Chapter 12 - Addison
“The most dangerous liars are those that think they are telling the truth.” – Anonymous.
Maeva came back with more pins and needles and a weird-looking, unfinished corset.
Cielle didn’t accompany her today, but as always, she oversaw the fitting like a pro. As ordered by the devil himself, I wasn’t allowed to leave the house until after our wedding. Therefore, all fittings and shopping had to be done in the house as soon as his order went into effect.
Maeva hated it. And I did too. But we had to put up with each other until I’d had enough of her malicious poking and pricking me with needles.
I asked, “Why don’t you just cancel? Say no? Refuse to make the dress.”
“Stop talking to me like we’re friends.”
“What—no. It’s not like that.” I tried to get through to her. Maybe if she resisted, it would irritate him, and there’s a likelihood that he’d get enraged and shift the wedding date. And then, it’d never happen.
“Look,” I swished around in the unfinished fabric, trying to get her attention. “I’m just saying, you look like you’re in a lot of physical pain doing this. You can tell him to find someone else.”
“Stand still.” She’d deliberately poked me with a needle and glared before responding. “You’re obviously just a young girl. If you were more exposed and had some knowledge of how this world actually worked,” she pricked me again. “You would know that no one says no to a man like Mark.”
She put a tape around my neck, but I resisted. Who did she think she was to hurl that at me?
“Firstly, I am not just a young girl. Secondly, the only reason it seems so is because no one has stood against him to challenge him.”
“Oh, plenty have, darling,” she laughed in such a motherly way, I started to wonder if she was older than her late-twenties appearance. “And they resumed their place in the soil. From dust, they came, back to dust they went—or however, it’s said.”
“Really? You’re saying every single person who opposed the Bratva is dead?”
“Oui. And the ones that are not, are going to be.”
She moved around the corset, inspecting, and taking short notes on her iPad. Then, she narrowed her eyes to my hair. “For this look, you’ll have to cut that mane of yours or wear it up.”
I eyed her cute baby-blue blouse and black pencil skirt outfit and the way she had her hair held up in a messy bun. Maeva was beautiful, and her smooth French accent made her sound even more sophisticated. Like what I imagined his type of woman to be like.
The type that would be more than just a good fuck.
My heart squeezed in my chest most uncomfortably, and I looked away.
There was no way I was going to cut my hair for a wedding that would never happen. I didn’t want to believe it was real; this fitting, the elegant white and green wedding invitations staring at me from the dresser, everything. I refused to accept that I was giving my whole life over to a man who only wanted to use me to get revenge. A man who didn’t love me.
“”You’re lucky,” I heard her say and looked up to see her zooming in on a bridal sketch displayed on the bright screen. I swallowed a scoff. To me, that was the most inappropriate word to describe what I had found myself in. A curse fits the description better.
“I don’t want to get married.”
Her brows rose to her hairline. “You don’t want to get married, or you don’t want to get married to Mark?”
Her question threw me into a greater whirlwind of confusion, and I didn’t have words. I thought about it; was I really opposed to the idea of getting married or just getting married to a mobster boss?
Since I couldn”t think of an answer, I decided to turn the question around.
“You like him, don’t you?”
She tugged on her lower lip, biting on thick red lipstick before she muttered something in French and began packing up. “I’ve never hidden it, not even from him. We’ve fucked a few times. He’s good, rough. Gives it to you just the way he likes it, the way that will make you beg for more. He was the best I’ve had ever.”
I shouldn’t feel like someone who”d just been stabbed through the heart by a sword when she said that, but that”s exactly what it was. I suppressed the mental images. Didn’t want to think about it; if he touched her like he touched me or made her feel like she would burst from so much pressure and desire.
Maeva was still talking when I snapped out of the trance. She had finished packing up her fabrics and was standing at the door. She smacked her lips. “But he never looked at me the way he looked at you.”
What?
“What are you—”
“The next fitting will be the final one. I’m weary of these visits. You’re not that fun to look at.” She flashed a smile and turned on her nude stiletto heel. “Au revoir.”
What did she mean? Maeva must have been mistaken, whatever she thought she saw. For I remembered the coldness in his eyes as he had watched me leave his room, and how annoyed he had seemed. His thoughts about me couldn’t be good.
To Mark Varkov, I was nothing more than a good fuck.
****
After Maeva left, the garden was the only other place where I could breathe normally and push all thoughts of Mark and Logan to the back of my mind. I wanted to be alone, to have time to think.
I leaned back in the Adirondack chair and looked at the sun hiding behind the clouds, remembering how my father and I had once gone on a shopping spree. From the mall, we ended up at Starbucks and I consumed way more sugar than necessary. It was fun and I wanted to relive the memory of having my dad so close to me. I wondered how he was. I made a mental note, to ask Mark if I could at least call him.
I missed him.
I missed Maria too.
How had things gone downhill so quickly?
A shadow fell on me, and I squinted. It was a woman. Blue eyes, freckled cheeks. Unfamiliar but pretty, nonetheless. She held a tray out to me and had a bright smile that reached her cheeks. If I guessed correctly, she could only be a few years older than me.
“Oh, hello,” I smile back.
“Coffee for the lady,” was all she said.
I frowned and eyed the ceramic mug on the wooden tray with concern. In all the days I”ve spent in this house, I’ve only ever seen guards patrolling and Mark’s men assigned to special duties. But a maid? I had never met one. And even if I had, she had to have a set schedule that required her partial presence in the house. But the kitchen had been mine for weeks now. When did that change?
Maybe after he finally decided that you are disposable.
Shifting on the chair, I peered closer. “I’m sorry, have I seen you here before?”
She shook her head and laughed softly. “No. I’m new here. Got hired yesterday.”
“Oh.”
What did I expect? That Mark would talk to me before hiring extra help, as if we were lovers sharing the details of our lives? Such a dream. It was his money, his house, and I was nothing more than a prisoner here.
I took the coffee with a shy smile and raised it to my lips. “Thank you.” Espresso.
It tasted great but I wasn’t the biggest fan. Still, I had to show gratitude. Beaming, I lifted my head with a bright smile. “Thank you, for being so thoughtful.”
She nodded but did not leave. She watched me like a hawk on the lookout for dinner. It was creepy to me, and I found it strange that she was hanging around. But she was new here. Maybe she was lonely and needed someone to talk to.
I returned the mug to the tray and started to ask what her name was when a sudden haze took over my mind, leaving me disoriented. The words on my lips turned to a jumbled mess and my arm slipped, sending the tray and the mug crashing to the ground.
“Oh,” I mumbled and clutched my head. Something felt terribly wrong, like I was floating and being smothered by a pillow weighing tons at the same time. And she was still standing there, looking at me like a hawk.
I tried to stand up, but my knees wobbled, and my eyelids drooped. Only one name fought its way through the haze, and I opened my mouth to call out to him, “Ma ...”
The rest of the words never made it out.
I felt my body collapse to the ground. And the world around me went black.
****
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in Mark’s house, guarded by men dressed in black.
I scanned the room quickly. I was lying on a rickety old spring bed in a brightly lit room with peeling cream walls and brown curtains. It smelled of cigarettes and insecticide.
My nose wrinkled and my head ached. Mark’s voice came back to me. I have enemies. I don’t want anyone to take my bride away from me like I took you away from your loving groom.
The coffee, the maid with no name, and ... I couldn’t even muster the strength to get scared. I just wondered who my new captor was. After all, this was a game, wasn’t it? I had been taken from Logan to exact revenge, and now I had been taken from Mark for possibly the same reason. I could only prepare myself for whoever it would be and how it would turn out.
Carefully, I tiptoed toward the door, trying to peek, when the old-fashioned knob turned, and I jumped back with my arms raised in self-defense.
Broad shoulders came through the door, followed by a baseball cap with blond hair and strong arms protruding from a black T-shirt. When I spotted the fine hairs disappearing under the sleeve of the T-shirt, my heart plummeted into my stomach.
Without thinking and without paying attention to the grocery bag in his arms, I threw myself into his arms. He wrapped an arm around me and the tears I had been holding back for weeks finally came gushing out.
“Logan, oh my God ...” I shoved my face between his shoulders, shaking, and inhaling as much of him as I could. My heart drummed in my chest, and I clung to him and didn”t want to let him go.
“God, I missed you so much, My Love.” He kissed my temple, my cheeks, and my lips. I melted into his arms and repressed the intrusive thought that the kiss was not as passionate as Mark’s. When I lifted my face to his I couldn’t see past the tears in my eyes.
“But why did you have to put me through this? There must have been another way to free me than to poison me.” I cried.
He shook his head, his eyes shining. “I don’t know, my love. I hired her to do the job. You know how these people are, they have their own ways. Aren’t you happy? You’re here with me now. That’s all that matters.”
I mustered a smile. I was delighted and relieved to see him again. But deep inside me, several feelings were battling with each other. I felt a pulling and a tugging at the same time and said: “I thought you would never come back for me.”
He put down the grocery bags and stroked my chin. “Come on, Addi. Don’t say things like that. You”re the love of my life. The last few weeks without you by my side have been the hardest I’ve ever had to endure.”
I studied his eyes. So much had happened and there was still a lot he hadn’t told me. I needed to know. “When is this chase finally going to end, Logan? What did you do to Mark? Why is he so hellbent on destroying you?”
With a frown, he backed away from me. “What have I done to Mark? That fucking asshole brainwashed you, didn’t he? I’m sure he told you horrible things about me and made you fucking believe his lies.”
On the contrary, Mark said nothing. The details he had given were vague and of little help in finding out more about the grudge they held. But now was not the time to talk about Mark. Logan would only get more riled up.
Smiling, I cupped his cheeks and made him look at me. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. I’m not brainwashed. It’s just that, so much has happened already.” Like having sex with my fiancé’s nemesis. “We were separated because I was kidnapped. That’s not a natural occurrence. I needed to know what went wrong, okay? But it’s fine. We’re fine. We’re back together.”
He calmed down and held my gaze for a long time before swooping in. “Yeah, we are,” he breathed, and kissed me.
It was warm, familiar, and reassuring. But the butterflies weren’t dancing and there was no blazing fire pulsing through my veins. I encouraged myself and forced my body to respond. But there was no flow. That was to be expected; we’d been apart for a while. In time, things would return to normal.
I broke the kiss, and it startled him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I shifted. “I, um, have to call Robert to check on my dad.”
He smiled and handed me his phone. “Sure thing. I’m sorry I didn’t think about that.”
Dialing was easy; I knew the number of my father’s personal assistant by heart. When he picked up after the first ring, speaking was the hard part.
“Hello?”
A bigger wave of relief washed me at the sound of his voice, and I held back a sob. “Mr. Robert, it’s me. It’s Addison.”
He was silent for a minute. Then the shock came with his voice as he said, “Addison?”
We talked for several minutes, and I was surprised to learn that I reacted coolly to his messages when he tried to reach me a few weeks ago. He said I had distanced myself; I had nothing to say in response.
When I asked to speak to my father, Mr. Robert declined because he was asleep. But the good thing was that I could call back later. I was glad to know that he was doing much better than last time, when the doctors had been worried about his poor health.
Then, before he hung up, he cleared his throat and dropped his voice.
“Addi, there is something I must tell you. It concerns your father.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw Logan wiping cigarette butts from the ashtray on the old bedside table. I frowned. Since when did Logan smoke?
Knowing him, I was sure he had an explanation for that too.
I turned my attention back to the call.
“I’m all ears.”