Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
AVA
N ikolai’s arms are strong and soft at the same time.
So, it strangely saddens me when he lets me go. “Ava. Ava?” He places his hand gently under my chin and angles my face up. “That bastard hurt you.”
“I …” It’s then I realize my dress is still down around my waist. “Oh.” I quickly pull it back up, but Nikolai isn’t looking at my body with desire as he’s done in the past.
He’s looking at me with anger.
“Why did you leave with him?”
I blink, and then I begin to cry. Hot tears fall down my face, stinging my already bruised and bloody cheek. “I shouldn’t have. He just left me in that club. I thought he was going to help me.”
He scoffs. “I could have told you Dimitri wouldn’t help. He has a tendency to only do what he wants. Very self-serving.” He pauses, placing his fist to my chin before lowering it. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not physically. This— I motion to my face— “was because of those men.” It’s then that I see them. Really see them.
They’re on the ground … with bullet holes in their heads.
“They’re dead,” I whisper.
“I told you what would happen to anyone if they hurt you.”
Nikolai really meant it, then. He killed these men. He killed them to save me.
Yet he’s the reason I needed saving to begin with.
I wipe my tears away and wince as my hand touches my hurt cheek. “I just want to feel safe.”
The laugh that escapes Nikolai is cold and cruel. “There is no safe place to escape to any longer. Not in this world. Not in my world. You were naive to leave with Dimitri.”
“I know. But I just wanted to go back home.”
“You have a home now. With me.”
“My home, Nikolai,” I cry. “To the apartment I shared with my mother. Her body must still be there. I just need to see her. I need to put her to rest.”
“We can discuss this when we get back home. Right now, you need a doctor to look at your face. My private doctor has an office nearby. Let’s go.” He starts to turn away.
“Just like that? You kill two men, and it’s nothing to you.”
“They were hurting you. They were going to do even worse to you. So, yes, I killed them and yes, it doesn’t mean anything to me because they were scum and deserved worse. Killing them was a mercy.”
“A mercy?” I shake my head. My entire body is numb. “What kind of man are you?”
“I never claimed to be a man. I’m a king in my world. I do what needs to be done. I killed those men to save you. Now, we should we leave before anyone finds us here with the bodies. I’ll have some of my men come and deal with these two.” He tosses a sneer at the dead men on the ground.
Nikolai is right. I don’t want to be caught around a dead body, let alone two. I don’t need to get into trouble for his crimes.
But going home with him feels like a defeat.
“Ava? What’s going on?” It’s Jason. He appears in the alleyway.
I practically forgot about him in all the chaos.
Nikolai tenses as he turns his gaze on Jason. I know if I don’t get Jason out of here, Nikolai will kill him.
Then again, Jason didn’t help me when I told him I was kidnapped and forced into a marriage. He made it all about himself.
“Who are you?” Nikolai barks at him.
Jason jumps. “Uh … Jason Smith.”
I can see the realization on Nikolai’s face. Nikolai knows Jason. He must know because he did a background check on me. He knew I went to Yale.
He must’ve known the friends I had there.
A man as powerful as Nikolai always knows.
“What are you doing here?” Nikolai growls at him.
“I was making sure Ava was ok. I was coming to save her.”
Somehow, I doubt that.
Jason squints at Nikolai. “Who are you?”
“I’m her husband.”
“You’re … the husband?” Jason scoffs. “That’s just great. Of course, she’d choose some Chad over me.”
Nikolai frowns. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I walk over to Jason and put my hand on his arm, and Nikolai zeros in on the touch. “You need to go.”
Jason pulls away from me. “Don’t tell me what to do. I poured my heart out to you, and you stomped on it. I always thought we were going to be more than friends.”
“You were only ever my friend,” I make a point of saying. Jason doesn’t know the dangerous situation he’s in. I know in my gut that Nikolai will kill him if he doesn’t go right this moment.
“Way to rub it in deeper,” he mutters.
“Jason, just go. Please. For your own safety.”
He turns his eyes onto Nikolai. “Are you hurting her? Did you do that to her face?”
Nikolai only looks at Jason without saying a word. It’s unsettling.
“You don’t deserve her, you know,” Jason continues. “She deserves to be with me. Ava, I’ve been waiting for months for you to wake up and see me as more than a friend. Why couldn’t you?”
Because I was too scared to be in a relationship because of how my father made me feel , is my first thought. My second thought is: Because I never liked you that way.
That’s the truth. Jason was only ever my friend because I thought he truly was my friend.
Now, I see that even that was a lie.
Jason has joined the lineup of men who have only hurt and disappointed me. It’s sadly becoming a long list.
“She’s my wife now,” Nikolai finally speaks. “So, I would suggest you stop running your mouth if you want to live.”
“Jason, go,” I say more firmly.
Slowly— so slowly —he starts to realize that something dangerous is going on. “What do you mean ‘if I want to live’?”
When Nikolai steps right in front of him, I have no choice but to step out of the way. “If you don’t leave right this second, I will kill you.”
Jason’s eyes widen. He has to know Nikolai means what he says. The darkness radiates from him. It’s in his bones.
“Ava?” Jason asks, keeping his eyes on my husband.
“Jason, go,” I repeat. “Just go.”
He turns and runs away. I let out a breath of relief. Good. At least there don’t have to be anymore dead bodies tonight.
Nikolai turns to me. “He was smart.”
“You didn’t have to threaten him. He did nothing wrong.”
“He did nothing wrong? He was talking like he owned you.”
I can’t help the scoff that escapes me. “You talk like you own me all the time.”
“That’s because I do.”
His words settle over me, turning my skin cold. Nikolai does own me. He did, in fact, buy me.
But he doesn’t love me because love is not possessiveness. It’s not about controlling another person.
“I will keep trying to escape,” I say. “Because I cannot be with someone who doesn’t respect me.”
“I saved your life.”
“You ruined my life,” I hiss.
His eyes widen like he’s actually surprised. I guess in Nikolai’s mind, he didn’t do anything wrong by taking me from my father. He thought he was saving me from my father who was going to give me to someone else if Nikolai didn’t take the offer.
He even physically saved me from the men attacking me.
But Nikolai didn’t really save me. Because nothing can save me from him.
“You can’t actually tell me you like that boy,” he says.
“He was my friend. He may have … betrayed me tonight, but he doesn’t deserve to die for it.”
Nikolai goes quiet. “How did he betray you?”
“No. I’m not going to tell you just so you have an excuse to kill him. Let’s just go home. I’m tired of looking at those … dead bodies.” A gasp escapes me as the events of the night hit me. Never before have I truly seen a dead body.
I saw my mom shot, but my father made me leave the apartment before I really saw her die.
A sob hits me as I bend over. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. All I feel is fear.
Nikolai pulls me back into his arms and keeps them there as I cry. The pain doesn’t leave me, not even when the tears stop. But Nikolai lets me go, and I follow him to his car and get in because I’m too weak and tired and scared to try running from him tonight.
I thought Dimitri would help me. He didn’t. I thought Jason would help me. He didn’t. My own father never helped me.
All I have is Nikolai, and that thought makes me so sad that all I feel is numbness.
“Good to see you back home,” Edmund says once I step through the front door. His smile doesn’t comfort me. It’s all just fake. If he truly wanted to help me, he would have.
I stare at Edmund until his smile disappears and Nikolai gently pulls me away.
Once again, Nikolai puts me back in my room, but this time, he doesn’t stay to talk with me or have a strangely sexually charged moment with me. No. He just shuts the door on me. I hear his footsteps walk down the hallway to his own room—the room I’m not allowed into.
The only saving grace is that the door isn’t locked.
I’m amazed Nikolai hasn’t forced me to stay locked within this room. I could leave again if I wanted to. Is this his way of testing me?
My tiredness wins out, and I fall back onto the bed, letting sleep overtake me.
Mrs. Brown takes one look at me once I come down to the kitchen for breakfast and pulls me into a hug. “Oh, dear. What have you been through? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I wish I had. Then that would mean there was a possibility of seeing my mom again.
Instead, my mind is filled with the dead bodies of the men who attacked me, Jason saying cruel things to me, and Dimitri walking away after he said he’d help me. Lastly, Nikolai’s face takes up the contents of my mind. The way he was so angry and worried for me last night.
“What happened?” Mrs. Brown asks.
“I can tell you what happened,” Claude mutters as he sticks buns in the oven. “This little drama queen decided to run away again. Didn’t go how you expected, did it?”
“Don’t be mean,” Mrs. Brown scolds.
Claude shrugs. “Why not? She left with Dimitri Ivanov. Even I know to keep my distance from him. Everyone knows. It was stupid and silly. You got hurt. I mean, look at your face.”
I haven’t, actually. I’ve been too afraid to look at myself in the mirror, but I can feel the puffiness in my cheek. The pain every time I accidently brush my hand against my face.
Mrs. Brown grabs my shoulders and walks me over to a corner of the kitchen away from Claude. “Dear, did Mr. Petrov do this to you?”
“If I said he did, would you help me leave him?”
She hesitates, telling me everything I need to know. Mrs. Brown won’t help me escape. Edmund won’t help. I know Claude will never offer his services.
I sigh. “No, it wasn’t Nikolai. It was some other men. They hurt me. Nikolai … saved me from them.”
“Oh, good.” She smiles, her shoulders relaxing. Good for her that she doesn’t have to feel guilty about the boss she works for. “We should really ice your face. It’ll help bring the puffiness down.” She grabs a bag of peas from the freezer and a dish towel from a cabinet and wraps the peas in the towel before holding it to my face. “Keep it there, dear.”
My arm feels numb as I reach it up to hold the peas. All of me feels numb.
I should be afraid of that fact, but I’m not.
Mrs. Brown tries giving me another comforting smile, but it doesn’t work.
It never works.
NIKOLAI
The nightclub is dead in the middle of the day.
Only Dimitri is there, bent over the bar, looking at a piece of paper.
I storm right up to him. “Did you think it would be funny to take my wife from me?”
He doesn’t look up as he replies. “I didn’t know she was your property. She asked for my help, and I gave it.”
“By abandoning her where she could get hurt? In fact, where she did get hurt. If you were going to steal my wife, at least have the decency to make sure she’s all right.”
Dimitri laughs as he finally looks at me. “Do I look like I give a fuck about your wife? I thought it was funny, the way she came to me for help. But I didn’t do anything to her. I didn’t hurt her. It wasn’t my fault she left the club.”
“How can we work together if I can’t trust you? We’re done.”
“We’re not done, Nik.”
“Nikolai,” I growl.
“I still have what you want—a hold on this city. We can still make each other a lot of money. I promise I won’t do anything like that again. It was just a bit of fun.”
“I wasn’t laughing.”
“That’s because you never find anything funny. Is Ava alive?”
“Yes.”
“Is she hurt?”
“Yes.”
Dimitri blinks. “Ah. Ok, so that didn’t help my point. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re both powerful men who can benefit from working together. If you kill me, it’ll only create a shitstorm you won’t be able to come back from, and you know it, which is why you haven’t shot me. You could have done that the second you walked into my club.” He stands up and claps his hand on my shoulder. I fight everything inside me to not brush it off. “We need each other, Nik.”
Fuck him. He’s right. I reached out to him in the first place because I know I can expand my business even more with him helping. While I do love bloodshed, I don’t love endless war.
“No more games,” I say through gritted teeth.
He holds his hands up in surrender. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
I let out a quick breath and walk away. “It’s Nikolai,” I say over my shoulder.
He laughs.
AVA
It takes me the entire day to finally work up the courage to look at my face in the mirror.
And it’s an ugly sight.
Red, blotchy, and bruised. I barely look like myself. It’s ironic—my father sold me because he thought I was pretty enough to make him a lot of money. But now I’m not pretty.
I’m far, far from it.
I wonder if I’ll scar like Nikolai. Wouldn’t that be poetic?
I start the bath and strip off my clothes. All I want is to hide.
Nikolai bursts into my room and stops when he sees me in the bathroom. Naked.
I gasp before I cover my arms over myself though it doesn’t really hide anything. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s dinner time, and you weren’t coming down.”
“Oh. I wanted to take a bath instead.”
He starts to walk toward me, and every step is loud in the quiet room. “I can see that.” He doesn’t stop until he’s right before me.
“I just want to take a bath,” I whisper. “Please.”
“I won’t stop you.”
I turn my gaze away back to the mirror. “Are you happy?”
“About what?”
“My face. It’s my punishment for leaving you.”
His inhales and exhales fill up the air. It’s like I can feel him breathing over my skin. “No, I’m not happy. I hate that those fucking men hurt you.”
I shiver at the aggressiveness in his voice. “I’m ugly. You don’t have a pretty wife anymore.”
He places his fingers gently under my chin and turns my eyes up to meet his. “You’re beautiful.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Would looking like me be so bad?” he asks in a voice so soft I can barely hear him.
“Would you want me to look like you?”
His fingers tighten just slightly on my face before he lets me go. “You wanted to take a bath. Don’t let me stop you.”
Keeping my eyes on him, I lower my arms and step into the bathtub. He doesn’t take his eyes off my face. Somehow, it’s even more intimate than if he looked at my naked body.
I slip into the warm water and feel some of the tension leaves me. Only some.
Nikolai remains in the bathroom.
“Are you going to leave?” I ask.
“No.” He leans against the counter, his hands in his pockets. This relaxed stance is so unusual for him. It’s sort of … nice to see.
“Are you just going to watch me?”
His eyes turn more intense. It’s the shifting of his stance, the furrow of his brow, the rigidness of his body that shows the intensity. “No. I want you to touch yourself.”
Heat flares through my body, unbidden. There it is again—that flutter between my legs.
I stretch my legs out in the tub. The warm water sloshes over me. I’m safe in here, and yet I’ve never felt more unsafe in my life.
“Why?” I whisper.
“Because I want to see pleasure on your face.”
“Why don’t you just do it yourself?”
“Because I want to see you do it to yourself.”
My hands grip the edge of the bathtub so tightly my fingers turn white. There’s no way I can do this. I hate this man before me.
So, then, why do I feel that tingle between my legs?
Nikolai doesn’t remove his eyes from me once. Finally, I decide to move.
My hand touches my upper chest. His eyes follow the motion. My heart is fluttering like a hummingbird.
Then I move my hand lower, between my breasts and down to my stomach. It feels like someone else has control of my body. Why am I doing this?
I know. I want to feel alive. I want the numbness to go away.
Finally, I my hand goes between my legs. Nikolai can’t even see it through the soapy water. But it’s not my hand he’s looking at—it’s my face. I keep my eyes locked onto his as I trail my fingers along my folds.
I’ve never done this before. My father scared the idea of masturbation right out of me.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit.
“Touch your clit.”
My cheeks turn hot. I know enough about my own anatomy to know what he means. When my finger brushes the sensitive nub, I know the second I’ve found it. A rush of pleasure shoots through me.
I gasp.
“Rub it,” he instructs. “Play with it. Do what makes you come.”
“I’ve never …”
“You’ll know.”
I suck in a sharp breath and move my finger between my legs, testing and figuring out what feels good.
I keep coming back to my clit. I try light pressure and then firmer until I find the perfect amount. Then I rub it around until I feel pleasure traversing over my entire body.
Not once do I look away from Nikolai.
“Spread your legs wider.”
I do as he says. My knees touch the edge of the tub as I continue to touch myself. Still, he cannot see. Even I cannot see.
That doesn’t stop either of us from making this moment happen.
My breath starts to come out in smaller pants as the pleasure increases between my legs. It gets to the point where I don’t even want to touch myself. But I don’t stop. I have no idea why I don’t stop.
I just don’t.
Nikolai keeps his gaze steady on me, and I look back, feeling fearless around him for once.
“Don’t stop until you come,” he orders.
“It’s too much.”
“Don’t stop.”
Pressing down harder on my clit, I feel a spike of pleasure shoot through me. My hips slowly begin to swivel around, grinding into my own hand, while my other hand grips the edge of the tub. Something needs to steady me, or otherwise, I’ll fall, and I don’t think I can recover from that.
Nikolai’s eyes pierce into me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could see right into my entire being.
And then I come.
It happens so suddenly and so powerfully I can barely breathe. I gasp and gasp until my body calms down. All of a sudden, I feel like I could sleep forever.
It’s then I allow myself to think the word I’ve been denying.
Arousal.
That’s what Nikolai has been making me feel. That tingling between my legs. It’s arousal and it always has been.
“You did good,” he says.
His praise feels better than it should.
“I’ve decided I’ll take you to your mother’s apartment. We’ll go tomorrow.”
I snap my legs closed and sit up straighter. “What? Really?”
“Yes. You deserve to put her to rest.” He doesn’t spare me a second look as he leaves the bathroom.
As I sink back into the tub, my mind is reeling.
“What are you smiling about?” Claude mutters as he sets a plate filled with waffles and French toast and eggs before me. I know he’s angry I didn’t eat dinner last night. I was too busy thinking about what Nikolai and I shared and the news about getting closure with my mom.
“Can’t I be happy?” I respond, actually eating for once.
He seems mollified. “No. You can’t.” His words are biting, but there’s a softness to his features I haven’t seen before. “So, eat up. Don’t waste a bite.”
And for once, I don’t.
After breakfast, Nikolai is waiting for me in the foyer. The sight of him brings back everything from last night back. My cheeks flush.
If Nikolai notices, he doesn’t comment on it.
“It’s been over a week,” he says on the drive. “Who knows what state her … body will be in.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I want you to be prepared. For anything.”
I hate that he’s right.
“Why didn’t you do anything?” I ask. “You know everything. Surely, you knew her body was still there and needed burying.”
He sighs. “Despite what you think, I don’t know everything. I didn’t know your father was going to kill your mother to get to you. I didn’t know, Ava.” I want to think he’s lying, but I get the sense he’s speaking the truth.
For some reason, that terrifies me. Because if Nikolai doesn’t know everything, then I can’t blame him for everything.
And it’s easier to blame him than to accept that I feel some sort of way for him. Last night was indicative that my body is drawn to him. Why? I have no idea.
I sneak glances at him out of the corner of my eye. Nikolai is a handsome man; I’ll give him that. Strong and broad shoulders and just … manly. That has to be why my body responds to him. It’s just biology.
Nothing more.
The drive to New Haven takes a couple of hours, and neither of us speaks much. This isn’t a fun road trip for our honeymoon. This is a mission to get my mom’s body so I can bury her.
My old apartment building comes into view, and memories bombard me. My father breaking in. My father shooting her. My father dragging me away.
Nikolai turns the car off. “Are you prepared to go inside?”
“I have to.” I open the door and get out before I lose my nerve.
I don’t have the key to get inside the building, but that doesn’t matter. Nikolai breaks the door open, and we walk down the hallway to my apartment. The door is still broken at the hinges, making it easy to push it open.
The sight of my apartment is still messy from where my father broke everything.
My eyes zero in on the spot where I last saw my mom.
Except … she’s not there.
There’s no one in the apartment. No body. Only a blood stain.
I turn to Nikolai. “Where’s my mom?”