Chapter Seventeen
Roman
The flooding feeling of watching her satisfied, coming around my fingers is pure ecstasy, but I still don’t know why she had my family album in her hand. I helped her off the table where our sins crumpled the old music sheets and scribbled poetry but I wanted more of her. Her sweetness is dangerous, making me crave her decadent whimpers. To muffle out the softness, bend her, break her, to chain her up and make her scream my name.
The sway in her walk was less than before, clutching her arms around herself. I get it. She hates me and I don’t trust her but she shouldn’t be embarrassed of anything.
“Stay right here,” I say as I watch her glassy eyes.
I am more than pissed about who is behind that door, interrupting my care for her.
The keys jingle against my watch as I check the time.
5:48 a.m.
Nikolai’s arms cross his chest as worry flickers the corner creases of his eyes, “Stepan is on his way up. He is pissed,” he says as his eyes catch Ava sneaking behind me, who is undoubtedly eavesdropping on our conversation. His side smile met me, lifting his eyebrows. He leans forward in a hush tone, “We are taking down those that are in cahoots with the organizations, not fucking them,” he says, playfully. He knows she is harmless and is probably yet another caught up in the web of false promises.
“I’ll be right down. Just hold him off.” Stepan did not need to see Ava, especially with him thinking she was long gone. One thing about my brother is he would go and tell our father in a heartbeat that I didn’t follow through with the deal. Not following orders from my him, or Stepan at this point, would put both Ava and I in danger, if not killed if they found out.
“I’ll do what I can, but…” Nikolai shrugs his shoulders, carefully not to overshare in front of Ava. He nods with vigor like it would be a hard task to keep my brother patient.
Grabbing Ava’s hand, we exit to my room. I pick her up over my shoulder as I cover her mouth, dismissing her wiggles.
We enter the room as she shakes her legs, “What are you fucking doing?” She seethes from her pursed lips as I unlatch my hand from the grip around her face. I click on the standing lamp next to the dresser and walk over to my unmade bed.
I set her on the large bed, toppled with a white down comforter, “Stay,” I demand.
“Are you going to tell me what the fuck he wants?” Her eavesdropping is going to get herself hurt if she doesn’t mind her own.
I ignore her, rummaging through the top drawers of my dresser for bandages. I curse at the tiny packets of alcohol swabs, but they will have to do. She fidgets with her hands in her lap, looking at me with a fuck you stare.
I shake my head slowly, grinning. “You know for someone who is hiding a secret you sure have a lot of fucking nerve trying to steal.”
“Oh, I have a lot of fucking nerve? How about you almost killing us?” She gulps down like she was holding back about the part where I made her come, even though she hates my guts.
I swipe the alcohol swab over the first slit on the back of her arm as she winces from the sting. I blow gently across the wound, cooling her skin into goosebumps. “Now, Cottontail, where was this hate when I was punishing your ass, or when my fingers made you fucking cum?” My merciless eyes bore into her, wishing to chain her to my bedpost for trying to take something that isn’t hers. Her eyes are like saucers, shimmering like dewy moss.
I put the last bandaid on her wounds as she folds her lower lip inward, shaking her head.
“Get some sleep.” I restrain from pinning her down, though, she deserves one.
“Wait, here? Can I go to my room? I need my things.”
“No, you can sleep here. There is a clean towel in the bathroom and shirts in that dresser.” I point to the opposite side of the room at the wooden dresser and the connecting bathroom.
“You don’t– argh you frustrate me.”
I don’t look at her as I walk to the cluttered closet door of bags and clothes, “I’m glad.” I throw on my leather jacket that I wiped clean of blood earlier as I leave her flustered and confused.
Stepan is yelling in Nikolai’s face, “Move out of my fucking way, it’s been long enough.” His hands reach outward to the side pointing to the hall I am walking down. Sheer curtains drape down the entryway to the living room, clipped with pearl clasps against the molding.
I step in without a word. Nikolai can handle Stepan, especially when he is throwing one of his fucking hissy fits.
Stepan rounds Nikolai, “There is the devil himself!” His face lingering too close to mine. The smell of vomit and alcohol ran from his mouth.
I step back, “You rang?” I ask sarcastically.
“Cut the shit Roman, you fucking dumb-as-rock excuse for a brother. Why is it that I am getting a call that the police found our dealing Italians floating in the bay, like logs out to sea?” His eyes wide, but I stay put.
“Well–”
“Well fucking nothing, you are so worthless. How could you fuck up this badly.” He draws his gun, waving it at Nikolai. “How could you and your men fuck up this badly?! Who killed them?”
I try to get a word in but his reckless actions are going to get someone shot. I stomp the gun away from his drunken hand, and clutch my hand around his throat, lifting him up. “Listen up. Are you fucking listening? That could be anyone. It wasn’t us. You saw the money.” His face turns blue as I crush his windpipe slowly, wishing I could snap his neck. Nikolai throws his hands up in front of his chest waving slightly back and forth as a signal of now is not the place . “Another thing, you will not talk to me like I am a dog that shit on your fucking carpet. I don’t give a shit who the fuck you think you are.”
A cough from the doorway makes me swivel my head. “Put him down.” Father is clutching his handkerchief with beads of sweat across his forehead. His hoarse coughs made him stop from finishing what he wanted to say. The blood in his handkerchief is worse than before. He stumbles forward.
I set Stepan down shoving slightly against his chest. He folds over his knee, planting the other on the white carpet as he grasps his hands on his knees trying breathe.
Father wipes his mouth and lowers his arm, “Stepan is right. You fucked this up and it seems to be a pattern with you lately. Why now?” He turns to Stepan. “As for your brother, he will be the head of this Bratva by the end of the month, so I couldn’t care less if he talks to you like a dog that shit on the rug. You are.”
Fury grips me. All these fucking years of never caring about me, killing my mother, and running this side of town to the ground. Him agreeing with my sack of shit brother was the icing on the cake.
Father adjusts his brown slacks around his waist, “The masquerade is coming up, a final party before your wedding,” He says as he tries to lift Stepan to his feet. “I got off the phone, and explained it must have happened after the deal. Why would there be our guns floating with them in one of our box trucks?” He grabs Stepan's shoulder, squeezing it slightly. “This will be a good thing. Take time to relax, go out of town with the boys. Fuck and drink and when you come back you can fuck and drink too.” He is sweaty and his laugh halts abruptly by his insistent coughing.
I light a cigarette not giving a fuck it was the living room or about his fucking lungs. Sergey and Alexei planted those guns on the Italians before pushing them off into the bay. I chortle outward trying to contain my glee.
Stepan curls his lip with a pout, “What’s so fucking funny?”
“Nothing. You are right. You both are. Just… just laughing at myself.” I lie with a straight face, exiting the smoke filled room with Nikolai.
Roman
She is sound asleep by the time I make it to my bedroom. Her hair is still wet from taking a shower, but she looks so good in one of my t-shirts. It presses against her beautiful nipples but is loose everywhere else. I play with a rabbit card and cotton ball, twisting them in my fingers at my side. Standing over her at the end of the bed, I watch her chest rise and fall.
I am glad Stepan will be leaving today because as much as I wanted to kill him, I have to do it at the right time. For now I will focus on the members that are on the list Nikolai handed me after the debacle with Stepan. They are so fucking naive to think I wouldn’t be the one killing everyone off.
I grin thinking about how they will suffer that fate too.
Her head turns, eyes closed as she whines out, “No… I don’t know why they….” I watch as she starts to sweat slightly.
Who is they?
The thrash of her arm folds the blanket from her, “Why would they…” She mutters as her eyes flutter under her lids. She was having a nightmare but what about? The better question is who?
She rolls to her side curling herself into a ball and whispers sleepily slurring, “Ro– Roman make… them stop.”
I drift the comforter over her and brush her hair from her face with my hand. I was expecting her to wake up and punch the lights from me, but she nuzzles her cheek into the pillow. Her body calms as she tucks her hands under her chin. I wish I knew who I needed to kill, so I could make them stop whatever they were doing to My Sweet Rabbit.
I gently kiss her head as she breathes even, exhaling softly.