12. Evelyn
He had to enter a code and flash a key card over a sensor for the doors to his place to open. It was a lot of security. He locked several deadbolts into place behind us. Keyed the code in the pad next to the door.
I was glad to have all that between me and the outside world, but it meant I was locked inside with him.
I should be terrified, but I’d spent all my emotions, and I was left empty.
He carried me into the huge upstairs bathroom, which featured a tub that was big enough for him, me, the very unwelcome Rurik and then some.
He gingerly set me down on the bath bench, then hit a button to fill the tub with hot water.
He tossed his leather jacket aside, then followed a well-worn routine for an elaborate bath ritual.
The warm steam from the tub wafted up, fragranced with something subtle and delightful.
It would have been romantic in other circumstances.
I belatedly noticed my immodesty, my halter top slung open. I didn’t know where my panties were.
I reached up to grab my protection crystal.
It was gone.
That was more than I could take. My face pressed into my palms as I slunk down on the seat. My knees were shaking, and I dug my elbows into them angrily.
While the water rose, I stared at the black tile between my shoes.
“It’s my fault. If I didn’t run out because Jimmy insulted me, I never would’ve seen you under that car. Then you wouldn’t have kept choosing me. Wouldn’t have chosen me at all.”
Everything I said made him flinch, chipping away at his composed facade.
He snapped, his voice quaking with intensity.
“This wasn’t your fault!” His eyes were manic, a sleet storm.
His tall body arched towards me before being pulled back, a tree in the wind.
“It wouldn’t have mattered! I would have chosen you, anyway. ”
What?
My eyes narrowed, not believing him. None of the VIPs picked me. I wasn’t special.
He ran those long, ringed fingers back over his sleek, black hair.
“I shouldn’t have picked you, though.”
I winced, recoiled. My father didn’t want me, and no other man would either. More tears burned behind my eyes, and I wouldn’t let them out.
He hissed in displeasure.
“I meant because it made you a target. I should have paid you off quietly, but coming in on my own would have been suspicious.”
“If I let you pick me up at my house, I wouldn’t have been in the club at all tonight. You would’ve kept me safe if I’d been submissive and known my place.”
Fury painted his features, and I cringed in on myself.
“I was proud of you for standing up to me, Belle,” he said, his voice quieter, sincere. “It was smart. It just…” he trailed off, and he took my hand, looking at my nail. It was broken beyond the nail bed and I winced when he touched it.
“I’ll get you some cream and a bandaid for that once you get cleaned up.” He bent down to take off my heels for me with care.
Exhaustion chased away shame. He knew my body intimately, and I knew it not at all. My physical form didn’t belong to me, and I felt nothing for it as I slipped off my halter top, curled down my skirt.
He didn’t leer at me. Didn’t claim me with his eyes.
I hated that, too.
He took my innocence. Told those men that I was his. That I belonged to him. Why wasn’t he acting like that was true, now that we were in private?
Because I was just a witness, someone to handle.
I’d bathed my grandmother when she was ill, and he averted his gaze with the same careful precision as I once had. A sick laugh coiled up my throat. His modesty was darkly hilarious to me, but the laugh turned to a cough.
“Do you have any tea?”
“Yea. I’ll go get you some. Let me help you into the tub, first.”
Though my legs were growing sturdier, I didn’t trust them. Bashing my head on the edge of the raised tub and bleeding out would be too tragic to bear.
A dark comedy, with the right soundtrack.
Gallows humour.
I leaned on him as he wrapped his arm around my waist, careful not to pull my hair. My skin turned to goosebumps, my breathing catching in my throat.
The water was hot on my first foot, turning it red, and he waited for me to get used to it.
I sank beneath the surface, blonde hair fanned out around my head like seaweed, hiding everything beneath my chin. There was blood and fluid between my legs and there was a stinging sensation that made me flinch.
He winced, seeming to catch my pain. He went to the cabinet, found a colourful bath bomb and dropped it in. It smelled like berries and turned the water blue, hiding the remnants of my innocence.
“I’ll be right back,” he said in a cautious tone of voice, as if I might shatter from words alone. He turned the doorknob when he shut the door so it wouldn’t make a noise.
If Jimmy knew Laszlo had bath bombs on hand, he’d never live it down.
The memory of that wicked man’s leering face was what did me in. I broke down, and I broke down hard.
Laszlo gave me privacy. I cried, my body heaving in the bath, the water forming waves. When my tears ran dry and I was left with nothing more than hiccups, I noticed the screen off the side of the tub.
A security feed of the penthouse.
Laszlo was paranoid, but it was a paranoia I understood. The Father had security cameras everywhere around the Mount. Including in spaces most would see as private, like bathrooms and bedrooms.
God could see everything, and so could the Father.
And now, so could I.
Though in none of the rooms did I see a bed. He liked a little privacy there, I supposed.
Laszlo was in the kitchen, preparing the tea.
He looked strung out, tugging at his gorgeous hair.
He grabbed a knife from the drawer, tossing it into the wall.
He glared at it, leaving it there as he went to the front door.
Rurik waited outside, on another monitor and the two men talked, then Rurik handed him a brown paper bag.
Laszlo sent him off, and after a few moments, he gently knocked at the bathroom door, waiting for my okay before coming in. The stressed man I’d watched on the cameras was gone. He was his calm, peaceful self. I softened in his presence, looking at the pretty tray and tea set.
“It’s ginger and turmeric,” he said, pouring me up a cup. “And… you should take this.” He nudged a napkin towards me, with a solitary pill placed upon it. “If you want. It’s the morning-after pill. It’ll keep you from getting pregnant.”
The air crackled as we stared at each other.
I drank some tea.
Took the offered pill.
Swallowed.
It didn’t get stuck in my throat, which surprised me, because it felt constricted. I was relieved that I wouldn’t get pregnant and let a man control me like my mother. It was thoughtful of him, looking after me. My gratitude died on my lips as he spoke.
“You’re staying with me for now. Keeping up the ruse of being my girl.”
The ruse.
That’s what all this was.
A performance, so that those other men wouldn’t hurt me.
My heart ached, but I had no more tears to shed.
“You wanted to get rid of me. Nothing has changed.”
Fire licked his features, rage squashed, and he knelt down at the side of the tub.
“Everything has changed.” There was a softness in his voice, a gentleness I’d never heard from him before. He was stripped free of the auspice of power, of ethereal beauty.
Shadows danced in his eyes, haunting him. My lip trembled; I wouldn’t look away.
“It was just sex, right?”
“It wasn’t just sex. Especially not for you, Belle. I stole something from you.”
“I have no one to blame but myself.”
His hand stretched towards my face. He hesitated, but I wasn’t breakable. I needed to feel him on me, and I pushed into his palm.
“It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. Put the blame on me.” His voice was quiet, quivering with intensity, his silver eyes shiny with unshed tears. He kissed my forehead, tender and loving. I whimpered. His lips pressed against one of my eyelids, then the other, and we shared a shaky breath.
When he released me, I leaned back in the tub, watching him. “What did Mr. Bodrov say to you?”
“He’s a disgusting pig,” he said, spitting the words with animosity.
“Who is Jimmy?”
“Some lowly baklany. Punk. The kind of guy who goes around terrorizing mom and pop shop owners for ‘protection money’. He’s nobody,” Laszlo said, his voice dripping with derision.
“But… for now, he’s someone I have to watch out for.
Until I rise up higher, and I grind men like that beneath my heel. ”
“Were you working for them, the first time we met?”
He exhaled. “It’s better if you don’t ask questions like that.”
The firm boundary was familiar. Females weren’t to ask questions, but rebellion flared inside me. I was never capable of being the obedient girl my mother wanted me to be. I was Eve, a natural sinner.
“You killed that man, Nikolas, didn’t you?”
He didn’t want to tell me, but he didn’t deny it.
“He was the moneyman. You took his job?”
Another silence. Another answer.
“It wasn’t because they told you to. You did it because you need something from them, don’t you?”
The tendons in his jaw were so tight I thought they might snap, and I reached out to trace one. It relaxed under my touch. He didn’t offer me words or explanations, but I knew. Laszlo wasn’t like them, wasn’t one of them.
His brow was knit, tension lining his expression. I committed this pained face to my memory and wondered if I’d be brave enough to draw him like this one day. If I could capture our shared anger that made his lower lip curl and his nostrils flare.
He pulled away from me, standing up to full height, his gaze still elusive. He cleared his throat. “What’s your favourite movie?”
I blinked, confused. No one had ever asked me my favourite… anything. My tastes never came into play; I’d never thought about it before.
“When I was young, I would watch musicals with my grandmother.”
He smiled. At least, I thought he did, but then his expression was stoic again.
“I like musicals too.”
He stared at the black tile under his shoes, his expression haunted. He looked like a little boy suddenly, as lost and confused as I was. “Did you want me to help wash you?” he offered.
I wanted him to stay, but my shame demanded privacy. Some time alone to make sense of all these contradictory feelings that were tumbling around inside me.
“It’s okay. I just want to wash up.”
He nodded, opening the door and holding the edge as he hesitated.
“You’re staying with me. I’ll prepare my bedroom for you.”
His bedroom? It was late. Almost dawn.
It wasn’t like I had much choice. “Okay. I’ll stay.”
“There’s a robe and a towel. Let me know if you need anything else. It’ll be okay, angel. I’ll make it okay. I promise.”
He wanted to say more but couldn’t find the words. When he left, I grabbed the bar of soap. My hand trembled, but I gingerly washed my body. Pain lived between my legs, but I was gentle with myself.
My first time.
It was frightening how close it was to what I expected, back with the Children of Aer. A spectacle, as a man took me and claimed me as his own.