Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)

by J. M. Darhower

  He says nothing, drinking some more, watching me as he does. His gaze crawls across my skin, giving me goose bumps. I shiver again, crossing my arms over my chest. I’m fully clothed, wearing pajamas—old gray sweats and a black t-shirt, my hair still wet from a shower, knotted on top of my head in a messy bun. I’m wearing not a stitch of makeup, my skin bare except for the lotion I always wear.

  Shoving away from the doorframe, Lorenzo strolls through the kitchen, approaching. The closer he gets, the more my heart races, my stomach doing somersaults. He’s not drunk, I don’t think, the bottle in his hand only a quarter of the way gone, but there’s something off about him. I can’t put my finger on it. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He stops right in front of me. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

  Even the way he says that feels wrong, but I can’t exactly explain it. I don’t know what it is. Besides, he just answered my question with a question, which is a giant red flag.

  I don’t answer him, since he didn’t answer me. After a moment, he raises a hand, to touch me, but I take a step back, putting space between us. His brow furrows, and I try to go around him, to get out of the kitchen, but he grabs my arm, pulling me back toward him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “I don’t give a shit,” he says. “Answer my question.”

  I want to tell him to fuck off, that I don’t owe him any answers, but he’d probably just ask again and again until I caved and gave him what he wanted. “You’re being weird.”

  “How?”

  “Ugh, I don’t know.” I pull my arm from his grasp, and he lets go without a fight. “I can’t explain it. It’s just a feeling I’ve got.”

  He stares at me again, the corner of his mouth turning up slightly with a hint of a smirk. He takes a swig of his liquor before walking over and picking up the discarded knife. It’s small, with a blunt tip and a serrated blade, the first knife I came across and probably the worst one to try to attack somebody with.

  Shaking his head, he tosses the knife onto the counter before turning back to me. “You’re just being paranoid. There’s nothing wrong with me, except maybe that it’s cold as fuck in here. Does the heat not work?”

  I relax a bit. Okay, that’s plausible. I might be paranoid. “The heat works. It just, you know... sucks.”

  “Sucks,” he repeats, walking back over to me. “I guess that’s one way to keep warm.”

  “Is that why you showed up here? Think you can drop in any time you want and get your dick wet?”

  “Can’t I?”

  I roll my eyes, starting to walk away again, when he laughs. He’s laughing. The sound stalls me.

  “I’m just fucking with you,” he says, pausing before adding, “or well, not fucking with you. However you want it. Not a big deal.”

  He skirts past me, out of the kitchen, flicking the light off as he goes, leaving me standing in the dark alone. Brow furrowing, I follow him to the living room, thinking he’s leaving. “Where are you going?”

  “To smoke,” he says, bypassing the front door, instead going to the ladder that leads to the roof. “Join me or not. Whatever you want.”

  Ugh. I scrub my hands over my face, groaning, as he makes his way up onto the roof. He’s giving me whiplash. Dealing with him is the last thing I expected to be doing tonight, considering I just saw him this morning, but now he’s here... well, he’s up there... and it kind of just makes me want to be wherever he is.

  I know he’s just a man. A man with flaws. A man with his own problems. And I know he can’t solve my problem. Not really. He can’t fix what’s wrong with me. Nobody can. They can’t even understand. But being around him, it makes me feel things, things I’ve missed just as much as the music and the laughter, things that make me feel alive again.

  He’s excitement. He’s adrenaline.

  He makes my heart do stupid shit.

  Shit my heart shouldn’t be doing.

  Because everything that turns me on about him could also snuff me out. He’s violent. He’s temperamental. He’s dangerous. So dangerous. Twenty-four hours ago, I watched him murder someone. He didn’t even flinch as he pulled the trigger.

  But then again, neither did I.

  I watched him do it without reacting.

  Maybe we’re not that different.

  It doesn’t really matter, though, because the devil already took my soul. I have nothing to offer Lorenzo.

  Not that he’d even want it.

  Sighing, I stalk over to the ladder and climb up onto the roof. Lorenzo sits on the ledge, legs dangling over the side of the building, a cloud of smoke already surrounding him. I smell it as I approach and climb up on the ledge beside him, sitting down so close our arms touch.

  Lorenzo turns to me and leans closer, like he might kiss me, but instead he lets out a stream of smoke. My lips part, and I inhale deeply, taking the remnants of the hazy air into my lungs, closing my eyes as I hold it, relishing the slight burn in my chest.

  I exhale after a moment, reopening my eyes, and catch him staring at me, still just a breath away from my mouth.

  I turn away, lowering my head, looking down over the side of the building, down at the chaotic city. My heart continues to batter my ribcage, chills covering every inch of my skin. I gently swing my legs, my bare foot grazing against his black combat boot. His boots are untied, loose on his feet, like at any moment they might fall off, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit.

  It’s a long drop. I live on the sixth floor. From up here on the roof, it might as well be seven stories.

  “Do you think it would hurt?” I ask, gazing down.

  “What?”

  “Falling.”

  He takes a hit of his joint before wordlessly offering it to me. I take it, bringing it to my lips and inhaling, as he glances down.

  “Falling doesn’t hurt,” he says. “I imagine it feels nice those few seconds, soaring through the sky.”

  “Yeah, I guess it’s hitting the ground that hurts.”

  “I wouldn’t even say that. From this height? You’ve got about a ten-percent chance of surviving. The hit, it probably doesn’t hurt. It’ll either kill you or incapacitate you, and either way it’ll be instant. Pain won’t come until you wake up and realize you’re not dead. So no, I don’t think falling hurts, but living through it sure as hell would.” He lets out a dry laugh, taking the joint back from me. “That’s usually how it goes, you know... dying has nothing on the horrors of surviving.”

  How true that is...

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” I mumble. “Falling.”

  “I swear to fuck, Scarlet, if you jump off of this roof…”

  “I’m not planning on it. I’m just saying, there are worse ways to go. And when death catches up to me, well, it won’t be as instant as going splat. He’ll make it much worse than that.”

  “By ‘death’ I’m assuming you mean Aristov,” he says, passing the joint back. “When Aristov finally catches up to you.”

  “Yeah,” I mumble, taking a hit, sucking deeply and holding it in my lungs until I start coughing. The smoke streams out of me, my eyes burning, watering. “His weapons of choice are his hands.”

  “So, strangulation, suffocation…”

  “Worst way to go.”

  My throat feels raw, my chest tight. I can almost feel his thick hands wrapped around my neck, choking the life out of me, his face just inches from my own. I always just hoped I’d see a fleck of humanity, but there was never anything there. The man is a shell. He may as well be made of metal, whatever’s inside of him short-circuiting. He’s inhuman. Seeing him kill others desensitized me, but realizing he’d kill me, too? Realizing ‘love’ to him wasn’t love at all, that it was obsession, that it was all about possession?

  It almost broke me.

  Almost.

  “Old age.”

  Lorenzo’s words draw my attention, pulling me out of memories that feel lifetimes ago
. I take another hit of the joint, tingles running through my body, warming me from the inside, that floaty feeling starting to take over, before I hand it back. “Old age?”

  “Worst way to go.”

  That makes me laugh harder than it should. “You’re kidding, right? Of all the ways to die, you think that’s the worst?”

  He shrugs, stubbing the joint out, before picking up his Altoids tin from between us on the ledge and shoving it back in his pants pocket.

  “I’d love to live long enough to die of natural causes,” I say. “If only I could be so lucky...”

  “Live for a century only to have your body shut down, your heart giving out, your brain disconnecting, forgetting everything you did and everyone you might’ve given a fuck about, suffering alone and terrified, shitting your pants, not even knowing your own name? I’d rather be doused in gasoline and set on fire.”

  I cringe. Jesus Christ.

  “Besides,” he continues, “would be bullshit, living the way I do, if I don’t at least get the chance to go out in a blaze of glory while I can still enjoy it.”

  “That’s no way to live.”

  “Says the woman thinking about falling off a roof while hiding from some jackass like a scared little punk bitch.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  There’s a part of me that wishes I could explain it to him, that wants to make him understand, but there’s another part of me—the stubborn, hardhearted part—that can’t risk fully confiding in this man.

  Facts often change perception. Sometimes stories have plot twists that turn everything upside down. So I keep my secrets guarded closely to my chest, not cracking myself open, because there’s a chance when he sees what’s all inside of me, he might walk away and not even look back.

  I don’t know that he would, I don’t even think he would, but he might, and I selfishly need him to stick around. I couldn’t handle that rejection right now.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I mumble, swinging around, pulling myself back onto the roof. “I’m going inside.”

  Before I can even take a step away, Lorenzo’s hand shoots back, grabbing my arm. “Did you hear that?”

  I glance at him. “Hear what?”

  Just as I ask that, a faint thumping noise reaches my ears, like footsteps against metal rungs. The ladder. My eyes dart toward the opening on the roof, leading to my apartment, trembling when I hear it again from inside.

  Someone else is here. Fuck.

  I’m frozen solid, hoping it’s my imagination, until I hear voices. Accents. Lorenzo swings around, getting to his feet. He doesn’t say anything, dragging me across the roof, his hand gripping my arm so tightly it hurts. He takes me over to another ledge before letting go, hauling himself up on it, not even hesitating before dropping over the other side, disappearing.

  “Lorenzo!” I call out, heart racing as I pull myself up onto the ledge, terrified, hearing a loud bang of metal, watching as he drops onto the old fire escape below, nearly losing his balance when he hits hard.

  He recovers, staying on his feet, and looks up at me. “Now or never, Scarlet.”

  Now or never.

  I glance behind me, back onto the roof, flexing my hands as they shake. Now.

  I jump.

  Or well, I fall.

  I wish I can say I’m graceful about it, that I pirouette off the ledge and float on down, but I more like flail mid-air for a second, squeezing my eyes shut and holding my breath, before slamming right into Lorenzo. BAM. My bare foot catches on the edge of the fire escape, and I nearly slip through the opening, down another level, but Lorenzo grabs me, yanking me to him before I fall any further.

  I wince, blood seeping out from a fresh cut on my foot, the metal edges of the fire escape jagged and rusty. Awesome. If Kassian doesn’t get me tonight, tetanus certainly might.

  Talk about some karma.

  “Go,” Lorenzo says, his voice firm as he nudges me, making me move. I’m still trying to get my bearings, but I hold onto the fire escape as I make my way down. I’m surprised I’m not yet caught when I get to the bottom, grabbing the ladder and shoving on it, but it only budges a little bit.

  Ugh. George is a slumlord. Piece of shit building is a death trap.

  “Jump,” Lorenzo says impatiently, nudging me again. Sighing, I grab the ladder, climbing over, and dangle from the end of it before dropping to the sidewalk, right on my ass, with another wince.

  Of course, this bastard lands beside me, jumping down, managing to stay upright. Grabbing my arm, he yanks me to my feet, nearly throwing me back down as he shoves me. “Go.”

  I take a few steps, because he gives me no choice, but then I stall. “Where?”

  He shrugs.

  The man fucking shrugs.

  All casual and calm, just a flippant lift of his shoulders as he leans back against the building not far from the entrance.

  What the hell?

  “What are you doing?” I ask incredulously as he props his boot up against the building, his posture relaxed, hands shoved in his coat pockets. He’s just standing there, like he’s waiting.

  “You’d rather fall than face him, so I got you down still alive,” he says, “but I’m not afraid, Scarlet, and I’ve never run from anyone a day in my life.”

  “But—”

  “Go,” he says again, louder. “Quit pussyfooting.”

  He’s insane, this man. Bona fide batshit crazy. Groaning, I run around the corner, into the alley, spotting the black Mercedes parked there. Whoa. I retreat, to go the other way, when there’s noise in front of the building.

  Voices, distinguishably Russian.

  Out of time, I dodge behind a row of dumpsters, overflowing with trash, wedging myself between two of them and squatting down, gagging.

  Maybe this makes me a coward, I don’t know, but I’d rather be a breathing coward than a brave corpse.

  “Where is she?”

  Those are the first words I hear, as I strain my ears.

  The voice is familiar. Markel.

  “Who?” Lorenzo asks.

  “You know who,” Markel says. “Morgan.”

  “Oh, did you find her?” Lorenzo asks. “That was fast.”

  “Listen, you son of a bitch,” Markel says, losing his temper. “You think you’re funny, but I find nothing funny about you. You are involving yourself in business that has nothing to do with you.”

  “Business, is she?” Lorenzo’s voice doesn’t waver from its casual tone. “Thought it was personal.”

  “It’s both,” Markel says. “Either way, it has nothing to do with you. We don’t want any problems. There doesn’t need to be any. The girl, she is Kassian’s. So stay away from her, leave her to us, and there will be no hard feelings. Just give her up.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Lorenzo says. “Because I’m already feeling like there are some hard feelings here, with the way you’re all in my space right now. Your breath smells like ass and you just spit in my face while spewing your lies about not wanting problems, and there’s nothing I hate more in this world than a liar, Pooh-Bear. Nothing. So run along and tell Christopher Robin that I said I’ve got a pair of nuts he can suck on, but otherwise, I’ve got nothing for him. You got me?”

  I grimace. Kassian won’t like that.

  “You’ll regret that,” Markel says. “You’re willing to give up your life for a dumb little suka?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, my stomach angrily churning.

  “Oh, I’m not giving up anything,” Lorenzo says. “All I’m saying is I don’t have her. Hell, you can check my pockets if you want. Here, look. See, she’s not here. Nope, not in my coat, either. I don’t have her, and I don’t appreciate the insinuation that I do.”

  “Then how did you know to come here?” Markel asks.

  “I think the better question is how you knew where I went,” Lorenzo says. “And be very careful how you answer that, Boo-Boo, beca
use I don’t take kindly to being tracked.”

  His voice finally raises an octave, the anger emanating from those words sending a chill through me.

  “I did not follow you,” Markel says. “It seems you and I just had the same destination.”

  “Bullshit.”

  It’s silent for a moment—a very long moment—before Markel says, “Kassian will not let you keep her.”

  “That’s funny,” Lorenzo says, “because I don’t recall asking him for his blessing... maybe because I don’t give a fuck what he thinks.”

  I wait for a response, my heart hammering hard, but all I hear is footsteps after that, drawing closer, closer, closer…

  I duck further into the shadows, watching as two guys strut past. Markel, Kassian’s younger brother, but the other I don’t know. One of his many minions.

  It’s funny, I think, as I watch them get in the Mercedes, squealing tires as they speed away, going back to Kassian empty-handed, that it’s his brother he’s sending, considering Markel had a soft spot for me. He was once the closest thing I had to an ally.

  I stay in place after they’re gone, not knowing if it’s safe. A minute or so passes before footsteps quietly approach, a shadow moving in the alley, stalling in front of the dumpsters. “You gonna stay there all night?”

  I peek out at Lorenzo, grimacing. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe,” he repeats. “Well, if you want to stay there, so be it, but otherwise, let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “And go where?”

  “Home.”

  “Home,” I mutter, stepping over the trash, gagging again. It reeks. “Don’t really have one of those I can go to.”

  “I’ve got one I can share.”

  He turns to walk away, but I hesitate. “What?”

  “You got anywhere else to go? Family? Friends?”

  “No.”

  “Okay then, my house it is.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Look, we’re not picking out fucking drapes together, Scarlet, but you need a place to lay your head and I’ve got one of those. You can sleep on the couch if you want—just overlook the hole in it. Had a little accident.”

  I follow him out of the alley, slightly limping. My foot feels like it’s on fire, the rest of me sore. “Accident-schmaccident.”