Chapter 9
Alexei
She fixates on the gun, pupils dilating with fresh fear. The maid costume rides up her thighs as she remains torn between flight and surrender. A muscle in her jaw twitches. Her breathing quickens.
I should find her terror satisfying.
For some crazy reason I refuse to dissect, I don’t.
I gesture toward the couch. “Sit.”
She lowers herself onto the edge of the cushion, perched like she might bolt at any second. Her fingers curl around the hem of her absurd costume, tugging it down in a futile attempt at modesty. Angry red marks ring her wrists where the zip ties bit into her flesh.
Holstering the gun, I settle into a chair across from her, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees to create false intimacy. False security.
Remorse slices through me. It’s like I’m manipulating a child.
Though given the way her breasts are on display, she left childhood long ago.
She eyes the glass with suspicion, then pops the pills in her mouth and sips the water. Another sip. Then another.
“I need information.” I keep my voice deceptively calm and reassuring. “Let’s start with your name.”
Wariness creeps across her features as she sets the glass down. “Aurora.”
First name only. Smart woman. “Full name?”
She chews the inside of her cheek, as if considering how to answer. “Aurora Madeline Bailey.”
She doesn’t have her purse, so I can’t check her driver’s license to verify whether she’s speaking the truth. “Aurora Madeline Bailey.” A beautiful name. “Tell me about your job at Red Bird’s.”
She blinks several times, eyes darting between my face and the exit. “Like…the drink specials?”
Fuck. This is going to be a long interrogation. “No. The people. Who comes in. Who talks to who. What you overhear.”
Before I get rid of her, I need to extract any and all relevant information from her pretty head.
“I don’t really…I mean, I just serve drinks.” Her fingers fidget in her lap. “I honestly have no idea what you want to know.”
I wave off her excuse, and the sudden movement causes her to flinch. “You notice things. Everyone does. Even without realizing it.”
Her shoulders tense. “I’m not…a spy or anything. I don’t keep track—”
I slam my hands on the coffee table, rattling the plate. “I know you’re not a fucking spy. Just. Start. Talking.”
The words break a dam inside her. Or maybe she’s just scared shitless.
She clears her throat. “Well, on Thursdays, we get a lot of the finance bros from the River North offices. They always order Moscow Mules but get mad if we put them in copper mugs because of Alzheimer’s, and I always think that’s kind of weird because our grandparents probably drank out of copper for decades and—”
What the hell is she talking about?
“Fridays are date nights, so lots of couples. Usually first or second dates from the apps. You can always tell because they check their phones when the other one goes to the bathroom.” She pauses for a quick breath while toying with the hem of the maid outfit.
I stare at her, stunned into speechlessness by the torrent of nonsensical babble.
“This honestly isn’t even the worst night I’ve had at work.
Once, I had to split a single bar tab eighteen ways because this bachelorette party couldn’t figure out who ordered what, and they wanted individual receipts for each person.
But they kept switching seats and drinks, and the bride-to-be threw up in her purse…
her purse…and then tried to rinse it out in our sink, and… ”
She rises and starts to pace, hands flying as she rambles while illustrating each point with dramatic gestures. Fear lingers in the tightness around her eyes, but the stories propel her forward, past the fright.
“And I can totally get you a discount if you come in when I’m working, as long as Nick isn’t looking. He’s my sleazeball boss who forced me to wear this stupid outfit. He’s always trying to get the waitresses to show more skin, which I hate, but the tips are good, and I need the money.”
I find her nervous energy, the way her words tumble over each other, and the little crease between her eyebrows when she’s emphasizing a point oddly compelling. I’m drawn to her mouth as she talks. To how her lips shape each syllable.
“That is, if I still have a job. Despite my complaining, I’m thankful for Red Bird’s.
Working there may not be my first choice, but the pay is better than a lot of my previous gigs.
Also, the customers are nice. And if I get a group of guys together, I can often set it up so they each try to out-tip the other. Those are some of the best nights.”
“Enough!” I clap, the impact of flesh-on-flesh echoing throughout the space. “Are you trying to piss me off? I thought you’d want to survive the night. Instead, it seems you’re asking for me to silence you.”
She jumps like a startled rabbit. “But you said—”
“I know what I said.” I grit my teeth, ignoring how my stomach continues to twist. “What about Benny? Tell me about him.”
She fidgets, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Um, what exactly do you want to know?”
“Everything. Why he was at Red’s tonight. Who you’ve seen him with. What he talks about.”
She nibbles her lower lip, drawing my attention to the small indent her teeth leave in the soft flesh. Fuck if I don’t want to drag her onto my lap and kiss her again.
Aurora resumes pacing, more contained this time.
“Okay. He comes in…well, came in…maybe a couple times a week. He drank Miller Lites with shots of rail whiskey on the side.” She wrinkles her nose.
“He tipped terribly. Like, a few percent if he even tipped at all. One time, he pulled a sweaty quarter out of his pocket that had something sticky all over it. Gum, I think.”
For all that’s holy, I don’t need any of this information. Is she messing with me on purpose?
I grip the table and count to ten. “His contacts. His business. I don’t care about his fucking tips.”
She has the nerve to frown. “I don’t know about his business.
He always walked in like some big shot and went straight to the bar for his first round.
Then he surveyed the place as if it was his domain before he did a lap or two.
He’d talk to random people before heading back to the bar or a table to have a few more drinks.
” She shrugs again. “I don’t know. It always seemed really performative.
But I’m just the person who brought him drinks. ”
I resist the urge to groan in frustration. “You must have seen or heard something. Think.”
Her pacing accelerates. “He…he has two different-sized feet.”
I press my hand to the tattoo near my heart. Not the cross that shows my devotion to the Bratva, but the tulip next to it that honors my late mother. “What?”
“His feet. One’s a size twelve, and one’s a size ten.
I know because he passed out under a table one night and for some reason had taken off his shoes and left them in the bathroom.
Since he was the only barefoot guy in the joint, we knew exactly who they belonged to.
Which seems like a big difference, right? Must get expensive to buy shoes…”
On and on she rambles, her nervous energy propelling her words forward. She paces around my living room, maid costume shifting with each step, light brown hair swinging just past her shoulders. She’s quick-witted, gorgeous, a witness…and quite possibly insane.
I have no clue what to do with her.
I only know what I’d like to do to her.
She perches on the couch again. “Well, Benny turns up everywhere, like a roach. Let’s see, I’ve seen him in the subway, at the grocery store, at a big house up on the hill…oh…and pissing against the wall of the library. And like I said, under a table at Red Bird’s, barefoot and drooling.”
I need her to focus. This isn’t a social call. It’s an interrogation. Information extraction. Life and death. Hers, potentially.
I rise from my chair and round the coffee table. She’s chattering about another man who came in once and caused a scene. I sit beside her on the couch, extending two fingers to catch her chin.
She goes absolutely still, the words dying in her throat. Her eyes fix straight ahead, then slide to meet mine.
They’re even more beautiful up close. Bright green with flecks of gold near the pupil, wide with renewed fear. She trembles beneath my fingertips in the slightest vibration of terror.
Clutching her jaw, I bring her face closer to mine. Her breath hitches.
I lower my mouth to her ear. “Concentrate.” Surrendering to some wild impulse, I nip her earlobe to emphasize my point.
She squeaks and then nods.
I hold the position longer than necessary to absorb her warm skin and savor the softness of her hair against my cheek. She sucks in a sharp breath, sneaks a peek at my mouth, and then glances away.
Releasing her, I retake my seat in the chair across from her. She raises a hand to the spot where my fingers were.
Then her gaze drops to my torso and the gun nestled against my ribs.
“Benny.” I pluck a breadstick from the plate. “Focus on Benny.”
She hesitates before tearing her attention away from the gun. “We call him Benny the Loser.”
“Sounds about right.”
For a split second, her lips quirk upward. The not-quite smile soon morphs into a wary grimace, but I caught the tiny crack in her fear. “I don’t know why he was there. It’s not one of his typical nights.”
“I’m not just interested in tonight. Anytime. Every time.” I run a finger along my gun. “Tell me something, Aurora. Do you value your life?”
The color drains from her face. “There was another guy. He met with Benny a couple times at the bar. I don’t know who he is, just his name. Umm…Harry.”
Is she bluffing? “Description?”
She shifts, cheeks flushing. “He’s, uhh, hot. Maybe early thirties.”
I pop the rest of the breadstick in my mouth, not missing the way she tracks my movement as I chew and swallow.
“Hot isn’t a description.” A sharp, unpleasant sensation curls in my chest at her assessment. Irritation, that’s all. Why the hell would I care if she finds some other guy attractive? “Height. Build. Hair color. Identifying marks.”
She chews the inside of her bottom lip. “Tall. Dark hair. Tanned skin, even in winter. Athletic. A small tattoo on his neck, I think? I never got a good look. No bright colors or anything, so it could be a birthmark.”
Harry. Dark hair. Tanned. Neck tattoo. Early thirties. Not much, but if she’s speaking the truth, it’s still a thread to pull. But for the moment, it’s also another dead end. Another vague lead with no clear connection to MJ. And now I have the added complication of a witness.
In my home.
I check my watch. We’ve been at this for hours. She’s swaying where she sits, exhaustion evident in the droop of her shoulders and the heaviness of her eyelids.
Damn. This isn’t going to work. Not tonight. Not in the half-alive state she’s in.
I gesture toward the lasagna and remaining breadstick. “Eat. Then sleep.”
Her head swivels toward the elevator again. “I’ve never been able to sleep in new places. If you can drive me home, or call me a rideshare, I can sleep in my own bed and get out of your hair.”
I don’t respond, just rise and stride toward the linen closet near the bathroom. I pull out a pillow and blanket. When I return, she’s eaten a single bite of lukewarm lasagna.
She eyes the blanket and pillow like they might attack. “I mean it. I won’t sleep.” Her yawn betrays her as she wraps herself in the blanket. “Your couch is really comfy.” Her eyelids flutter closed. “Maybe I…”
Whatever protest she had dies as exhaustion overtakes her. Within sixty seconds, her head is nestled on her hands, her breathing deep and even.
She fell asleep. Between one word and the next.
I approach the couch. A ray of sunlight slips through a gap in the curtains, painting a stripe of gold across her face.
I was right. She’s even more beautiful in the daylight.
The harsh fluorescents of the bar didn’t do her justice.
In the sun, though, her skin glows, and the freckles across her nose grow more pronounced.
Her lashes cast delicate shadows on her cheeks.
I sink back into my chair, clenching my hands together in my lap.
Why did I take her? Was it really for information? The chances of a cocktail waitress knowing anything useful about MJ’s death were minimal from the start. And while she’s beautiful, I’ve known plenty of beautiful women.
The truth is simpler and more complicated than either of those reasons. I took her because I wanted to. I was drawn to her the minute she claimed me as her boyfriend in the bar. And even more so when our lips met.
For the first time in years, I felt something other than guilt and anger and the endless, numbing nothingness that’s consumed me since MJ’s death.
This woman, with her nervous energy and her rambling stories and the life that seems to emanate from her very being injects warmth into my cold world. Color in a place that’s been gray for too long.
Despite the attraction between us, she fears me. Probably hates me. As she should. I’m the shadow to her light, the danger to her safety. I stole her freedom, threatened her life, and showed her the worst of what humans can do to each other.
What the hell do I do now?
The question circles in my mind as the sun rises. I should be planning my next move. Figuring out how to use the meager information she’s given me. Deciding what to do with her.
Instead, I watch the rise and fall of her chest and the occasional flutter of her eyelids as she dreams. And I wonder if, after all the terrible things I’ve done in my life, there’s any path forward that doesn’t end in more blood, death, and emptiness.
Doubtful. Men like me don’t get redemption arcs. We get bullets or prison cells.
But for now, for just a few minutes, with her sleeping peacefully on my couch, I allow myself to imagine a different life. An impossible one.
Chyort vozmi. I can’t afford to think like this.
She’s a witness. I’m Kozlov Bratva. All I need to do—all I should do—is extract the information she has on Benny. Then, one way or another, I can rid myself of her disarming presence and return to my ordered life.