Chapter Six – Maria
“Is this the last of it?”
The big man with broad shoulders, blond hair, and green eyes stared at me like he would rather be drinking glasses of freshly squeezed lemon juice than helping me drag my boxes through the door and up to my new room.
I wished I could help him— them (more men were assigned to crowd my small apartment to throw all my stuff into big boxes that they literally brought out of nowhere). But I couldn’t. The boss himself had given explicit instructions that I leave them to do all the packing, just in case I had intentions to pull a mischievous stunt.
Why the hell would I do that when I’ve seen the darkness himself in action?
There was no doubt about it: My life was on the line. And I’d rather drink a glass of lemon juice before I even dared risk it.
“Look, Lev…Lev, is it?” I said, stepping forward to the big man.
His eyes grew colder by the second and turned to stone when we stood chest to chest. True, he was intimidating. But he didn’t make me squirm or want to piss my pants as much as his Arctic boss did.
“I don’t like this as much as you do. I don’t even want this—to be living here like some old governess with no life’s purpose. But I love Polina and want her safe. And I don’t have much of a choice. So, you’re just going to have to suck up your pout and start getting used to the idea of waking up to see me roaming these halls every day.”
His nose did a tiny twitch, as though he was stunned by my audacity to approach him up close, but his eyes didn’t betray him. He stared me down, which was fair enough, seeing that he had the advantage of being a head taller than I was.
Then, he grabbed one of my boxes, signaled the others behind us to haul the rest, and made a small growl at the back of his throat. “Move.”
No objections there.
I sidled to a corner and watched them effortlessly lift my possessions up the winding stairs. Certain that I was no longer in their way, I followed closely behind them, heading to what would be my new comfort space.
My eyes wandered around the hallway like they had done in the living room the night before. I felt my lips pick up into a smile at how beautiful the house was. Only days ago, I could only ever dream of living in a mansion like this: real-life, fancy-schmansy water fountain outside, gravel driveway, indoor artificial fireplace, and modern décor that created a fa?ade of normalcy. And the list went on and on.
It had only been one night, and I was already impressed. I was drawn to the simple elegance, which forced me to relax even if I didn’t want to.
He might have been the darkness himself, but I had to admit, he was neat and freakishly organized, so much so that I believed he had OCD. His style would have gotten an A-plus-plus.
Looking on the bright side, it was almost like I had walked into a dream where my life had more color, more fluff in my pillow, multiple choice options for breakfast, and more money in my account. But a part of me missed the actual normality of the life I’d led before: PMAA, the kids, and maybe even a little of George and his constant “fix the hand dryer” nagging.
We passed more doors and wall ornaments, and my eyes caught the large monochrome portrait hanging on the wall there. My feet stopped moving.
It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. So beautiful, yet so cold.
It was him.
Dressed in his regular dark suit, seated on a Windsor chair, like an Armani model who was asked not to smile for five million bucks. He’d put in the extra effort. I couldn’t help it; I walked closer and traced my fingers over the image of his firm jaw and deep-set eyes.
They held no emotion. No life. No feelings. No love.
I secretly wondered how it was possible for anyone to live their lives in such a melancholic bubble because this man made it look too easy.
I remembered our conversation from last night. He’d said they were a Russian crime family like he was reading his resume as a sixth-grade math teacher. His confidence was frightening, and his arrogance a terror weapon.
Who shot a man down with no iota of remorse, excellent aim, and without blinking, like he had eyes everywhere on his head doing the job for him?
This man did.
And that icy stare of his projected through the portrait reminded me of the first time our paths crossed.
***
Eighteen months ago….
I sat in the reception, repeatedly mumbling a bunch of question-and-answer rules I’d memorized the previous night. The interview was due to start in half an hour, and I was feeling hopeful.
I was officially six months out of living in my car. Could have done a small celebration, but I couldn’t afford throwing anything that would involve a cake and crates of beer.
Plus, I didn’t have friends.
Instead, I got a comfortable single-room apartment that was way better than the shitty Airbnb I’d lodged in after moving out from my dad’s after the funeral, but I later realized that nights at Rosy’s weren’t bringing in enough to take care of myself or settle the sharks.
Hence, the quick submission of my application at the five-star hotel, Hamilton, the minute I heard there was a vacancy for a receptionist.
My nerves were all over the place.
I rubbed my clammy palms on the sides of my black knee-length skirt several times and made multiple trips to the bathroom to check for wrinkles on my two-dollar pressed shirt and possible particles of green hanging in my teeth (because I’d had broccoli for breakfast).
My hair? Check .
My confidence level? Needed to be boosted.
My teeth? No green .
The best impression of myself and what I had to offer the impressive establishment fully memorized? We were almost there.
I returned to the reception, ready to start another recital, when one of the security guards, dressed prim and proper in his uniform, brushed past me in a rush. He was talking into a walkie-talkie, brows drawn, expression sour and all, like there was a problem.
And it didn’t help when he confirmed it.
“McAllister, something is awfully wrong somewhere. The CCTV’s messed up. The bloody cameras aren’t working,” he stated in a thick British accent. He looked up, observed the ceiling, and wrinkled his nose. “Bloody suspicious, if you ask me. Frank was in here two days ago to reinstall those on the sixth floor.”
He exchanged more words with his colleague on the other end of the line, and I tried to focus on my Q I’d passed it on my way into the waiting area and studied the number of steps it took to get there and return.
Didn’t want to be late when number nine left the room.
I spotted the water cooler down the hallway and hurried toward it, past the pale yellow walls, golden ceiling lights, ceiling-to-floor red velvet drapes, and a certain door. I was so close to a cup when I heard a muffled scream.
It was a man, and it sounded deep, like the agony came from the depths of his soul.
The sudden thirst for water was gone, and awakened in its place was a wild curiosity to locate the man. As I later found out, rather unfortunately, he wasn’t far away.
I retraced my steps, walking backward from the cooler until I got to that certain door.
It was ajar, wide enough for me to see a bloodied head and body tied to a chair, jerking and struggling to free himself from the ropes.
My heart dropped to my stomach at the same moment when a fist belonging to a man hidden from my view behind the door flew toward the bloodied man’s jaw.
A sickening crunch filled the air, and red-tinged saliva flew from his mouth. My broccoli breakfast didn’t sit well, and it suddenly churned in my stomach at the sight.
The man gurgled, even cried, and screamed again. The agony in it was shrill and sharper than piercing arrows. It sank into the recesses of my soul.
“Please! Please, Boss…. I’m fucking sorry, okay? I swear, it’s never going to happen again.”
“Of course, it’s never going to happen again. I’m going to make sure of it myself,” came a voice from behind the door. Baritone, husky, and smooth, like a raging king, laboring to keep the storm hidden with a cloak of calm.
Then, a man I hadn’t seen before walked out of the darkness and into the open.
Just a glimpse of him snatched my breath away. He was as scary as he was enchanting, which made me remember a made-up ten-out-of-ten hero from a fantasy novel. Only this hero was clearly the villain. And if looks could burn, the bloodied man would have become ashes seconds ago.
“Boss, look, I swear I’m never going to cross you again. I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.”
The monster smiled, the curve of his lips the shape of a predator’s snarl. “You didn’t know…” he repeated slowly, wearing the look of someone combing through details in his mind.
He was dressed in a dark suit with a glinting silver Rolex fitted on his wrist, a complimentary silver gun in his firm grasp. His thumb hovered over the trigger, and I gulped.
There’s no way he’s going to shoot the man.
“You betrayed me, Cian,” he growled, his eyes darkening as the seconds went by. “And you know what happens to fucking betrayers.”
He’s only trying to scare him. That has to be it.
I wanted to drag my eyes away, turn around, and leave when the bloodied man continued begging for his life, asking for mercy and forgiveness and everything he could mention if it could just get the monster with blue eyes to spare his life.
“Last words, Cian.”
“Boss—”
A quiet whoosh went through the air, so silent I almost missed it. Not until I watched the bloodied man’s head slowly loll backward, a hole on his forehead and blood spilling out, did I realize.
He shot him.
Someone screamed. It was loud and high-pitched and sounded a lot like my voice. But I wasn’t sure until his head came up, and the iciest shade of blue met mine.
They lit up in surprise and then narrowed with fury. It turned out that the murder monster didn’t like surprises, and my presence there was an unpleasant one.
I wasn’t supposed to witness it.
I shouldn’t have been there.
He muttered a string of foreign words that sounded more like curses than anything good under his breath, and I heard movement behind the door.
I needed no interpretation to know that he had officially unleashed his men to get me.
Shit.
I fled.
As fast as my legs—and the freaking skirt—would take me. My heart hammered strongly in my chest like it would rip out at any minute, and adrenaline and the instinct to survive fueled my veins.
I ran, breathing in and out raggedly through my open mouth and nostrils.
I heard them, their boots pounding on the tiles as they hurled angry language at me. They didn’t care about being discreet. I even heard them shove one of the service guys to the floor.
“Out of my way!”
I didn’t bother to look back. One wrong move, and I could be the next person getting shoved.
My heart clenched.
At the moment, the most important thing to me—being number ten on the list of interviewees and getting called in at any moment—no longer held importance. Getting to safety did.
I increased my pace, pushed myself to the limit, and felt my lungs burn as I gasped for air.
The front doors weren’t an option. They’d come in through there earlier, and that meant they had more men stationed outside.
The back door it was, then.
As I got closer, two men lunged forward, grabbed my arms, and lifted me from the ground so my legs were running in the air.
“Let me go!”
But of course, they didn’t. They held on tight, determined to take me back to their boss before they chopped off my head.
I knew I had to act fast. I struggled in their grasp and didn’t stop until they dropped me to the ground. Then, I turned around and launched myself into a perfect air kick. My leg soared through the air, striking the first man squarely in the chest. He crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath.
The second one charged at me, but I was ready. They probably didn’t know it, but I wasn’t defenseless. He tried to scare me, advancing with a curled fist, even as he assessed the man on the ground with a hooded gaze.
When he was close enough, I delivered a swift roundhouse kick to his jaw. Like his dumb colleague, he stumbled backward, dazed and confused, and I took advantage of the momentary distraction and squeezed my way through their fallen bodies to escape.
The door clicked shut behind me, but I kept running. And I didn’t stop till I’d gotten to a blind spot, away from CCTV installations. It was a good thing he’d disconnected them when he came into the building. Now, he couldn’t recognize or trace me, save for the imprint of my face that he’d captured with his eyes.
I heaved, panted, and clutched my chest, the reality seemingly unreal.
My head spun, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I’d witnessed a murder.
What the actual fuck?
A real-life, gunshot-through-the-head murder. Cian, the man who’d screamed bloody murder, had gotten murdered right before my eyes. My emotions were a mess. They must’ve gotten scrambled during the chase because, at first, I felt numb. But now, it came rushing back: the screams, the pleas, the gunshot, and the blood as life oozed out of him.
I clutched my chest, feeling each thump against my palm like I had a jackhammer plugged into my heart.
This can’t be happening.
I should’ve reported it to the authorities, but…that would’ve been the worst idea.
Besides having screwed up my chances of getting a job at one of the best hotels in New York, I still had to find a way to build up the money to repay my father’s debt. Reporting this crime would mean getting mixed up in a gangster’s mess, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to keep running from those types of men for the rest of my life.
So, this was my fate.
I’d stumbled down the wrong path, fallen into the wrong story, and had no choice but to deal with it.
The murder was to remain a secret, even if it would leave a permanent scar for the rest of my life.