Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
Sage
Iopen my eyes at two in the morning.
Once Nic left my room I showered, scrubbing hard enough to erase any trace that he ever touched me from my skin. The humiliation hurts like hell, his harsh words like teeth ripping my organs open.
After six years of loving Nic, I'm no stranger to pushing down my pain and picking myself back up. He's made it clear how very little I mean to him. Whatever is left of my pride refuses to let me waste another second of it on him.
I've got things to do. Things of my own.
I've got to get the cloning device on that fucker Alexei's phone while he's still holed up in the other room banging his girlfriend.
This is a perfect opportunity to be sneaking out of the mansion, especially knowing that Nic will be giving me a wide berth. This time, however, my priorities inside the mansion fall on much higher regard.
I tiptoe to my dresser, grab the cloner and then I'm off again.
Sneaking across the landing, I make my way to the guest wing into Alexei Rushkoff's lair.
The man might not be as built as Victor or as stern as Nicholas, but he is creepy and crawly and sneaky like a snake.
He'll strike up and pounce. He is, in his own right, downright terrifying.
Not that I'd ever let him see I think that.
I slip through the door into the guest room where Alexei is staying, shutting it behind me with a sharp exhale and wide eyes.
With feet as limber as a cat, I slink throughout his room.
He's already well decorated it for himself, spreading out and making the space his own.
So much so that it doesn't even look like it's part of my house anymore.
His things contaminate the space. Trinkets are littered on every surface. Clothes are thrown about haphazardly. The furnishings are covered in black linen.
Even his own pillows are on the bed. They're memory foam, which we don't have, and the pillowcases are black silk. I run my hand over them, feeling for evidence that I wanted to collect. Nothing. But the unmade bed and the sheets still smell like him. Like spirits and geranium.
It is... gross. Yep. Gross. Yuck.
I force myself to stick out my tongue in a grimace.
In his walk-in-closet I expect to see a collection of neatly pressed black shirts lined up in pedantic symmetry. But no, the man is a slob. There are clothes and accessories strewn about in an unintelligible fashion. If it is a pattern, I'm not seeing it.
Underneath some of the discarded, and worn (ugh), trousers I find several guns. That isn't exactly a surprise, though. He's a well-known mobster. He would have guns. That doesn't prove a thing.
I slide open one of the drawers and find a package of condoms. Gross. The package is unopened, though. Huh.
In another drawer I find shirts. Again, not neatly pressed or folded, but scrunched and messily wrapped up. He really is an absolute mess and an insane slob. I don't know why I expected his space to be neat when his head is obviously a mess.
Shaking my head, I open the next drawer and find his wallet.
Not the item I'm looking for but it'll do.
I open it, but to my surprise it's light on cash and cards. Light on anything worth looking at other than his driver's license. Alexei Grigori Rushkoff. He looks like a criminal in his picture.
Of course, he does. He is one. I'm an idiot. I stifle a groan and try not to physically face-palm myself.
The only interesting thing inside his wallet is the picture.
There's a color photograph, an actually printed one, sitting inside the little plastic sleeve. Three little kids. One boy with dark hair on the left, one boy with golden hair on the right and a pretty little blonde girl in the middle.
The picture is whitening at the edges, so it can't have been recently printed.
The blonde girl has her arms around the little blond boy, their cheeks pressed together, smiling brightly.
The dark-haired boy is close too, but neither of the others are touching him.
He's smiling, but it's easy to see he's really meaning to frown.
Like he's been forced to smile for the picture despite the fact that he didn't much feel like it.
I understand that look all too well because I've felt it myself many times.
The outsider. Outcast. Watching everyone else's smiles and being unable to understand why it's so easy for them.
Why it's so easy for everyone else to connect.
To grin. To get along. It is, however, easy to see someone else's pain when it's a reflection of your own shining back on you.
"And what the fuck do you think you're doing?"
I let out a little girly squeal, nearly dropping the wallet as I whirl to face the intruder. My heart beat thumps in my chest like galloping horse's hooves.
Shit.
"Alexei," I say, my eyes surely so wide that I'm actually worried they might fall out and run away.
Fuck. Shit, fuck, shit.
"Princess," Alexei says, leaned up against the door with one foot crossed over the other and his arms folded over his chest. His muscles bulge against his black shirt and his brow raises as he eyes his wallet in my hands. "Going through my things?"
I steel my nerve.
"Seemed only fair," I shrug. "You've barged into my personal space. I thought the offer was mutual."
I put his wallet down on the dresser.
"Find anything interesting?" He's smirking.
My shoulders drop from the look on his face.
I'm not going to find anything in here. He knows it.
Whatever he thinks I was looking for, I now know I won't find it here.
He's too careful for that. Even if it's just something that I can hack a cloning device onto.
"What are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be sleeping with your girlfriend?"
His eyes brighten like I've said something surprising, a full smile forming on his mouth. "Maybe I'd prefer to fuck her in here."
I blanch. That is not the answer I was expecting, and I'm not quick enough to have a witty remarked prepared.
"Or maybe my cock is so massive that impaling her on it over and over has left her ruined and dead," he says, looking amused as all hell as he tries to shrug nonchalantly.
Jesus fucking Christ. I'm drowning here, and he can clearly tell because he breaks out into a chuckle when I have to turn my head to hide my pink cheeks.
I'm not a virgin by any standards. But everyone gets a little nervous with the surprise mention of cock.
I clear my throat as I concede I've lost that round and instead I gesture to the picture in his wallet. "Who's in the picture?"
Alexei looks over at his wallet, finally peeling away from the wall and coming to stand next to me.
His fingers trace over the faces in the photo and I try not to notice that our shoulders are touching from how close we stand.
Or how warm and imposing his form feels standing next to mine. "Me, Isla, Victor."
That I had guessed, but from how Victor and Alexei were acting, it seemed like Isla was a recent fling. Probably one they fought over. I didn't realize how deep their roots went.
"Happy little photo, isn't it," Alexei says.
I give an amused smile, one that says I know something he doesn't. It takes him a second to notice, but he frowns when he does, immediately going on the defensive. "Something to say?"
"Well, happy. For Victor and Isla, at least. You look..." I keep my eyes on the picture as I try to convey to him what I see when I look at this picture. I grin when I find it. "Murderous."
Alexei gives me a strange look and then checks the photo again. As if I've ruffled him so much that he has to make sure. "I'm smiling."
"Not with your eyes," I say. I lift my gaze to his, finding his stormy gray eyes watching me.
The same look in the photo is in them right now.
I cock my head, wondering how I haven't seen it before.
There's an angry exterior, but one that is meant to hide something deeper. "You look...sad." I whisper the words.
Alexei looks back at the picture once more, his eyes softening before he turns them back on me again.
"Lonely," I say, choking on the word.
Alexei frowns at me. There's a crease between his brows. One that hasn't left his face the whole time I've known him. Inside me, there is a desperate need to be the one that smooths it over. That feeling bubbles up like water boiling over, taking me in a rush of emotion.
I reach my hand up, and he doesn't stop me as I smooth the line with my thumb. His posture relaxes, our eyes not leaving each other, and when I pull my hand back the crease is gone.
"You love her," I say.
He grits his teeth. "Yes."
"And Victor-"
"Doesn't," Alexei snaps.
I smile.
"Stop smiling like that."
"Why?"
"I don't like it," he whispers now too.
"You don't like anything." God, we're close now. How did we get this close and what the hell am I doing? Is this my lonely heart reacting to Nic's brutal rejection? Or is it... something worse.
Alexei is quiet for a moment, but his voice is full of intent when he speaks again. "You think you see me, princess. I see you too. All the secrets. All the lies. There's a wall behind your eyes. Right now, it's down."
I swallow, but I can't bring myself to blink. There are walls around me. There has to be. I want to put them back up, worried that he really can see past them, but right now I'm not sure how to do it.
"Right now, you would let me. If I were to kis-"
An explosion sounds abruptly in the background, shaking the floor underneath our feet, stiffening us and shocking us back to reality. My wide eyes meet his frown as I see Alexei look more pissed off than I've ever seen him. What's more, he looks alarmed. That only terrifies me further.
"Wha-" I start, but a bright flare pushes up the window outside until I see fire blanketing the entire lawn.
We both rush towards the window, not even bothering to shove at each other in our haste. On the grass there is a hoard of men with guns, vests and black masks on their face, swarming in at all angles.
I burst out in a cry as I use both hands to cover my mouth. "Oh, my God. What's happening?"
"Shit."
I look at Alexei. He watches the scene outside with predatory calculation, a muscle feathering in his jaw. When he looks over at me, his face drops, obviously seeing the terror etched over every part of my being.
The sound of smashing glass soon follows and I barely hold in a scream.
Renewed determination shadows his features as he turns to me and says, "Whatever you do, princess, stay behind me."