by J. L. Drake
For fear of retaliation, I stopped fighting and let him remove my jacket. My limbs were blanketed with bruises in various stages of healing from being manhandled over the last few days. They were so colorful they could have passed for tattoos. The bruises on my collarbone from Boris’s correction the night before last were a disturbing deep purple. The most recent finger marks from Vladimir’s death grip were blood red.
“Boss did this to you last night?”
My gaze dropped to the floor and I kept quiet, unsure of how to answer.
He put his hand on his face and rubbed his beard. “You look like a corpse. I can’t return you to your papa in this condition.” He moved his hands to my waist and felt my ribs.
I squirmed and shoved his hands off me. “You haven’t eaten a thing since you’ve been our guest, have you? This will not do. Skin and bones, skin and bones.” He went to the refrigerator and took out a carton of eggs, a stick of butter, heavy cream, and a block of cheese. From the cabinet he pulled out a clear mixing bowl and a whisk. He turned on the gas burner and placed an iron skillet over the flame.
“I thought you were leaving.”
He cracked an egg into the bowl. “You need protein.” Then he cracked another one. “A stray dog has more meat on its bones. Your papa will think we’ve mistreated you.” He whipped the chicks into a dizzying pulp, beating them until they blurred together into one communal bowl of ick.
“I won’t eat that. Eggs make me gag.”
Boris tipped his head. “Most days you don’t eat eggs, today you do.”
“Stop it. I have some nuts in the cabinet. I’ll eat the whole can.”
“You will eat eggs.”
“No, I won’t. You can’t make me.” I stood up and sidestepped toward the door. “I’m going to get ready now. I’ll eat when I get to the stadium.”
He aimed the spatula between my eyes. “Why do you fight me? I have given you freedom to speak your mind, but now you’re pissing me off, little girl. Take a seat and shut your mouth.”
I kept moving.
“Last chance.” He unfastened the buttons on his long-sleeved shirt and rolled them up to his elbows. He had an inky blue chain link tattoo that wrapped around his wrist like a serpent. He prowled toward me with the unsympathetic eyes of a killer.
I slunk closer to the door.
Sit down. Let him win this one, Sophia said.
“You’re going to be sorry,” he warned, closing the gap.
The intercom buzzer beeped. We looked at each other in mutual who the hell could that be?
The poodles whimpered.
“Did you make any calls?”
I shook my head.
He glanced at the security monitor, mumbled something in Russian, and tossed me my jacket. “Cover your arms and keep your mouth shut.” He typed in a security code to open the gate and left to meet their guest. I slid to the swinging door to try to hear the conversation in the other room. “Hello, friend. Good to see you. Come in, come in,” Boris said.
“Thanks, sorry to bother you.”
I threw open the kitchen door and ran into the living room. “Ryan.” I crashed my face into his Bengals jersey and wrapped my arms around him. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I was worried when you didn’t get back to me about where you were staying. I texted your dad and he told me you lost your phone. He gave me this address. Why are you shaking?” He unwound my arms and held me back so he could see my face. “You look like hell, babe. Are you okay?”
Boris was trying to act casual, but I knew he wanted to hogtie me and stuff me in the trunk of the Cadillac. I had to be careful. “I know, right? I caught whatever is going around. I haven’t been able to keep anything down. Boris has been trying to get me to eat something, but I don’t have an appetite.” I coughed and rubbed my nose for effect.
Ryan’s gaze drifted down to the air cast on my foot, probably considering if Leonardo had something to do with my Sudden Illness. “Is it broken?” His expression was both angry and hurt. I never had a chance to explain why I had been hanging out with Leonardo in the first place.
“No, it’s no big deal.” I waved my hand dismissively.
Boris scoffed at the lies that so comfortably rolled off my tongue.
“We need to talk about what happened, okay?” He tried to kiss me, but I covered his mouth with my hand to block him. “I’m contagious. Trust me, you don’t want what I got.”
“Why didn’t you call me? If that bastard touched you—”
I felt the heat of Boris’s rage resonating around me. I had to keep Ryan out of this. “We’ll talk later. Everything’s fine. Let’s have breakfast. I think I can eat something now that you’re here.” I looped my arm around his elbow and guided him toward the kitchen.
Vladimir sat up on the couch, glared at Ryan, and spoke to Boris in Russian.
I jumped. “Sorry we woke you, Mr. Ivanov. My friend is here to take me to the game.”
Vladimir got up, smoothed his hair back, and staggered toward us. His skin was pale, eyes bloodshot. “This must be the football player Carter is always crying about. Ryan, right?”
Ryan tossed me a quizzical look. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
The boss studied the cut above his eye from the Leonardo incident. “You had a fight?”
“Carter didn’t tell you what happened?”
I pinched Ryan in the side. Boris eyed my hand and spoke in Russian to Vladimir.
While the two of them were preoccupied, I stood on my toes and whispered to Ryan. “Don’t bring up anything I wouldn’t want Dad to—”
The weasel detector went off.
The Russians stopped talking.
My gaze darted nervously between them.
“You are a good friend to our dear Carter.” The boss was careful to keep his crazy in check. I had no idea what Boris had told him, but I was certain it wasn’t the truth.
“You got that right, sir.” Ryan reeled me in and smooched my cheek.
Judging by Vladimir’s seething expression, my game clock had officially wound down to zeros. Boris had already physically hurt me, and as of last night, so had Vladimir. My messed up situation wasn’t a game anymore. I feared for my life and the lives of my loved ones. I needed a distraction before Ryan caught on. “Let’s go to the kitchen. Boris made breakfast. We don’t want his good efforts to go to waste.”
I knew I would pay for it later for the egg thing, but I filled my plate with fruit, nuts, and cheese to appease Boris. He circled the kitchen, watching me eat like a goddamn vulture. Vladimir shot daggers at me as he sipped a cup of strong black tea.
As we stood around the bar, I wanted to curl up in Ryan’s arms so he could protect me if Boris tried to hurt me. If it came down to it, I think Ryan could take him. He was younger and all muscle, but Boris was bigger and meaner—and he had a gun. Plus, he probably kicked ass on a daily basis—and he had no soul. Maybe I was overly optimistic about the odds.
While I would be safer with Ryan, I wouldn’t allow my poor choices to drag him down. The boss was no doubt ticked my friend was in his house in the first place. Boris couldn’t have missed the death rays Vladimir was firing at Ryan, so he diffused the situation by striking up a conversation with him about his take on the statistical probability of the Bengals scoring a playoff berth. I seized the moment and excused myself to get ready for the game.
I dusted on some powder, shadow, blush, a swipe of mascara, and a spot of pink lipstick to try not to look so sickly. I put on the smallest jeans I had to compensate for my weight loss and found a long-sleeved, white, Burberry t-shirt and a stylish plaid sweater to go over it. I couldn’t ditch the cast, but I put on three pairs of socks to keep my toes warm on my bad foot and slipped a toasty Ugg boot on the other. When I got back to the kitchen, the conversation died. My sixth sense for something fucked up was about to happen kicked in. “Ready to go, Ryan?”
“There’s been a change of plans.” Vladimir walked to the mudroom a
nd came back holding a full-length fur coat whose original owner was some sort of spotted cat. I let him slip it on me.
Ryan’s brown eyes twinkled when I lifted my hair out of the coat and let it fall over my shoulders. “This is going to be the best Christmas Eve ever.”
Or our last Christmas Eve ever.
Chapter 37
Wager
If Ryan hadn’t come to the house when he did, I may not have been breathing by kickoff. Instead, the boss called up a connection and reserved a private box at the stadium for the four of us. To top it off, Boris arranged for a limo to take us there in style. En route to the game, Boris popped a bottle of champagne. What we were celebrating I did not know, but I was certain it had something to do with Ryan.
The boss must have had one hell of a hangover like I did, but he hid it well. He dressed in a dark blue pinstriped suit with a long, luxurious sable fur coat over top. He was acting cool, but the crazy was shooting out of his eyes like a laser light show. Boris had on his usual all black ensemble with a fat gold chain around his neck and a black leather fur-trimmed winter coat. The deep freeze had officially set in.
Boris always looked like he wanted to kill someone, usually me, but the boss was way beyond his usual frustration level. And when the game was over and we said our goodbyes, I would be back at the mansion with the big bad gun-toting Russians, out in the middle of the woods, surrounded by barbed wire and a pack of wolves. I didn’t stand a chance.
“That’s a nice coat,” Ryan said. He knew I’d never choose to wear a real fur.
“It’s a loaner,” I said.
“Does that belong to your girlfriend, sir?” Ryan asked the boss.
A devilish grin crept up on his face. “Yes, my beautiful girlfriend.”
“I’m sure she looks just as hot in it as my girlfriend does,” Ryan said.
Oh, God.
“Your girlfriend?” The boss was officially on the verge of losing his mind.
Ryan slid his foot across the aisle and tapped my boot. “She made me chase her, but I finally wore her down. Isn’t that right, Cookie?”
Vladimir glared at me like an executioner hovering above his victim, waiting for the right moment to swing the axe. Boris said something in Russian to try to calm him down.
My Game Plan: Keep it light, and maybe they would let me off easy for good behavior? I laughed. “You’re such a joker, Ryan.”
***
When we got to our private box at the stadium, I couldn’t decide where to sit. All three of them wanted a piece of me. I stood by the window to watch the pregame festivities.
“What’s our bet today, Cookie?” Ryan asked. He put his arm around me. “You know, I did you a favor with our last bet by letting you wear my Bearcat jersey. My number on your back upped your street creds a few notches.”
Don’t bring up the jersey. “Ha, ha.” I elbowed him in the side and walked away to pick up a water bottle. “What are the odds on the game, Boris?”
“Ravens by three, Cookie.”
“I hate the Ravens. Can’t pull the trigger on that one. What do you think, Mr. Ivanov?”
He eyed me like a jungle cat that just heard a branch snap. “I don’t gamble.”
“Excuse me?” I put my hand on my hip and wrinkled my nose. He was as competitive as I was—maybe even worse.
“If you gamble, you set yourself up to lose.”
I crossed my arms. “Then you can’t win, either.”
“I’m already a winner. Why would I want to be a loser?”
“Good point,” Ryan said. “I’ll take advice from the rich guy. No bets.”
The men laughed. Ryan raised his Coke and cheered their drinks.
“Want a beer?” Boris was sure acting chummy toward my boyfriend.
“No thank you, sir. I don’t drink.”
“Wait, wait.” I held up my hands. “If you don’t play, you can’t win.”
“You also can’t lose,” Boris said. “That’s why I don’t gamble, either.”
I shook my head, unable to wrap my brain around that one. The real me, as opposed to the trembling nutcase I’d become over the weekend, would have grilled the Russians on their bullshit. “You make bets with me all the time. What about that?”
“I said I don’t gamble, not that I don’t make bets. Gambling is risky business. When I make a bet with you, it’s a sure thing.”
Ryan chuckled at my notoriously bad betting record.
I raised my empty water bottle. “Touché.”
“I’ll make a bet with you, babe, if it will make you feel better.” He picked up my hand, pulled me over to his side, and plopped me down on his lap.
“I’m sure you will. I’m bleeding out over here.” I stood and went to our private bar for another water.
Vladimir followed me. He wrapped his arm around me. “Did you rest well last night?”
I froze.
“I slept very deeply.” He pushed my hair over my shoulder and ran his finger down my neck. “I’ll make a wager with you. What do you want to win?”
I peeked over my shoulder to make sure Ryan didn’t see us. Boris was pointing at the Ravens defense, and Ryan assessed the Bengals o-line.
My body trembled. “Nothing. I do it for fun. It’s no big deal.”
The bartender placed my ice water and a bottle of vodka with a round of shot glasses on the bar.
“I want to have fun, too.”
Out of fear, I played along. “Okay. I’ll try to think of something.” No more mistakes, especially now that Ryan had become the pakhan’s public enemy number one. We walked back to our seats as the Bengals managed an eleven-yard run, which earned them a fresh set of downs. The crowd cheered.
I tried to veer toward Ryan, but the boss caught my hand and set me down next to him. “I thought of a nice bet for you to win, Miss Cook.”
I wiped off my mouth with the back of my hand. “Did you hear that? He has a nice bet for me to win,” I said, trying to ward off the tension.
The guys laughed.
“I don’t need your pity, boss—I mean, Mr. Ivanov. I can take it.” I leaned back in my swivel chair and took a sip of my water, trying my best to act causal. I didn’t want Ryan to pick up on my apprehension; there was room for both of our bodies in the trunk of the Cadillac.
The Bengals ran in a touchdown and tied the game ten to ten in the last seconds of the first half. The stadium roared. Ryan leaned across the table, interlaced his fingers with mine, and smooched me on the lips. I shook my hands free and tucked them under my legs. I hoped he didn’t get a whiff of the boss’s aftershave on my skin.
Vladimir scooted my chair closer to him and farther away from Ryan. “You’ll want to take this bet.”
“Let’s hear it,” Ryan said.
“If Baltimore tries an onside kick, I win. If they don’t, you win. Is it a bet?”
“Take it, babe. Trust me. There’s no way—no way the Ravens will do it.”
Vladimir extended his hand and waited for me to accept the deal.
“Hold on. What’s the wager?” I held my hand back out of his reach.
“A new tennis racquet for you, and if I win you prepare dinner?”
“Hope you like peanut butter,” Ryan said.
“First of all, I would never retire the Silver Bullet, and I already cook dinner for you.”
Ryan wrinkled his brow. I had to be careful, no one knew about our arrangement. “You know, this weekend of course.”
Ryan seemed satisfied with the explanation.
“She drives a hard bargain, boss. Better raise the stakes.” Boris egged him on.
“Let me see. If I win, you must give me a private tennis lesson. How does that sound?”
“I can live with that.”
“What do you want, Carter?” Vladimir asked.
“Really, I don’t want—”
“Boris, help the poor girl.”
Boris stroked his beard. “I got it, boss. Use of the private jet to take her and
a friend anywhere in the world.”
Ryan’s brown eyes opened as wide as footballs. “Are you serious?”
“Mr. Ivanov, it’s too much.” I held up my hands. “I can’t accept that.”
Before I could protest further, Vladimir picked up my hand and shook.
Of course the Ravens didn’t try to run a sneaky play. I had won the bet. My gut told me I may have won this round, but somehow the boss had stolen a little piece of me.
Chapter 38
Nine Lives
When we got home, I said goodbye to Ryan and hightailed it to my room to get out of sight for a while. Before I had a chance to shut the door, Boris latched on to my shoulders. He pushed my body into the room and shut the door behind him. The Grandpa Boris façade he displayed at the game had subsided. The knuckle-busting mobster had returned. “You think I’ve forgotten about this morning?” He moved his hand down to his belt.
Oh, God. “Where’s Vladimir?”
“He has some business to attend to. He’ll be gone for a while.” He unfastened the buckle and slid the black leather belt off his pants. “You and I need to get a few things straight about who’s in charge around here.”
My body trembled, overcome with the fear of what was about to go down. He motioned for me to sit on the bed. I hesitated, but when his jaw clenched and he looped the belt in his hand, I did what I was told. I prayed his intention was just to scare me.
“Good girl. You had a nice time as our guest? A relaxing holiday weekend?”
“Yes.”
He circled in front of me. I curled my knees up to my chest. “Your boyfriend is a nice guy. Would be shame if he got into trouble.”
My body stiffened. “Why do you say that?”
“Our friends out back planted evidence in his truck that will put him away until he’s an old man. Speak of anything that happened here and police get an anonymous tip, understand?”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Answer me.” He shoved me down on the bed. With his buckle in hand, he pinned my forearms down and yelled in my face. “Otvet' mne.”
