Chapter 3
Angel
Roman
She was a gorgeous angel, lying all hurt and confused in my bed. Her body was sculpted by the gods, her light gray eyes screamed innocence and loyalty, and her chestnut-colored hair cascaded down her back and shoulders like a waterfall.
Oh lord, her body was hardly covered by the dirty silk; her skin looked so soft and delicious. What was underneath her barely there nightie was almost making me salivate.
What the fuck, I didn't even know her name! I thought that perhaps I could just kick her out, but no, my tongue didn't cooperate, and I told her to rest instead.
Fuck me. I needed to get her out asap.
I left her there and headed to meet my men. Someone was getting a bullet between the eyes today; that was a fucking certainty.
Anger brewed inside me like a vicious storm. Yesterday was a colossal fuck-up. It was supposed to be quiet, fast, and clean. Instead, we were left with one huge problem—a breathing and living witness.
"Well?" I looked down at the four of them, disgusted at the sight. They all knew they fucked up. Sergei and Denis sat in front of my desk on armchairs, waiting to see what would happen to the four idiots. "Which one of you cockroaches is going to explain what the fuck happened last night?"
They kept their eyes down, but one of them piped up. The same one who always defended everyone and tried to smooth it over. "The house was empty except for him for the entire last year. It was only him living in the first-floor apartment. I swear."
Pale and uncertain, I could smell his panic. Probably scared that he wouldn’t come home to his wife tonight. Good. Fear was an excellent motivator.
"Who was responsible for tracking him?" I tried not to sound too murderous right away. Like sheep, they all remained silent.
My patience was wearing thin. I had an innocent young woman at home who was a prime witness and victim of a job that wasn't supposed to attract any attention.
"Who?! Who was tracking him?!" Without realizing it, I pressed the trigger. The bullet flew through my desk, the sound reverberating in the small space, and one leech momentarily caught my gaze. Him. I waited for him to find his balls and admit it.
"No one was there but him, Boss. I last checked on Thursday,” he almost whispered.
"Thursday was five days ago; yesterday was Tuesday! How the fuck did a whole-ass person end up living upstairs? Maybe she did what any normal person would do?! Moved in on the weekend? Jesus fuck! You didn't fucking check before we blazed it up?!"
It was cathartic to fucking lose it on him. My booming voice made them all flinch, and I fucking enjoyed it. I was usually calm and collected, but this time…something really irked me.
The image of the young woman in my bed, all bloodied and broken, was like nails on a chalkboard. Someone was about to fucking pay.
Not thinking any further, I took large strides toward the bastard and shot right through his forehead, catching the look in his eyes, filled with regret. He toppled over like a bag of shit, just like what he always was in life.
"That's it. Meeting’s over. Throw him out." I truly felt better after blowing his brains out. That went great.
"What are you going to do with her now?" Denis finally spoke when the rest left, dragging the filth out. Like Sergei, Denis was my right-hand man. We’d all grown up together until Sergei went back home to serve in the army, where he studied to become a field doctor.
I was grateful to him for tending to our stab wounds and bullet grazes throughout the years.
But about the girl…I genuinely had no idea what to do with her. I didn't know her name, how she ended up in that wretched house, or where to even send her now. She had no home. She’d lost everything in the fire.
"I don't know. I'll kick her out when I get back." I answered with the first thing that came to my mind as I shuffled a few files on my desk.
"Just on the street? That's risky as fuck. If she remembers anything, you have to get rid of her." Denis gave me stupid unsolicited advice.
"You're such a fucking moron, D." Sergei shook his head. "Rape her senseless and then kick her out. She won't dare to ever come back after that, and her life will be spared. She's hot; you'll have a good time." He spoke so simply about it that I choked on my own saliva from his words.
Vile disgust and anger accosted all my senses. I didn't fucking do that. How fucking dare he talk about her like that?!
"Shut the fuck up." I glared at him. "I will fucking decide.
If I ever hear you fucking propose something like that again, I'll cement you at one of our next projects.
Fucking test me." My rage was threatening to turn physical.
His proposition was so repulsive and inhumane that I was ready to fucking kill him.
“What the actual fuck are you talking about?!” I seethed, but he remained silent.
Instead of giving me any coherent answer, Sergei rose from his chair and walked out the door, leaving me with a confused Denis.
"You know Sergei is rough, man, but ease up. Don't put some stranger above your own brothers.” He spoke sternly, giving me a lecture I didn’t need. Was I? Putting a random stranger above my own men?
Sergei had been through a lot. He had absolutely no mercy, no pity, just raw rage in him all the time.
His parents divorced as soon as he arrived here, and his mom was barely making ends meet to feed him, while his dad went back home.
We all had similar fates. He struggled with everything, but in middle school he already had the connections and the dealers, and we began selling pot together. Our first step outside the law.
Surprisingly, he didn't get expelled once, charming his way through middle and high school. But once he left to go back to the Russian army, that’s where he saw and did some shit. I heard rumors of his conduct back home, but I had always refused to believe them. Until now.
Although, I always thought he was a bit of a psychopath after he returned. He lived a more or less normal life, but on the inside, he was rotten to the core.
Sergei had a wife and fucking kids! Kids whom he took to soccer practice and weekend birthday parties, and they had no idea their daddy was a cold-blooded murderer.
And now, after his calm words, maybe a fucking rapist too?
! I never clarified the last part, and I blindly lied to myself and denied that he was capable of committing that act.
Sergei didn't forget, and he didn't forgive. He held grudges from way back when, and sometimes, when he felt like life was dying inside him, he brought himself back by taking out those who pissed him off. Like a fucking serial killer.
Our friendship had become complicated in the last few years. We had grown too far apart to mend it; we had turned into different people, nothing like the boys we were at the beginning of our friendship. And neither him nor I wanted to act on breaking our fucked-up bond.
Denis was a soft puppy. Life of the party, he just liked girls, drugs, and money. A perfect antidote to Sergei. And me? Well, I guess I was somewhere in between. That balance helped me stay at the top.
I did my best to silence the jingle of keys at the front door, but the smell of brewed coffee in the foyer told me the girl was awake. I’d left her some of my clothes and instructions if she wanted to eat or drink something, and it seemed that she’d just woken up.
Silently, I made my way to the kitchen in slow strides, where I saw her leaning against the kitchen counter, her long hair splayed all over my black t-shirt, a coffee cup at her lips.
"Jesus!” She jumped when she caught sight of me. “You should really let people know that you're here!" She accused me and then licked hot coffee off her wrist while I watched her tongue slowly make its way on her skin.
Damn it. She looked good wearing my shit. My t-shirt drowned her completely, and my gaze remained stuck on her toned and bloody legs.
"I made coffee. As per your instructions. Thank you. For leaving instructions." Timidly, she paused every few words.
I just stood there and watched her feel uncomfortable in my kitchen.
"You're welcome. How are your legs?" I asked and looked away. What the fuck was wrong with me today? I didn't have the confidence to hold a stranger's gaze?
"Well...it took me a very long time to hobble over here, so it's all feeling pretty raw. Thanks for helping me." She started confident but then finished off as if embarrassed again. A slight blush overtook her cheeks, and she looked down at her cup.
"You're welcome. You can stay here until you feel better." Alright. Clearly, I went fucking insane overnight or something. What the actual fuck was I telling her?
"Oh, um, I appreciate it, but I—I can't impose. I’ll leave tonight, but...I do need some sort of pants or shorts."
And then it dawned on me again; she had nowhere to go.
I took a few steps toward the counter and grabbed a seat at the kitchen island, noticing that she took a step back to be further away from me, her eyes studying my actions.
That made sense. She looked like an angel, and I looked like I just climbed out of hell.
"You have family here?" Alarmed by my question, she stared at me, not moving a muscle. "That place yesterday, was that your apartment?" She confirmed it with a nod, still glued to one spot on the floor. "Mm. Well, it burned down, so where are you going to go?"
She bit her plump bottom lip at my question, and her face immediately blazed up in worry. Guilt lightly knocked on my conscience just from the look on her face.
"It all—it all burned down? Everything?!"
"Yes. The whole building. Where are you going to go?" I asked again, more forcefully this time. Lost for words, she clutched the cup, her knuckles turning white.
"I—I'll stay at a friend's house then, I guess. I lost…I lost everything?!” she asked me in disbelief again. Fuck, her big doe eyes looked up at me with such innocence and trust. She didn't know that I was fully responsible for her circumstances.
"Yes. Everything. I'm sorry." I didn't know what to say, to be honest. I'm sorry we all fucked up, and I almost killed you and also burned down your entire life?
Large tears pooled in her eyes, but she tried to hide her moment of weakness and placed her palm on her forehead.
Oh God, I didn't do well with crying women. I hoped she would pull it together. After a minute of silence, she still stood there, trying to breathe through the stress.
"Like I said. Stay here for as long as you need to and the—"
"No, no, I can't do that. I'm going to leave now; I just don't…I just don't have anything to wear,” she interrupted me weakly, and this time descended into real tears.
Oh, for fuck's sake.