Chapter 11 – Poppy
Asqueal followed by the ripping of plastic sounded through the too thin walls. I jolted awake, heart pounding wildly. The rough laugh from the mob boss didn’t cut off the soft jabbering of my son.
I sank back into the thin, ancient mattress. My fingers reached for my throat, rubbing along the outside. There was a swollen lump. The lymph node was tender. Inside, it was scratchy and raw.
Crap.
That was what came of having the last three nights of interrupted sleep only to wake at an ungodly early hour.
Ivan slept most of the day and left late in the evening, going to only the Holy Mother knew where.
Alone in this rundown house, every noise outside was magnified.
It didn’t matter that the Bulgarians ran this turf.
A few streets over, there’d been the distinct sound of gunfire.
It rang out every night. Sometimes more than once.
I wouldn’t sleep a wink for hours after that.
Gazing at the long crack running through the ceiling, I groaned. Then choked and coughed from the phlegm beginning to gather back there.
This was the last place I wanted to raise my son.
It wasn’t the poverty that bothered me. We were used to simple living.
I’d become a “crunchy” mom, taking to homesteading what we needed.
It might be quaint, but it was perfect. And clean.
Not like this sty. No, this man—this beast!
—was a pig. His men were worse. And they lived in a rough neighborhood. The streets beyond weren’t any better.
This was no place to raise a child.
The mob—I shuddered.
I fled this life once. I can do it again.
My plans were solid. Pushing myself up, I went for my clothes. Garh! My nose was running like a faucet now that I was upright. I sniffed, and my throat protested. Just great. Exactly what I needed.
I sighed.
A cold wasn’t going to stand in the way of our escape. Tonight, after Ivan left. I just had to hang on until tonight.
“Maybe take a nap,” I muttered, emerging from the false safety of the bedroom Brady and I shared.
“Mama, mama! Look. Look!” The little rush of energy bolted through the archway that separated the kitchen and living room beyond. Brady flew at me, all forty pounds of muscle and venom. “A whole set of sea animals for the bath!”
I covered my grimace by crouching to his level. I’d given him a quick shower, not wanting him in the stained tub. The mold was dying thanks to the bleach, but it still was gross.
“Let me see.” My voice was hoarse.
Brady didn’t notice. He took off running with a “Wait right there,” and disappeared into the living room. Ivan shadowed him as my son rushed back to me.
“Ivan got that new book you were telling Cousin Penny about,” Brady showed me excitedly.
I hissed.
“Oh, sorry!” Brady clapped his hand over his mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to say cousin in Chicago.” His eyes rounded wide. Liquid swam around the dark lashes, ready to fall.
Ivan already knew. The slip wasn’t the end of the world. But for safety reasons, I wanted him to keep practicing.
“It doesn’t matter,” I rushed to assure him, fighting back the urge to cough. “It’s a small secret. You can keep it better next time.”
“I can. I really, really can!” he insisted.
“Why don’t you want him to call her cousin?” Ivan wore a lazy grin as he leaned under the arch.
I ignored him. We hadn’t spoken much since the argument about groceries. I didn’t want Brady to see us fight, which could only be accomplished by keeping my mouth shut.
“This book is perfect,” I told my son.
“I know.” He bobbed his head enthusiastically. “When Ivan asked what you like to do, I thought really hard. But that’s easy! You read and you post online about the books.”
I hadn’t checked my phone since coming here. I had a few scheduled posts, but there was a launch party I was supposed to be part of. The author would understand if I reached out and admitted that I’d been kidnapped in a real-life scenario.
Which, of course, wasn’t something I would say.
I ruffled Brady’s hair and told him to go play in the living room. I tried not to think about how badly the carpet needed shampooing. Or better yet, replacing. Going to the tap, I filled a mug with sink water. Hot saltwater gargle was the next best thing I could do for my poor throat.
“You like to read?” The question came from right behind me.
I tried to hide my jump of surprise. Unable to, I cleared my throat. “I do.”
“And are these—” he paused “—the kinds of books you read?”
Looking at where he pointed at the small town, secret billionaire romance, I shrugged. “So what?”
Ivan ran a thumb over the pages, making them flutter. “Why do you get…offended? I don’t know what this is about. There is a house with horses. Is it what your house looks like?”
I gave him a cautious look. “Kind of.”
Ivan met my gaze expectantly. “And the book? Why is there a book on houses?”
He didn’t…? He wasn’t aware…what?
“It’s a love story,” I said before thinking better of it.
Ivan started, puzzling down at the book. “A fairytale then.”
“Not a fairytale, it’s contemporary romance.” I frowned.
“Contemporary.” His accent thickened as he sounded out the word. “I know not what this means.”
“Never mind,” I dismissed him, going for the pantry and the table salt. If we were staying, I would have already told Ivan I needed my phone to order Celtic sea salt. But we weren’t, so I hadn’t.
Ivan stepped in front of me. He didn’t touch me, but he didn’t have to. Something crackled between us. A strange sensation that made the little hairs on my arms stand up.
The funny part?
I wasn’t scared. Not truly.
I pushed down the emotions, not wanting to feel the rush of excitement that came with smelling the mint and leather wafting off him like an exotic wind’s howl. If I breathed too deeply, I would be in danger of reaching for the forbidden fruit.
“Don’t do that,” he growled.
Holy Mother, that sound. It was the shiver of bones in the dead of night. A tingle rushed through me, and there was no denying it this time.
Instead, I sniffled. The sound was humiliating.
Ivan frowned. “Are you well?”
“Perfectly fine,” I snapped. “And what am I not supposed to do now?”
His scowl deepened. This grouchy, bossy kingpin was an entirely different side of him. Stupidly, I didn’t know if I preferred the swaggering, smiling mobster or this.
Neither.
I don’t like either.
“Dismiss me,” Ivan answered. “I asked a question. One I wanted very much to know since this is what intrigues you.”
It was my turn to be taken aback. He was mocking me, surely!
But no, there was something pulsing in his dark gaze. That stare that held me in complete focus and studied me like I was caged at the zoo.
“What is contemporary, Poppy?” Ivan pressed. He took a step closer, inviting me to take another sniff of that scent.
Which, given the state of my nose, was a miracle I could smell at all.
“It means real world. No fairytales, not make believe. Just the opportunity for two people who have the odds stacked against them to fall in love.” I could not believe I just explained that to him.
“So, a fairytale,” he repeated, speaking slowly as if I were deaf.
“Fairytales have monsters!” I threw up my hands, catching myself at the last minute so I didn’t spill the mug. “And princesses. And Fae with batwings!”
Ivan looked as though I’d sprouted a second head. “I don’t know what most of that means. But anything that has love in it is a fairytale, Poppy. It doesn’t exist.”
And there, through the language barrier, I saw the real crux of our dilemma.
“Oh, well, explain that to a billion-dollar industry, because many of us believe it does.” I pushed past him and went to the bathroom. I turned on the fan and the shower to cover the noise of my gargling.
As the salt stung the back of my throat, the realization of what just happened hit me.
I choked on some of the liquid.
Bending and coughing into the sink, I replayed the conversation in my head.
What had happened was that we got lost in translation.
Ivan spoke English pretty darn well, but clearly there was something he missed.
So fixated on not letting him tease my favorite pastime, the thing I lived and breathed for apart from my family, I didn’t realize that he’d approached me initially with a gesture.
He asked my son what I liked to do, and the observant boy truthfully told him that I liked to read. Read fiction. Romances.
And that was what Ivan brought me. A peace offering.
“Oh no, you don’t,” I hissed at my reflection.
There was no way in hell I was looking with kindness on the gesture.
Such a crafty, sly fox. Ivan was for all intents and purposes our kidnapper.
He was holding us here against our wills—even if Brady didn’t know it.
One book, one seemingly kind thought, was not going to make me melt, not one small bit, for this man.
The sooner we left, the better.
I only wish I felt better.
Slipping into the night was hard. Forcing myself to hold my child and wander over the cracked alley of the neighbor was harder. Feeling like I had to sneeze was worse.
I paused, clenched my nostrils together, and sneezed without much sound. My ribs felt like they were going to break. I shifted the drowsy Brady to my other hip as a muffled “Bless you” yawned from his mouth.
I reminded him of our game. “Shush, no talking, remember.”
He nodded into the crook of my neck and readjusted his hold.
I didn’t want to think about the fact that I was running for the second time in my life from the criminal underworld. Only this time, there was no cottage in a quaint small town to flee to and a community where my extended family laid down roots to welcome me into the fold.
I refused to think about that. I could worry about finding fake IDs and income when we settled.
Right now, it was all I could do to carry Brady across the poorly lit street and into the next alley, praying there was a car somewhere I could hotwire.