20. Brander
20
brANDER
At least we identified the red SUV driver…
Somewhat.
The bastard got away before I managed to unveil the balaclava.
That’s probably for the best now, though. After the events of the past few days, my eyes wouldn’t have been able to withstand seeing another sore, beaten-up face.
“Who is he, then?” Alice asks. She’s laid on the couch, feet kicked up watching some cop TV show that I really didn’t see as being her thing.
By the time I finished intervening, her shift was rounding up at the hospital, so I drove her back here.
She changed straight out of scrubs into a T-shirt and sweatpants, courtesy of me. They drown her body, but seeing her cuddled up on my couch warms my chest.
“A bastard,” Match says. Why he’s rinsing off his face under the kitchen sink, I’ll never know. He’s one to do weird shit, like taste his own blood to see if he could “get around the idea of being a vampire,” or jerk off in public outside, too horny to wait.
Remind me why he’s secretary again?
Alice swivels around and watches him dry off his face with a kitchen towel. One I got out fresh this morning.
I’d knock his head against the wall if he wasn’t so beat-up.
“Are you okay? Let me take a look at you.”
“It’s fine, sweetness, I’m okay.”
“She’s a nurse,” I side-note to Match. “Maybe you should.”
He walks into the living room and crashes onto the couch, an exhausted sigh rippling out of him. Alice sits beside him and rolls up his sleeve to check out the stitching, hissing when she finds it pulled.
“This is gonna need to be redone.” She lifts her gaze. “As for your face…” A delicate hand pinches his jaw to hold it in place. “Thankfully, it’s nothing serious. The black eye will heal itself. Maybe we can do a cold compress to ease the pain. A bag of frozen peas and a kitchen towel will do.” She eyes me.
That’s my cue.
I pull another fresh towel out of the drawer, and hand the two items over to Alice.
Seeing her gentle hands sweep over Match’s face is an even more pressing reminder that we need to be on guard twenty-four seven, every minute of the day to ensure her safety. Her kind features scrunch into concentration as she delicately holds the bag of frozen peas up against Match’s eye.
There’s not one spot of darkness on this woman’s soul. It isn’t just the Bratva we need to watch now either. It’s Peter. Throwing Lifey out of his house for snitching his biggest secret to Alice is fair enough, but his wish to “protect” and keep information from her is something I can’t quite get behind. The truth sets people free. If Alice never found out what her darling father did all of those years ago, her life and everything in it would be a lie.
I believe it’s child cruelty to shelter your son or daughter from the realities of the world. Rose-tinted glasses get people killed, and Peter’s airbrushed upbringing in Summerlin sent his wife to her early grave.
It’s important for Alice to be made aware of reality, even if the truth crushes her.
Aside from working, lying on the couch tangled in a sea of blankets is the only activity she’s been doing since we delivered her father’s secret. She tells us that the butt plug turns her on, and that on shift, walking up and down the floor sometimes “gets her in the mood.” Two days ago, it was my turn to be on watch. She jumped straight onto the back of my motorcycle, as soon as her night shift was done, and started grinding into me. Telling me how badly she wanted to fuck me and suck on my dick.
I got back that night and flew straight up to the bedroom, clawing open my copy of the Bible to read Psalms over and over so I could mentally tattoo the words resisting temptation into my brain.
She’s a tease.
A beautiful fucking tease with perfect round breasts and a pussy crafted by angels. Don’t even get me started on her moans.
She’s hurting, though. Bending her over and taking her from behind in the shower, intoxicated by steam and her feminine scent, was the best sex I’ve ever experienced.
But the woman needs time away from us too.
She needs to grieve Peter, and the old perception she has of him.
And if cop TV shows help her do that, so be it.
Alice dabs Match’s other eye. Purple doesn’t ring around this one as intensely as the other, but the swollen under eye shows that it received some damage.
“Why did he get so angry?”
“I dunno,” Match says. “It was totally random. Maybe he’s in love with you or something. He exploded when I told him that we were married.”
Alice pouts in thought. “That’s odd.”
“Did you speak to him much when he took you?” I ask.
“No,” Alice replies.
“Didn’t get a look of his face?”
“No. How strange.”
“Not really,” Match says.
“What do you mean?” Alice searches his eyes.
“Look at you. You’re beautiful. It’s no wonder he threw fists at me. He was probably counting on you being single so he could swoop you away into a white chapel himself.”
Alice chuckles. “If that’s his intention, he’s probably just doing it for the green card.”
“Didn’t sound like he needed that.” Match takes the frozen peas from his eye.
“What? Why?” Alice asks.
“He was American.”
“An American Bratva?” Alice frowns. “Do those even exist?”
“Sure they do,” I say. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard about an American being swept under Bratva wings. Homeless guys tend to be better fighters, so Russians recruit them.”
Alice reclines further into the couch and follows the moving cars on the TV screen with vacant eyes. Oh, to know what’s spinning around that beautiful head of hers.
It’s terrible, the kidnapping, her lying father and everything in between, but god, her presence in my house pleases me in more ways than I can count. Her fresh, floral smell lingers everywhere. I smell it in the living room every time I step in, and in the shower cubicle too. She places her pink bottle of Bath and Body Works gel beside my Dior Sauvage in the caddy, and I find myself smiling every time I glimpse the two bottles paired together. It’s like a His and Hers . The same goes for her towel. She hangs it on the peg above mine, always lengthways, never width, and the it fills the bathroom with fragrance.
I haven’t even thought about how I’m gonna live without her presence in my house, simply because it’s never once crossed my mind until now as she curls her lip and looks down from the TV absentmindedly.
With a face like that, she could have the world at her fingertips.
She could have anyone.
Could definitely get much better than three graying motorcyclists on the cusp of a midlife crisis.
“Maybe you should get some sleep, darling. It’s late.”
“I think I wanna see my dad again.”
“Oh?” Match raises an eyebrow.
God knows what will happen.
But whatever the consequences, Peter deserves it. I shoot Match a glare. Saw off my head in a gesture for him to keep quiet.
It’s her father at the end of the day. Our opinions are irrelevant.
“If that’s what you want, darling,” I say.
“It is,” she says.
“Okay.” Match flashes her a tight-lipped smile.
“I think I need a day away too”
Alarm bells.
“A day away? What do you mean?” My tone is sharper than I mean it to be.
“I have tomorrow off from work, and I think it’ll do me good to get out. I’ll stay where it’s busy, promise! Tammy and Rachel have been begging for a catch-up, and then in the afternoon, I’ll head to Summerlin to visit Daddy.”
Match shifts uncomfortably. “Sweetness, I don’t think?—”
“I’ll take the bus. Public transport is safe, and besides, you guys need a rest from chauffeuring me all the time. Head to the club and, I don’t know, pick up a cue or a pint of beer or something. You guys have done so much for me. You deserve to unwind.”
Unwinding would involve lying with Alice on the couch watching cop shows.
But whatever.
If it makes her happy.
“Okay,” I say, standing from the couch before intuition opens my mouth for me and begs her not to leave. Anxiety ripples through me every time she has to go to work. Something could happen, and something probably will—this feud between us and the Bratva is far from over.
Which is why we all need a good night’s sleep—to be alert for whatever tomorrow throws at us.