by Holly Hart
I picked my words carefully. I knew Roman wanted to protect me, and I wanted nothing more than simply to let him, but I had a more important calling. I had to save my child. "Go on…"
"If I know Victor, he won't have your kid within a mile of himself. Kidnapping a child's serious stuff. The place in this town might be bought off, but the FBI might be a helluva lot more interested in something like that."
"And you know where that would be?" I said, half-standing up in my excitement and passion my head against the roof of the cabin. "Then what the hell are we waiting for?"
"A distraction," Maya replied. Victor's lost a lot of men between Roman's work and the war that's been going on for the past few months. If he wants to take you down, most of his men will have to go to the Memorial. That gives us an opening, if we're clever enough to take it."
"You know where my baby is?" I pressed. It was as much a statement as a question.
"Maybe. Kind of," Maya prevaricated. "Russian neighborhoods are tight. Tight-lipped, close together, and besides, it’s how we got so good at organized crime. You don't get a lot of snitches when you know you can't show your face at home afterwards."
"I know this," Roman rumbled. "Get to the point."
"You've heard of a kormilitsa?" Maya asked, a smile playing on her lips.
Roman shook his head, looking baffled.
"I didn't think so. It means wet-nurse. It's an old tradition, really. There can't be many left, women who nurse other women's children."
The idea was an abomination to me, when I’d never felt the touch of my own baby nursing; it hit me in the stomach like a punch. Roman sensed my hurt, and laid a calming hand on my thigh.
Maya continued. "Like I said, can't be many left. But if I was a betting woman, I'd risk a million bucks on that being where Victor's stashed him."
28
Ellie
"Talk to me, Roman." I begged. "Don't just hold it in."
He sat on the other side of the bed, still as the dead. I'd almost given up hope that he would say anything when his lips moved, just barely. I had to lean in close just to make out a word of what he was saying. After the meeting with Conor and Maya, it was as though he'd collapsed in upon himself, and I didn't know why.
Out of nowhere, he gripped my arm and squeezed it so tight it was as if he was reliving a nightmare. "I'm a bad man, Ellie. I've done terrible things."
I tried to disagree, but he cut me off.
"No, it's true, you know it is. I've killed more men than I can count on two hands. By rights I should be locked up for the rest of my life for the things I've done, the things I've seen. I said I'd never have kids, you know that?"
My free hand jumped to my belly like it was being scalded, and like my body somehow remembered a time my mind couldn't recall.
"What if…" Roman's voice broke, breaking my heart along with it. "What if I end up like my father?"
Is that what he's been worried about?
I smiled with relief, and said. "Roman –"
He raised his voice worriedly and cut me off, his voice low with emotion. "Don't laugh, I'm being serious. You know the things he did to me and Tim," he said. He stood up abruptly and brushed my arm off him, then pulled his plain white T-shirt off his muscular torso and chucked it onto the floor.
"Roman, what are you doing?" I asked, picking the T-shirt up off the floor and smoothing out the creases. "Put this –."
"Give me your hand," he ordered gruffly. There was a strange buzz, and an energy in the room, and I didn't know what it meant. One thing was clear though, whatever was happening between us, it was momentous – the kind of event that could lay a relationship's foundations, make it unbeatable, unbreakable… Or bring it crashing down.
I gave it to him without protesting. He looked at it like he'd never seen it before, as if he was deliberating whether he was doing the right thing.
I held my breath, speechless, desperate not to disrupt the moment. He studied my hand a couple of seconds longer, turning it over in his powerful yet strangely delicate fingers and brought it ever so slowly towards his body. I bit my lip, making sure that my mouth wouldn't part to spoil the moment.
His face took on a strange, thousand-yard glaze, like he was reliving a moment he could never forget. I'd seen that look before a hundred times, in the mirror after a beating from Rick, and in others too, across this entire broken city. It was the look of a victim, the look of a broken mind struggling to recover, and also trying to forget. He brought my hands slowly, gently to rest against his warm chest, and held it there for a couple of seconds until I felt the slow, steady pulsating beat of his heart.
He spoke quietly, so quietly I strained to hear. "This one," he said. "I got for not finishing my homework on time." He moved my palm slowly across his rib cage, to an eight inch long, half inch wide scar. It looked like the skin, once broken, had split left and right, and in healing left behind a ragged, pale milky-white gash. "I was seven."
I gasped in shock, but he didn't seem to hear. He was in his own world now, and nothing I said or did would change that.
"This one," he said, moving my palm ever so slowly across his skin to above his shoulder. "This one the doctors did. They had to cut into me to fish out a shard of broken bone."
"Why?" I asked, dreading the answer. "What happened?"
"Tim didn't clean his room," Roman replied, eyes glassy. "So dad pushed me down the stairs."
It was the matter-of-fact tone in which he spoke of the horror that his father had inflicted on him that shocked me most. It was as though it had happened to a different person, as if Roman was simply narrating the actions of a madman, not reliving them. I wanted to reach over, to hug him, to say that I'd make it better, but I didn't know how. I didn't know what to say and even if I said it, what I’d do afterwards. I realized, right then and there, that I was truly powerless. As powerless as I'd ever been on the wrong end of Rick's fists. Perhaps more so.
He isn't done, I realized with horror. And then, with a terrible sinking feeling in my stomach, I realized where Roman was taking my palm. He lifted it up, over his shoulder, and to a place he'd never let me touch before. I saw him flinch as my palm passed over his collarbone, and grimace, and waver as he considered whether he was taking the right path.
"You don't have to…" I whispered softly.
For a second, just a brief second, his eyes flickered back to life and lost that glossy sheen that had covered them for the past few minutes. "No, I do," he whispered back. "I need you to understand."
My fingers broke over Roman's thick, muscular shoulder and for the first time since he'd plucked me from harm in the bar in which we met, I touched his back. It felt cobbled, like a pebble beach, and not like any skin I never felt before. It was thick, and matted with scars and lumps of thick, fibrous scar tissue. "This," he said, his voice breaking for the first time. "This took a week."
I forced myself to open my eyes, to look at what he was showing me. I didn't want to see it, didn't want to hear about the horrors that he had endured as a child. I wanted to shut my eyes and put my fingers in my ears and hum a lullaby until it all blew over.
Get a grip, Ellie. I thought. He had to live it. All you have to do is hear it.
Roman's voice was barely audible over the sounds of traffic from two streets over. I had to strain and turn my ears to make sure I caught every word "He tied my hands to a wooden beam in the basement. I still remember the splinters digging into my forearms. He left me there for hours, maybe longer, I don't know. It was dark."
"Roman –." I gasped.
It was as though he hadn't heard me. He was deep in the memory now, reciting it in a monotone. I pressed my palm against the back, and looped my other arm around his neck. I wanted him to know that I was there, even if it was deep down.
"The stairs creaked when he came back. I thought he was going to let me out, or feed me, or something. I thought that was my punishment. I was wrong. He'd been drinking. I could smell the whiskey on his breath. He didn't sa
y a word, but I heard a chain clink. He took it off the garage door opener. I could smell the oil. And then he started whipping me with it."
My palms spasmed uncontrollably against his back as I pictured the pain he must've gone through.
How did you even survive?
"I remember six hits, maybe seven, and then I blacked out. The next time he came down, he brought me a sandwich, stuffed it in my mouth, and poured half a bottle of white spirit down my back while I was struggling not to choke on the bread. It was pastrami." He offered, as though the flavor mattered. I knew why the detail had stuck in his head. The same thing happened to me. I still remembered what cologne Rick was wearing the first time he slapped me.
This, though…
"Why?"
Roman's eyes snapped back to life at the question. "I'm sorry," he croaked. "I've never told anyone this. Not since Tim. Why what?"
"It doesn't matter," I said quickly. "You don't need to –."
"No," he said curtly. "I want you to understand. What was it?"
"Why the white spirit?" I asked sadly. "I don't understand…"
Roman shrugged. "Who the fuck knows?" He said bitterly. "To stop it getting infected? Maybe even just to cause me pain. It was just dad being dad. It happened five more times that week. That I remember, anyway."
"That's not okay!" I cried out. "It's not supposed to be like that…"
Roman grabbed my arm again, this time with a fervent glow in his eyes. "I know!" He agreed. "That's why I'm telling you all this."
"What do you mean?"
"When we get the baby," he paused correcting himself, "our baby back. If I ever raise a hand to you, or him, I want you to leave and never look back. You understand?"
"Roman," I protested. "You wouldn't!"
"I want you to promise me, Ellie," he insisted desperately. "I want you to promise you'll leave me."
29
Roman
I said the words, and I meant every single one. I had made my peace with never being a father a long time ago. It was easy enough to rationalize. After all, how could I ever hope to be a role model, be the man my son demanded me to be, when I never had one myself? And worse, my stomach clenched with pain even thinking about it, what if I became my father?
Could I do that? Could I hurt a child?
My hands trembled at the thought. I knew myself. I knew that I couldn't. I would never dream of doing such a thing. But I had hurt men. Killed them even. If a leopard can't change its spots, then why should I?
"Roman," Ellie whispered, her voice breaking.
I looked down at my hands, then at the ground. I imagined what must be running through her head. Hatred. Disgust. I knew that she was done with me. That the second we saved our child, she'd go, wash her hands of me. I wouldn't stop her. I'd die to get that child back, but I wouldn't stop her.
"Look at me, Roman," she ordered, louder and more forceful than I'd ever heard her. I tried to obey, but my chin felt weighed down by concrete.
"I said look at me," she repeated, a softness in her voice that I hadn't expected. This time, I did.
I looked up to see something I'd never expected in her eyes – forgiveness. It was an emotion I never knew that I was seeking, but in that moment, I understood that it was exactly what I'd been searching for to fill the emptiness inside me my entire life. I never needed lessons on how to be a hard man, because that's the kind of man I had to grow up to be. I needed lessons on how to care, how to trust, and how to love. I began to wonder whether Ellie could be the teacher I never had.
"None of that was your fault," she said, her voice trembling with emotion. The corners of her eyes were prickling with the glistening sparks of newborn tears. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard, hard enough to hurt. It jarred me back into some semblance of life. "You need to believe that. You need to understand that. You need to accept that. Because I might not know everything about you, Roman, but I know that you're not the man you think you might become. You saved me when you didn't have to. You grabbed me by the arms and tore me out of a dark pit of despair, one I would have drowned in.”
"Don't make the same mistake I nearly did. The only reason you would ever become anything like your father is if you allowed yourself to. And I know that you're a stronger man than that." She pinched my side. "And besides, with me around it's not like you'd ever get the chance!"
I looked up at her deep, caring eyes and felt a sense of warmth, love. I felt accepted, and I liked it. It was like stepping into a warm bath robe on a chilly day. "You're sure?" I begged, searching her complexion for any hint that she was lying. I needed to know, for my sake, and for the sake of my child. I was prepared to make this sacrifice, to, monk-like give up any claim to my own son if I needed to, to protect him.
She nodded firmly. "I am. Don't you dare do what you're thinking of, Roman," she said, her eyes glittering with a fierce, committed anger. The justified, righteous anger of motherhood. "Don't you dare think you know better. Because if you leave me," her voice broke, "and our baby, you're not being brave, you're being a coward."
The accusation collided with my gut like a wrecking ball. Every last bubble of air inside me seemed to squeeze out all at once, wheezing through my lips. "I'm no coward," I protested hotly. But the accusation hit home, a knife through the ribs, twisting, scraping.
She stared at me enticingly, almost daring me to argue with her. "Then prove it."
We stared at each other for a few seconds, a hot tension between us. Her skin almost glowed with a determined fury. I could tell that, on this, it was her way or the highway. And luckily for me, probably saving me a furious attack, I agreed with her. My body sagged, every muscle drained of the nervous energy that had surged into them. My arms strained against the mattress to keep me upright.
It felt as though something had changed between us, like our partnership had deepened, been elevated to a higher plane – and not by anything physical, but because we'd shared a deep, raw honesty. The kind that hurt, opened wounds, but had the potential to strengthen and build. I knew what I needed to do.
I pulled Ellie toward me roughly. She felt as though she weighed barely hundred pounds soaking wet, and I drew her towards me effortlessly. I felt the clock ticking, its spinning arm counting down relentlessly, second by second, and minute by minute. I needed to dull the sound that was hammering against my head like a woodpecker. This might be our last night together, both alive – or either. I intended to seize it, to make every second count.
"Come here," I ordered brusquely. In reality, it wasn't even a formality. Ellie gave no resistance, made not a word of protest. She was mine, and I was hers – and we both knew it.
She pressed her lips against mine, body half-resting across my legs, still anchored to the floor, half spread across the bed. The kiss was fierce, hungry and primal. I wanted to gasp for air, needed to, but resisted. There was nothing gentle about it. She gnawed at my bottom lip like a starving animal, her body pressed against mine until there wasn't a scrap of skin that wasn't touching, melting against each other. Ellie's left-hand bit into the right side of my torso, and I imagined that when I woke from this beautiful dream, there would be nail marks left behind. But even in all that fury, that explosion of pent-up desire, of fear, of wanting to be together – her right hand caressed my back.
I doubted it was even conscious, that she knew what she was doing, but it touched me all the same. It meant more than she could ever know, more than even I could conceive of. That she had remembered, and then tried to salve my deepest pain was a symbol that she already knew me better than anyone else in my life ever had.
I groaned, lay back, slumping against the mattress. She collapsed with me, not breaking her lock on my lips for even a second. I felt a hurried desire overcome me, like a soldier on the eve of battle.
I was.
She was too.
I pulled off her top, desperate to see every inch of her soft skin. It was flushed red, and I knew that every nerve in her entire body w
as on fire. This wasn't a moment to go slow, not a moment for some strange, outlandish position – it was a time to be together. Nothing more, nothing less.
"Are you sure?" I whispered, breaking away from her kiss for a second. She closed her eyes and redoubled it.
I rolled my hands down her back, scratching, watching as white streaks followed my fingers down to where her spine met her hips. She growled, thrusting her pelvis against my body, then flipped herself, clambering on top of me and settling across my hips.
Ellie unbuckled my belt, pulled it out and tossed it onto the floor. She struggled with the buttons, and I knocked her hands aside, undoing the fly with one hand, reaching around to undo her bra with the other. It fell away, revealing nipples that rose and fell like peaks of waves cresting against a rocky shoreline. A dull, throaty growl escaped my lips, so primal, so animalistic that I barely recognized it as human.
I propped myself up, leaned in, took one of her nipples in my mouth and rolled it gently against my tongue. She held my head in her hands, interlocked her fingers between my hair and held me against her. My cheek pressed against her breast, trapped in a cage of arms and long, silky hair. Her skin was hot, radiating fire, and felt slick with sweat. I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted her, I needed her, and I had to have her.
I rested my hands on her back, stiffened my forearms and flipped us over, so that I was on top. Her face wore a faintly surprised expression, but I smothered it with a kiss as my hands wandered down, found the buckle of her pants and with more luck than skill, pried it open. I shot backwards, tearing every scrap of fabric off her legs and revealing a sea of perfect, spotless skin.
Her underwear was plain, but it didn't need to be anything else. You could put a cloth on the Mona Lisa, but it would still be the Mona Lisa. And Ellie was mine.
I tore her panties off too, and they joined a growing pile on the floor. I buried my head between her legs, savored her musky wetness, and licked her slit from bottom to top. She shivered, and her thighs clenched, her toes curling with satisfaction.
