so calm, so collected. "What do you want?" she repeated.

  Gabe chuckled, a low rumbling sound. "How about you tell me why the girlfriend of one of New Jersey's biggest drug dealers is taking refuge in my best friend's house?"

  And there it was. She almost felt better hearing it. All the years of pretending to be someone else, of keeping everything of her life under lock and key had felt suffocating, difficult. All the time she felt foreign and uncomfortable. Here was the truth, slapping her right in the face and she could actually breathe again.

  "Ex-girlfriend," Ellie said, looking him in the face.

  "That's not the way I hear it," he said, sitting back in his chair, looking far too much like a catalog model for polo t-shirts to be sitting in Xander's rundown apartment talking to her about her sordid past.

  "Then you need to get new sources," Ellie said, watching as he smiled at her words.

  "Alright," Gabe nodded. "Then let me hear it. Straight from the horse's mouth as it were," he said shrugging at her. His calm body was at odds with his intense eyes.

  "I left Nick four years ago..."

  "Nicola Russo," Gabe cut in, for clarification.

  "Yes. Nick Russo. We dated," she said, putting up air quotes on the word, "for... two years. Give or take."

  "He must have made a helluva boyfriend," Gabe said, and she knew he was expecting more information.

  "For five months, there was no one better in the world," she recalled.

  "And then?"

  "And then the beatings started," she said frankly, shrugging a shoulder. Across from her, Gabe's eyes winced at her words. "Slowly. Infrequent at first."

  "You tried to leave?" Gabe asked, sounding like he knew the answer.

  "Yeah," she snorted, shaking her head. God, she had underestimated Nick back then. "I spent six weeks chained in a cell for that," she said, holding out her scarred wrists as evidence.

  "Jesus," Gabe said, looking a little sick. "How did you finally get out?"

  Ellie sat back in her chair, allowing the memory to come back.

  Nick had been having a meeting in his office, a huge group of men with him. Some of them she had known, suit and tie guys. Some she did not... teenagers in various forms of sloppy clothing. They were the small-time dealers. Something had been really wrong. Some deal had fallen through.

  And she had her plan. She went into the kitchen, straight into the cleaning supply closet. She had a bag stashed there. It was the one place in the world Nick would never think to look. The maid watched her with wide, horrified eyes, knowing full-well the hell she had been living. Maria had been the maid to tend to her after her first stint in the cell. She had applied cold compresses to her face, gave her antibiotics, then forced her mouth open and poured in a God-awful tasting concoction to help her body finish the aborting process. She owed her life to Maria.

>   And Maria was looking at her, fearing for her own life. Because she couldn't be the reason Ellie got away. She would die for it.

  Ellie picked up a huge cast iron frying pan from the kitchen island. "I need to go, Maria," she said and Maria nodded. She knew. She would die there if she stayed. Or, worse, she would spend a long life wishing she had died long ago. "And you can't be blamed for it. So, I am going to hit you with this. You will pass out for a while, and you'll have an awful headache after. But he won't blame you. I promise he won't blame you for this. I sneaked up behind you and knocked you out. You'll have no information other than that." Maria nodded again, moving to kneel on the floor so her fall wouldn't cause any other damage. Ellie overturned the chair she had been sitting on, raising the frying pan. "Thank you, Maria. I love you," she said.

  "I love you too, miel."

  Then Ellie swung before she could think better of it. The sound of the pan hitting Maria's head was a memory that kept her awake at night even years later.

  She put the pan back on the island and ran. But this time, not to the access road, or to the main road. She ran through the woods. She ran until her legs felt like jello and her chest felt on fire. And then she ran further, until she got five miles out, the woods breaking to the side of the train station. She bought a ticket on the first train out.

  And then she just kept running.

  "I waited," she answered, finally coming back to the present moment, "and I planned. He was having a big issue with his supply so he had a meeting. I knocked out the maid... who was the only friend I had in the world," she admitted, "and then I just... ran. And ran. And ran."

  Gabe nodded. "Where did you end up?"

  "Seattle," she said easily. It was as far as possible as she could get from him. It was a big, bustling city. She could get lost there. "I was there the longest, a year or so. I got a job at a restaurant and an apartment above a Chinese restaurant full of illegals," she shrugged. "They didn't like people around asking questions so they never asked me any."