Chapter 38 Claire #2
“No. It will never be weird to tell you that I love you,” he replied, taking my hand and walking with me.
I didn’t say anything else as we headed toward the elevator. Once we were in the car and descending, he sighed and watched me closely.
“I admire how well you are adapting.”
I nodded. “I can learn and change and grow.”
“I know. And that’s why I think it might help for you to see, to witness without a doubt that I will always keep my word to you and make sure you are safe.”
I smiled, hugging him. “I already know that.” As the elevator car stopped and we bounced a little, I exhaled and looked up at him. “But maybe you’ve got a point.”
“Hmm.”
“Or maybe Anya has a point,” I said as he led me out into a hallway. It looked like a utility corridor, made of cinderblock and with simple, bland lighting marking the route.
“I won’t have to wonder if he’s still out there.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he agreed.
“And I won’t worry about if he’ll ever come back.”
He nodded at me as we reached a windowless door.
I tugged on his hand before he opened it, stopping him. “But maybe you could let me leave the room before you actually, you know. Do it.”
He kissed my forehead and nodded.
We entered, and I immediately held my breath. I had been expecting a bloodbath. His face smashed in and leaking blood. His mouth missing teeth. Open cuts and sickening angles of broken bones.
Instead, I saw something much worse.
He was fine, unharmed and only looking slightly disheveled.
Seated on a chair with his arms bound, he looked almost… normal. But that was the illusion I had to move past. Nothing that used to be normal actually was. Cops and doctors weren’t the heroes I needed. This Mafia boss was.
It was the sinister stare of loathing and pure hatred that Jack directed at me that chilled me to my bones. As I stepped in, holding Mikhail’s hand, he sneered and laughed maniacally.
“You pathetic fucking whore.”
I fisted my free hand at his insult.
The fear his hellish smirk gave me left. In its place were anger and fury.
Andre shook his head and smacked him hard. His head whipped to the right, but he didn’t lose that smug expression.
“You are. That’s all she is, a fucking whore, spreading her legs for the wrong men.”
“He is not the wrong man for me,” I stated, proud to hold Mikhail’s hand and know he’d never let me down. Not like Jack had. Not like others had.
“They are. Fuck, can’t you open your eyes and see?” he shouted. “You’re ruining your fucking life siding with these assholes, Claire. You are making the biggest fucking mistake of your pathetic life to even think that any of these Orlov bastards give a shit about you.”
When Andre lifted his hand to hit him again, I shook my head.
I wasn’t staying for long. But now that I’d come, I wanted to say my piece and go. It’d be nice if he heard it over the ringing in his ears that Andre’s hard hits would cause.
“You’re ruining your goddamn life!” Jack strained to break out of his ties, as if seeing me down here, calm and collected and free, was enough to push him over the edge.
Seeing me aligning with Mikhail was his clearest example of how he’d lost.
He was captured and about to die.
“At least I have a life to live,” I taunted coolly.
“Fuck you, you stupid cunt. They’re just using you. He’ll ditch you! He doesn’t give a fuck about you. I tried to warn you. I told you, dammit. I told you that you didn’t want anything to do with these monsters.”
“These monsters?” I asked with a harsh bark of a laugh. “What about the monsters you teamed up with?”
“Shut the fuck up.” He lowered his head and gritted his teeth, as if he could turn into the Hulk and snap out of these ties.
“No. I don’t think I will.” Hugging myself since Mikhail reached for his gun, his glare flinty as he stood next to me as the support I wanted, I stared down the man who’d almost gotten me raped and killed.
“Who were you working with when you snatched me off the street?” I asked, realizing I didn’t have to only be a doctor for Mikhail. I could do my part in getting this idiot to talk, too.
“I’m not telling you shit,” he yelled.
I almost wished he would. I’d much rather Mikhail kill the ones responsible, not just any old person.
“What were you doing, working for the Giovannis?” I asked, determined to get an answer for these hardworking men who only ever wanted to save me.
Jack shook his head.
“What were you doing for the Popovs?” I asked next, growing irritated with his lack of answers.
“Fuck you, Claire. Don’t act like you really want to help them. It will only ruin your life.”
“My life,” I said as I stepped back, “is only just beginning as far as I’m concerned.”
I wasn’t an expert at interrogations. That wasn’t my strength. But I’d seen enough. It was too soon to determine whether seeing Jack like this would really give me any sense of closure, but I knew my limit. I pushed myself as far as I could.
Meeting Mikhail’s gaze, I nodded once.
He dipped his chin at me in acknowledgment, reaching out for my hand and squeezing it once.
“I’ll see you upstairs,” I whispered to him, leaving him to do his work and to make good on his promise to always keep me safe.
A guard escorted me out of the room, but I declined his company in the elevator on the way back up.
I approached the closed panels of doors, waiting for them to slide open.
My heart raced a bit at the adrenaline rush of seeing my enemy, but when the first gunshot went off behind me in that room, I barely flinched.
Closing my eyes and steadying my breath, I waited for the distance that would keep me sane.
Nothing is ever as black and white as it seems.
I knew that now. I could count on that truth.
As the elevator arrived and the doors slid apart, I exhaled one last deep breath and opened my eyes.
I wouldn’t spend too much energy dwelling on what was happening down here. In the elevator and rising up, I lifted my face and calmed myself with the reminder that I’d told the truth.
My life really did seem to be starting now, and it was all because of that strong-willed killer I’d left in the basement.