9. Fyodor
CHAPTER 9
FYODOR
The woman who pushed my Katya over tries to force her to her feet without so much as offering her a hand, but the girl is clearly injured enough that simply insisting she stand isn’t going to cut it. Her callousness fills me with explosive rage like I haven’t felt in years.
I remind myself that easy violence against women isn’t something I want to encourage, that people see me as a wife beater because I never needed to embarrass my son by telling everyone why I killed my second wife—pedophile bitch.
That knowledge barely holds me back as I take the stairs two at a time to get to the hurt girl lying on the floor, with flashes of her pink pussy revealed from beneath that far too short skirt. This woman doesn’t have an ounce of kindness or patience in her body. She’s cursing at Katya in Russian, and just as I reach them, she raises her hand to slap her.
Before she can strike her, I snatch her hand out of the air and squeeze hard enough that she yelps much louder than Katya did when she shoved her over. Despite her complaints, I know I haven’t caused her any permanent injury.
She stares into my eyes, fear overwhelming her expression.
“Pakhan, she was taking too long,” she says like it’s an easy and sensible explanation for her behavior. I want to kill her for it.
“And who the hell are you to touch what belongs to me?”
She knows better than to try to pull her arm free, and I stare at her hard as I squeeze.
“No one, Pakhan. I won’t make the mistake again.”
“No, you won’t.”
I drop her hand and turn to Katya. As I stand over top of her, she’s so impossibly small. Pietro must have been close to her size because I assumed she was an average-sized woman when I watched her on stage. I had no idea she was dancing with a man who wasn’t much larger than her, and she’s tiny.
Her eyebrows furrow as she stares up at me, not sure if she should expect similar violence from me to what I just showed this woman, but instead of doing anything , I stare.
I could scoop her up and carry her in one of my arms, she’s so small, and I want to. The strange sensation in my gut is on overdrive. It’s screaming that I can’t let anything more happen to her, demanding I do something about the fact she’s on the floor in front of me.
She’s yours, Fyodor. Pick her up.
She opens her mouth, but I never give her a chance to speak before reaching down and grabbing her hand. Offering it would make me look too weak, but I don’t need to force her to offer me the other one. Help up must seem a better option than being pushed unceremoniously off the stage. Once she’s balanced on the casts, I place one arm behind her back and sweep under her knees with the other, catching her as she falls and lifting her into my arms.
She’s too cold, and she smells like an industrial cleaner. The fact that she’s been cared for so poorly pisses me off. I can’t explain why even to myself. Is it because I know what an impeccable athlete she was? It’s not because I’m worried about the ashy hue to her skin or obsessed with how soft she is.
Those gray eyes aren’t flaying me as she stares at my face. My hands stay in place, not taking advantage just yet, but my eyes do, drinking her in and comparing the differences between her now and her dancing in her pointe. She’s had a very hard time these past few months, and that hurts me in the strangest way.
“I know you,” she mumbles in English as I carry her off the stage. Did she hear that woman call me Pakhan? Is that how she knows me?
“How terribly unfortunate for you,” I respond as I take her past the room on the side where the others are being traded off. My plan is to head straight out of the building through the back door that leads into the private parking garage, but someone stops me.
It takes me only a minute to recognize Franco Amato, her director at the ballet company. I’m not exactly a fan of his productions. He lacks imagination. Katya has saved many of his shows. He has curly brown hair with the earliest touches of gray and a comparatively youthful face. What the fuck does he want?
“Pakhan, you made an excellent choice.” His eyes shift from me to the room where I’m supposed to settle up. The knowledge that this man she likely trusted led her into this situation sinks in my stomach.
“How long has she been in your custody?”
Her whole body tenses at my choice of words, but a glance at her expression tells me it’s Franco she really has a problem with.
“She’s only been with me a few days, Pakhan, while I made the arrangements. She barely got out of the hospital.”
He puts up his hands, begging for my mercy or my understanding, I’m not sure which, but he’ll get neither.
“Did you feed her in the few days she was with you?”
“Of course, I did!” He laughs nervously, but he shoots my ballerina daggers with his eyes.
If I thought she couldn’t grow any tenser, she proves me wrong.
“Katya, did he feed you?”
She gasps a little, and I look down at her, meeting those gray eyes like fluffy storm clouds.
“He gave me two bites of a sandwich this morning.”
“Anything else?”
“He didn’t even leave me a bucket to piss in—though, I did find one.”
“Pakhan—please, she’s lying, obviously.” His forehead wrinkles as he puts on his most convincing face.
“She weighs less than the damn boots. I don’t think she’s lying.”
He looks toward the room where I’m supposed to pay him again and then my son’s men who will separate their cut. That’s no small amount of three million.
“Let’s just get the sale settled up, and you can feed the bitch all you want, yeah?”
That was an extremely poor choice of words.
I shift Katya’s weight between my arms, and holding her legs, I toss her upper body over my shoulder. She huffs when her stomach collides with my shoulder. Causing her more suffering fills me with guilt, but not enough to stop this next part.
I clamp my arm over her thighs, holding her tightly in place. The boots act as a counterweight, making her easier to balance in this position. My hand reaches for the holster at my waist.
Franco sees my intention and reaches for his own gun, but he’s several seconds too slow, and my gun is aimed at his head before he is fully unholstered.
“You should have fed her,” I tell him before I put a bullet squarely between his eyes. The noise barely registers in my ears with the hot fury pulsing through me, or maybe that’s the numbing effect of the gunshot. Someone is screaming, maybe people. It doesn’t matter. I need to get Katya out of here.
I step over Franco’s corpse and do what I intended to originally. I carry her straight out the door. This is the very last time someone will treat her like livestock. If anything, she’s like a prized exotic animal deserving of the most elaborate cage. As my fingers dig into her from every angle and my hands start to roam, I realize there isn’t a chance in hell of me letting her go. Not a chance in hell I’d let another person touch her.
My car sits in a spot toward the back of the garage with my sons parked on either side of me. My Rossa LM is one of the only supercars made in Russia, and this version isn’t technically street legal. The door unlocks as I approach. I slide her down my body first balancing her on her feet and then check her expression—scared, a little lost, maybe in shock. I bend and help her slide into the passenger seat.
She hasn’t said a word since she answered my questions about her former director, but she moans and then curses in Russian. I assumed she was a native English speaker, but people usually revert to what they’re most comfortable with while in pain. A trickle of excitement runs through me along with everything else.
“Are you okay?” I ask in Russian, overwhelmed with my anger and the adrenaline from killing someone at point-blank range.
“I’m alive,” she answers in turn, drawing a flash of pleasure. I would have actually paid for her if I knew we could speak this comfortably. “Though maybe I’d rather not be. Motherfucker .”
She’s not cursing at me, but rather the pain, and maybe me since I carried her upside down after killing a man, which probably made her feel worse. The urge to stop her suffering is so strong I don’t walk away from her immediately. I stand over top of her and watch the pain on her face.
It briefly reminds me of taking care of Sne?ana before she passed. How I would have killed anyone and anything if it would help her, yet nothing would. I school my features so she doesn’t see that old echo of powerlessness and agony, but I still don’t move away from her. Maybe I should get the hell out of here, knowing I just pissed a lot of people off and I’m not the boss anymore, but I don’t.
I stare at her face.
She’s not reacting to the fact I murdered Franco, or maybe she is in her own way. I want to ask, but I’d rather not have her hysterical in a small enclosed space if I can avoid it. In the back of my mind, I’m mapping out what a life would look like with her. They’re very different options depending on if she’s willing to be with me or not, but either way, she’s mine.
“Being alive is all I ask of you for now.” I touch her cheek, and she still doesn’t react even though I said it expressly for that purpose and wanted my touch to unsettle her. She’s throwing me off more than I’m affecting her, and that won’t do. Suddenly, I want to scare her rather than protect her.
“You do know he’s dead, right?” I take her chin, turn her head, and force her to face the killer who owns her now.
“Usually, people die when you put a bullet through their head.” Her dry answer nearly makes me laugh, but I can’t. Her unfazed tone is too unsettling.
“That doesn’t bother you?” My fingers still hold her chin. She seems broken in so many ways, but there’s this defiance in her that hasn’t died. It’s as exciting as every other part of this night, including the gunshot.
“I watched the man I loved most in the world die in front of my eyes. It was bloodier.” She shrugs. Sne?ana’s death wasn’t bloodier, but it was surely uglier, so I understand what she means.
“So you don’t care that I killed him?”
She takes a deep breath and tries her best to look away from me, but I won’t let her.
“I’m glad you did.”
I release her and head back to my side of the car. The night air chills my cheeks as I climb in and take my seat beside her.
“Where are you from?” I ask as we pull out of the garage and onto the highway. I’m still wrestling with all the hunger and excitement pulsing through me. It’s been a very long time since my emotions got the best of me, and I need something to distract me.
“Rybinsk,” she says, immediately painting the image of a small city nestled on the banks of the Volga River. I took Sne?ana there, perhaps before Katya was even born.
“You came to America when you were little?”
“Thirteen,” she answers with a grudging tone. She doesn’t appreciate being questioned, but I should know what I just bought—or stole rather.
Her hands shake where they lay on her knees. That’s the closest I’ve seen to a reaction from her, but something tells me she’s not suddenly comfortable enough to put her guard down. I crank up the heat, and a few moments later, the tremors still. She was cold. My ballerina is tough.
She’s very pretty, her unmoving expression reminding me of a well-trained soldier.
“Tell me about yourself,” I demand, wanting to hear anything she has to say. I’ve watched her dance for so long that listening to her is a fascinating oddity.
“Am I allowed to ask you questions?” she shoots back.
It takes everything I have in me not to smile.
“No, you cannot.”
“Very well then. Don’t expect me to answer yours.”
“What if I make you?” I don’t mean it that way, but I’m sure the image of the bullet I just fired fills her mind. It’s hard not to leave a dangerous impression when you kill someone within minutes of meeting a person.
“Then don’t expect me to answer honestly.”
This time, I can’t help it, and I smile.