Chapter 26
IVY
It really was the best orgasm I’ve ever had.
The next morning, while sitting on the balcony nursing a hot cup of tea and an aching core, I replay last night’s session in my mind.
Never in my life have I done something as exciting as that.
I wasn’t exactly a prude before I met Ruslan, but none of my previous partners knew the first thing about making things exciting in the bedroom.
It seems to come naturally for Ruslan.
The sex was fantastic, but more than that, my choice to trust him was exhilarating. I came close a few times to thinking I’d had enough, but each time, I reminded myself that trusting him hasn’t steered me wrong yet.
My reward for trusting him sits warm in my memory and hot between my thighs where my core throbs just at the thought of his cock. It’s probably a bad sign, but given how fun that session was, the thought of fucking up again for another punishment is rather alluring.
I drink my tea and bake under the hot, late-morning sun, watching birds fly past without a care in the world. Until my wandering eye catches a plane high up in the sky leaving a white trail behind its fins.
Reality returns with a crash and the light sensation within my chest fades immediately.
Speaking to Florence didn’t help, not really.
Learning how deeply in love my father was with another woman doesn’t ease the pain of my family falling apart under my nose.
I pray when Mom wakes up, she already knows.
I don’t have the strength to give her such bad news after everything that’s already happened.
But if Ruslan’s right and there’s some sort of connection, then I don’t see it. How does my father’s affair connect to a plane full of drugs? And why is someone so determined to kill me when I have nothing to do with either of those things?
There’s something I’m still missing. Something I have to decipher before someone else gets hurt.
Everything I’ve learned spins around my mind like a Ferris wheel until the tea in my mug grows cold from my lack of drinking.
Curling my lip in disgust, I rise from the chair and leave the sunlit balcony for the darker, slightly gloomier kitchen that lacks all the warmth from outside.
I’m pouring my cold tea down the sink when a clatter behind me makes me jump right out of my skin.
The cup slips from my fingertips and rattles around the sink, thankfully in one piece.
“Sorry,” comes a voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you!”
I rescue the cup from the depths of the sink as I turn. Raven stands behind me at the island counter with her hands buried deep in a medical box. Blood runs down her cheek from a cut in her brow and her lower lip swells as blood dribbles down her chin.
“Oh, my God, are you okay?”
Raven flashes me a smile, immediately winces when the slash on her lip pulls wider, and nods. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”
“You don’t look fine.” Abandoning my cup on the counter, I watch her trembling hands remove a bottle of antiseptic from the kit, but when she unscrews it and tries to pour some onto a cotton ball, her hand shakes so much that she pours it over her wrist instead.
“Shit.”
“Here.” I’m moving forward before I’ve even thought it through and taken the bottle from her trembling fingers. “Let me.”
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“It’s no bother, honestly.” I pass her the washcloth and as she wipes her hands clean, I spot bruises and red marks all over her knuckles. “Are you sure nothing happened?”
Raven huffs out a soft laugh, then eases herself up onto the stool, giving me an easier job of tending to her wounds. “It’s really nothing bad.”
As the antiseptic soaks into the cotton ball, I arch my brow. “Does everyone around here just brush things off?”
Raven chuckles, tucking her messy curls behind her ears. “I guess we’re all just used to getting on with things. That’s all.”
“Really? Because from what I’ve seen, Valentina helps Ruslan a lot and Cassian seems to help everyone.”
“Oh, Cassian.” Raven suddenly grasps my wrist as I dab as gently as I can at the cut above her brow. “Don’t tell him you saw me like this.”
“Why not?”
“He’s overprotective. Like a gigantic teddy bear, and he’ll do something dumb.”
“As dumb as the people who attacked you?”
Raven’s eyes close and the uninjured corner of her mouth twitches up. “Exactly.”
“If you tell me what happened, then maybe I’ll keep my mouth shut.” Blood continues to weep from the cut, but Raven doesn’t even hiss at the contact with the antiseptic.
“You’ve spent too much time with Ruslan,” she replies, then a soft sigh rushes out of her. “It was dumb. I don’t usually get involved in things like that. I used to, years ago, but lately, I’ve just been keeping to myself. Tech doesn’t fight back, y’know?”
“Did your laptop do this to you?”
“Imagine!” Raven laughs sweetly. “No, I was out getting some lunch and this guy was arguing with this woman at the taxi stand, and I was going to ignore it, but he hit her and she went down. So I intervened and threatened him and so he hit me.”
“Oh, God.” I bite back my wince while switching to butterfly stitches. “He did this to you?”
“Mmhmm. Until I fought back. He won’t be getting out of the hospital for a while. But then the woman started yelling at me because he was her husband, like I was the bad guy, and so I told her to get a grip and she did this.” Raven indicates to her lip. “She punched me and her ring ripped me.”
“Did you fight her too?”
“No. I’m not that much of an asshole.”
“I don’t think defending her makes you an asshole.”
“No, but putting him in hospital with a broken arm does.”
I lean back, stunned. Raven’s a little shorter than me, thin and pale, and I’m certain her thick, muddy curls make up most of her frame. It’s difficult to imagine someone like her breaking someone’s arm.
“What?” She gazes up at me. “He deserved it.”
“No, I know. I’m just stunned.”
“About?”
“Well, we’re about the same build, but you’re a little shorter. I can’t picture you breaking someone’s arm.”
“It’s not all about strength, you know. I’m fast. I know the techniques. We all have to protect ourselves.” Raven’s eyes close once more and she remains silent until I apply the last stitch that closes the laceration above her brow.
I gently cup her chin and study the gash on her lip. It’s rough around the edges but the bleeding has finally stopped. “I’ll apply a couple of stitches but they might not hold, depending on how much you talk.”
“I’ve talked enough,” Raven replies with another half-smile. “Your turn.”
“Doesn’t everyone here know everything about me already?”
“I want to know about you and Ruslan.”
Her directness catches me off guard and the cotton slips from my fingers. “There is no me and Ruslan.”
“Lying to someone in the Suit is not a great idea,” Raven says, her eyes sparkling playfully. “I see the way he looks at you. I know a smitten man when I see one.”
“He just cares, that’s all. It’s been a pretty hectic couple of months.”
“We’re trained not to care. It gets too messy that way.” Raven’s head tilts slightly to the side as I do my best to clean her lip.
“Well, then you’re seeing things wrong.”
“Am I? Are you telling me you’re not even the least bit interested?”
It’s weird talking to her about this, but at the same time it’s like I’ve been aching to talk to someone because words bubble up in my chest and before I know it, I’m talking like a headless chicken.
“Maybe I am, but it hardly matters because I’m just here until a bigger problem gets solved.
A problem I shouldn’t even be a part of.
It’s like I accidentally fell into a river and I’m just being swept along by it and everything else is just like a fleeting, passing rock.
My life is in ruins, my dad is dead, my mom is in a coma and might not even wake up.
On top of that, everyone I was close to died in that plane crash, and my best friend might not even be my friend now because she was keeping these huge secrets from me.
So even if I like Ruslan, what do I have to offer?
Nothing. I have nothing. My life is just gone. Up in smoke.”
By the time I finish speaking, the last stitch lies across Raven’s lips and she’s studying me intently. “So craft a new one.”
I set the bloodied cotton balls down in a pile. “What?”
“Make a new life. I’m sorry that your old one is gone.
What happened to you is dreadful, Ivy. So dreadful, and I’m sorry.
But you have all the time and space in the world to make a new one.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, but all that pain you’re carrying?
It’s left over from other people. Your father’s betrayal.
Moira’s lies. The plane crash. It’s in the past. I’m not telling you to move on if you’re not ready, because we’re all different, but maybe just adjust your outlook.
Embrace the now. Are there any new things in your life now that can be the start of that? ”
The bloodied cotton balls end up in the trash and I slide some painkillers toward Raven while she speaks. As gentle as her voice is, her words are a little harsh. Have I been lingering too much in the past? Holding on to things I can’t change and won’t ever be able to?
In the present, Ruslan is the only new thing I’d like to hold on to. If Raven’s right and he watches me, maybe he feels something too? I mull over that morning where we woke up cuddling and how nice it felt to have someone next to me.
Beyond him, my life is empty, though. Can I really focus on a new job, a new home, and a new life while someone out there is trying to kill me?
Raven pats my cheek as she slides off the stool. “Thanks. Think about what I said. There’s no textbook answer for anything, but a new start never hurt anyone, y’know? And if that new start involved fucking Ruslan’s brains out, then so be it.”
“Raven!” Indignation flashes through my chest as my cheeks flush, but she’s already hurrying out of the kitchen while laughing. Laughter that abruptly ends when Cassian’s voice rises in the hallway.
“Raven! What happened to you?”
Smiling to myself, I tidy up the rest of the kit while mulling over her advice.
What does my future look like? Is there a chance Ruslan can be in it?
Whether I’ll even have one or not hinges on Ruslan and his team solving the mystery of the plane crash.
It remains on my mind as I wander the floor and eventually make it to the gym where Ruslan lies flat on his back.
His arms cross at his chest with a hand on each opposite shoulder and he sits up in rapid, short bursts.
“Ruslan?”
“Hmm?” He turns his head to face me and smiles briefly. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to ask if you know what we’re going to do next?”
“Next?”
“With the plane and everything. I was talking to Raven and just…” Wandering closer, I stop a few feet away.
“I want my life back. Well, a new life. I want to start it, but you’re right.
I can’t until we find out who is trying to kill me and why.
So I want to know what you’re going to do next.
” As much as I hate asking him, I’m somewhat powerless. But that doesn’t mean I’m useless.
“Well…” Ruslan finishes his sit-ups and bounces to his feet, his pecs trembling slightly as he lands on the balls of his feet.
“I’ve been thinking about what we learned from Florence.
She spoke openly to you. I’m fairly certain we’d still be in the dark if not for you, but your father's involvement in this means one of two things. Either Florence is lying and she’s involved deeper than she’s letting on, or your father’s affair with her is completely unrelated and something we just stumbled on accidentally. ”
Ruslan grabs his towel from the nearby weight rack and pats the back of his neck, still panting softly. “Without knowing which of those is true is where it gets difficult because if we make the wrong move, then…” He shrugs and brings the towel to his face.
An accident. Is it really possible that my father’s affair has absolutely nothing to do with this? Is it just some weird coincidence?
It can’t be. Not when he was involved with two people connected to the Mafia, even if Florence’s connection was old.
Chewing on my lower lip, I gaze at Ruslan while my attention drifts.
I replay everything in my mind. From the plane crash, the fake cops, the attack at my parents’ house…
there has to be something we’re missing.
“What if… what if we’re wrong?”
Ruslan brings the towel down and squints at me. “Wrong?”
I nod. “What if it’s not my father that’s unconnected, but the drugs? Think about it… everything we know about motivation changes if you consider that the plane blowing up was an accident.”
Ruslan’s brows lower and he rocks his weight from side to side, then his gaze darkens. “It wasn’t the drugs that were the target,” he says slowly. “You were.”