Chapter 15 Jess
JESS
“I like Nadir. Can we stay forever?” Charlie asks two days later when I pick the kids up from kindergarten.
“Um.” I pause, zipping Charlie’s jacket up only halfway. “No, buddy. We can’t stay forever. I told you this apartment was temporary, remember? While our place gets sorted out.”
Our place isn’t getting renovated, but I should probably check on the apartment and make sure things are running as smoothly as they can for an old unit with barely working appliances. You never know when something could go wrong.
Iris pouts her bottom lip. “I like it there, and I like Nadir.”
Of course Iris starts warming to the guy when he’s pissing me off the most.
I inwardly roll my eyes and finish zipping Charlie’s jacket.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. Make sure you thank Mrs. Fawn.” I wave their teacher goodbye through the window, and a small smile creeps onto my face when I see the kids join in. They’re adorable when they want to be.
The smile fades as soon as I notice the car outside waiting to take us back to Nadir’s. I belt the kiddos into their booster seats, courtesy of Nadir, and pop the car door, collapsing into the passenger side.
Nadir always has a car waiting for us. I appreciate the ride, but it always comes served with a side of bitterness from me.
The last time we had a proper interaction was two days ago when he fucked me in his office.
It’s been radio silence since then, a series of us catching each other’s eyes, and going our separate ways.
Nadir has officially maxed out on how much he can work. He’s up in his office most of the time, and he leaves for work before sunrise. He’s avoiding me. Figures. He had his cake and ate it, and now he’s a satisfied man.
Yesterday, I had a mind to pack up and return home, but this is bigger than me and Nadir. I have the kids to worry about. Taro’s still in Boston, and Nadir is apparently still working behind the scenes to eliminate him.
I go through phases of hating Nadir, and others of wishing he would speak to me. We’ve not spoken once about what happened two days ago.
I arrive back at his place and find him relaxing on the couch, legs spread out underneath him.
God, he looks even more handsome than normal, bright light spilling over his face as he watches the sunset.
My chest tightens when I think about how close we were two days ago, limbs entangled, tongues down each other’s throats as he fucked me across his desk.
“I’m already so close to undoing you.”
“Nadir!” Willow says, the first to run over to him.
Iris and Charlie follow, each leaping onto his lap. There’s still space left over, enough for two of me to fit.
“Good day at the office?” Nadir jokes, high-fiving each kid.
“We don’t go to school at an office!” Iris says.
Nadir smiles, and now my chest is even tighter. Great. He smiles at my children like he actually enjoys their company. Like he’s able to find joy outside of ruining other people’s lives.
He’s certainly putting a damper on mine at the moment with all of the avoiding, but he seems to be the highlight of my kids’ lives at the moment.
They high-five every time he strides into a room.
He makes witty comments like the one he just made, which they spend the rest of the evening giggling about.
He smiles at my kids like he means it. There’s no preface, no other motive. Dare I say he looks human?
Shivers break out on my skin when I realize Nadir is watching me.
The smile transitions into something that looks a lot like resentment, and nausea rolls over me, causing me to grab onto the wall.
I stay anchored there until it passes. I’ve lost count of how many times people have looked at me that way.
I bite my lip. Surprise, surprise. The moment I start relying on another person again, I become a burden.
Nadir vanishes into the kitchen. I glance over my shoulder, watching him and Maureen interact. The chandelier light is even more golden than the sun, highlighting every sharp angle on Nadir’s face as he moves through his apartment with the confidence of someone who owns things. And people.
God, if we could switch places, just for a day…
I catch him upstairs after dinner, and of course, he’s wearing nothing but a towel. Water drips from his chest, teasing his ripped body. His muscles are unfairly big. He’s tanned too, but that’s only because of how often he can afford to go away.
“Jess.”
My mouth is open. I didn’t even realize.
I drag my gaze back up to his eyes, since it fell to the towel wrapped around his waist.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” I blurt out.
My brain stops working properly when he’s around. Apparently I just say the first thing that comes to mind.
“I have a lot of work to do, Jess.” His voice is croaky with exhaustion—another reminder that Nadir is more human than he comes across. Even the most powerful must sleep.
“You didn’t have much work to do before we—”
“Please, Jess.” He sighs. “I have an empire to run, and Taro isn’t backing down.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He’s still wanting us to merge.” Nadir clenches his jaw. “He’s still threatening us and killing our extortionists. We’re doing our best to hold the Kozhikov syndicate off, but I’m gonna need you and the kids to stay inside as much as you can to limit who he can attack.”
He has to be kidding. I can’t exist under his roof twenty-four seven. I’m already at his mercy enough as it is.
Anxiety claws at my chest. The walls close in, and I feel that same tightness in my throat from when I was a kid.
The familiar taste of salt on my lips from all the tears.
Being passed from one family to the next.
No way out.
“I just want to live by myself, on my own terms,” I say to the agency between homes. “People only care as far as money’s concerned. What the fuck is the point?”
I stick my hands on my hips, sighing. My attraction to Nadir dims when I realize that my life is a series of swings and roundabouts. I can’t break the cycle. No matter what I do, I always find myself trapped under somebody else.
It’s impossible to get out. There was a time, if it wasn’t for Taro spilling my coffee in the park. But I was drawn to him like a magnet. He was the first person who actually noticed me, who looked at me like the world came second. I couldn’t ignore that.
I still can’t, apparently, when I recount everything that led me here, into Nadir’s home. Nadir looked at me a similar way to Taro six years ago when I was boarding that flight to Miami, like I was the only person who mattered.
He and Taro are similar in many ways, both mafia leaders and cruel in their own ways. The only difference is that I wouldn’t feel the need to leave the state if Nadir resorted to stalking.
“You’re joking. I can’t stay here. I have to work, and the kids need to be at kindergarten. You can’t expect them to sit around here all day. They need a proper education.”
“Necessary trips like that are fine. But I have to make sure you’re all safe.”
Right. Like he actually gives a fuck about our safety. The unloved part of me wants to believe that someone finally cares. But delusion gets you nowhere in life.
“Safe,” I sneer, shoving past him into the door. “Sure.”
I slurp iced coffee the following morning with Savannah after our Pilates class. I now have the funds to afford classes again, and barista-made drinks.
“Nadir is gonna be so pissed,” Savannah snorts as we leave the coffee shop.
“That’s his problem.”
“You should really consider speaking to him,” she says. “At least have a conversation about what happened in the office.”
“Sex isn’t a big deal for people like Nadir.” I twirl the straw in my mouth as we take a seat. “Besides, I feel like I’m already coming off as too much.”
“You’re not too much for the right person.”
“Yeah, well, it’s pointless going there with Nadir who only cares about business.”
Savannah glances over her shoulders before whispering, “You’re a family—you, him and the kids. Has it not crossed your mind to tell him the truth?”
“He’s a crime boss.”
“Who’s also letting you stay at his place rent free.”
“He’s taking precautions.”
Savannah sips on her iced coffee, sitting back in her seat. The sun beats down between the high-rises, and pedestrians shoot past on the sidewalk. This is the first child-free Saturday I’ve had in a while.
“What else do you know about Nadir besides what he does for work?”
I shrug. “Nothing. But there isn’t anything to know.”
“Does he have family?”
“Honestly?” I sneer. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he killed them for cash.”
Savannah continues sipping her coffee, regarding me in her matching activewear set. She’s in pink. I’m in purple.
“I dated a criminal once,” she says out of nowhere.
“Jesus, Savvy.”
“They might look perfect on the outside, but it’s all a facade.” She sips coffee. “People don’t casually decide to break the law—let alone lead an entire crime gang, for no reason.”
“What are you saying?”
“That Nadir is probably more broken than you think.”
Nadir would never dream of admitting weakness aloud, but maybe Savannah’s right. I see the way he smiles at my kids when he thinks nobody’s watching. He never smiles like that around other adults.
I stare into space, through the flow of pedestrians, and lose my train of thought when I see a car waiting outside in a no-park area.
“What’s wrong?” Savannah asks.
I sit up and hope that my eyes are deceiving me, but I’m sure I just saw a person sitting behind the wheel, facing us.
“Jess?”
I stare hard between the pedestrians, waiting for a gap big enough.
That’s when the driver rolls down the window.
I shriek and spill my coffee.
Dark hair blows in the wind, and a familiar pair of eyes are looking my way. The Cheshire cat smile is really the cherry on top, and causes bile to crawl up my throat.
“No,” I murmur to myself.
Savannah quickly catches on. “Shit. We gotta go.”
But I can’t move. I’m stuck in my seat.
I lock eyes with the man I’m lucky to have avoided for the past six years, and everything comes flooding back. The feeling of no way out. The blackmail. The guilt of never telling Savannah the truth about how her daughter almost knocked over the candle.
I claw my throat, desperate for air that I really don’t deserve to breathe.
“Jess,” Savannah hisses, trying not to make a scene. “Let’s go.”
She has to drag me in the end, and I limp the rest of the way to the subway station, where we go our separate ways.
“Go back to Nadir’s,” Savannah orders me.
“Nadir’s a—”
“Criminal who will know exactly how to handle this.”
Fair point.
I slide into the train and wave goodbye to Savannah as the doors close, with a pit in my stomach that is back to stay. Taro’s seen me. He knows I’m still living in Boston. Which means staying at Nadir’s isn’t precautionary anymore. I’m fucking hiding from my ex.
I exit the subway station and pace the rest of the way back to Nadir’s apartment, tossing glances over my shoulder each second to make sure I’m not being followed. I was in so much of a fright seeing Taro that I didn’t pay any attention to the car he was driving.
I swing open the door and call for an elevator, taking note of my appearance in the mirror as I ascended ninety-two floors. I look like I’ve been fucking Tasered.
I rush out of the elevator and thump into a hard chest that feels a lot like it belongs to—
“Jess.”
I strain my neck looking up at Nadir.
“What are you doing out of the apartment on a Saturday?”
“I was just checking in on the kids at kindergarten. They don’t normally go on the weekend so—”
“Wearing purple Lycra?” Nadir drags his eyes down my outfit, which I’m sure he’d appreciate if he wasn’t so pissed at me leaving. “Where have you been?”
He senses the terror in my eyes and pinches my chin, forcing me to look at him. I’d prefer to have an option. This angle makes him look even more terrifying, as he peers down at me from his nose, just as sharp as everything else.
“Pilates,” I answer. “I had to get out.”
He steps forward, tightening his grip on my chin. His eyes come alive, glinting like two raw cut diamonds in the corridor lightening. “You disobeyed me.”
“I had to get out and do something.”
“Tell me you weren’t seen by anyone?”
He looks down at me pointedly, which suggests he knows I was.
“How do you know?” God, my voice is pathetic. I sound like a mouse that’s about to get eaten by a lion.
Nadir grabs my wrist and pulls me through the corridor until we’re outside his apartment.
Then, he’s signaling to a handwritten note posted on his door.
WATCH OUT. I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.
“You think that’s from—?”
“Taro. Where did you see him?”
“Outside the coffee shop, Newberry Street. He was parked outside watching me.”
A muscle flexes in Nadir’s jaw as he opens the door and throws me in. “Stay here and keep the door locked.”
“Stay here when Taro knows where you’re living? Are you crazy?”
“He doesn’t know where you’re living yet, unless you’d like to reveal that to him as well as your presence.”
I watch him from the other side of the door as he tucks a knife into his suit pocket, turning back around to face me. “Taro’s taken Maureen. You need to stay here and keep the doors locked.”