Chapter 9 Ivy
IVY
“Tell me where they hurt you.”
Even in my daze, Ruslan’s voice remains as deep and as velvety as the first time we met.
He stands in front of me, his hands on his hips and his brow creased deeply as he stares at me on the bed.
The trip back to the Empire State Building was a blur, as was the journey up here on an elevator that moved so fast I think my stomach is still in the lobby.
Ruslan brought me to a real bedroom, his bedroom if the armory on the wall and the bed smelling of him are anything to go by.
I can barely think.
My mind is as numb as my body, and even as I lift my gaze to meet Ruslan’s, nothing comes past my parted lips.
Shock settles deep into my soul and spreads through me like creeping ice until everything is numb, even my broken ankle.
“Ivy?” Ruslan steps forward.
I breathe in, and a waft of something spicy and warm fills my lungs. I want to talk. I want to tell him how I woke up and found myself strung to those pipes like a piece of meat. How that man put his hands on me, demanded the truth out of me, and hurt me when I didn’t have the answers he wanted.
How he tried to cut the clothes from my body and nicked my skin instead.
How he punched me so hard my teeth shook and the throbbing, healing wound at my hairline felt like it was going to burst open with how hard my heart was pounding.
How he twisted my ankle and pressed his knife to the healing incision on my abdomen, threatening to cut me open.
I want to tell him those things.
But the words don’t come.
“Okay. Let’s start with one at a time, okay?” Ruslan’s voice softens slightly and he sits on the bed next to me.
I can’t keep my eyes off him.
His handsome face is a patchwork of bruises, his lower lip splits near the corner, and a sticky cut above his brow leaks a single droplet of blood. The fresh T-shirt he threw on his shoulders before he walked in here is already stained with blood and still, he focuses on me.
Ruslan remains quiet as he starts tending to my injuries.
He wraps my bruised, raw wrists in balm, cold compresses, and then bandages.
He gently cups my face and cleans the split on my lip with a cotton ball, then he lifts my head and inspects my jaw and throat.
Then he carefully moves the torn strips of my T-shirt and quietly cleans where the knife licked my skin and left angry red scratches.
He pauses over my healing surgery scar and his brow knits tighter together, but he doesn’t speak.
He’s on his knees in front of me by the time he reaches my ankle and when he looks up at me, there’s warmth in his eyes that I want to throw myself into.
“You need a fresh cast,” he says quietly. “I can’t fix that right now, but I will call someone. Does it hurt at all?”
I nod my head, then shake it and shrug.
Ruslan nods as if my uncertainty is the answer he was looking for.
“I’ll call the doctor and get him to check you over properly.
” One hand remains cupped around my calf while the other rests on the cast. My foot sits in his lap, but he doesn’t retract his touch even when he seems satisfied that he’s tended to everything.
“Did I miss anything, Ivy? Are you in pain anywhere else?”
“No. I’m okay.” Such a lie tastes sour on my tongue so I briefly close my eyes. “Physically, I feel fine.”
“I wasn’t kidding when I said you were safest with me.” Ruslan sucks on his teeth. “I should have done more to protect you.”
Something hot knots in my gut at his words and I shake my head. “They were cops. What could anyone do?”
“They weren’t cops,” Ruslan replied.
“But I… I saw their uniforms. And the car. And when I woke up in that room, the man from the hospital was there. He left after he put the blindfold on, but it was definitely him.”
“Man?” Ruslan’s eyes meet mine. “What man?”
“Uhm… I forget his name. Joseph, I think? He was in the hospital when I woke up.”
Realization dawns across Ruslan’s face and he doesn’t even try to hide it.
“Shit. Thought I knew him from somewhere. No wonder he was so intent on getting his hands on you. Fucker thought he could play innocent because I didn’t recognize him.
” Ruslan glances down at his hands as both of them flex against my leg.
“You don’t need to worry about him. He’s dead. ”
“Dead?”
“I killed him.”
A sad, soft laugh rises up in my chest. “You… you murdered him?”
Ruslan scoffs. “That’s one way of looking at it. I’d say it was self-defense.”
“How?”
His gaze returns to me. Somehow, he looks softer being on his knees and gazing up at me.
“We don’t need to talk about that right now, Ivy.
You’ve been through a lot tonight. You need rest and recovery.
” Ruslan gently places my foot back on the floor and stands but as soon as he’s straight, I reach out and grab his hand.
“Tell me,” I demand. “Please. You have to tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because…” How do I word the black hole in my chest that gets wider with every breath and yet somehow doesn’t throb as much when he’s near me? Is there any way to explain this creeping sense of dread that curls its cold fingers around my shoulders at the thought of being alone?
Ruslan’s wrist is warm under my grip and his pulse thumps steadily against my fingertips as he waits for my answer.
“Because if we stop talking, then I’ll start thinking and I can’t… I can’t think because there’s nothing inside me that doesn’t hurt.” A lump forms at the base of my throat. “Please.”
Ruslan’s face doesn’t change as he stares down at me, but whatever words rest on his tongue seem to vanish as he looks at my hand around his wrist. His shoulders rise slightly and he breathes deeply. “Fine.”
“Tell me.”
Ruslan sits next to me on the bed, so I let go of his hand and adjust my position, cocking one leg at my knee and placing both hands in the space between my legs and my crotch. There’s comfort in the warmth.
“I put my hands around his throat and I squeezed until his throat caved in,” Ruslan says as casually as one would talk about their dinner.
While he washed his hands before tending to me, his wrists and forearms are still splattered with blood I’d presumed to be his. It belongs to Joseph.
“Why?”
“Like I said.” Ruslan clears his throat. “Self-defense.”
“Is that how you escaped and found me?”
“No, I escaped because they worked out who I was, but by then, it was too late. The Queen was already here and she took care of one of the others.”
The Queen. That has to be the beautiful woman I glimpsed in the corridor. She looked far too glamorous to be in an underground sewer, but there was also something kind of scary about her.
“Any other questions?” Ruslan prompts, interrupting my chaotic wandering thoughts.
“So you killed a cop. Aren’t you scared of going to jail?”
The noise that escapes Ruslan sounds close to a genuine laugh. “Those fuckers weren’t cops, at least not real ones by any definition.”
“Who were they?”
His upper lip swells as his tongue moves over his teeth. “They were members of a crime family. From one of the families who want you dead.”
“Because they think I crashed their plane and ruined their deal,” I whisper.
“Or you know who does.”
“That’s why he kept asking me what family I worked for every time he hit me.” My jaw throbs at the memory and I grip tightly at the bedsheets beneath me. “I kept telling him I knew nothing, but he wouldn’t believe me.”
“I believe you.”
Such a simple statement catches me by surprise and my gaze locks onto him. “You do?”
“Yes. Either you know nothing or you don’t realize you know something. Either way, I don’t think you’re some kind of mastermind.”
“What if I’m tricking you?” My head tilts as I study the crinkles around his eyes and the subtle way his jaw rocks back and forth.
“If all of this is a performance?” Ruslan waves one hand over me. “Then I don’t deserve my title.”
“What is that?”
“What is what?”
“You keep saying weird things. Your title. You called that woman the Queen. Those cops in the hospital walked away without a word but then they jumped us in the street. Who are you to them?”
Ruslan’s gaze falls away and he looks out the window at the dark sky. From this angle, a single shadow stretches across his square jaw, down his neck, and disappears into the swell of muscles straining against his T-shirt.
“To them, I’m no one. To most, I’m no one.” Ruslan looks back at me while digging around in his pocket. He removes something and then holds it out to me.
On his palm rests a black rectangle about the same size as my bank card, maybe half an inch longer.
As Ruslan rolls his hand back and forth, the surface shimmers and a symbol becomes visible.
A four-sided diamond with a capital A woven into its top section glimmers at me every time the light hits it correctly.
Then Ruslan touches the surface and the black card turns into a screen that shows a falling deck of cards.
“What… what is that?”
“It’s my biometric ID. Only my touch can activate it. To anyone else, it’s just a useless piece of plastic but to me, it’s everything.”
As the cards fall, more and more information flashes on the screen.
I glimpse Ruslan’s face along with the woman I briefly met in the sewer, then three other faces I don’t recognize.
There’s text rushing past that I can’t read, but I stare, transfixed, until Ruslan removes his thumb and the screen goes dark.
“Is that some kind of fancy new ID?”
“No.” Ruslan chuckles, slipping the ID back into his pocket. “You won’t ever see something like this outside of here.”
My eyes narrow. “Are you a spy? CIA?”
To my warm surprise, that draws a real barking laugh out of Ruslan and he shakes his head, grinning. Suddenly, he’s like a different man. The harsh edges of his face melt away into laughter lines, his eyes sparkle, and his entire face lights up with warmth.
“CIA.” He snorts. “They wish they were us.”
“So… so, who are you?”