by Skye Warren
“I wish I could kill him again, slowly,” I say. “If I could I would.”
We’re running out of time, but I like holding her. She stares up at me vacantly—she is very much drugged. How much will she remember? Perhaps nothing. This would be for the best.
I carry her to the bench, holding her tight. It’s wrong, the way I hold her. She’s not mine to hold like this, like a man holds a woman he loves, but when you’re me, you learn to take what isn’t yours.
Standing outside the bakery window looking in. Stealing scraps.
I settle her on the end of the bench.
There’s a scratch on the side of her cheek. This is not from the man who attacked her tonight—it’s from a fox brought into the wildlife clinic she runs—I read about it in the paper. She had to get two stitches.
The scratch seems to be healing, but up close I see she tried to cover it up with makeup. She stiffens as I reach out a finger.
I trace the scar. “You’re so beautiful.”
She gazes up at me, frozen in the light of my danger.
I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I trace the whole scar. She thinks it’s ugly, but it’s a sign of her beauty. I bring my lips to it and I kiss it. Her skin is like silk against my lips.
The road fills with red.
No more time. I move into the shadows as police cars scream up. I scale the wall and disappear into the night.
Three months later
Bianca
The reading of my father’s will takes place two weeks after the funeral, in the Moreland mansion north of the city.
Most people know it as a stately architectural treasure with sweeping views of Lake Michigan.
I know it as a cold, lonely place for a girl to grow up with no mother.
I have a car bring me out, which in Moreland-speak means a limo.
The Moreland mansion is where Dad lived alone before the boating explosion that killed him. Dead in an instant.
Now it’s just me and my half-brother, Bennett Moreland III.
Bennett has never been right. And by not right, I’m talking cruel. I’m talking a lot of mysteriously dead animals and missing pets. Maybe that’s why I went into being a vet. To try to make up for people like him.
I keep him out of my life, just for my sanity. But on days like today, Bennett’s unavoidable.
I direct the car around back, away from the press, back around to the door we’d usually use.
I feel numb, remembering the loneliness. And the fear of Bennett.
The cops ruled the boat explosion that killed my father an accident. The forensics guys said mice had gotten in and chewed the wires, but I know different.
That boat was Dad’s baby—he loved it more than he loved my mother while she lived and certainly more than he loved Bennett and me. Dad was under the hood of that boat every chance he got—no way did mice make a nest. He was murdered—how do they not see that?
Dad was an asshole, distant and cold, but he didn’t deserve to die.
I pass under the chandelier. So strange to think that the big, echoey mausoleum-like home could be half mine now.
I never wanted it. And honestly, my father never wanted me to have it. He always favored Bennett, who was more like him.
The hearth room is full of Morelands and Moreland family friends, including Winston the hot financial planner. Smiling at me.
The hot high society guys always ignored me, the curvier and more bookish brand of Moreland, but suddenly Winston’s smiling. I guess with Dad dead, people see extra dollar signs when they look at me.
“Aunt Bianca!” A gaggle of kids comes up, back in their bright colors and out of black mourning clothes. I’m still in black. Out of respect. It’s a will reading. There’s media to face out front later.
I go up and tease a few of my teen-aged second cousins—they’re dishing on some society kid, the fave pastime of young Morelands.
A chill goes over me when I catch sight of Bennett. He’s ear-to-ear grins in a sports coat and Dockers.
He’ll be filthy rich after this but he could try not to look so happy.
When I wonder about somebody killing Dad, it’s Bennett who comes to mind. It’s a horrible thing to think about a relative. And I think it 100 percent.
I'm not the only one.
“How are you?” My cousin Susan is a bright blonde pearl, polished to a shiny Moreland sheen. She’s always had the knack for that. “It’s been a fuck of a year for you.”
She means two months back when I was drugged and nearly raped. And now Dad. “I’m getting through.”
She puts her arm around me and turns her good side to the camera.
God, there’s a photographer in here?
“Historical society,” she says to my unspoken statement. “He’ll be gone in a bit.”
I strike a pose and do what I’ve done way too much lately when photographers are around—I think of him—the Russian thug in the ski mask like a dark protector from the shadows.
And think, come back.
Brown eyes the color of tea, ruffled with rich brown lashes, burning out of two black holes. Harsh, beautiful lips in a knit circle, pressed to my cheek. To my scar.
I didn’t know she was yours! My assailant said. Like he knew who it was in that ski mask. I’ve looked up Russian gangs, studying faces, looking for those eyes.
I didn’t tell the cops anything. Not about the scars on his muscular hands. Not about his accent as he called me little rabbit. Not about the way he kissed my scar.
It feels like a special secret, only for us.
Now I’m looking into the camera lens, and I know he’s on the other side, out there in the dark. And I get a strange chill.
It’s like when you adopt a feral fighting dog. You know they’ll rip into anybody who comes near you—hell, I saw him do it with my own two eyes. A dog like that could rip you apart, too. Maybe attack you in your sleep. You can never truly domesticate a wild animal.
Still, I desperately want to find him.
I tell myself it’s only to thank him, but that’s a lie. I think about him all the time…in that mask.
“You sure you’re okay?” Susan asks.
“It’s still hard to take in.”
“You’ll be okay.” Susan doesn’t want to hear if I’m not okay. The time for not okay was the funeral. Her face brightens viciously. “Did you talk to your brother yet? Fucking Bennett is feeling no pain!”
“High?”
“As a kite.” Susan grabs a glass of wine off a passing tray and puts it in my hand. “Drink. Doctor’s orders.”
I drink. At a normal gathering it would be champagne, but champagne is poor etiquette at a will reading. You know that when you’re a Moreland.
“He probably got an advance on his half of the inheritance. We have a pool on how long it’ll take him to burn through all twenty mill. You want in?”
I shudder. “Tell me you’re not serious.”
“Clock stops when Bennett hits the first of us up for a loan. I gave him until Christmas to put all the money up his nose.”
“I’m not in.” I won’t joke about Bennett. Or think it’s fun betting on what a drug addict he is.
“And your dad thought you would be the problem, but fucking Bennett’ll just hand it over to the dealers.”
I nod. Dad never approved of my career as a vet or my work with the urban wildlife clinic.
“What was your dad always saying?” Susan asks brightly.
“I don’t want to remember,” I say.
“Oh, come on.” She makes a face like she just ate a lemon, which is how people impersonate my Dad. “I’ll be damned if Moreland money goes to operating on hurt squirrels or swans too stupid to stay away from duck hunting areas.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I say.
“You should…” Susan reaches up and pulls a stand of hair from my bun. “I like these highlights. Is there a certain somebody in your life?”
“What?”
“You seem
different.” She pulls long strands out of my bun. “That’s better. To frame your pretty freckly face. I bet he loves them,” she whispers.
My cheeks heat. “There’s nobody in my life.”
A lie. I think about his massive hands touching my chin, so gently. The way he turned my face to his masked face. It was fucked up of him to kiss my scar like that.
But I kind of liked it. I liked that he was in the mask and my face was bare.
“There’s no he.”
“You can’t fool me. We all know you have a guy. We get it—you don’t want to trot him out right after the weird attack and all this.”
“That’s the theory? That I have a secret boyfriend but I’m keeping him under wraps?”
“You should bring him around once things die down. Think about bringing him to Christmas. Smart money says you will.”
“Wait—you have a betting pool on me having new man? On me bringing him to Christmas?”
“I’m not telling. I don’t want to affect your actions.”
More flashes go off. I smile solemnly at the camera—at him, out there. Watching. Waiting.
Suddenly people are assembling.
The lawyer takes the desk by the fireplace and reads the will. It doesn’t take long.
The mansion goes into a trust. My half-brother, Bennett Moreland III, the most messed up person I’ve ever known. gets half the money from our branch of the family--$22 million and some change. My half goes into a trust. I’m to get the interest only—several hundred thousand dollars a year.
A gasp goes up.
I’ve been generation skipped.
It’s a final fuck you from my father for not being a proper Moreland.
Upon my death, the other half of the fortune passes to the nearest blood relative. If I have kids.
Or if I die before I have kids, it all goes to Bennett.
Generation skipped.
I feel the eyes of all the extended family on me. Shock. Pity.
This usually only happens when the person is independently wealthy or a drug addict.
I stand, hating the gasps, the eyes on me.
Susan puts her arm around me. “Fuck. I guess your dad really didn’t want it going to the animals.”
“It’s fine.”
“Fuck,” she says.
“It’s really okay,” I say. “It’s a lot of money, just with the interest. My kids get it, if I have them.”
Something passes behind her eyes. Worry. Then she masks it with a smile. “Come on,” she says. “We run the gauntlet, then we’ll get drunk. I’m buying.”
“Screw that,” I laugh. “I’m buying.”
I move out to the steps and the inevitable photographers. Susan stays with me.
The extended family crowds around.
Bennett comes up next to me and squeezes my arm. “Sorry, Bianca.” And he looks at me really strangely.
And I realize why Susan looked so scared for me.
Because Bennett’s going to spend his $22 million fortune really fast. Probably by Christmas.
And then he’ll be broke.
And only my life will be standing in the way of him and another $22 million. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I have no kids. Two months won’t change that.
But nine months could change it.
Again I meet Bennett’s eyes. And I know he’s thinking the same thing.
He smiles.
His smile puts a real chill through me, just as the camera bulbs flash.
Bennett starts asking for loans on the 30th. Of November.
Apparently when you combine drug addiction with a trip to Vegas, you can run through some serious cash.
And thanks to my father’s will, if I die, Bennett gets $22 million—free and clear.
Needless to say, November 30th is the day I get seriously frightened. More like paranoid.
Paranoid as in checking underneath my car for bombs before driving it. Testing the brakes. Sitting away from windows when going out to eat. Staying home whenever possible.
Imagining sounds out my window at night. I’m on the tenth floor, but still.
I think about getting out of the country, but I can’t leave the clinic.
Another paranoid thing I do: I start dropping hints about a new boyfriend, so Bennett thinks I'm not in my place alone.
My new guy can be a little scary, I confess to Susan over wine one night, knowing she’ll spread it around. Very possessive. Into martial arts and guns. Not really somebody who’d fit into the family.
Her eyes light up at this, and I know it’ll go through the Moreland grapevine like wildfire.
I change my Facebook page to ‘in a relationship.’
I think about the man from the night of my attack. Sometimes I think I feel him watching me, but when I turn around, I see nothing.
I think of him in his mask.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if he kissed me wearing that mask. If he fucked me wearing that mask.
I wonder if it would be like a vampire, where you know it will hurt for them to bite you, but deep down you suspect it would be a good hurt.
The cops say it was a gangland killing that I was accidentally in the middle of.
When I’m really scared and depressed, I think maybe they’re right, and it was a random thing. And my assailant had it wrong when he said I belong to this guy. Because what does that even mean?
Bennett shows up at my coffee shop. He acts surprised. I know he’s not. I find out through the Moreland grapevine that Bennett says my boyfriend is fake.
Is Bennett watching me?
I’m scared all the time now, and my masked guy seems more and more like a fantasy.
But I can get the next best thing: I decide to hire a security guard as a fake boyfriend for the Christmas party. I go online to A-1 Elite Security and book a guard for the entire night. In the comments, I ask for the biggest, scariest motherfucker they have. I tell them he’s posing as my date. He’ll need to send me his measurements and I’ll buy him a nice suit.
The week before the party, I meet the guard for coffee. His name is Brad, and he’s more gym rat than scary beast. I’m vague about the situation—I tell him that a family member has been threatening toward me. I tell him that he needs to act super protective. I give him a list of things about me to memorize.
A bodyguard. Buying a gift for a fake boyfriend to give me.
Merry fucking Christmas.
Yuri
We’re in a meeting. Plotting the week’s operations. A few of us in front of the fire.
The photo of Bianca lights up when a text comes in. I turn it over, hoping Viktor didn’t see it.
“What the fuck?” Viktor grabs it. “Are you serious? You have that girl’s picture as your phone screen?”
I grab the phone back and pocket it. “Idi nahuy.” Fuck off.
Viktor is like a brother—not by blood but by crime. So much thicker. We grew up in the orphanage together in Moscow.
I can feel Viktor’s eyes on me, blood boiling. “You can’t have her.”
Viktor’s brother Aleksio drains his vodka. “Who can’t Yuri have?”
“The rich girl. Bianca Moreland,” Viktor says.
Mira gasps. She’s Aleksio’s girlfriend and a lawyer, too. “Bianca Moreland? The socialite?”
Viktor growls. “I told him to stop it with her.”
I stand with the help of my crutch. “It’s not your business.”
Viktor comes to me, grabs my collar. “You fuck up your knee, chasing after her? That’s my business. You’re an enforcer and you get your image on a security camera playing vigilante? That’s my business.”
I shove him off. “I was in a mask.”
Mira is gaping at me, stunned. “Hold on—Yuri? That was you? Who rescued Bianca Moreland that night?”
“You’re an enforcer,” Aleksio says, piling on now. “You can’t be playing vigilante.”
I glare at Viktor.
“Don’t
look at him, look at me,” Aleksio says. “The cops would love a reason to pin a murder on you. And then we’d have to break you out of jail.”
“Not hearing this,” Mira says, forever the lawyer. “I hear nothing.”
“Bianca would never testify against me,” I say.
“Bianca Moreland doesn’t know you or care about you. You don’t get to have a girl like Bianca Moreland. You endanger all of our operations with your delusion.” Viktor pokes my chest. “Got it?”
I turn my eyes down—a warning. One more poke and I destroy his face.
“We both know what this is,” he growls.
“It’s not that,” I say through clenched teeth.
“It is.”
I give him a warning glare.
“Playing vigilante for some rich bitch who doesn’t deserve it—”
I shove him into a bookshelf--hard. Something crashes onto him and he flies at me. I grab him and take him to the ground. I get in a good hit before he smashes his fist into my lip. We’re full on fighting, fucking each other up. Getting in hits. It’s been a while since we’ve fought like this.
Aleksio tries to pull us apart. Their other brother Kiro comes in and practically lifts me off Viktor.
“We both know what this is,” Viktor pants, face bloody.
“Don’t—”
“Have you gone in her apartment yet?” Viktor demands. “Did you sit on her couch yet? Have you eaten her food yet?”
Mira straightens. “What?!?!”
I don’t tell them that I have. I don’t tell them that I'm up on her computer. Or that I know about the pathetic security guard she hired for her Christmas party.
Or that I’ll be taking his place.
“What the fuck?” Aleksio asks. “Did you go into Bianca Moreland’s apartment?”
I stare up at the Christmas tree. The three Dragusha brothers, Kiro, Aleksio, and Viktor, were apart for years. This is the first Christmas they’ll be together. So many presents.
I’d give anything to have what they have. A true family.
“Have you stolen her mail yet?” Viktor asks.
Mira spits out her wine.
My face heats. “Only mail she’d throw away.”
