Blackbird

by Abigail Graham

  There was no where to sit, besides his bunk, but the toilet. I sat on the toilet and propped my cheek on my chin.

  “Good. Now you are listening, I am speaking. I have plan to deal with Martin and return to you what is yours, minus some, shall we say, recompense for my situation. Two years ago, Martin betrayed me to police. Arranged that I would be caught red handed.”

  “He’s been sending you money, though,” I said. “To a bunch of fake Russian companies…”

  “All his, created with me. When he decided he no longer had use of my services, he disposed of me. I think I should consider myself lucky. If our situations were reversed, I would have had him killed.” Vitali shrugged.

  The causal way he said it made me shudder.

  “This is agreement. You work for me, help me undo Martin. I leave girl alone, cut you in.”

  “Define ‘cut me in’. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”

  “No, no, bad for business. I only torture and kill men who screw me over. Fulfill your end of the agreement and it is done when it is done, no more between us. Yes?”

  I looked around. With my luck, this was another setup.

  “You refuse, Eve has trouble.”

  “Fine, fine, god damn it,” I snapped. “What do I have to do?”

  “Wait,” said Vitali. “For five long years, wait, learn, and prepare. Then Martin will wish he had never been born.”

  Wait I did. I waited, and waited, and waited.

  After the end of the first month, I thought I was going crazy. That was when Mom came to visit me. The only time she came to visit me. I sat in the visiting room, my leg jagging up and down as I scrubbed my hands through my hair. It wasn’t like the movies, with the glass partition and the phone. It was just a table in a room, though I was shackled to the floor by the ankles. I sat there wringing my hands for an hour, forgot the shackles, and tried to stand up when she came in.

  She looked bad. She must have lost twenty pounds, she was pale, her skin was waxy. She walked over to the table and sat down and stared at me flatly.

  “How could you?”

  “Mom?” I choked out. “You can’t believe this. I didn’t do anything.”

  She shook her head. “Victor, it was all going to be yours. Why did you do this?” She snorted. “I should have known. I’d hoped you were just going through a phase, with all those girls. When you started seeing Eve I really thought you loved her. You were sleeping with that slut almost the whole time, weren’t you?”

  “No. No, Mom, I swear.”

  “They showed us pictures. Pictures of you eating with her. Holding hands.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Mom,” I pleaded, “she touched my hand. I pulled away…”

  It hit me then like a ton of bricks. It was all a setup, the whole fucking routine. She touched my hand for the benefit of the photographer they had following me.

  Martin saw the end was near. He had to know I’d have him out of there the instant I had legal control of the company. How many favors did he call in? I never had a chance. My lawyers could have called Jesus Christ to the witness stand to testify in my defense and the jury would still have convicted me. I just spared Eve some suffering by keeping her off the stand. The result would have been the same. How long had he been planning this? Since that day he tried to drive her away? Before she started college?

  Since I met her? Was this the plan the whole time, drive a wedge into my family?

  Holy God, if I couldn’t inherit, which I now could not, the entire estate reverted to my mother.

  Who had, no doubt, made Eve her sole beneficiary. She was like a daughter to her.

  “Mom?” I said, softly. “What’s wrong?’

  “I had to see you again. I’m dying, Victor. I have lung cancer.”

  I blurted out, “but you don’t smoke.”

  She started laughing, and stopped herself when it turned into a wet, thick cough. “I know. It’s hilarious. First I lose my husband, and now this. Eve is devastated, Victor. She cries day and night. She missed her final exams. She thought you loved her.”

  “I do, I do I swear. I signed a plea deal so she wouldn’t have to testify. I’d do anything. Please tell her, Mom. I love her. Look at me. Look at me.”

  She looked at me. From her eyes, you’d think she was dead already.

  There was a sliver of doubt there, though. Just a touch.

  No matter what, she was still my Mom.

  “I might tell her, when she calms down and can think rationally. She really does love you, Victor. I don’t know what it’s going to do to her, going through this.”

  She stood up. Time was up.

  Before she left she said, “Wait. I do know. It’s going to make her like him.”

  She coughed again.

  “Mom,” I said. “I love you.”

  She walked out. They closed the door.

  Five years is a long time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Evelyn

  Neither of us speaks for a long time.

  Finally, I clear my throat, and fill the air. “You claim it was all a setup,” I say, softly.

  Victor looks at me. His face is hard but his eyes, his eyes are pleading.

  “It was. I swear to God, they made it all up. It was a trick. I never thought they would try to make it look like I was sleeping with Brittany.”

  “You weren’t sleeping with her,” I say.

  “No. I swear it on my mother’s grave. I was not sleeping with Brittany Andrews. Or anybody else after I met you. Not since the day I met you. I even had some girl pawing at me at our parents’ wedding.”

  “I remember that, you blew her off.”

  “I would again, and again, every time for a thousand years for you, Eve. I love you.”

  The words hit me like hammers. I. Love. You.

  I want to say it back, but if it was true I wouldn’t have believed the lies, would I?

  “You took the conviction to spare me?”

  He looks up at me and nods, slowly. “Yeah. I knew it would be brutal for you if they put you on the stand, and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. My lawyers couldn’t even stop it. The whole thing was crooked. Your father had control of the money, and money buys power.”

  I shake my head. He stands up and walks over to the bed. I hug my knees to my chest and curl up, waiting. He sits down. I look over through the fringe of my hair as he sits on the bed and, gingerly, reaches out and touches my back.

  My voice comes out tiny, childlike. I can’t help it.

  “A-after that your Mom got really bad,” I blurt out. “She got sick very fast. It was weeks. She spent the last two months in the hospital. I visited her every day even when I was supposed to be studying. Father pulled strings and got my degree conferred on me on time. He moved all of your stuff out of your room.”

  He tugs on the hood of my sweatshirt.

  “You kept this.”

  I nod, and sniff back tears. “I used to sleep in it. I hid it from him so he wouldn’t know. I kept the ring, too. I still have it.”

  He reaches over and touches my chin with his fingers. A little tug and I turn to face him, still curled up. He looks right into my eyes.

  “Evelyn Ross, I swear, I did not sleep with anyone but you. I didn’t do anything they accused me of. I saw proof that your father is a criminal.”

  My mouth works silently, but I can’t say anything.

  Finally, I manage to choke it out. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you see me?”

  “I couldn’t,” I whisper, “at first. After that… Father was always there. When your mother died, I was alone with him. I started to forget. It went back to the way it was. I was alone with him in the house all the time. It was like he knew what I was thinking. Then I just…”

  I take a long breath.

  “It hurt so much, I just didn’t want to feel anything. When I lost your mother, I was crushed. There was nothing left. I was li
ke a robot. I woke up, went to work, slept, woke up, went to work. The only time I felt something was when people were afraid of me. It made me feel strong. Like I meant something.”

  Victor puts his arms around me. I stay still at first. Part of me is still fighting it, but it hurts too much and I don’t have the strength anymore. I give in. I collapse against him, but I don’t cry. My eyes are dry. I just press them shut. Then they start to sting a little and I feel an itch on my cheeks and lie to myself, and almost believe it’s not tears. Then the sobbing starts and I slip my arms around Vic’s broad chest and squeeze him, hard. He breathes against me, sitting still at first, and slowly puts his arms around me.

  “We used to be really good,” he says.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble, over and over. “I’m so sorry. I should have carried her message.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She was in the hospital. Near the end. She told me that she forgave you that I needed to forgive you, that if I went and saw you and gave you a chance I’d understand, but then she was gone and I was alone with him. He hit me, Victor. After the meeting he was there when I got home and he hit me.”

  I break down in sobs. Victor is still as stone, but his embrace is warm and firm. Slowly, he lays down, pulling me with him so I’m curled up to his side and tucked up under his arm. He reaches over and grabs a fistful of the dry, scratchy hotel room tissues and dabs the tears from my face.

  “You’re melting,” he says.

  I snort. “I hate that fucking article. Ice Queen? Really?”

  “I think it’s cute. You do look like some sort of ice fairy princess.”

  I laugh softly. Can it be this easy?

  “What kind of a deal did you make? Are you in trouble?”

  “Yeah,” he says, softly, “I’m in trouble. I’ll probably never be safe. I did it for you.”

  “Don’t throw that at me,” I say, bitterly. “I can’t take that, too. God, Victor, what was wrong with me? I shouldn’t have believed…”

  He cuts me off and squeezes my arm. “Eve, I think if I was in the gallery I would have believed it. They played me hard, like a sucker. I should have known when she propositioned me. Twice. Fucking bitch.”

  He sits up and leaves me lying on the bed. I run my hands up his back.

  “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t stop what I’m doing now. I work for Vitali. You know why the call him the hammer? He told me when you smash a guy’s toes with a hammer, they look like grapes. Jesus.”

  “What exactly is it you’re supposed to do?”

  “Run a bust out on Amsel. Destroy my own company. I get a cut of the proceeds. He keeps the rest. If the company was public I could move on it when the stock price goes down, but it’s still privately held. I was going to try and force Martin to take the company public, spread out the debts before it came down on him. On you.”

  “Can I give it to you?”

  “What?”

  I sit up next to him. “I know when you were convicted, you were automatically disinherited. Then it passed to your mother, then when she died, to me, per her will. Some of your distant relatives tried to sue but it went nowhere.”

  He sighed. “I don’t care about the company, or the money. I want you, Eve. I want you by my side.”

  I squeeze his hand.

  “What do we do?”

  He squeezes back. “You go back to work. We start working together to put your father away.”

  I tense, and suck in a sharp breath. “Victor, I can’t. He’ll know, he…”

  “He won’t. We have to play pretend. You have to make him think you still hate me. I have a plan of my own. Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “Good. We’ll talk about this later. Does your father know where you are?”

  “No.”

  “Would he have any reason to look here?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” he says.

  He turns, quick and lithe, and his arms are around me, all at once, then his lips on mine as he pushes me down into the bed. I slide my arms around his neck and my legs spread around his sides. It’s been so long, I’m aching for it. He kisses me hungrily, aggressively, like he doesn’t want to stop but he can’t wait any longer to attack my throat. It’s cold in the room but I don’t care. His hands are cold on my skin when the slip up under my sweatshirt. He unhooks my bra as deftly as he always did, like it was yesterday the last time we did this. Once it’s loose I’m shedding my clothes, t-shirt and hoodie and underwear and loose pants, and tugging the sheets down. Victor looks at me body like he’s never seen me before. He looks at me like he’s never seen a woman before. I pull on his shirt. It’s only fair.

  He peels off the damp t-shirt, stands up and gets out of his jeans, yanks off his socks. He’s rock hard and just as big as I remember. Victor dives into the bed, skimming lightly over me as he kisses me again. The heater blasts warm air into the room, but I shiver at every touch, at his lips on my throat, his hands on my breasts, the feel of his erection pressed against my stomach. I want him inside me now. I want to feel again. He cradles my head in my hands and kisses me forever, until it burns. The heat between my thighs is a furnace. I writhe under him, naked and wanting, urge him on but he refuses to indulge me, instead tortures me by savoring me. His lips on my throat now, his hands moving slowly down my sides, turning each beat of my heart into a drum beat, faster, faster, faster, now, but it’s not now, I have to wait.

  Victor honestly enjoys going down on me, I think. He does it whenever he can. His touch is hesitant. I only feel his breath at first, then it’s like he remembers. His hands slide under my butt and squeeze and my stomach flexes as I angle my hips, and press my legs around his head and pull him in, one hand knotted in his hair. Then his mouth, hot on my skin, working up the inside of my thigh to my throbbing sex. Suddenly I was happy he was taking his time. I spent so long trying to please myself with my own hands, imagining Victor down there, and now he’s real again. I know he’s real because I feel the heat of his breath, the warm wet touch of his tongue, and I hear the little noise he makes when he tastes me, so much like hunger. I look down and see the lust in his eyes and heat spread through my chest, like a deep breath of hot air. I need this so badly it hurts. I feel alive again. Please, please, please.

  He takes his time, slowly at first, teasing my lips, before his finger slowly enters me. I hear him gasp, see the slack expression on his face before it turns to a grin and he looks up before dipping down to suck lightly on my clit, and I groan and writhe on the bed. The heater is running too hard, it’s too hot in here. I’m sweating all over, between my shoulder blades, my chest, my forehead, under my arms. The heat grows with every touch, and every passing moment. I need more. As my arousal builds, so does his. I can feel it radiating off him, like heat. My body quivers around his finger, a shock of pleasure jolts down my legs and I curl up, biting down a little sound. Slowly, Victor rises, drawing his finger from my body. He rubs it on my lips and I taste myself on his skin, suck his finger. He lowers himself on top of me.

  “You want me to eat you out until you cum,” he whispers in my ear, “Or fuck you silly?”

  My answer is a light tug on his cock with my fingers. It feels so good to touch him again, to feel his response. As he slides into me I watch the muscles of his back ripple. It’s a full body motion, his rod plunging into my wet sex, spreading my quivering walls, filling me. I groan and splay out on the bed, lazily holding him around the neck as he begins to thrust into me. He’s urgent at first, each pump building the pleasure, the fullness growing with each stroke, bigger, bigger, more, more, but then he slows, like he remembers how long it’s been and decides to savor me. When he slowly draws almost all the way out of me and slowly presses back in, shuddering with forced restraint, the pleasure is so intense it nearly hurts and I whimper and shudder under him, my muscles tensing with every jerk and shock of sensation that rolls through my body.

&n
bsp; Then he settles on top of me and kisses me hard and deep, and I take him deep, his rod shifting inside me as he remains buried and rolls his hips. He rests his weight on me, buries his face in my neck, and his whole body trembles with anticipation. I rake my nails down his back, heat pulsing through me in slow throbs, spreading from between my legs to radiate down to my toes, down to my fingertips, swirl under my scalp. I’m sliding away on a tide of pleasure. My legs wrap around him and I pull him against me and a second dragging scratch on his back sends him into a sudden burst of energy, fucking me hard and fast. I need it so bad. I clench around him, all my muscles going tight as taut wires. I whimper and plead in his ear, now, now, please, I want his pleasure as much as I want mine, just the idea of it will make me explode. If I go one more day frozen in ice, I’ll die.

  Victor drives deep into me, pins me to the bed, and grunts in my ear. The grunts turn into a low, throaty moan, louder than he means it to be, breathy, then louder again as I feel him throbbing, finishing, and explode, thrashing under him. It feel so good the pleasure edges nearly into pain, and I dig my nails into his back and bite him, quiet now as pleasure wracks my body in shuddering, punishing waves. When it finally ends I go limp under him, spread out on the bed. He looks at the mark on his shoulder from my teeth and kisses me, hard. I feel wet on his back. I drew blood with my nails. He lays on top of me, in me, and doesn’t pull away.

  This is being home. I’m home.

  God, how could I ever have doubted him.

  “Mine,” I purr into his throat. “Mine.”

  Eventually, he pulls out of me and I scoot back on the bed to lay plastered to his side, wrapped in his arm. He breathes under me, his chest rising and falling in huge, muscular rhythm. He falls asleep and I could sleep with him like this, forever. I trace my fingers over the designs on his skin. Sometimes he stirs in his sleep, holds me a little tighter, then goes limp again as he falls deeper into sleep once more. By the time he wakes up again I think I’ve traced every feather incised on his skin twice. His eyes open and he looks at me and without a word, I slip down between his legs, my slick sweaty skin gliding over his, and take his cock in my mouth. I close my eyes and rest my head on his leg and let him harden slowly between my lips, tasting myself on his shaft. It doesn’t take long. A few flicks of my tongue and he stiffens again, groaning.