Blood We Steal

One

“How much did they pay you to betray me?”

Rubin’s question was simple.

He delivered it like he was asking after the weather, like my answer had no meaning at all.

His stare was the same, his ink-black eyes impassive, his harsh features as relaxed as they ever got.

I shifted in my seat, the cheap plastic squeaking. The sound was loud and harsh in the silent room. It was strange that any place in this jail was silent. The walk here had been anything but.

Officer Merrick, the shift supervisor and one of my least favorite guards, had paraded me through the cell blocks like it wasn’t a violation of regulations and more than one law.

I’d never dreamed of being intimately familiar with jail protocol, but now I knew it, chapter and verse.

I also knew the difference between the sanitized public face that the sheriff and warden presented and what lay underneath it.

The media and advocacy groups got a tour of the chapel, a quick spin through the library, then out the gates.

Visitors got invasive searches with a side of contempt.

So me walking through the block across the shiny polished tile, down the overly bright hallways, through the corridors and congregating places with inmates moving freely definitely wasn’t protocol.

The jail reeked of bleach, the industrial kind that should have overwhelmed the smell of everything else but was no match for the misery and malice in this building.

Half the fluorescent lights in the long corridor between the pods were burned out, and the WORK IN PROGRESS hazard sign by the stairwell door was so old, it had started to fray.

The mini-control tower in the common area had seating for five guards, but four chairs sat empty, the lone occupant half asleep with a paper mask tucked under his chin.

And there were only two guards at the side gate Rubin’s man had escorted me through. Guards could have been out sick, but the light security was probably to prove a point.

I’d been on display, and that was by design.

Rubin’s, of course.

He still stared at me, but I felt no pressure to respond. He didn’t force the matter, either. Rubin was content to wait, clearly certain that I would eventually bend to his will.

I might, but I wouldn’t make it so easy.

I stretched my legs out in front of me, and looked down at my feet, glad I’d chosen my favorite sneakers today.

They happened to be my only sneakers but that was beside the point.

I’d gotten them for an extra twenty percent off during a sidewalk sale.

Fair trade, even though they’d clearly been worn and returned.

Today I paired them with my perfect outfit, a pair of dark-wash jeans and modest off-white button-down that could be dressed up with heels or paired with flats or sneakers for a day about town.

Not that outfits mattered anymore, not after the last month.

Some mysterious virus had hit and spread hard and fast. So fast that the bank where I worked had gone ATM-only. Even worse, I’d missed my weekly visits with Aaron. He insisted I stay away from the jail, telling me there was no need to come to the heart of the city when things were so shaky.

So maybe there was a silver lining to Rubin pseudo-kidnapping me. At least I’d get to see Aaron. I missed him, and he hadn’t called in four days. I tilted my lips up in a smile thinking about the chance to see Aaron again.

One quick glance told me Rubin wasn’t smiling. He just stared at me waiting, knowing I would acquiesce. I’d had a fleeting thought that maybe eighteen months in jail so far and a lifetime of prison to come would have humbled him.

Rubin Marku didn’t do humble.

Ignoring the heavy weight of his gaze, I glanced around the office and settled on the bookshelf.

The warden liked philosophy. In addition to Durkheim’s collected works, there were volumes of crime data statistics, and a surprisingly extensive collection of legal thrillers. Given his job, I would think he got enough of that, but who was I to judge?

One thing I could judge him for was his brown thumb. The two ficus on either side of the bookshelf had definitely seen better days. I wondered why he didn’t put them closer to the window. Sure, it had bars, but a little sunlight would have helped.

Then again, him having a brown thumb wasn’t the worst of sins. Being on Rubin Marku’s payroll was something else.

A sin we had in common at one point.

“Why am I here, Mr. Marku?” I asked.

I looked in his direction, my gaze somewhere above his eyebrows. I wouldn’t dare look lower. I couldn’t bear to meet his eyes again.

Maybe they burned with fire.

Maybe they were ice cold.

I wasn’t sure which, but neither meant anything good for me. And I certainly couldn’t look lower either and risk seeing the mouth that I’d dreamed of for so many years. I shifted again, and this time not with fear.

Instantly, I was taken back to that night. The first and last time Rubin had touched me. He’d been standing so close I could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. I’d been sure he was going to kiss me.

He didn’t.

He’d cleared his throat and reminded me of what my job entailed, pointedly ignoring what it did not, pulled his hand away like I was radioactive, and never, not once, had he touched me again.

That was the only time I’d ever seen him uncertain.

Even when the judge had announced his sentence, life without the possibility of parole, he’d looked as serene as the cloudless sky.

Even now, after everything, Rubin’s rejection stung almost as much as the fact that I still dreamed about kissing him.

But that didn’t matter now. Nothing did.

He finally broke the silence. “I’m Mr. Marku now?

” He leaned back in the warden’s chair, the move so blatantly casual that I knew it was a put-on.

As was the way he stretched his long, powerful legs and settled them on the corner of the warden’s desk.

He wore the heavy white canvas with CITY OF ATLANTA stenciled on the back, but those shoes…

Handmade in Albania, probably by a man who had been doing the same thing for fifty years, just like his father before him, and so on, and so on, and so on.

That was important to Rubin. Roots. Honor.

Besa.

The code he structured his entire life around—the one that I had betrayed.

I met his eyes then, his gaze so fierce, I had to do something. I chuckled, the sound reedy and nervous, but I’d see it through. “You brought me here to ask a question. You could have called.”

Rubin didn’t move an inch.

“Or better yet,” I said with a sigh, one that I wished I could pull back, “you could have just had Damian ask me. I’m sure you’re responsible for his visits as well.”

Rubin’s jaw ticked.

It would have been imperceptible to other people, partially hidden by the half-day’s growth of dark hair on his cheeks.

But I saw it. And just as quickly, it was gone, the icy mask that hid the monster he was back in place. “I asked you a question, Simone.”

I forced down the lightning flash of anger and held on to the worthless hope he hadn’t seen it. When I was sure my expression was as serene as Rubin pretended to be, I responded, “I don’t work for you anymore, Mr. Marku.”

Then I stood.

He did too.

But where I moved abruptly, standing so fast that the chair I had been sitting in wobbled and then finally landed back on all four legs with a quiet thud that I barely heard over my pounding heart, Rubin stood smoothly.

Even the warden’s chair, which sat on wheels, stayed stable, allowing him to rise as gracefully as he sat.

My cataloging of him was a poor imitation of his of me, but I refused to let that stop me. I gathered every bit of nerve I could muster and took him in.

His gaze dropped to my feet, and his nostrils flared with his exhale as he read the name on my sneakers, a brand I was sure he’d never heard of and wouldn’t have been caught dead in.

He should have looked ridiculous in those stupid fucking shoes and a jail uniform.

He didn’t, though. Rubin wasn’t obscenely tall, only a few inches taller than my own five-nine.

The baggy, shapeless inmate uniform hung on his body, but did nothing to hide the power of it or the fact that Rubin was substantial in a way that had nothing to do with his physical presence.

A physical presence I had to get the fuck away from, and now.

Aaron and Nana had told me I was smart, and maybe today, I would finally prove I was.

Because as much as I needed to be away from Rubin, there was nothing on the planet that would allow me to turn my back on him.

There wasn’t even a guard outside the door, and if there were, he wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help me.

No, like always, I had to help myself and that meant getting out of here.

I stepped back, my gaze still on Rubin.

He stepped forward.

I stepped back again.

He stepped forward.

The slow, creeping dread that filled me with each one of his steps was excruciating. I stepped back one last time, and then there was nowhere to go. The heavy door felt cold against my back, the smell of furniture polish potent, but also nothing.

Not with Rubin this close to me. Close enough that I felt the heat and the hate that rolled off his body.

I squeaked when he lifted his hand.

He didn’t go for my shoulder or my waist or my throat. He took my wrist. Lifted it between us like he wasn’t sure it was real and pressed his thumb to my pulse. He held it there, unhurried, like he wasn’t a prisoner and I wasn’t the one who’d put him here.

He smiled for a moment, a fleeting flash of teeth.

And then his fingers were against my skin.

Heavy on my cheek. Not pressing, not pulling away, just…

there. And then more intense. The press was heavy, not quite painful, but present in a way that made me want to run.

But again, there was nowhere to go, nothing to do but look at Rubin as he shifted even closer, his body pressing me flat against the door.

I stayed there for an eternity of seconds, Rubin’s heartbeat reverberating through my chest.

“How much, Simone?” he finally said, his voice a grating rumble of rage.

Terror of the sort I never experienced seized me, but Rubin’s gaze promised worse than I could imagine if I denied him again.

My eyes watered, but I forced myself to meet his gaze. Under his thumb, my pulse gave me away.

“I did it for free.”