CHAPTER 28
I feel utterly broken when I show up at work late in the morning the next day. All night, I’ve been crying. It wasn’t until the first light of day filtered through the curtains that I found some peace and drifted off in Janos’s arms.
When I woke again, I was still wrapped in strong arms that felt like they could protect me from even the worst of dangers this world has to offer. In a way they can, but at the same time, they’re the most dangerous arms I’ve ever encountered. But maybe that’s what makes his protection so powerful.
I couldn’t make myself leave his embrace, and we lay there for a long time before I finally had to tumble out of bed in a hurry to get ready for work.
“Stay at home today,” Janos said. But even though I badly wanted to, I had to go. I can’t lose this job. If I do, I’ll get swallowed up by the darkness that has already taken so much from me.
It ends up being a short day, though. András comes to eat lunch with me a few hours into my shift, and he sees that I’m not feeling well. Usually, he finds me at the stern if I’m on break—even when it’s raining—but today I’m hiding in a corner of the kitchen, poking at my food.
I startle, almost dropping my plate, when he comes up to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Is something wrong, Rebecca?”
I shake my head without meeting his eyes. I feel physically ill. My vision is blurry, my head pounding, and my stomach is twisting and turning like the few forkfuls of food I’ve managed are about to come up. But the physical discomfort is not the worst part. It’s the anxiety. The inability to be near the water.
It breaks my heart that Gabor has robbed me of the only thing I had left that could truly bring me peace.
“You look pale.” András takes the plate from my hands and sets it aside, then grabs my arms and turns me to face him. “Go home. Spend the rest of the day in bed. I don’t want you coming in tomorrow if you don’t feel better. I’ll make sure no one cuts it from your pay.”
Touched by his genuine concern, I wipe at the tears pooling in my eyes and manage a weak, “Thank you.”
***
The next day, I feel better physically, but walking around on the boat, seeing the water just outside, makes my heart pound and my breathing work in shallow drags. I try to remain in the middle of the boat and avoid looking out the windows. It’s not easy. Windows are all around me, and whenever I linger my gaze at the water, panic builds with frightening speed, and I hurry to the bathroom where I shut myself in.
András drops by to see how I’m doing, and he almost sends me home when he finds me huddling in the windowless kitchen, having volunteered to do the dishes all day.
“Please don’t send me home,” I say, knowing a few days off won’t cure this.
His gaze narrows as he studies me, but he ends up letting me stay when I repeat the plea in a thin voice.
I have no idea what he’s thinking, but he clearly sees that something is wrong. He stays for almost an hour, helping me with the dishes while discreetly probing to find out what’s going on. I keep redirecting the conversation or simply not answering, and after twenty minutes, he finally drops it in favor of trying to cheer me up with stories about babysitting for his sister instead.
It helps a little, but the pounding anxiety slams back into me the moment I step out of the kitchen and feel the water closing in on all sides.
My new fear of water doesn’t just extend to the boat and the river. The mere idea of getting into the tub has my chest constricting, and when Janos draws a bath for me and tries to lower me into the water, I cling to his neck, crying like he’s sending me off for slaughter.
“The water is nice and warm,” he says, dipping a hand into the tub, then trailing it over my cheek. But it makes no difference; I only tighten my grip on his neck. “You just need to overcome the first step, then you’ll find comfort in the water like you always do. I promise I’ll stay right here with you.”
“Get me out of here,” I scream, clawing at his neck as desperation sets in.
My aquaphobiaonly gets worse over time. A few days after Gabor’s drowning games, I can barely enter the bathroom. The mere sight of the tub sends me spiraling into a heaving panic. So I resist the urge to pee until I’m about to burst and Janos forces me to the bathroom. I’m so out of it I don’t even ask for privacy when he stays at my side, stroking my hair and telling me I’m safe. I just cling to him as I empty my bladder. What’s the point in fighting anyway? He’s seen me in far more humiliating situations.
I’m surprised Janos doesn’t get sick of escorting me to the bathroom and watching me washing myself in the kitchen sink. He could easily order me to pull it together and stop acting like a child, but I think he knows, as well as I do, that something in me might snap for good if he forced me into the tub.
Eventually, he does start pushing me, although gently.
“I want to take you into the water,” he says one evening, crouching in front of me like I’m a frightened child.
I pull my legs up in front of me, hugging them tightly as I shake my head.
“Come,” he insists, getting up and holding out his hand to me.
I let my eyes roam up over him. He’s danger incarnate. Massive and bulky, eyes crackling with cold detachment. But somewhere deep in the cold, I find a sliver of care that, against all rationality, stirs my trust and makes me place my hand in his massive one.
He leads me through the apartment and stops in front of the open bathroom door, probably predicting my reaction.
The moment I see that the tub is full of water, I jerk back, but Janos has stepped behind me, blocking my retreat.
“One step at a time,” he says, cradling my trembling body in his strong embrace.
I grab onto his thick arm as I stare at the foreboding water. “Do you promise?”
“Yes,” he says with unwavering certainty.
“Do you mean it?”
“I’d never make a promise I can’t keep.”
Those words seem to sum up the gist of our twisted relationship perfectly. Janos has never promised to release me from the pain or alleviate the darkness. He’s never claimed to be a good man with good intentions. Nor has he ever lied to me or given me false hopes. So I know his promise to protect me at this very moment is as true as if he promised more darkness would come.
Steeling myself with a deep breath, I nod. “Okay.”
He leads me over the threshold, keeping his arms around me as he leads me forward. We make it four steps before I whip around and press myself into him as I clutch the fabric of his T-shirt with both hands. So much for that bravery.
He pushes forward another two steps so he can lean forward and dip his hand in the water. When he runs the same hand along my naked waist, I suck in a sharp breath.
“It’s just water. Hot water,” he says. “Close your eyes and feel it.”
Pressing myself into him, I try not to panic as he repeats the gesture. I expect an icy sensation to seep into my skin when his wet hand slides over my spine, but there’s no cold. The water is warm. And so is Janos. His hand, his body, and even his soothing voice.
“Try for yourself.” He slowly turns me to face the water, and when I shake my head vigorously, he bands an arm around my stomach, pressing me close to him. Leaning down to my ear, he says with a potent promise, “I won’t let you fall.”
Heaving a deep breath, I lean over his arm. His unwavering strength lends me the courage to dip my hand into the water—so quickly I only get the tips of my fingers wet.
“That’s it. Good girl. One more time.”
I repeat with a less panicked haste as he strokes my back with his free hand. This time, I get my whole hand wet, and a tiny smile forms on my lips. The water feels good.
Next, my whole arm goes in, then my foot, and finally we’re in the tub, the water reaching my knees.
“I can’t do this,” I say as my lungs heave for air without getting any. I try to pull away from Janos to bolt out of the tub, but he holds me in place. “Let me go!”
“Stay here,” he urges, wrapping both arms around me.
“No, I can’t.” I shove at his massive arms, and when they remain banded around me, I try to climb his body like I’m a monkey in a tree. He’s tall enough for me to escape the water, but my feet are slippery, my body weak, and my legs fall back in. My feet have barely broken the surface before Janos grabs my thighs and hoists me up. But it’s too late. I’m already crying, clinging to his neck as the water seems to reach up for me.
“I’ve got you,” he assures, tightening his grip. “Your feet won’t touch the water until you’re ready. Just breathe.”
I drag in large gulps of air between sobs, and my chest keeps shaking as panic and grief tear through me. It goes on and on, but Janos remains strong and stable, holding me like he promised until I can finally manage long and even breaths.
“Are you ready to dip your feet back in?”
I nod, sniffling beside his ear, before I lean my head back to face him. His eyes hold a promise of safety that I can’t resist, so I nod.
I let him lower my feet back in, and I can’t help but marvel at his strength. It’s controlled to the tiniest movement as he slowly bends his knees until my feet break the surface, and there he holds me for several minutes without breathing a single labored breath.
His strength grants me the courage I need, and I finally relax my feet and let them plop into the water to stand on my own.
“Good girl,” he says, tone warm and full of pride.
Those two words are the final push I need. Releasing my strained grip on his arms, I gaze up at him. My heart races and my pulse hammers, but when his lips lift into a smile and the corners of his eyes crinkle with that rare expression, a smile unfolds on my own lips. Janos keeps his arms under my elbows, ready to catch me. We stand like that for a full minute until I slam my hands back onto him, feeling like I’ve just experienced the craziest adrenaline kick of my life.
“That’s my girl.” He wraps me in his arms as he kisses my hair, encompassing me in a blanket of safety—until his next words break it. “Now we’re going to sit in the water.”
The whole ordeal starts over. The crying, the begging, the clinging. But with endless reassurances and steady grips, he finally gets me there, and I beam with pride as I watch him sitting there in front of me with something like admiration glimmering in his eyes.
“You’re doing so well, Rebecca.” His smile widens, but only for a second. His features take on a grave expression as he says, “I want you all the way in now.”
I dart up, about to flee the tub, but Janos grabs me, pulling me back down.
“No, no, no, no. Not that. Janos, please, not that,” I beg, crying into his shoulder anew.
“Easy now, I’ll be right here with you,” he reassures, holding me in his lap in the water. “You need to feel that the water isn’t dangerous.” He holds me out to look at me. “It’s always something else that causes the danger: People, storms, waves, strong currents. Cold. Never the water itself.”
I stare down at the water. It neither looks nor feels dangerous. “Are you dangerous?” My gaze darts up to the gray eyes in front of me. I find the answer there before Janos confirms with a single word.
“Yes.” There’s no hesitance. No apology. He’s the most dangerous man I’ve ever encountered. But his words are full of sincerity as he adds, “But right now, I’m keeping you safe.”
Janos ends up getting me all the way in, lying under the water several times. At one point, I even manage to dive down on my own without clutching his hands. Only for a second, though. I’m beaming with pride when I come back up and see the same pride reflected in the crinkles around his eyes.
“No more today,” he says, taking my hands as he stares into my eyes with an intimacy that has my heart beating faster—this time because of something beyond panic. “We’ll just sit here for a while.”
The air becomes fraught with something unspoken—an emotion neither of us dares put words to. He keeps watching me like he wants to say something, and when I can’t take the tension anymore, I break the silence.
“Do you always do this for Gabor’s girls?”
“Do what?”
“This.” I stare off into the room, too vulnerable to face him. “Help them overcome their fear of water.”
“No.”
I turn back to him and blurt another question, unable to stop myself. “Do you always feed them?”
“No.”
“Do you always watch over them while they sleep?”
Janos’s expression darkens with latent emotion as he gives me another monosyllabic answer. “No.”
I know I should probably stop, but I can’t. I need answers. “Do you draw circles on their backs when Gabor uses them?” My voice cracks as I add the next words, “To comfort them.”
Janos’s jaw tenses like it’s as hard for him to admit that I’m more than a job as it’s hard for me to believe it. He’s quiet for a while, and I think this is more than he’ll be able to admit to, but finally he does. “No.”
My heart skips a beat, and reckless as I am, I let his answer drive me into more questions. Questions that require more than a single syllable for an answer.
With my pulse pounding in my neck, I let out the question I’ve searched for an explanation for since the first night Janos broke into my apartment and gave me to Gabor. “Why did you suddenly become protective over me on the first night?”
He was as cold and detached as the other henchman when he pulled me out from under the bed and stripped my clothes off. But suddenly, everything shifted and his touch became slow and careful. Protective. At the time, I didn’t dare believe that it was more than a change of mood—coincidence. I didn’t dare believe that this dangerous man might hold more than pure brutality. But slowly, I realized there’s so much more to Janos behind the hard surface.
He presses his hand to my chest in a shockingly intimate gesture and lets his eyes fall to it as he trails it down between my breasts, over my sternum, and into the water to continue down to my thigh. There, he lets it rest as he moves his gaze back up to find mine. “There was something in your eyes. Something vulnerable and innocent that called upon something in me. The other girls are always pure hatred and fear. But not you.” He lifts his hand out of the water to splay it over my cheek in a tender gesture that has me gulping down a growing knot of emotion. “You begged me to protect you even though I was hurting you.” He moves his thumb over my skin as his eyes soften into a shockingly loving expression. “So I did.”
Neither of us say more for a long time. I don’t know how to respond to his startling honesty, so I just sit there and let him wash me, then lift me out of the water, dry me off, and take me to bed.
He lies down behind me, caressing my stomach as the darkness envelops us, coaxing us to sleep. But neither of us is ready to let go of this intimacy, and too many questions are still swirling in my mind.
I decide to take this opportunity to get some answers, hoping to God it won’t push him away.
“How long have you worked for Gabor?” I ask.
As always, it takes a little while before he answers. “Since I was fourteen,” he says, continuing the soothing circles on my stomach. “I had just rerouted one of his shipments and taken the whole stash for myself. Gabor was furious. No one had ever duped him over the way I had, and he was pissed. He came to kill me and take back what belonged to him, but his shipment was already long gone. I would have been the same if it hadn’t been for the knife in my gut.”
“You’d been stabbed?” I say on a gasp.
“Yeah, my best friend had fucked me over and taken the stash himself. Karma’s a bitch, I guess. Anyway, Gabor was impressed when he found out that it was a kid who had tricked him. He saw potential and took me in. Taught me everything he knows. And Gabor taught me the value of revenge as we tracked down the guy who had betrayed me. He became my first kill.”
“And you became the one in charge of handling his girls?”
“Yeah, that too.”
“What else?”
“Dealing out revenge. Finding new business partners. Handling various deals...”
“Weapons?”
“Among other things.”
When I realize I’m not getting anywhere with this line of questioning, I move on.
“Have you ever thought about changing your... line of work?”
I feel him shake his head behind me. “Why would I? I do what I’m good at, make good money, and have men who aren’t so desperate they’d stab me in the back at the next best opportunity.”
I don’t know what to say. Was I hoping that he, deep down, doesn’t want to live in a world where women are objects to be used and abused? That maybe he’s willing to leave it all behind to save me—even after he had made it crystal clear just a few days ago that he’ll never be my hero? Maybe I was. Because everything seems so bleak that I cling to any glimmer of hope I can find, even knowing it’s only a fleeting flash in my mind’s eye that will never manifest in reality.