Chapter 16 #2
Nobody in attendance misses the casual nickname I use on the mob’s delegate. Burt is less impressed, frowning at me and waving me over with a cigar in his hand. The crowd—many of them in attendance at Lem’s engagement party—splits in half, leaving me a pathway directly to Burt.
“Ah, the happy couple. Are you sure you’re comfortable showing your faces here? Isn’t a sex tape circulating?” Burt is smiling, thank God. He finds it funny, but we’re not in trouble. Yet.
“Was ‘never have a leaked sex tape’ one of the conditions you gave me?” I wave my hand, a grin on my face to show that I’m teasing. “We’ll be giving you three out of five tonight. And the other two next week.”
“Yeah?” Burt replies, smirking and letting the ashes fall from his cigar without bothering to see if there’ll be anything to catch them.
His driver holds out an ashtray, timed perfectly to keep the mess from hitting the floor near his boss’ feet.
“Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we? For now, go.
Mingle. You wanted to take on Pavel’s role?
It’s all yours. Dealing with Borisov Group and everything that comes along with it was his job.
If he picked the wrong people to do business with, that’s on him. Fix it.”
“Papa despised these people,” Alexei retorts, annoyed, studying his uncle’s face as Burt’s attention shifts to Ash.
He seems surprised that we’d parade him around in public like this.
“And so do we. Tonight’s party is for your reassurance, Uncle.
We’d have much rather had an intimate gathering at home. ”
Burt turns to me with this expression that begs me to take his self-righteous nephew away.
I’m happy to comply.
“Introduce me,” I murmur, and Alexei sighs.
He guides me away from his uncle and through the crowd, making introductions with Ash, Bohnes, and Widow all in tow. He only bothers to make a formal introduction for us as a couple, but nobody in that room misses the way we move as a unit. Like I said, tonight is risky.
So, do I give a shit that the whole world can see me with these guys? Not at all. This is my last chance to claim Ash in public. When I think about it like that, it hurts me. I don’t want to keep him a secret, but if I can just keep him, period, then I’ll be happy. I won’t complain.
No police come to assault us. Everybody is smiling. It’s hell on earth.
“Oh my God, gross.” I snatch a drink off a passing waiter’s tray and Alexei flinches, using a finger to stretch out the collar of his shirt.
He doesn’t appear any happier tonight than he was the night of Lem’s engagement party.
Doesn’t hurt my feelings. I get it. We’re surrounded by hateful sycophants, Family (with a capital F), and outright villains.
“I hate it here. This timeline sucks. Can we open a different door in the multiverse?”
“Shit. Here come those weird twins.” Ash turns away from an approaching pair of girls.
They aren’t identical, by any means. Similar coloring though: brunette hair, brown eyes.
Unremarkable and expensive. Thirsty bitches, eying my man.
My instincts say: kill. “Aspen tried to threaten me into fucking them with him.”
I pause with the flute of champagne halfway to my lips and slant my eyes in his direction. Ash doesn’t notice the way I’m staring at him, but Widow does.
“Is he deliberately obtuse or what?” he wonders, edgy and uncomfortable inside this gilded cage.
Widow is a wild animal, something untamed that needs to stalk the woods and test the boundaries of its freedom at all times.
If he’s water, this place is oil, slick and greasy, a rainbow sheen of filth on top of a puddle.
“He’s innocent.” Bohnes almost gags on the word. It’s cute, seeing that white-clad ghoul recoiling like he’s been zapped by something. The word innocent probably burns his mouth when he says it. The crowd is naturally repelled by his presence, creating a comfortable bubble around us.
Reaching out a hand, I grab Ash by the ear as Alexei intercepts the twins like he’s his personal protector.
“Do not test me tonight, Mr. Force. I am very much on edge.” I tug Ash a little closer and then, just for the thrill of it, I kiss him right on the cheek at the exact moment Jonas Kelly enters the room.
“No.” That’s all Alexei says to the twins, knocking the drink from the hand of one of them and then shuddering violently before he tears off his gloves and chucks them into the trash.
New ones are snapped on with all the frightful pleasure of fresh, black latex.
The girls appear shocked by the treatment, but they also know better than to challenge Alexei at his own party, in front of Uncle Borisov.
“Forgive me. I won’t go far.” Bohnes kisses my cheek this time, stirring the tittering crowd of scumbags. We’re literally surrounded on all sides by a different breed of monster than I’m used to. Same selfish motivations, more resources.
“Don’t leave this fucking room,” I respond quietly, and Bohnes chuckles warmly.
“Yes, mistress.” He slips into the crowd like he’s part of the shadows, an enigmatic little smile on his face, those bright baby blues fixed on Mayor Kelly.
“Some people just aren’t worth speaking to.
It’s important that they understand that.
” Alexei turns an imperious look on the next man that dares to approach us and the guy backs off, beating a hasty retreat.
Marie is terrifying tonight, his eyes shining with a vendetta’s thirst. “Look at them all, so desperate to win our favor, slithering on their bellies with their tongues out. Disgusting. I could peel my skin off and never find relief from the infection their cupidity has struck in me.”
Alexei is fidgeting with his gloves again, so I put my arm around his waist and lean my head against his chest. I keep my champagne flute balanced to the side in my left hand.
It’s plucked away by Widow, thrown back like a shot.
He drops it off and snags another, reminding me in the most pleasant of ways of myself.
“Insatiable, shameless, and violent. A terrible concoction.” Ash agrees with Alexei, but his eyes are feverish and glued to his father as the mayor makes his rounds.
He’s always smiling, that Jonas Kelly. Slick and young (for a politician).
Supports the underdogs. Says what the people want to hear.
Beats his sons until one becomes a slimy cretin and the other a psychotic fuckboy.
“An inhuman morass that we have no choice but to slog through. Keep calm and carry on.”
Those last five words are said…crazily.
“Stop obsessing over him, Ash.” It’s Widow that says this, not me.
Though I was about to. Peripherally, I’m following Bohnes through the crowd as the strange bubble around us grows to an absurd size.
We’re in the crowd, but not a part of it.
Alexei’s continual refusal of potential courtiers is keeping us safe.
Burt is hard-staring though. We need to do something more interesting.
“He isn’t going to touch you with us here. ”
“Maybe not tonight.” Ash’s voice is strained.
He shakes it off and closes his eyes. When he reopens them, his Aspen shell is back in place, falling around him like the shield it’s always been.
Ash used his brother’s persona to move in the world, sure.
He also used it to keep Ash safe, buried down in the dirt beneath all that feigned cold and cruelty. “But we’re going to—”
Ash stops talking, the blood draining from his face. He’s as pale as his twin’s corpse.
Mayor Kelly is making his way over to us with a woman on his arm. She wasn’t with him initially. He must’ve picked her up somewhere in the crowd. I don’t recognize her. Ash does though. That’s why he’s so pale, his hands shaking as he stands there in his all-black suit and battle-hardened eyes.
Ash swallows and pushes all of his emotion to that dark, silent place where it goes, not to die, but to curl into a ball and wait for a safe moment to unfurl its limbs.
My Ash Kelly is like one of those fancy teas that he likes so much, a jasmine pearl that unfurls green leaves when it steeps in hot water.
I move around him, blocking Mayor Kelly off from his son the way Alexei did with those twin girls.
In the corner of the room, I spot Polina Lisitsa with her father, and a bit of the heat in my blood chills.
Ah. Yes. My other chore for the night. Fuck.
Alexei steps around Ash to take his rightful place by my side, curling an arm around my waist and forcing a smile to his own face.
The crowd—mind you, these are our supposed reception guests—has split off into small, gossiping groups, peering at us from narrowed eyes and talking shit in plain sight.
Weeeeell, aren’t they going to be surprised when they see the way this night goes.
“Oh, the future Mr. and Mrs. Borisov,” Jonas says with a brilliant smile, the source of all our problems standing right there in front of us and yet, we can’t kill him or we’re screwed.
I hate games like this. Slitting his throat would be so much easier than politicking.
If we do kill him in public, someone’s going to jail or getting exterminated by the mob, and I don’t like those endings.
“We’re already legally married, despite not having the ceremony. I’d say the current Mr. and Mrs. Borisov.” I grin and wink while I say it, even if I want to puke a little. Forced again to use the Borisov name as a weapon.
“Hmm. Adrian, how’s your Auntie Trish? She hasn’t been into work recently.
” Jonas sips his drink while the woman on his arm keeps her eyes focused politely on the floor.
There’s nothing particularly remarkable about her.
Dark hair in a bun. Expensive cream-colored dress with a conservative neckline. Around the same age as Jonas.
Based on Ash’s reaction, I’m going to take a guess that this is the housekeeper he loves: Yua Ito.
Goddamn it.