Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
Sia
Today was the first day Lettie’s dad came home covered in blood. He wasn’t covered per se, but I definitely noticed the red splatter on what was usually a crisp, clean, white dress shirt. He made sure to look up at me from the ground floor when he’d come home.
He’d been smiling.
It’d been a cheeky one, and I would have scoffed if not for the red I noticed. I’d been on the second floor and wandering through the brick prison he’d confined me to. I know I suggested it, but had no idea he’d actually say I couldn’t leave the house. He hadn’t been joking that I wasn’t allowed to leave the Petrov property.
He apparently wasn’t joking about a lot of things.
He made sure to look at me every time he came home after the day I saw the blood. He’d come in at random hours and, each time he spotted me, I noticed blood splatter. Sometimes he’d be wiping it from his hands, a cloth working over his tatted fingers.
He was obviously trying to scare me out of this place, but I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t scare easily. Growing up on the streets wasn’t easy, and I hadn’t been joking when I told Mr. Petrov that.
I wished I had. I wished both the things I’d seen and been through hadn’t affected me in such a fucked up way. I wished what I saw at the Petrov manor sent me running for the hills and not morbidly wondering what he’d done to get that blood on his hands. It was weird to have those thoughts. Freaky.
I’m a freak.
This was something I’d known for a long time and I stopped questioning eventually. If I didn’t, I ended up down dark paths.
I hurt myself.
In actuality, seeing Mr. Petrov in such a way every day pissed me off. He thought he could treat me like that and abandon me in his large home. I wasn’t his friend so he didn’t owe me anything, but I was employed by him and he certainly wasn’t around enough to let me do my job. It was basically just Polly and me day in and day out. Good news for her was that allowed me to get her properly trained. She had no more accidents in the house. She was completely house broken and responded to each and every command I gave her. She didn’t even tug her leash anymore.
Not that my boss knew that.
I had a trained dog with no human to interact with. Polly and I were the same a bit in that way. I didn’t consider myself a social butterfly, but I did like to be around people. I didn’t do well by myself generally.
I rubbed my arm, another lonely day in the Petrov house. I texted Lettie from time to time. Well, she texted me. This was mostly to check up on Polly. Of course she asked about me, but we were new friends and a lot of her questions surrounded her dad and how he was doing.
She was worried about him.
That man had no reason for anyone to worry about him. He obviously took care of himself.
His bloody hands told me that.
I found myself traipsing through empty halls again one day. I ended up stopping in the middle of the hall, distracted by sounds. They came from Mr. Petrov’s study, so I stopped in front of it. The door was ajar.
He wasn’t in there a whole lot, but he was today.
There were a few men with him, all of them were as beefy and tatted as Mr. Petrov himself. Mr. Petrov sat on the corner of his desk in front of them, his head cocked while they all stood. He had his arms folded like he was the boss dog and the rest of the men were his flunkies. He started to say something to them but, suddenly, his head turned in the direction of the door.
I froze, obviously not as silent as I thought I’d been.
Familiar eyes of a steely gray cooled in my direction, and my heart thumped. This man looked at me in two ways, generally. One was when he poked fun at me or was being an asshole.
And the other was this.
Hatred, pure and venomous hatred was currently aimed in my direction. His hands gripped the desk, and that’s when his friends faced me as well. Having Mr. Petrov’s attention was already bad enough but having several dudes who were just as jacked looking at me too?
I backed up, so confused as to why Lettie’s dad looked at me in that second way at all. I could only gather that he associated me with Polly, who he also wasn’t a fan of. Polly obviously represented his daughter’s belief he needed companionship.
Mr. Petrov clearly didn’t want that, and he definitely didn’t want me.
I basically sprinted down the hall, and I was so confused as to how he heard me. I swear to God I hadn’t made a noise. The man reacted with skill like a silent predator stalking his kill.
Which made me the prey.
Mary Sunshine that one.
I wasn’t headed toward the kitchen after pretty much running down the hallway. Actually, I’d been heading up to my room.
My jellybeans were up there.
They were my lifeline, but I stopped my pursuit when I again heard noises, rustling. They were coming from the kitchen, and I spotted a familiar face around the corner.
Val.
She was by the counter with several grocery bags in her arms. I hadn’t really seen her since that day at the funeral home and immediately went over to assist her.
“Oh, let me help you,” I said, the urge to get my jellybeans tapering off a bit with the distraction. I wanted to help Val, and she heard me, swiveling around. She probably didn’t need help, jacked just like Mr. Petrov’s men. I hadn’t noticed it as much that day at the funeral home, but her clothing was more casual today and displayed the muscular definition in her arms. This woman definitely worked out.
Mr. Petrov clearly surrounded himself with powerful people, and even though Val probably didn’t need the assistance, I wanted to help. I even found myself asking Sophia if she needed anything these days. If anything for something to do with all the spare time I had now that Polly was trained.
Val had a glimmer of a smile on her lips as I helped her with the bags. There were a ton of them, and together, we placed them down. I suppose I technically had seen her around the Petrov property, but only through windows. Most of the staff around the Petrov property signed, but they weren’t as experienced as Mr. Petrov himself. The language was clearly second nature to him in the few times I’d watched him with Val.
Val placed her fingers near her lips and mouthed, “Thank you.” I made a mental note of the sign after she showed me and nodded with a smile. I looked up a few signs on my cell phone since I’d gotten here. I learned “yes” and “no” and a few other things just in case I did see Val and got the opportunity to talk with her again.
“No problem,” I said, and she smiled. Her hands free now, she pulled out her phone.
She showed me the screen. “ Still here, are you?”
I laughed.
I nodded. “Still here.”
Maybe, like Mr. Petrov, she thought I’d run for the hills. She might have hoped I would. I remember how she hadn’t showed me the more graphic elements of Mr. Petrov’s business, and I wondered about those too.
I was pretty sure Mr. Petrov’s funeral home wasn’t just a funeral home and so wanted to know what he did there. Especially if he did work for or was in the mob. I knew there was a Russian one, but didn’t know much besides its existence. I basically confirmed he and Lettie were Russian. I’d looked up their last names when I’d been searching for ASL signs.
Grinning, Val typed on her phone again.
“If you could let Sophia know these are here?” it said. “I’m just dropping them off. I am security, but Boss likes to treat me like his glorified assistant sometimes.”
Her eyes lifted at that, and though I laughed, what she said didn’t make me happy. Was there anyone he treated with respect? He was like a grumpy beast without the grizzly exterior.
Though maybe he just wore his scars in a different way.
Going through the bags, I started to put some things away. I’d gotten to know the Petrov kitchen pretty well too. There wasn’t much else to do.
“You doing okay around here? I am surprised you’re still here.”
Val stepped back after letting me read her phone, and I shrugged. I noticed there were jellybeans in the bag, which meant this shopping list came from Sophia. I asked her to always get some for me if she remembered.
I held the jellybeans, and Val smiled at me.
“I should have known those weren’t for Boss,” her phone said. She typed again. “He hates sugar.”
Her boss seemed to hate a lot of things. “I’m okay,” I said, answering her previous question, then chewed my lip. “You think you could teach me a few signs? I looked up a few on my phone and would like to practice.”
She looked surprised that I’d asked but nodded. She typed on her phone. “Maybe next time I come. If you’re still here that is.”
She eyed me a little before winking, and I laughed.
“I will be,” I said because I would. Mr. Petrov was definitely prickly but, lucky for me, he wasn’t even around enough for me to feel the sting.
At least not much.
Val tapped my shoulder before leaving the kitchen. I broke out the jellybeans. I chewed with a quick mouth before chewing more. It was true Mr. Petrov was an asshole, but at least he didn’t pretend he wasn’t one. He wore who he was on his sleeve and definitely wasn’t the first monster I’d met in my life.
At least he didn’t hide behind a mask.