by R. J. Lewis
Nikolai doesn’t let go of him or the knife. He’s unperturbed, that face of his clean of feeling, as he drags Grant’s body back with one arm without breaking a sweat. He disappears from the kitchen and I just stand there, blinking rapidly, completely in shock.
There isn’t even any blood on the floor.
I shake, collapsing to my feet, staring at the entrance of the kitchen as I hear the bathroom door open, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.
Did he just kill him?
Just like that?
No, no, no. That can’t be.
But he did it. I saw it. Right before my eyes, in a matter of seconds he skilfully plunged the knife three times into Grant’s chest and dragged him away. Like he’d done it a thousand times before.
A shiver runs down my spine.
I hear footsteps and then Nikolai’s crouched down before me. He lifts a hand to me and I startle, staring at them, but they’re clean. Not a drop of blood.
“What…” I let out a breath. I feel like I’m going mad.
“Are you okay?” he asks me.
“I…” I can’t even breathe.
“Scarlett is still at Roberta’s?”
I practically lunge to get up, but Nikolai forces me back down. “Don’t, Alina. I’ll check on her.”
“I have to –”
“You’ll just frighten her, Alina, and we’re in a very precarious situation right now.”
I collapse back down, too weak to move, still shaking uncontrollably as he stands up and strides out of the unit with perfect ease. I hear him knock on the door, and I hear it open, but the rest is silence and every second that ticks by is an eternity.
When he returns, he looks perfectly normal, not a hair out of place. “She’s sleeping,” he tells me, pulling out his phone. “I told your neighbour to look after her a little while longer.”
My shoulders sag in relief.
I don’t say a word as he calls a number and says, “I need you here, at Alina’s. Right now.”
Then he hangs up and paces the apartment, inspecting the floors, and the trail he’d taken with Grant’s body. It’s like he’s in business mode, that concentrated look so perfectly intact, it’s a complete mind warp to me.
When he’s done that, he returns to me and picks me up. He settles me on the couch, and when I try to turn to look at the open bathroom door, he takes my chin and forces it away.
“I’m going to take care of this,” he tells me.
Tears fall from my eyes as I look at him. “You killed him.”
“Yes,” he answers. “I did.”
“He would have left.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He would have left.” I repeat hysterically.
“And he would have come back.” His face falls and his nostrils flare as he adds, “I’m not going to have some bully walk around this place terrorizing what’s mine.”
I shake my head slowly. “You don’t know what you’ve just done. He works for bad people, Nikolai. Calling the police and reporting this means they’re going to find us –”
“I’m not calling the police.”
“You just killed a man!”
“And I’ll take care of it while you ask yourself just how deserving he was to breathe the same air as you.”
He moves to leave, but I grab at his arm and tug him back to me. His forehead bumps mine, and I shut my eyes, forcing his arms to wrap around me. We stay like that, him holding me, faces pressed, eyes closed. The tears stop falling eventually, and the shakes lessen, but I’m still deeply disturbed. My mind’s stopped thinking for the sake of my sanity.
I open my eyes after a while, and he’s already looking back at me. The hard face is all gone again, and it relaxes me to see him this way.
“What are you going to do with him?” I ask him quietly.
“You asked me before what my ranking was in the Sokolov,” he responds. “I was second in command, behind my father. And these were the things I did. The things they trained me to do. So I’ll handle it the way I did before, and nobody will ever find out.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve gotten away with it before, rybka.”
There’s a hard knock on the door just then. Nikolai gives me a long look and pulls away from me to answer.
Chapter Thirty-One.
Nikolai
The second Vlad steps into the bathroom and sees the body in the tub, he curses at me. Calls me all kinds of great things, cunt being the most used word. I take his abuse, but I can’t really say I give a fuck about it. The real cunt is lying dead in the tub and I put him there for the right reasons.
“You just couldn’t resist, could you?” he fumes.
I shrug coolly. “It had to be done.”
“I was looking into him, Nikolai!”
“You were too slow.”
“You fucked up. Admit it.”
I step in behind him and shut the door so Alina doesn’t listen in. “He would have hurt her.”
“Yeah, and you could have hurt him back, and that would have been the end of it.”
“He hurt her,” I repeat, slower and firmer, my eyes narrowing at him.
Vlad frowns, glaring at me. “Oh, I get it now. The possessiveness is rich in you, huh? That’s very romantic, Nikolai, in a really fucked up way. They’ll be writing sonnets about this for centuries to come. The great Russian man that killed the loser drug dealer that hurt his poor girl. I’m already warming up. Feel me, Niko.”
I smack his hand away. “Fuck off, Vlad.”
He turns his attention back to the body. “So what are we meant to do about this?”
“He’s bleeding out in the tub.”
“Yeah, and then what?”
“And then we do what we used to do.”
Vlad curses again. “You think it’s that easy?”
“We did it well before.”
“Yeah, before we had everything prepared for us. The tools, the equipment, the connections within the Sokolov to dispose of bodies neatly. Now we have none of those things.”
“I’ll take care of the disposal,” I tell him.
“How?”
“Just let me handle it.”
The thing I’ve always appreciated about Vlad is once his aggression fades away, he gets down to business. Much like me. It’s the reason we’ve always paired well together. He bends down and inspects the body, emptying the man’s pockets and removing the bag of money that belongs to Alina.
“You really took care of her, huh?” he asks, a smirk in place as he studies the bag.
I lock my jaw. “Put it down.”
He sets the money down and then stands up. “He’s going to go all stiff soon. If we don’t get a freezer up here, it’ll be a fucking mission to get rid of him.”
“Where the fuck are we going to get a freezer, Vlad? It’s not an option.”
“It’ll be messy otherwise.”
I rub my face and glare at the fucker in the tub. “Then call Andrei and have him find one.”
*
Andrei is sweating profusely when we open the door to him. There’s an old freezer behind him he’s leaning back against. He looks like he’s going to pass out.
Vlad lets out a laugh behind me, patting me on the back as he points to poor Andrei. “How, Niko? It hasn’t even been twenty minutes and he’s up here on his own with a fucking freezer behind him.”
I keep my face clear, but my lips twitch. Andrei always tries so hard to prove his worth to me. It’s the first time I actually don’t feel like he’s a wasted effort.
Vlad and him drag the freezer inside the unit, the abrupt sight of it causing Alina to stand from the couch to investigate what’s happening.
She’s a problem for me right now. I can’t have her witness what’s about to happen. The less she knows, the better.
When the freezer is inside, I call Andrei to me and motion to Alina. “Take her and her sister to my place, and then come
right back.”
Andrei nods, taking the keys I’ve handed out to him. I go to her then, and she’s already shaking her head. “I’m staying,” she tells me stubbornly.
“No,” I reply, “you’re not.”
“Nikolai –”
“I’m protecting you right now. You and your sister. You’re not coming back here to live in this filth, and that’s the end of it.”
She glowers at me. “You order me around like we’re still in an arrangement.”
I cut the distance between us and drop my head to her level. “There is a piece of that arrangement that is permanent, Alina, and that’s me looking after you. Now bury your defiance and accept what I’m telling you to do. Believe me, if you knew what was about to happen, you’d thank me for it.”
My words work, and I can see her thinking them through. Slowly, the fight clears from her eyes and she finally nods. “I’m sorry, Nikolai,” she whispers, contritely. “I can’t help but feel like this is my fault.”
“Even if it was, I’d do anything to help you.”
Tears form in her eyes. I brush them away and kiss her lips. “Now go,” I tell her. “I’ll see you when I’m done.”
*
Alina leaves carrying the sleeping form of Scarlett in her arms. The second she’s gone we get to work. We load the body into the freezer, and then we transport it out of the building into a truck and drive it to the pawn shop. There is no way I’m contaminating Alina’s place with this man’s guts. In the rare event something happens, I don’t want it to lead back to her.
There are homeless people sleeping by the bin at the back of the shop. We scare them off, and then unload the freezer into my back office. I’m pissed knowing I’ll have to do the work here, but I haven’t had a workshop in three years. So this will just have to do.
“I never imagined we’d be dismembering another man again,” Vlad mutters, having similar thoughts.
“For all the Sokolov’s faults, they were right about one thing,” I respond.
He looks at me, waiting.
I look back and lightly shrug. “Some men don’t deserve to breathe.”
We turn the freezer on and then we wait. We wait for hours and hours. And then we start our work. It’s filthy, it’s hard, and I loathe every second of it. There is purely no enjoyment in it. Never having to do it again was the best part of leaving that life behind, but now look at me.
I’m cutting off the frozen fingers of a man and disposing it in a bag. Vlad has to stop me at times, when the tremors in my fingers return with a fury. I’ve lost my touch, it seems. The Sokolov would be shaking their heads, and that just makes me laugh like a madman surrounded by body parts. Even Vlad gives me a wild look.
“We’ve become weak,” I explain.
His eyes rolls. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe next time you’ll stick to just beatings, huh?”
My smile vanishes. Was there another way to have gone about this? Or did that serpent inside me seek this violence as a form of release?
But looking at my trembling fingers now, I feel absolutely no release. I know it’s because of her. Alina. She’s done something to me, bewitched me with her touch, and now I’m this way.
When the body is done, and there is absolutely no way anyone will figure out his identity, I duck out outside to make a dreaded phone call. It’s still night, but the sky’s growing lighter.
I’ve got a cigarette lit in one hand, the phone pressed to my ear with the other. The rings carry on, every sound of them making my bones cringe with ire. But he’ll pick up the ringing phone. I know he will, and I don’t care if that means waking him up.
He knows it’s me when he picks up. There’s this silence on the other end – that first initial silence that speaks a thousand words – and then I hear him breathe out long and slow. He’s trying to control himself, to be that emotionless shell.
“I’m not going back,” are the first words out of my mouth. It’s important we get that out of the way first, before he starts jumping to conclusions.
“My dear boy,” he responds, not a sliver of emotion in his tired voice. “Of course you are. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but you’ll be back.”
I chuckle, and it sounds as dead as I feel for him. “You’ll be in your grave before that happens.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
I twirl the lit cigarette between my fingers, feeling the anxious burst of energy drumming through my body. How do I tell a man I hate – a man I’m staying away from – that I need his help?
“So what do you need?” he asks. “If it’s not to come back, I don’t see what I can do for you.”
“I killed a man,” I simply answer, and then I leave it at that. No mention of the man’s identity, or even his name. Nothing.
“Didn’t take you very long, did it? The Sokolov is strong in you.”
“It was a necessary death.”
“Aren’t they all?”
I scoff, my words laced with anger as I retort, “No, they’re not all necessary, are they, Father?”
He lets out an exhausted sigh. “If you’re referring to your mother, I had nothing to do with it. She killed herself, Niko. I played no part in it. How could I?”
“You killed her indirectly. You made her life a misery, and then you punished her when she found love in another. You just couldn’t let her go, could you?”
I’ve never actually said these words to him before. When I left, I did it punching his face and gritting out that I was done with them all for their disloyalty, for them taking contracts, killing people that were innocent or in the way of their business. I never signed up for that. I didn’t want families put into the ground over something as purposeless as drugs, and my mother’s suicide was my breaking point.
“No,” he admits slowly. “I couldn’t let her go.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
I grit my teeth. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“No, she’s gone now.” There it is, that twinge of sadness he tries so hard to suppress.
We don’t speak for a long time. I know he’s trying to put himself together. I can hear the change in his breathing as he fights for control.
She was a good woman. He knows she was. I wonder if he sleeps at night, if her face is in his mind, if he asks himself what would have happened if he’d just let her go.
“Are you glad to be telling me this now?” he asks me. “You know I’m sick. I don’t have much left in me. Are your scornful words going to be a regret later on when I’m gone, Niko?”
“No,” I answer. “My greatest regret was letting you inside my head for twenty-six years of my life before I knew better. I’m ready to let you go for good.”
It feels good to tell him this now. I’m cutting the chains that link him to me. It’s a ballsy move, because at the same time I still need the Sokolov’s help to get rid of Grant.
“I need the body gone,” I continue firmly.
“Yes,” he sighs. “I know. I know you do, Niko.”
“Are you going to help me or not?”
Chapter Thirty-Two.
Arms slip around me, a kiss is pressed against my temple, and that’s when I start to stir, opening my eyes slowly to look at the man I’ve been waiting for all night.
There’s a lot I learned overnight.
I learned pacing the apartment dozens of times won’t make Nikolai’s return come sooner. I learned the bed in the guest room is impossibly comfortable and Scarlett hasn’t twitched once. Most importantly, I learned I’m not scared of Nikolai at all, even after what I witnessed him do.
So when I see him now, his face crestfallen and tired, my heart pinches strongly in my chest. He’s crouching down by the couch, his grey suit is wrinkled and his hair a mess. He looks like he’s had a night of hell.
“Are you okay?” I ask him when I pull away.
“Am I okay?” he repeats in disbelief. “I feel horrified for what you witnessed.”
/> “I’m not thinking about it.”
“I’m sorry, Alina.”
I fist his shirt and pull him to me, kissing him softly. “I wouldn’t be. Grant’s gone for good, and he’s not worth feeling sorry for.”
He kisses me again, his arms wrapping around my body. Then he picks me up and leads me past the guest room, where Scarlett is still fast asleep, and to his room. He lays me down on the bed and climbs over me, wrapping my legs around his hips. He drops down to his elbows and kisses me like that for a long time.
It's slow and different. There’s no sex on his brain. He’s simply tasting me, and my body heats in response. When he finally pulls away, he runs his thumb over my cheek and then traces along my face, looking down at me with loving eyes.
“Have you fallen too, rybka?” he asks. “Do you feel it in here?” He slides his finger to my chest and over my heart. “Does it hurt but feel good all at once?”
I nod, swallowing hard, trying to fight the emotion behind my eyes. “Yeah, I do, Nikolai.”
His face tightens. “It’s a hard emotion for me, Alina. I’ve spent all my years fighting any feeling like this. It was easy, until I met you.”
He glances down, and for a moment I think he’s staring at my breasts through the thin shirt I’m wearing, but then his fingers journey down to my necklace. He picks up the glass gem and inspects it, his face splitting more with emotion and I don’t understand why.
“This is real emerald,” he remarks quietly.
I look down at the pear shaped stone. “No, it’s fake.”
He smiles softly, but the pain is still evident in his eyes. “No, rybka, it’s real, and you found it on the ground near your store one night, didn’t you?”
I look at him for some time, trying to figure him out. “Did you stalk me?”
“No.”
I tap my mouth with my finger, feeling a little uneasy. “I found it, yeah. It was on the ground and I stepped on it.”
