39. Elanee
39
ELANEE
I can hear my rattling breath through my ears as I walk toward the bar Dmitri instructed me to walk to. I can’t see the person in the hoodie anymore, but I also can’t shake the feeling of being watched. I’m still on the phone with him. He hasn’t let me hang up since I called. I’m walking with my phone in my pocket and one wireless headphone in my ear to speak with him.
“I’m almost there, sweetheart,” Dmitri says.
“It’s too risky, isn’t it?”
And yet my pace kicked up the moment he said he’d come for me personally.
It’s too greedy. It risks what we’re planning, and yet part of me also thinks that the only thing it will damn is me.
“Are you close?” he asks. A pause. “I can see you’re only four streets up.” My eyebrows knit together, but I’m not surprised he probably has a tracker on my necklace as well. I fiddle with it, thinking only of him.
I hate this, every part of living in paranoia. Will it be this time? And every time, I think I’m getting closer to death, which ignites the spark in me that still wants to live.
I stop dead in my tracks when I round the corner, and Slater’s pink-haired woman, Candy, is blocking my path with a wild storm in her gaze. Past her and across the road, I can see the bar Dmitri told me to meet him at.
“You’ve been summoned,” she says. Those words run a chill down me. But it feels off. I’m incredulous because why was she of all people fetching me? As scared as I should be by those words, it doesn’t match up to the person who is calling for me. Someone like Lyle would’ve come and collected me himself, right? If Slater was gone, wouldn’t he be next to take over?
“Elanee, who’s that?” Dmitri’s voice is tight on the other end of my earpiece. “Keep walking.”
It’s not so easy to disobey if it’s an order.
“And why are you telling me this?” I ask her.
Her upper lip curls and she looks feral. Black bags ring her eyes, and a rash crosses over her cheeks. I imagine she might’ve been pretty once. But too many years of abuse have taken away any sparkle of life and health from her.
“You were always a bit of a smart bitch, weren’t you? Didn’t know your place because you thought you were something special, huh?”
“There’s nothing special about being a prisoner,” I bite back. I can hear Dmitri barking instructions in the background.
“I’m going to give you one chance.” She scratches her arm. “You’re going to step into this dark little alleyway here, or I’m going to shoot every person I see on this street right now.”
I swallow as it finally dawns on me now. “Have you been the one following me?”
“Don’t you dare go into that alleyway! I’m almost there,” Dmitri says, and his voice is ominously clipped. He starts abusing the driver to get through the traffic.
“I said get in the fucking alleyway, slut!” she yells. An elderly man is aghast but tries to hurry along past her. “Or that old prick will be the first and then the next and the next until I shoot you.”
You’re already going to shoot me, I think inwardly.
“Don’t worry about your little follower either; I had two of my men handle him. It’s surprising how invested men are as soon as you put out.”
I blanche. Dmitri had told me someone was always with me. But the idea of being the reason he’s hurt constricts my steady breathing. Ever since coming here, I’ve done nothing but hurt people.
“Don’t you dare step into that fucking alleyway,” Dmitri hisses through the earpiece, and he sounds almost like a distant memory.
If she really wanted to shoot me, she most likely would’ve done it by now. Which means either she doesn’t have a gun or she wants to take her time. Surely, she doesn’t think she’ll get away with this. But then again, that deranged gleam in her eye says otherwise.
A couple appears as they round the corner with their young child, and I curse. The father is carrying the child, flopped tiredly over his shoulder, passed out cold. Had I put a value on my life against theirs, a young family, mine wouldn’t even come close. My gaze goes back to the bar. I was so close to meeting Dmitri yet so far.
I step into the small alleyway, and the moment, I do she pulls out a knife and lunges for me. She’s like a wild cat with no restraint. She swings the knife at me, but I use my bag to block it. I lose my balance, inwardly cursing.
“You took Slater from me, you stupid bitch!” she screams. I try to think rationally about some of the moves Layla taught me but only have time to act on instinct.
Her knife barely misses my face. My heart is thrumming in my chest as I uppercut her. She stumbles back. But whatever drugs she’s on keeps her upright. She looks at me again with crazed eyes and blood pouring down her nose.
“Always thought you were pretty, huh? Pretty face. Pretty hair. Thought you’d steal him away?”
“I felt sorry for you once,” I say spitefully. Never again. I realize then my earpiece is missing.
“Pity for me?” She laughs and lunges again. I fight for dear life as I try to avoid the tip of her knife. She finally gets the upper hand, using her height against me, and slams me against the dumpster with the knife to my throat. “You felt sorry for me ? Why, when you’re the trapped one? Nothing but a pretty little face to be laughed at.”
She playfully guides the knife around my face. “With that perfect hair.” I hear the knife carve through it as I try to wrestle out of her grip. A chunk falls to the wayside and then the other side. “Or these perfect lips.”
“Get the fuck off me,” I seethe as I try to push her away again. This crazy bitch is actually going to be the end of me. After all the shit I’d been through, I wasn’t letting this lunatic be the one to take me out.
She laughs, and it’s wild and deranged. “The Lion will come for you.”
My teeth are grinding. Adrenaline pumps through me. I didn’t need to hear that threat from a bitch like this of all people. Focus. I think back to my training with Layla.
She goes to cut another chunk of my hair, but I lean away from the knife as much as possible and push my hand between us, then her hand away with as much force as I can muster. I bring my knee up hard and twist out as I grab her thumb and rotate her arm to extract the knife.
I pull it free and hold it in the air to defend myself. She spins and smiles, mascara and blood running down her face. Her crazed expression turns to utter fear when she looks over my shoulder. As I do the same, the knife is plucked out of my hand. Dmitri is a wild, raging storm as he approaches her.
“Dmitri, wait!” I yell, but he towers over her, and I choke in horror, as without a second thought, he slits her throat. I’m shocked and mortified. My hand goes to my mouth as I watch her eyes grow wide, and she gasps for air. I watch over his broad shoulders as the life fades from her. No. No. No. She slumps against the bin. Blood pooling. I can’t breathe. I can’t stop staring as I watch the life dim from her eyes.
“Dmitri!” A man I haven’t seen before gasps at the end of the alleyway. “I’m sorry I had two men to deal with.”
“Clean this,” he grits and turns to face me. I’m shocked with pumping adrenaline that doesn’t have anywhere to escape. Dmitri’s blue eyes are the darkest shade I’ve ever seen. I don’t even see the Dmitri I know in there. It’s the same version I saw at Lev, the man in the mask. The Grim Reaper. The killer. “I told you not to follow her.” He has a lethal edge.
Fear bubbles to the surface, but I push it down. “You didn’t have to kill her.” Wasn’t she a victim like the other women I’d seen there? Didn’t they need saving as well?
A cruel laugh ruptures from him, and I realize right now I’m not standing in front of Dmitri at all, but the cool calculating gaze of a predator. “She put a fucking knife to your throat. I don’t give a fuck who it is; I’ll eliminate any threat against you. Whether you hate me for it or not.”
I feel small against him as I back into the wall behind me. I hadn’t even realized I’d been stepping away from him this whole time. There has only been one other person who’s made me step back in fear. It’s an ominous nudge that dictates distance is necessary for survival. “Dmitri, you’re scaring me.”
“I don’t care,” he says, and he doesn’t sound like himself.
“Dmitri, right now, you’re just like your father.” The words slip from my mouth before I even realize it. I blink, realizing what I’d said, and horror-filled tension crackles between us.
I go to apologize, but instead, a cruel smile spreads across his face. His expression is anything but humorous.
“Get in the car, Elanee,” he says with a tight expression.
I look back at Candy’s body crumpled on the floor. Archer steps into the alleyway making sure to stay clear of Dmitri. So he’ll begin the ‘clean up’ while I’m left to deal with the monster.
“This isn’t you,” I say, my breath coming in sharp bursts.
“This might not be the version you like of me. But I’ll become whatever I have to if it keeps you safe.”
My heart twists, realizing how much both of us were losing ourselves to The Lion’s games. I might be a victim in my own right. But Dmitri had been forged from his father even from a distance all these years, even if he didn’t like to admit or realize it.
Dmitri was cut from the same unruly cloth.