Chapter 39 #2
“You’ve stopped dancing, Bogdan.” Her voice still has the singsong cadence, but now the edge isn’t mocking. It’s just chilling as hell. “I think you need some motivation.” She gives first him, then Simon, a cold smile. “I think you both do.”
The dawning looks of horror on their faces tell me they both know what is coming.
“Bryan,” Sophie says without turning around, “bring it in.”
It’s only when I see the brazier of coals and long metal rod that I realize what is coming.
“Now,” Sophie says, turning the rod in her hand, admiring the red-hot bull’s head brand glowing at the end.
“Let’s see. If I give you one brand for each of the girls you’ve shipped over the years, how many marks do you think that will make?
” She turns to the men standing behind her.
“I think we can turn the cameras off now, Bryan,” she says quietly. “I’ve got this from here.”
The screen abruptly goes black, leaving Zin staring at it in silence, her arms still wrapped tightly around herself. Almost hidden from sight, the fingers of one hand curl into her palm.
Her tell.
And suddenly, my humor is gone, along with whatever last shred of conscience has been holding me back.
“Zin,” I say quietly, “there are some things I need to say.”
She hesitates, and for a horrible moment I think she’ll still walk out. Then, slowly, she raises her eyes to mine.
She’s trying desperately to hold on to her mask. I can see it in the rigid tension of her body, her opaque cobalt stare.
And she’s more than halfway out the door, mentally at least.
But I’ve watched her for months now. I can see the quivering uncertainty behind her tension, the haunted shadows I’ve become intensely attuned to. I’m gripped by the longing that’s taunted me to the point of madness lately, to pull her against me and never fucking let her go.
And I know that if I make one wrong move, she’ll bolt faster than a deer in the forest.
“This was never a job to me.” I keep my voice low and calm with an effort. “You were never a job to me, no matter what I said at the start. I knew I wanted you from the moment I saw you in your office, that first night in the Quartier.”
She shifts impatiently. “You already told me that, Luke. Back on the plane.” Her flat response takes me by surprise.
“But wanting me is a much different thing to living this life with me. We wanted each other. We had each other. For a time.” Her eyes slide past mine.
“That’s as good as it gets in my world.”
Her fingers drum against her waist, once, then twice.
She’s starting to fall apart.
I thrust my hands deep into my pockets so I won’t touch her. It takes all my self-control not to speak, to wait her out.
“I want you out of my business, Luke.” Her eyes dart from side to side. Her whole body trembles, poised on the precipice. “I’ll write you a blank fucking check, if that’s what it takes.”
Christ, she’s stubborn. I bite down on a sudden urge to laugh. “Zinaida,” I say gently. “Look at me.”
Slowly her eyes rise to meet mine, dark, wide pupils floating on a sea of glittering sapphire.
“In case I wasn’t clear, back when I tore up my contract the first time,” I say, “there is no amount of money that could ever make me leave you.”
She inhales sharply, but doesn’t speak.
“There’s also no amount of money that could make me stay if I didn’t want to.”
She stares at me, her arms still wrapped tightly about herself.
I stay as still as ever, despite the fucking storm racing through me. “I’m the only person who decides where I do or don’t belong. Not you or your people. Not Mak or Roman. Me, Zinaida.”
She trembles slightly.
“And just in case Avonmouth didn’t make it clear.” There’s a rough edge to my voice that I’m powerless to prevent. “I’m the last fucking person who will ever need saving. By you or anyone else.”
The meter between us feels like a gulf. One I know I can’t force her to cross.
“It’s you who needs to make a decision now, Zinaida.”
Her eyes narrow.
“You can leave.” I glance at the door. “I won’t try to stop you. But tomorrow, I’ll still be running every detail of your security, whether I do it from inside your business or out.”
She watches me, barely breathing.
“I told you once before that being here, doing this work, was my choice. That is still the truth. But it’s not the whole truth.
” I hold her eyes, aware of the blood thudding through my veins, the exhilarating adrenaline surge as I finally say what I’ve been desperate to for so long.
“I’m here because I love you, Zinaida. I think I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you, across a crowded room, as they say.
” I half smile. “And loving you means I’m here to stay, whether you agree to it or not. ”
Her eyes are wide and luminous on mine, and when she speaks her voice is barely a whisper. “Why?”
I cross the final step so I’m standing in front of her, breathing her in, every cell in my body aching for her. “Because there’s nobody else in the fucking world that will ever have your back like I do.”
“You’ll have my back.” She repeats the words like they’re some kind of spell.
“Always.” I cup her chin, my thumb stroking across her lower lip. “That’s what love is, Zin,” I say softly. “At least, that’s what it is to me.”
A shadowy veil, the last of her mask, falls away from her eyes like mist clearing from a windowpane.
She steps forward, into the waiting circle of my arms. “Do you remember the morning after we first met in the Quartier?” For once her eyes don’t slide away from mine, and even beneath the theatrical makeup, I can see the slow color mounting on her face.
“I remember.” I gather her close, inhaling her heady scent. “I barely fucking slept that night.”
“Me either.” She touches my face tentatively. “I went out running before dawn. And then I saw you, out on the river.”
“That really was you?” I stare down at her, remembering. “Watching me?”
She looks at me quizzically. “You saw me?”
“No.” I shake my head. “It was like I . . . felt you.”
Her eyes deepen, her hands sliding up behind my neck.
“I knew I should tell Mak to find someone else.” She sways closer to me, her eyes holding mine.
“And then I saw you rowing. There was something so controlled about you out there, something intense and savage.” Her color builds, but she keeps talking.
“Then your oar caught, and you hunched over it, staring at the water. I called Mak a moment later to confirm I wanted you to take the job.”
“I was thinking of you,” I say slowly. “I couldn’t think of anything else. I knew I shouldn’t take the job.” I smile wryly at her. “And I fucking knew I was going to take it anyway. I lost focus, and my oar caught.”
She nods, her mouth curved in the secret smile I love.
“I’ve thought of that moment a thousand times,” she says.
“Not because of the way you looked when you rowed. It was the way you looked when you stopped. Something in your face that I recognized. Understood, somehow, though I didn’t know why. I’m not sure I knew until right now.”
She touches my face. “It was loneliness, Luke,” she says quietly.
“I just didn’t understand it until you said what love means to you.
” She traces my mouth, the line of my jaw.
“Because that’s what love means to me, too, Luke.
That’s what having someone’s back means to me.
It means never feeling lonely like that again. ”
I stare down at her, suddenly completely lost for words.
“I love you, Luke.” She says it with a shy simplicity that breaks my heart. “You’re the only man in this world I ever want to have my back. Just so long as you know that I have yours, too.” She puts one small hand over my heart. “Here,” she says quietly. “Where it counts.”
I cover her hand with my own. “That’s been yours for a long time, Zin.” Her fingers curl inside mine, and my heart twists with them. “And now it’s yours forever.”