Chapter 29
Scarlett
Breakfast is hot and ready on the table when I wake up, showering real quick before slipping into some sweatpants and an oversized sweater.
I head for the chair at the end of the table, Bohnes on one side and Widow on the other, both of them near finished with their own plates of food.
Alexei is eating instant oatmeal again, peeling back the top himself but deigning to use the boiled water in the kettle that Ash gives him.
I’m a little sore as I ease into my chair. There’s no way I can let Widow get wind of my aching pussy. He’s watching me carefully, like he’s waiting for a sign.
“Well. This gonna be a regular thing? Me, with a kept houseboy?” I tease Ash, forcing myself to relax in the chair as I check the ink on my finger. The plastic wrapping over the top is peeling at one edge, but it looks reasonably free of fuzzies.
“Please allow me to clean that for you,” Alexei says, stirring his oatmeal and staring at my tattoo in disgust. “Letting it fester won’t do much to help the design.”
“Oh, stop that.” I poke him with my bare toes and Alexei works his jaw, running a finger under the neckline of his borrowed t-shirt like he’s reliving last night’s debauchery.
I give him a ruthless smile in return. “I think you and I have different defs of festering, but yes, I’ll allow you to clean it. ”
“You okay over there, Scar?” Widow calls, tapping the side of his plate with his fork. “Not too much sex for you last night?”
I ignore him. Not that Bohnes is any easier to look at. He’s smirking at me, recalling hours upon hours upon fucking hours last night. Nobody has ever done a wedding night more properly. I got like an hour of sleep.
“Did you even close your eyes last night?” I whisper to Bohnes, but he only shakes his head, his attention focused on the screen of his phone. Something’s happening today. It’s today. Fuck.
“Not a wink,” he admits, looking up briefly to smile at me before returning his attention to his incoming messages. “Brief as it was, I did enjoy seeing you sleep like the dead.”
“I feel like I was hunted by a pack of wendigos,” I grumble, and I mean it as a compliment. The bulldozer tank in the corner makes for a cozy decor item, adding something to the ambiance.
I study the food in front of me, surprised to find…
“Is this egg’s benedict?” I ask, lifting up the plate and examining it.
“The hell? I know Wesley’s makes this on Sundays before noon, but how did you get the supplies?
” I set the plate down as Ash approaches with his own food, taking that same spot between me and Widow.
Ash smiles at that, eyes hooded as he looks at me and answers my question like he’s not one of said wendigos. His teeth were just as sharp.
“The ham is cheap lunch meat. I baked scones instead of English muffins. There were eggs. The hollandaise doesn’t take much, even if it’s hard to make.” Ash cuts into his egg, smiling when the yolk runs properly. I cut my own and see that he poached them perfectly.
“Are you, like, into cooking as a hobby or something?” I ask, taking a huge bite when my stomach growls her displeasure. I’m starved.
“I grew up watching our housekeeper, Yua Ito, cooking and cleaning. She used to love me like a mother.” Ash takes a sip of his coffee, a bite of his food. This is just casual conversation to him. “Obviously Aspen tortured her under my name and she became afraid of me, too.”
“She’s gone, right? Like gone-gone?” I’m asking because I’m concerned. To break a sweet, soft thing like Ash, you don’t hurt them personally. You torture people they care about. Yua could be in trouble.
“I gave her clean cash. It wasn’t much, compared to what my father himself has access to. But enough. They shouldn’t be able to trace it.” He stops eating and just stares at his coffee mug, like all of the horrible possibilities are raining down on him.
I notice a pair of paper plates on the counter with plain sandwiches and bags of chips on them. For the prisoners, Trish and Bolin. Both of them still suffering solitary confinement in a pair of storage containers out back.
“Can’t let them starve—yet.” Bohnes shakes his head at the sight of the plates and refocuses on his own meal, nudging a Mason jar across the surface of the table. There are ashes inside of it. Alexis. I take the jar and tuck it between my thighs for the time being. How macabre.
“Who else could Chet or Jonas go after?” I wonder, cutting another bite of my food and hoping like crazy that this becomes a habit for Ash.
I love the food he makes. “Besides my family and my crew. I’ve got the latter looking after the former.
” Except Gram and Emma Jean, whom I’ve entrusted to Bohnes.
“But if the mayor wants someone to torture on my behalf, he can have Geneva.”
It’s a joke, but I would give up my mom and aunt to save my grandma. Shit. I wonder if that makes me a bad guy? I also don’t care.
“Jonas is very creative. You marrying Alexei will have him thinking outside the box. Chet is a risk-taker. Could end horribly for him or he could get a hit on us that we never see coming. Goes both ways for that moron. He’s unpredictable.
” Ash leans his head back against the chair and closes his eyes.
But he’s smiling. Probably because Aspen the Frog is croaking.
“Who’s the bigger monster?” Widow asks, finishing up his plate and then collecting both his and Bohnes’. He takes them to the sink, scrubbing the stuck-on egg off with a soapy sponge. Alexei gags at the sight of that sponge, but we only opened it yesterday. It’s totally fine.
Probably not a good time to ask him how he’s coping with the idea of other men’s cum being all over his dick last night.
“Don’t ask me that,” Ash says finally, opening his eyes.
“They’re both absolutely vile.” Another pause, a labored sigh.
Black hair falls across his forehead as he drops his chin.
“When it comes to me, you better believe Jonas is the one to worry about. He’d rather kill himself trying to punish me than leave me the bloody hell alone and save himself. ”
Oooh. I got goose bumps over the way he said that, with his accent no longer hiding in the shadows. It’s unique. Under his breath, Ash murmurs several things in Japanese.
“You don’t happen to have any idea where my father’s body is, do you?” Alexei asks politely, forcing himself to eat the dull oatmeal in the sanitary, factory-sealed cup. It doesn’t look very appetizing, especially not with the smell of ham and eggs and hollandaise hanging in the air. He’s nuts.
“I don’t.” Ash shakes his head, reaching up to tug at his hair. I slap his hand away. The look he gives me is more…sexually charged than I expected. Err, hi. “Jonas and Chet, they’re cagey, even around each other.”
“What we need to know is who the rat is,” Bohnes murmurs, arms crossed. He’s wearing a long black coat with some texture, like it’s faux fur or something. There’s a ghastly white face on the back, like a creature peering out from the depths of the underworld. It’s super fucking cold out today.
Christmas is coming. That time of year is important to Gram.
I don’t want her to spend it alone, in hiding, after she watched her granddaughter be executed.
Oh, and Snow Day is coming up at Prescott High.
It’s sort of a big deal, this winter formal thing that’s one of the few ‘events’ we have left as a student body.
That’ll be our last day, me and my girls. I’ll hire private tutors if that’s what it takes for us all to get our GEDs. We won’t suffer for this. I’ll make sure of it. Oh, wait. What day is Widow’s birthday again? Need that motherfucker to age up.
“My money is on Chet’s lawyer.” Ash finishes his food and Widow returns to collect his dishes, too. “He was also Pavel’s lawyer.”
Alexei drops his spoon and we all turn to look at him.
“That’s not possible, for my father’s lawyer to also be Chet’s lawyer.
Papa’s lawyer was assigned to him through the Borisov Group.
” Alexei is angry now. Furious. I see his eyes shift to the door, like he wants to go have another round with the police chief.
He shakes his latex-gloved hand out and forces himself to resist. His other hand is bare, out of respect for the tattoo.
“So…if that man were the same man, then would your father sign whatever he was told to sign if the family ordered it?” Widow clarifies, and I appreciate his efforts to understand it all as best he can.
Rich people play different games than poor ones.
Takes some getting used to when you’re from Prescott.
“Mm. He might. But he’d express his concerns. Why do you think Chet’s lawyer is the same man?” Alexei puts his fingers on his chin in thought, realizes what he’s done, and goes through a very practiced routine. Slip off glove. Use hand sanitizer. Put sanitizer on chin. New glove.
“Because he represented both sides in Borisov Group’s deal with Archer Realty.
” Ash folds his arms on the table as Bohnes listens carefully, checking his phone nonstop, waiting for that critical message.
“He’s been to our house more than once. Usually brings his daughter with him.
I always thought maybe he was whoring her out for favors.
No proof of that though. He’s even met with Chet a few times at that gay club, the one where the dancers are fully nude. ”
“I see.” Alexei considers this as my own mind goes to Basti. I’m going to tell him to quit the club now if he hasn’t already. Too dangerous. If he hasn’t quit on his own, I’ll box his ears.
“How are you handling Ash?” Widow asks, drinking a glass of lukewarm water he got from the sink. No fuss. I love that about him. Pure Prescott. His amber eyes are on fire. “What’s the excuse for keeping him alive?”
Alexei answers before either Bohnes or I do. Ash doesn’t get a say because he doesn’t value his own life enough.