by Maren Smith
“I think I would fear your way of life.”
“You would never live my life, little one. You would be protected.”
“How can anyone be protected from something like that? What if you decided I couldn’t live any longer? Would you kill me?”
Misha hugs me closer. “I have hundreds of ruthless men who obey me. My family rules a kingdom worthy of a printsessa like you, with your light and your laugh. You would always be safe with me.”
“But what if I betrayed you?”
His eyes darken, making me want to shrink back, but I force myself to stay.
“Why would you? You would never be involved with anything incriminating. I have learned my lesson. Mother was part of the business. She knew everything. That would never happen to you.”
“But would you kill me if you thought I had wronged you?”
“No.” His voice has taken on a dangerous tone, but I push on.
“Would your dad?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“Would he? Your brothers? Your life seems so cold and cruel. How can you even ask me to move across the world? For that?”
“Not for that. For me. That is where I belong, and you belong by my side.”
“Please, don’t ask me to do that. You’re killing me. Can’t you stay here?”
“My life is in Russia. I want you with me.”
“I have my store. It’s my life, my heritage. I can’t just up and leave.”
The muscles on the sides of his jaw clenches and unclenches. He looks terrifying, but I know I’m safe with him. He lives a brutal life, but he always takes care of me. He won’t raise his hand against me in anger. I stroke his cheek, feel the muscles work.
“How old were you?” I ask.
“When?”
“When your mom…passed?”
“Six. I was six.”
“Oh my god. I was six too. Do you remember it well?”
His face turns somber, naked and vulnerable. “Clear as yesterday, printsessa.”
Misha
It probably used to be a fancy house once. Now it’s a shack with stained walls and with layers of dirt on the floors. The cigarette smoke hangs like a thick fog in the air.
“Is she a good fuck?”
I spin around and scan the men at the table, looking for whoever spoke. Dee, a bald man with bad teeth and a tattoo of an eagle covering half his head, looks at me challengingly.
“Whose business is it who I fuck?” I say, meeting his stare. He’s high on something. Cocaine. Heroin. Meth. I’ve lost count of how much and what these people snort, smoke, or inject. I also don’t care. Them killing themselves is their business. I do care that they’ve taken notice where I sleep, though. It doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t like anyone’s attention on Carrie except mine.
Dee spits on the floor and stands. I shift my interest to where everyone has their hands, making sure no one goes for a gun, then I meet his gaze and wait.
“It becomes my business when the chick’s not paying up.”
“What are you talking about? You’re getting what she owes.”
“Yeah, but from your fucking pockets.”
I shrug. “Money is money. It’s none of your business where it comes from.”
Dee moves in and tries to stare me down, which is funny, since he’s about half a foot shorter. “I’m making it my business,” he snarls. “Get your head out of her pussy long enough to do your fucking job.”
I force a calm I’m not feeling. “Are you not pleased with my work?” I know they are. I haven’t failed them. I also know they’ve been looking for a reason to pick a fight since I got here. I can only assume Piotr did something to irk them. I wouldn’t be surprised. Being annoying is one of his best qualities.
Dee spits again, right in front of my feet. I look at him, then around the room. Seven men. Do they not know I could kill them all within a minute? I raise my eyebrows, waiting for an answer. Dee spreads his arms and smirks, then he goes back to his chair.
I narrow my eyes, then turn and leave. My days are hard and my working hours long, but I keep my head down, do what I’m told, and count the days until I’m done. From now on I’ll have to look out for Dee. If he has his eyes on Carrie, it’s not good.
We live in a candy-colored bubble of coffee and books, long walks, talks and marathon sex. I have tidied up her house, her life, and her store. I know everything about her business, and I’ve helped her streamline her accounting, even though I have yet to learn about the mess that is US tax law. Yes, I like control.
Carrie has settled by my side, fitting me like the most exclusive tailored suit, like a missing piece of my puzzle. I realize I have barged into her life and made her follow my lead, my rules, and that this might not be what she’d have wanted if I had asked. But I didn’t ask. I loathe asking for anything. I take. By force if needed. If that’s not enough, I use more force.
I have fought my whole life to feel safe, to build walls that no one can penetrate, to make up for the loss of young Misha’s innocence. Little Carrie has made a chink in that armor, and I see the cracks grow, day by day, spreading like a fine web across my polished surface. She wants in. I want to let her in. My fear of becoming vulnerable keeps us staggering along that fine line.
I haven’t become who I am by being a trusting person. I could take her, simply take her. I have toyed with the idea more than once. When the day comes, I could throw her in the car, carry her inside the plane and take her with me.
That would destroy everything.
I know it.
Despite who I am, and what I do, despite the way I forced myself into her life, I see faith in her eyes, in her manners. She believes there’s good in me and that little part in me, the boy who lost his mother, the boy inside who sometimes just needs a caring stroke along his cheek, fights the monster who wants to ravage and ruin. He’s strong, and he grows stronger the more time I spend with her. She feeds a light I thought I had lost a long time ago.
There’s true tenderness in my chest when I think of my little American girl. I want to do right by her. I just don’t know how.
Stealing her away to Russia isn’t the way, and time moves too fast, it seems. Soon, I’ll be out of options if she doesn’t come around.
“But I have my life here, Misha! Sugar Princess, my friends, Cookie. I can’t go to Russia.”
I laugh, but it sounds bitter rather than joyful. “What friends?”
She looks hurt, and I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. I gesture to Cookie who is bouncing along the sidewalk, stopping time and time again to sniff disgusting things. “Your neighbor can find someone else to care for Cookie during the day. Or adapt her life to the fact that she has a dog. It’s not your responsibility.”
“I love Cookie.” Carrie looks at her feet, her shoulders slumped. Crack. I feel my armor crumble. She’s hurting. I hurt her. What began as a mad whim, then continued as a game, has become real. These are real emotions. In her. In me.
I never thought I’d have them.
But I will never live in the US.
“I’ll buy you another dog. I’ll buy you ten. I’ll give you everything you could ever wish for. I will help you open a bookstore in Moscow.”
She scoffs and kicks a pebble that shoots across the sidewalk and hits a parked car. Carrie mumbles a curse and picks up her pace. I grab her arm.
“Hey.”
She looks up at me. Tears glitter in her eyelashes. My heart softens in a second. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she says, her lower lip trembling. “I don’t know what to do. It’s breaking my heart.”
I pull her into my arms.
Crack.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting, dorogaya.”
“I’m afraid.”
“I know.”
“I need time.”
“There’s not a lot of time left.”
“You can stay longer?”
Under no circumstances will I stay in this country b
eyond the extent of my contract. “I’m needed back home.”
“I’m needed here. Sugar Princess is my life, it’s my heritage, it’s all I have left of my family. You always talk about family and how important it is. You must understand.”
I hug her close, reveling in how she molds her body to mine, like always. “I’m your family. You will have a new one. They will love you. You will have aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. Everyone’s dying to meet you.”
“Daddy…” Her voice breaks. “You’ve talked about me? With your family?”
I kiss the top of her head and then stroke the tears off her cheeks. “Let’s get you to work, printsessa. We will talk about this later.”
Of course, I have talked about her. I can’t think of anything but her. Carrie Ellerbrock has my whole heart.
Carrie
The front door bell rings. It’s almost closing time and I smile to myself as I climb the steps, two at a time, to go meet Misha.
It’s not him, though.
In the center of the room stand four men that I would have crossed the sidewalk to avoid even if it had been on a crowded street in the middle of the day. Tattoos, thick gold chains, filth, bruises, scars, and missing teeth. I take them in as I back up, glancing at the clock, praying time will run faster and that Misha will be here really soon.
“Can I help you? We’re just about to close.” I say we, hoping they’ll believe I’m not alone. My heart slams, and my mouth is suddenly paper dry.
A tall, gangly man in his upper twenties slants toward me. He’s bald, with a huge tattoo of an eagle on the side of his head. It’s hideous. I think of Misha’s tattoos and wonder about the meaning of this one.
“So, this is his little fuckbuddy?” He moves in behind me and puts his mouth to my ear, making chills run down my neck. “Tell your Russian friend that he’s failed his fucking mission. You hear me? We’ll get him, and we’ll get his fucking bro too.” He grabs my ass, making me jump and yelp.
The other three men have pulled out plastic cans from the large bags by their feet and have spread out. After screwing open the cans, they begin pouring a liquid along the walls and on the books. A sharp stench of gasoline reaches my nostrils.
“No! Please!” I try to move, try to reach them, but the man behind me grabs me and wraps an arm around my neck.
“Light it up, guys! We’ll show the fucker we’re not playing around! This is what happens when you don’t fucking pay.”
“Please! No!” I scream, and then my pleads turn into a wordless wail as they set Princess on fire.
I’m pushed to my knees and in the next moment the men have disappeared out the front door. Before me, the flames catch on, rise, devour everything that is me and my life.
Misha
Something makes me speed up my motorcycle past all limits. There’s a tug inside me, pulling me to her, screaming at me that I need to keep her safe. The faraway sound of sirens increases by the second, and the smell of smoke gets stronger the closer I get to Carrie. It doesn’t have to be her store, or even in her block, but instinct twists my insides into an inferno of raw fear.
I arrive outside Sugar Princess at the same time as the fire fighters begin to roll out their hoses and shout their orders. Heat and flames have cracked all the large front windows and already lick the façade on the second floor. I don’t bother with the front entrance – it’s engulfed – and instead leap into the little alley behind the building, take the stairs to the basement level in a few strides, where I find a distraught Cookie who barks at the open door to the bakery in the back. I unhook the chain to let her loose. Smoke billows out the door, but there are no flames. I tear off my suit jacket and hold it over my mouth and nose as I crouch under the smoke and run inside. My heart slams in fear of losing what I’ve just found.
“Carrie!” I roar. The light is still on, but it’s getting darker by the second as the smoke intensifies. “Carrie!” My eyes sting and tears well up.
I look up the long, narrow set of stairs to the office, praying she isn’t up there. The wall reflects the orange glow from the fire in the store and the roar from the hell that has broken loose is deafening.
“Carrie!”
I take a step before I hesitate in the black smoke that steals all the air.
A cough from upstairs, then a faint voice. “Misha!”
My life is nothing. Hers is everything. There is no hesitation. I run up, toward the flames and the heat, toward the only woman I will ever care about. I can’t lose her. I won’t.
She comes stumbling, her arms full of books, sooty, her eyes huge, reddened, frightened, tears and snot streaming down her face.
“Daddy!”
“Daddy’s here.”
I catch her, cradle her against my chest, and run back down. There’s no oxygen left, but my willpower is stronger than my need to breathe. We stumble out in the backyard. Carrie falls to her hands and knees and throws up, then she rolls over on her back, every breath wheezing.
I hold her hair away from the vomit, stroke her forehead. “What happened?” It clearly wasn’t a kitchen malfunction.
“They said I hadn’t paid,” she gasps.
They.
Everything inside me goes black with instant primal rage. My beast roars and throws himself at his restraints. That bald meth-head with an inflated ego has interfered with my life for the last time. I don’t need more details.
‘They’ are dead. They just don’t know it yet.
Crack.
My armor is no more. Almost losing this woman, so new in my life and already my everything, tears down my last wall. I want her. I need her. I don’t know how to live the rest of my years if I don’t get to have her with me. I’m just getting to know her. I refuse to lose this.
“Come.” My lungs burn, but my blood boils hotter. I have tunnel vision. I need Carrie to be cared for, then I’ll arm myself to the teeth and wipe out the pretend gangsters who have laid claim to this part of the city. With Cookie by my feet, I carry my sooty printsessa up the stairs in the backyard, into the alley, and back out on the street.
“Hey! We need help here!”
A couple of firefighters drop what they have and come rushing to meet us. I stand with her until they have put an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, until I know she’s taken care of, then I kiss her forehead.
“I’ll be back, dorogaya. I have some things to take care of.”
I see the pain and the worry in her eyes. She knows what I need to do, and she might disagree, but she understands.
“Not for me,” she whispers.
I kiss her again. “For me, then.”
“Be careful, Daddy.”
“I’ll be back.”
I’ll be back after I make sure that no one harms Carrie Ellerbrock ever again.
Chapter Seven
Carrie
Every breath sets off an ache deep in my lungs, and my windpipe feels as if someone went over it with a steel brush. But I’ll heal.
Physically.
I spend one night in the hospital, with a dark shadow guarding me. He comes in somewhere around midnight, still reeking of smoke from the fire. I can’t believe they allowed him in, and I fear to imagine what he said to compel them to let him stay.
His posture is stiff and his face grim. I will never want to know where he went and what he did after he left me on the sidewalk outside my store, but even in the dimly lit room I see the bloodstains on his shirt sleeve.
They release me, and Misha drives me home in a black van I haven’t seen before. I won’t ask about that one either. My mind is blown, my energy spent. The physical pain I feel has nothing on the agony of seeing my father’s store burn. I managed to save a few of his favorite books, memories of my childhood years, the picture of me and him that sat on the desk. And the tiara.
“Are you okay?”
We’ve barely talked. I’m afraid I’ll scream if I open my mouth. I shake my head and hug my knees to my chest.
“How can I help?”
The wail inside me builds despite my efforts. You’re leaving in a couple of weeks! You’ve opened my heart, and now you’re ripping it from my chest! I have nothing left!
“You can’t,” I finally grit out.
“The store is gone. I’m sorry.”
Hearing it said out loud hurts as if I’m losing my father all over again.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say, rocking to try to comfort myself.
“Let me take care of you, Carrie. You have nothing here. Come with me back to Russia.”
It slams into me like a freight train. I turn my head slowly. His mouth falls open and he shakes his head, as if warning me from saying what’s about to come out of my mouth, but I can’t stop it. All the signs are there. The possessive behavior, his need for control.
“Did you do this? Did you tell them to burn my dad’s store?” The feeling of betrayal rips me in two. I can’t breathe. “Let me out!” I try to open the passenger door, but the lock won’t open. “Open the door. Stop the car. Let me out! You piece of shit!” I kick at the dashboard and push at the door, then I curl in on myself. I don’t want to be here anymore. “You said I was safe! You lied to me, Misha! My father’s store—” The ache inside eats up the last words.
He is too quiet. We speed toward my neighborhood. Finally, I dare a glance in his direction and recoil from the look on his face. I have never seen anyone look so crushed before in my life.
I did that.
He pulls up right outside my front door and comes around the car to help me out. I push at his hand, but he’s not having it, and I’m too weak to object harder. My skin longs for his touch even when I’m angry. I need his care, his love. I don’t want him to be upset, but I don’t know how to take back what I just said.
