Chapter 17 Jordan
JORDAN
After dinner, we spend a few hours talking. I learn that besides the younger brother who's here, Matei also has two older brothers, Victor and Lucian. His father is tough, his words, and his mother he basically refuses to talk about, much like Adrian's past.
I tell him how I came from Washington and how I don't talk to my parents much, but I think he knows more about me than I realize.
Eventually, the day catches up with me, and I come up here to the bedroom, where I now find myself staring at the ceiling.
The moonlight bounces off the walls, and it gives me something to zone out on.
My eyes burn from staring, but I can't close them.
I can't stop thinking about the day. Shopping bags piled high, designer labels I couldn't pronounce, Matei's hand on me, on the small of my back, guiding me through stores where I didn't belong.
And the necklace. My God, the necklace. It's resting in its velvet box on the dresser across the room. Beautiful diamonds practically calling my name.
I sigh and rub my face, fingers pressing into my temples. Throughout our entire conversation, and even now, in the back of my mind, looping like a broken record, is his question to me: Do you want to leave here, fluture?
I'd hesitated. Opened my mouth and hesitated, and then the gift and Adrian stumbling in drunk and angry saved me from having to answer.
Why?
My brain splits into two sections, each screaming louder than the other.
Sure, I should want to go. I mean, he didn't exactly invite me over. He just came and demanded it. But still.
Then the other side chimes in.
Uhhh, no. He kidnapped you. Broke down your door, destroyed your laptop, dragged you out of your apartment. That's not romance. That's a crime.
But then the treacherous part of my brain responds: Has it really been that bad?
I shift onto my side and pull the silk sheets higher.
He's been respectful, mostly. Sure, he's had his moments, especially with the whole take off your clothes bit when I first got here, but he hasn't gone back on his word. Most importantly, he hasn't touched me like other rich men think they can.
Instead, he took me shopping and wouldn't let any men near me in the dressing rooms, only women. He bought me things I've only ever worn at modeling shoots where I had to give them back afterward.
And he's… God, he's so hot and oddly funny.
Dangerously so. With the kind of face and body you see in cologne ads.
The tattoos hidden beneath those expensive suits.
The way he moves like a predator who knows exactly when to strike, and the way he looks at me like I'm something precious he'll kill to protect.
Yes, he does have a little psychotic possessiveness tossed in, but I mean, who doesn't?
I almost laugh.
Listen to yourself. You sound crazy. This is insane.
But I don't feel insane. I feel safer than I have in months. Maybe years.
When was the last time I felt protected? When drunk finance bros grabbed my tits at the club and I had to smile through it because Taylor would fire me if I complained? When people like Brian Saunders put their hand on me and tell me I'd never work again if I didn't "show appreciation"?
If Matei had been there, hell, he wouldn't even let men help me at the stores today, so I can only imagine what he'd have done.
The thought should horrify me. Instead, it sends a warm flush through my chest.
I'm conflicted. So deeply conflicted it makes my head hurt.
If I told this story to anyone normal, any therapist or friend or stranger on the street, they'd tell me to run. Call the police. Get the hell out while I still can.
But they don't understand. They haven't lived month to month, scraping by on tips and cam shows.
What it's like to go from semi-broke to good money to broke again, wondering if they'll make rent or end up on the street.
They haven't been twenty-five and sharing a shitty apartment with a roommate who hides drugs in your purse and fucks strangers in the living room.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go. I was supposed to model or act and build a career, make something of myself. Instead, I've got no cash, I'm desperate, and trapped in a city that chews people up and spits them out without blinking.
Just like me and…
Shit. Lindsey.
Is she okay? Did Matei pay my share of the rent like he said he would? Is she wondering where I am, or has she already moved on to the next crisis in her life, the next high, the next Bulgarian with a vial of Siberian Ice?
Guilt twists in my stomach. I can't think like that. She's my friend. I should've asked Matei about it today. Should've demanded to know if my debts are actually paid or if he was just saying that.
But I got distracted. The shopping, the dress, the way he looked at me in that red number like I was the only woman who'd ever existed.
Tomorrow. I'll ask him tomorrow.
I nod to myself as if to reassure myself that I'll do it.
Okay, brain. I don't have to make any decisions right now. I can just see how it all goes.
Day by day. Isn't that some Buddhist saying? One foot in front of the other, don't make any big decisions when you're overwhelmed.
Yeah. Day by day.
If he keeps being nice to me, I'll be nice to him. No different than any other arrangement I've made to survive. I mean, most people in life operate that way. It's not weird.
Who knows what'll happen.
I force my eyes closed and try to focus on things that distract me.
Like the mattress being soft or my pillow being firm, but I find my mind drifting to Matei's gaze and the way he smells and now how it's apparently calming me down.
So much so that my breathing slows, and the tension starts to ease.
Maybe I can just exist here for a while. Figure things out. It's not like I have anywhere better to be.
Sleep pulls at the edges of my consciousness finally, and I let it take me.
I shift and open my eyes.
I don't see the beautiful guest room I fell asleep in. I see my bedroom from my apartment. The same peeling paint, the same water stain on the ceiling shaped like a palm tree.
I sit up and hear Lindsey's voice from somewhere down the hall, but her words are muffled like she's underwater.
I blink.
Now I'm at Omnia. Bass pounds through the floor, vibrating up through my heels. The VIP section glows red and gold, bottles of expensive liquor lined up like dominoes. It's New Year's Eve. Men in suits crowd around the tables, laughing too loud, hands everywhere.
One of them holds out a vial. Blue liquid swirls inside, luminescent and beautiful. It's the first time I've seen it.
"Take it," he says in a thick accent I know to be Bulgarian.
"No." My voice sounds strange. Distant. "I don't do stuff in little vials."
"I will," Lindsey says and downs it.
The man pulls out another and grabs my wrist. "You take it."
I try to pull away, but I can't. He forces the vial to my lips.
"No, I…"
Suddenly there's movement. It's Matei. He appears out of nowhere, Adrian beside him, angry at someone but I can’t tell who.
Matei grabs the man with his left hand and jams a gun down the man's throat with his right hand.
"You like forcing people to do things?"
Gunfire explodes.
BANG.
The back of the man's head explodes.
I scream, but no sound comes out. My legs won't move. I'm frozen.
More gunfire from Adrian now too, and the dead man's friends try to help.
I just stand there, watching bodies drop, blood spraying across white tablecloths and designer handbags.
Then I feel it. A burning sensation low in my stomach.
I look down.
Red liquid grows across my dress, spreading like spilled wine. My hands come away slick and hot.
I'm shot. Oh my God, I'm shot.
The room tilts. My knees buckle. There's so much blood, all over me, soaking through fabric and running down my legs.
Help. I try to scream the word, but nothing comes out. My throat closes. My lungs burn.
Please. I don't want to die. I don't want to…
"Jordan! Jordan!"
I feel a hand on my face and a voice cuts through the nightmare.
My eyes flutter open.
Matei's face hovers above me, the moonlight highlighting his face perfectly.
I'm in bed. This beautiful bed. Not the club.
Hair sticks to my forehead, damp with sweat. I brush it away with trembling fingers and throw the covers off, looking down at my body. At the spot where the bullet tore through me.
Nothing. No blood. No wound. Just the silk nightgown he gave me, dark fabric clinging to my skin.
I press my hand against my stomach anyway, feeling for the hole that isn't there.
"I'm okay. Oh God," I say, more to myself than to him.
I sit up fully, breathing too fast, my heart beating hard.
Matei sits beside me. "Are you okay?"
"Yes." The word comes out shaky. "Just a nightmare."
"Of what?"
I swallow hard. "The shooting. At the club."
His jaw tightens. He looks down, and something flickers across his face that almost looks like regret.
It's odd. In the brief time I've known him, I've never seen him show remorse for anything. He kills men without blinking, takes what he wants without hesitation, sleeps like a baby afterward.
But right now, in the darkness of this bedroom with my terror still hanging in the air between us, he looks almost sorry. Like he's responsible for the nightmares, for the fear that wakes me gasping and searching for wounds that don't exist.
And even more strange, I don't want him to feel bad.
The realization hits me hard.
"It's not your fault," I blurt out, and the words surprise us both.
He looks up, eyes dark and unreadable as always.
"It's not," I repeat, softer this time. "You didn't… I mean. You didn't make me work at that club. You didn't put me in that room."
He doesn't respond. Doesn't tell me I'm right or wrong. He just studies my face.
Then, without warning, he reaches for me.
His arms wrap around me, pulling me against his chest. I stiffen for half a second before my body melts into his. I can't help it. His embrace is warm and solid and safe in a way I didn't know I was craving.
I feel small and fragile, like I could disappear into him entirely and no one would ever find me.
I know I'm basically hiding from my real life right now, but shit, I'm tired, and this feels so good.
I deserve good.
My face presses against his bare chest, and I breathe in, taking in his masculine scent. His cologne, maybe, or just him. I've been trying to ignore it, the way he smells, the way his presence fills every room he enters, but I can't right now.
My pulse slows, and I can feel the panic dissipating.
His hand moves to my hair, fingers threading through the tangled strands. He doesn't say anything. He just strokes my hair and holds me.
My breathing evens out. The trembling in my hands stops. The images of blood and gunfire fade into the background where they belong.
I close my eyes, cheek still pressed against his skin, and let myself be held by him.
For the first time in a long, long time, I feel like I might actually be okay.
He lies down with me and pulls me tighter against him.
I don't move. I stay listening to his heartbeat, and after some time, secure in his arms, I fall back asleep.