“Have you ever done something you regret?”
Alex’s question brought Luka out of his thoughts. She was looking at him with such sad and broken eyes that it was almost hard for him to maintain that contact.
He knew what she was really asking, but in that regard, he had none. There was no one he’d killed who hadn’t deserved it or had intended to kill him. Did he have other regrets? Plenty.
Though the truth was different, he lied to her because it was what she needed. “Yes.”
Resting her head against the wall, she closed her eyes. “There was no blood, you know—well, of course you know. You probably had to clean it up, get rid of everything.” She paused, as if she’d expected him to deny that. When he remained silent, she went on. “A friend of mine sold me GHB the night before, so I guess I can’t say I didn’t think about what I was going to do. I mean I knew that it was going to happen eventually, right? Even without the whole mercenary business, she’d embarrassed Mikhail. She had caused so much damage that it was a surprise to me that she wasn’t already dead.”
Laughing, though it sounded forced and full of pain, Alex wiped a tear from her face, finally looking at him. Actually looking at him. There it was, the brokenness, the one thing he had hoped never to see in her.
“She was a bitch, always, to everyone. Even me. Especially to me now that I think about it. Everything was always a competition for her. She had to look the best, wear the best clothes, and eat the best food. It didn’t really matter that I was her daughter. To her, I was just another person potentially standing in her way.”
He had felt it before he saw it, the way her sadness was taking her over, bleeding into her words. He understood what it was like running from a memory that haunted you, and when there was nowhere left to go, he knew what would happen once it consumed you.
She fought it for several moments, but the moment that first tear fell, it was as if she broke open. She was sobbing, her words nearly incoherent, but she forced them out, and Luka made it a point not to interrupt and just listen.
“But she was my mom and I loved her,” she said sniffling, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “You understand that, don’t you?” Her voice broke when she asked that question, her eyes searching him for the answer she needed. Seeing her like this was a different kind of torture he’d never experienced. “You can still love a person who hates you. She didn’t even want me. I was just another way for her to solidify her place. She was going to kill me without hesitation—”
“But you love her still,” Luka said softly.
She cried, with everything in her, and Luka couldn’t just sit and watch her. He wanted to hold her, take that pain away, but she hit him, trying to push him away, and with the first hit came another. And another. And soon, she was on her feet, slapping and punching him.
He dropped his arms, taking the onslaught, willing to do anything to help her, and if this was what it took, she could beat the shit out of him and he would accept it.
It went on for some time until she was too tired to swing again. Then she just cried for hours, and only then did she finally let him pull her into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin. Now that she wasn’t fighting him, he lifted her off her feet, bringing them down to the floor, maneuvering her until she was sitting comfortably in his lap, her legs wrapped around him.
He held her until she finally passed out, too exhausted to do anything more. Luka didn’t move an inch, too afraid of jostling her and waking her up. After being up for nearly twenty-four hours, she needed the sleep. Stroking her back, he wished he could take every bad memory from her and take it on himself.
Pain and misery usually excited him, inspired him to break someone further, but never with her. He didn’t think he wanted to see anyone smile as much as he wanted it for her.
He’d been content before, keeping his desires in check, letting her be free of what he wanted, but something turned on in him. Or it might have already been on and he was just now tired of fighting it.
It wasn’t like she was the only constant in his life over the years working within the Volkov Bratva. But he couldn’t think of anyone who made his heart beat the way she did, nor how she made him feel like he was more than his past.
Luka would give anything to bring her back to life.
19
___
Just A Little More
She grew weaker by the hour, and soon, she could do no more than lay there shivering. Despite sweating bullets, she felt colder than she ever had in her entire life.
She wasn’t even able to muster the energy to turn over when she felt the bed dip beside her, still waiting for the throbbing in her stomach to stop.
When his hand landed on her shoulder, she winced. Even that small contact was painful.
“You gotta drink something, Alex,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
She shook her head, not wanting to risk moving any further in case the skull-splitting headache she’d been suffering through only got worse. She couldn’t remember a time when she had felt this much pain, not even when she had been dancing nonstop for three days.
But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Carefully shifting her, not that it was hard since she barely had the energy to put up a fight, he supported her head as he gingerly pressed the bottle to her lips, tipping it up just far enough that a light stream of liquid fell into her mouth.
She swallowed as much as she could, but it only made her feel worse, so when he tried to give her more, she turned away.
“Just a little more,” he said softly.
But she had already fallen under.
____
Her body wracked with chills, it didn’t matter what she did, she couldn’t fight the chill that had consumed her. Now that she wasn’t trying to fight Luka to escape the room—no matter how badly that urge ate at her with every passing minute—Alex was laying on the bed, facing away from him, listening to the rain patter against the window.
It could be worse, her prison. Every day—at least this was what she thought he did—Luka left the room, attended to Loki, and brought back food, enough to last them the day. Only once had she woken up and he wasn’t in the room, but when she had tried the door, it was locked, which was surprising since she hadn’t noticed a deadbolt on the outside of the door, though it wasn’t like she was conscious coming in here.
Luka was on the other side of the room, shirt off, his back against the wall, an unopened bottle of Gatorade next to him. A number of empty ones littered the floor, the only thing he seemed to drink besides water. In the time they had been inside that room, he had been forcing them on her as well, though she had never really taken a liking to the energy drink before now.
She didn’t have to look at him to know that he was watching her. He had been doing it enough for her to practically feel his gaze.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Alex tried to ignore the pain in her gut, the way her hands shook uncontrollably, no matter if she balled them into fists, and the sweat that practically covered every inch of her. It didn’t matter that the heat was on and she was buried under a mound of covers, nothing helped.
She ground her teeth, trying to stop their chattering, but with the silence of the room, there wasn’t much she could do to help it.
The old wood creaked as Luka got to his feet, and she briefly wondered if he’d had enough, but instead, he came closer, crawling onto the bed, the covers briefly lifting as he slipped beneath.
His arm came over immediately, snaking around her waist, pulling her back against his body. She probably smelled and was undoubtedly gross, but there was no fight left in her.
Her eyes watered, her emotions out of whack as she tried not to read too much into what he was doing, but it was hard.
“Want to hear a story?” he asked, his voice lacking any emotion.
Not sure where he was going with this, she nodded anyway.
“I knew a guy once, some thought he was a sociopath, but no one knew
him the way I did. I even thought that eventually, somebody was gonna have to put a bullet in his head once he was too far gone. One day, he met a girl—nice enough with pretty eyes—but he wasn’t good for her. He broke everything he touched, you see—I’d watched him do it. Fuck, I tried warning him to leave her alone, but he couldn’t. He was just glad that he had met someone who was kind to him, even if she had been forced to be around him.”
Luka shifted, pulling her in tighter though there was hardly any space left between them. Alex didn’t complain.
“I could have tried harder to make him see reason, just so he could understand what he was doing and how it wouldn’t just affect him, but the girl as well. Two broken people like that? They were practically perfect for each other, but I think…I think a part of him knew that it would never work because of the power difference between them. Even when she confessed her love to him, he didn’t believe her. He knew it wasn’t real for her, even if it was real for him.
“For a time though, he didn’t care. He liked living in that illusion. Because to admit that he was nothing more than a weapon…it would ruin everything.”
Luka took a breath. “She meant everything to him then, but he had meant everything to someone else. And that someone else didn’t like how he was spending his time. But he couldn’t touch him, of course—they took it out on her instead.”
Luka grew quiet again, his hand clenching on her stomach. She reached for it, feeling the tension in him, but she didn’t stop, interlocking their fingers, offering what little support she could. While he might not have ever showed vulnerability, he hurt for his friend, and she wanted to comfort him as best as she could.
She hadn’t realized she’d stopped shaking as soon as he’d started speaking.
“It was fucking brutal what they did to her and one side of me…shit, one side of me understands why they did it. They wanted to break him again, teach him a lesson and make him into a bigger monster than he already was, but they didn’t understand what love could do to a person. They might have taught him that love came at a price, but they brought back his humanity in the process. For that, he would always be grateful, but because they hurt her, the one person who made him human again, they were nothing to him.”
“What happened to her?” Alex asked, watching as the rain came in a slow drizzle.
“I don’t know.”
She wanted to turn and face him, read the emotions in his eyes, but she didn’t want to break the moment between them. “And your friend? What happened to him?”
“Escaped the life and learned to hide his monsters.”
Sighing, Alex shook her head. “I’m sorry you lost your friend.”
“Don’t be. Everything happens for a reason.”
“And the men? Did he kill them? That’s what you would do.”
She felt him shaking with silent laughter. “Maybe, but as far as I know, he only got to one of them, the other is still out there somewhere.”
“Hopefully he gets to him.”
“Unless somebody else beats him to it.”
“Can I ask you one more question?”
“Of course.”
“What was your friend’s name?”
Luka was quiet for so long that she feared he wasn’t going to answer, but so quietly, almost so that she didn’t hear him, he said, “Valon. His name was Valon.”
20
____
Awake
Every couple of hours, she woke up in a daze, her stomach hurting, her eyes watering, but before she could become too out-of-sorts, Luka was there, his much larger body curled around hers, providing heat that she didn’t know she needed until then.
It was hard to tell where she ended and he began since their legs were tangled together. His arms wrapped securely around her as though he thought she would slip away, and at some point during the night, she had grabbed hold of his hand, twining their fingers, hanging on as though she were the one who was afraid to let go.
The cravings never stopped. The need for pills was stronger than ever. But it almost seemed like he could read her mind because any time she felt the urge to get out of there, he held on tighter.
He was her anchor.
_____
After four days of constantly hovering, making sure that she didn’t attempt to leave the room, Alex wasn’t surprised that Luka was passed out, and while he normally heard everything, she’d gone back and forth to the bathroom and walked around him enough times to know that he wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.
Now, she was finally awake and could bring herself to move around.
For a while, she had sat as he’d done, watching him sleep, feeling terrible because even as he slept, he looked stressed. Truly, he looked exhausted, and there was no one to blame but herself.
While the door might have been locked—and she had no idea what he had done with the key—she checked the knob before pulling two bobby pins from her hair. She still knew a few tricks.
A little rusty, it took her a bit longer before she was able to pop the lock and twist the handle, the door swinging open. Loki was laying on the other side, but when he saw her coming out, he perked right up, his tail thumping wildly.
Alex shushed him, scratching behind his ears for a brief second before she headed for the bathroom on the first level. Since the laundry room was right across the hall, she grabbed some of his clothes along with a towel.
Peeling off the T-shirt that felt utterly gross, she cut on the shower, waiting for the water to heat up before she stepped inside, pulling the curtain closed.
Though showering seemed like a good idea when she’d first thought of it, by the time she finished washing her hair and scrubbing herself clean—she would have liked to stay in there for at least another hour—exhaustion was quick to set in.
She was contemplating just sitting under the spray when the curtain was wrenched open and she gave a startled shout at the sight of Luka standing on the other side. His eyes were red from lack of sleep, but that didn’t diminish the intensity of his gaze.
“Jesus, Luka. You scared the shit out of me!”
Covering herself as best she could, it didn’t seem to help much. The way he looked at her made her feel like she was baring all to him.
Maybe she was, in more ways than she thought.
“Sorry.” But he didn’t sound like he truly meant that.
Though he had every right to be suspicious of her, she still felt indignant as she blatantly held her hands up, wiggling her fingers at him. “Just taking a shower. No pills or anything.”
For the briefest of moments, he wasn’t focused on her empty hands or the sardonic tone of her voice. Instead, his gaze was intent on every part of her that she had just revealed. It wasn’t the first time he had seen her naked, not even the second, but the way he blinked made her feel like it was all over again. Those other times, it didn’t really feel like he had actually taken notice of her nudity, now it was as if he was finally seeing her.
It didn’t matter that he looked exhausted. He was still reacting to her.
Only when she cleared her throat did he finally look back up at her face, but there was no apology in his eyes, not even close.
“I need clothes.” She gestured back at the sink where she’d set them.
“Meet me in the kitchen.”
He fisted the towel, tossing it at her without looking back as he headed out of the steamy bathroom, leaving the door open in his wake. Even if she weren’t naked, she still would have felt raw after the last few days, and in her current condition, she was in no mood to fight with him about this.
She dried off in a hurry, pulling on his shirt that was about two sizes too big and a pair of shorts that she had to roll a few times at the waist to keep them up. Despite how they swallowed her, they were pretty comfortable.
In the kitchen, Luka was at the stove, knives in hand as he turned on one of the burners. There was a carton of eggs resting on the counter, along with a few other ingredients.
He knew the moment she entered, his head turning just the slightest when she walked in. The back door was cracked, and since Alex didn’t see Loki trotting around the kitchen, she headed in that direction, stepping out into the backyard.
She’d figured that he lived in the middle of nowhere considering no one had called the police when she was screaming bloody murder that first night, but she had seriously underestimated the seclusion in which Luka lived. There were just woods behind his house, as far as the eye could see.
There was a bird soaring through the sky, Loki bounding behind it, jumping every so often to try to catch it. On his third attempt, he finally nabbed it with a paw.
Alex cringed, calling out to him before he could kill the poor thing.
Seeing her, he came running back to her at full speed, nearly knocking her down as he plowed into her, hot breath on her face. She laughed, trying to shove him off even as she rubbed his head. Luka might not have been in a good mood, but Loki was.
Luka’s gaze went from her to Loki, then back again as they reentered the house. Whatever he’d been making at the stove was now plated and waiting for her at the island. It was odd. Alex was starting to notice that when he cooked for her, while he made more than enough for the pair of them, he never ate with her.
He waited until she was set up in front of the food, a knife and fork in hand, before he started speaking.
“How are you feeling?”
That was such a loaded question. Was it possible to feel utterly exhausted, but to still feel good? She felt lighter than she had before, like less of a weight was bearing down on her, but she also felt like she’d been repeatedly run over by a car.
“Fine.”
He leaned his weight on his arms, the veins in them standing out. Despite not having been up more than half an hour, he already looked wired. “Can you eat?”
She nodded, though she wasn’t quite sure if this was true or not. Even so, she left the omelet for the moment, picking up a strawberry. When she bit into it, she was pleasantly surprised by the taste, especially since the fruit wasn’t in season.
Hidden Monsters (Volkov Bratva Book 4) Page 13
