Day 4
Morning 3.
I’m not sure if that means it’s Day 3 or Day 4. I have no idea when Vasily plans on returning me, if I’m being honest. He said fifteen days, but was Saturday a day? It’s not like I get any time to ask. The last two days, he walked out within a half hour of waking up and spent most of that time either outside smoking or in the bathroom getting ready for the day. At night, I’m already asleep by the time he gets home.
He woke me again last night, but it wasn’t like we had a chance to talk since his mouth was already between my legs by the time I realized what was going on. Again, he made me come, this time all over his face, and he insisted on kissing me directly afterward, which was gross.
Maybe.
No, definitely gross. Yuck. Super gross, not even a little bit encouraging me to wrap my legs around his waist to rub myself on him. That’s absurd.
And again, he masturbated in the shower, but again, I was too tired to keep myself awake to ask him about stuff when he got out.
He would have used that stupid accent anyway. I would have gotten mad. I probably shouldn’t yell at my captor when he’s hopefully just brought a bunch of my personal belongings.
It’s a relief seeing them in the corner of the bedroom in the morning. He even packed my clothes in my cutesy suitcase my dad got me when he took me to Australia when I was seven and I insisted I wanted a suitcase that was pink with flowers. It’s rare I go anywhere anymore, and I’m usually with Tony, who insists I use the Coco Chanel suitcase, so my tummy fills with butterflies when I see it there in the living room. It’s enough to soothe much of my irritation.
I decided something last night after Kseniya left. If I get pregnant, I don’t know what will happen, if I’ll be forced to marry Vasily or if I’ll just be sent somewhere to have the baby.
Do I want to marry Vasily? I have no idea who he is, and right now, I’m thinking like I have a choice, so the answer is no.
Do I want to spend the rest of my life in this apartment? No.
Do I want to go off somewhere to have the baby that will be put up for adoption and then return to my brother, knowing that I’ll be little more than a prize for an underling? Definitely not.
But if Vasily turned out to be as respectful to his wife as he is to his sister, if I behave myself and prove myself trustworthy, I’ll have freedom here. And if I’m sent off, I’ll have the best opportunity to run. I can really plan it, figure out what I need and where I can go. It’s not a great situation to be in, but I think it’s best if Vasily continues to believe I’m on birth control and I roll those dice.
Oh, except I can’t get pregnant by his finger or his tongue.
He’s sound asleep when I wake up, just as he was the last two mornings. I guess with these long hours, he uses every available second for sleep. I peek at the clock, see that it’ll probably be at least an hour before he wakes up.
I stare at him for longer than I should. He’s a giant, but he’d almost look harmless asleep. His pale skin and hair glow against his dark sheets, practically angelic. He’s scarred, though, lines and puckers I can’t help but assume are bullet wounds. On his pec is a deliberate scar, too. A brand in the shape of a ram’s head. A play on the Aries symbol, but I think it’s his family’s insignia. He has a couple tattoos, as well, but they’re small and on his back, out of sight for me to examine better now. But I’m curious about them.
I’m curious about him. Natural, I suppose, since I’m thinking about marrying him and I don’t know hardly anything about him.
I make a cup of coffee, give myself a few minutes to savor it before hopping in the shower so I can finally use my own toiletries to make myself feel more like me again, and dress in my favorite cropped sweater while I let my hair towel dry. From the cookbook, I find a recipe for pancakes and raid the kitchen for all the ingredients, just like Igor’s wife said in the note she left me. Make sure you have your ingredients before it’s too late to run to the store.
The recipe says it’s four servings, and after much internal conflict, I double it. I’ve already seen how much of my crock pot soup Vasily ate last night before storing the rest in a reusable container in the fridge, so I know now he’s basically four people on his own.
The water dances on the skillet just like the directions say when I pour the batter in, but it’s a good thing I made extra batter because the cooking spray burns and the first pancake has to be thrown out.
When I attempt to flip the second pancake, batter splatters halfway across the kitchen.
The third one looks nice, but then when I throw it on a plate, batter oozes out of it.
I might be a terrible cook. My soup came out good yesterday. I enjoyed it. It looks like Vasily enjoyed it, too. But these pancakes are not working. Are soup cooks a thing? Are some people only capable of cooking one thing, and my one thing is soup?
“Is too much pancake, zvyozdochka, ” Vasily says from directly behind me. For such a big guy, I have no idea how he just snuck up on me, but the hand he rests over my stomach, gently pinning me to him, is the only thing keeping me from jumping and sending the pan straight into the air. “Too much hot.”
He holds me there between his body and the oven, warming my body on both sides, as he fiddles with the knobs and gives the batter a stir. He dunks his pinky in, licking it clean before I can stop him.
“There’s raw egg in that,” I say, but it’s too late.
“And no spice.”
“Kseniya says her husband cooks. Do you cook, too?”
“ Da . Bachelor. Is cook, go poor at the McDonald, or starve. Kseniya also cook. All cook.”
He reaches above me, his broad chest and stomach rubbing against my back, to get into the spice cabinet that I need a chair to stand on to reach. I’m about to ask him to get some other stuff down for me — I really do want to figure this out, now that I know everyone in his world cooks, goes poor, or starves — but his body against mine does weird things to my head. I guess because of what’s happened between us, my body translates this as orgasm time whether I want it to or not.
I blurt out, “Why aren’t you having sex with me?” instead.
Vasily freezes, one hand still on my stomach while the other hand is in the air, reaching for the vanilla extract. He’s shirtless, his biceps tensed in this position and his breath warm on the crown of my head. After a long pause, he says, “Want now?”
“No, I don’t want now!” I squeal. “Or at all.”
“Am confused.”
“So am I. I don’t want you to–to force yourself on me, but I don’t understand why I’m here if it’s not for that.”
“I not keep lady for sex.”
I spin around and shove him away, a move I could regret, but honestly, nothing I’ve done so far has made him lash out at me. I’m starting to not worry about that.
“And stop with the stupid accent and the broken English! Kseniya told me you can speak normal.”
Vasily glares at me, again keeping me suspended for too long before saying, “I don’t like how you say ‘normal,’ like foreign people aren’t normal.”
Which would have me feeling guilty.
If his English hadn’t been perfectly and clearly spoken with only a low, clipped hint of a Russian accent.
I cross my arms over my chest. “I have no idea why I’m here. So, no, I don’t want you to . . .” I sigh. What a ridiculous thing to explain. “I just don’t understand what you’re getting out of this.”
He has the audacity to smirk at me, and I’m getting those small dog feelings like I want to just attack him with everything I’ve got but I know he’ll knock me down the moment he’s had enough. “I told you already. For these two weeks, you’re mine. And I take care of what’s mine. Perhaps I just wanted someone to be home when I got home and to warm my bed when I’m not in it and challenge me when I’m trying to help her make pancakes.”
I let that stew for a minute. He’s just claimed he has no issue getting women, and hopefully he’s not talking about sex workers.
Dear Lord, please don’t let it be sex workers.
Dear Lord, please don’t let his voice continue being this hot. It’s completely unfair that it’s even more alluring when it’s just a hint on perfect, proper English.
If he has no issue getting women, presumably without paying them, then it seems like he should also be fine with getting girlfriends. In fact, there’s proof here of girlfriends. “The women’s clothes in your closet—”
“They are unimportant,” he says, suddenly distracted by one of my curls. I’d think he was attempting to change the subject, but then I see his pupils. Blown, like they always are. I’ve yet to see him clear-eyed in the light.
“You take a lot of drugs,” I say, not meaning it to be an accusation.
“That is also unimportant.”
“The work you do, doesn’t it affect that?”
He shrugs and nudges me to the side to take over on the pancakes, but I stay next to him and watch. “I suppose my brother takes that into account when he tells me what to do,” Vasily says with an amused smile curling his lips. “And it does give Kostya something to do.”
“Kostya?” I repeat, recalling the name from the drive up from Phoenix. It was long enough that there came a point where boredom overcame terror and I started paying attention to the comments occasionally volleyed at my brother.
“My cousin. He’s my driver, lucky bastard.”
“How is that lucky?”
“His father was the avtorivet when we were first sent here. He was too young to take over when Uncle Konstantin was executed, so my father took over.”
“Wait, that makes him lucky?” I ask as Vasily pours little more than a dollop of batter in the frying pan, but it spreads to the size a pancake should be and begins to puff and bubble almost immediately. “He could have been the leader, and instead, he’s your driver because you literally can’t keep your nose clean. And since it’s your brother who’s leading, he babies you instead of making you get yourself together. And that somehow makes him lucky?”
Dread immediately hits me. I’ve said too much. Way too much.
Vasily has the spatula in his hand, hovering over the edge of the pancake like he’s about to nudge it, but then he pulls back.
He’s going to hit me with the spatula.
Nope, he erupts in the most gut-busting laugh I’ve ever heard, wraps the spatulaed hand around my waist, and kisses me hard for no more than two seconds, but it’s enough to leave me shocked catatonic. “Yes, this is it, this is why I wanted you here. I’m so glad I was right about you. But no. I understand what you’re saying, but no. There is no glory in avtorivet , not here. Our fathers did things the Bratva was unhappy about, and we were sent here as punishment.”
“What did they do?” I ask, unable to resist. That’s an extreme punishment, knowing they were in Russia then, but I’m used to the extreme punishment being the metaphorical cement slippers. It’s crazy that they’d be sent here instead when there are plenty of Russian-American Bratva who could have taken over in Flagstaff.
“Decided to be trail-blazers. Uncle Konstantin married a Spanish woman, and Papa married a Finnish woman. It was fine at first, but then there was a power shift. The men who took over weren’t nearly as progressive. Our mothers were executed, and we were sent here. And now our avtorivet is basically a target. My uncle was murdered, my papa was murdered, my brother will one day be murdered, and then I will be murdered. If we are lucky, there will be no one left to take over, and the curse will end with me.”
Vasily flips his pancake with a soft smile on his face, and it makes my heart ache. He says it so matter-of-factly, practically wistfully, but I have to hope that smile isn’t because he’s looking forward to his death. Hopefully, he has some happy memory of his mother or his father that he’s thinking of.
“Dry your eyes, zvyozdochka ,” he murmurs.
But I can’t help it. My mother ran off when I was so young I don’t remember her, but my father? I loved him so much that I thought I too would die when I lost him. I hate knowing this is something we share. We’ve both lost our parents.
“Here, look at how nice these pancakes are coming out. Just little adjustments, and they’re perfect.” He takes a step back to allow me to try for myself. “I’ll be gone all day again, but hopefully that ends soon. Don’t forget if you need anything, just ask Igor. And zvyozdochka?”
“Yes?”
“Highlight whatever you want in that e-reader.”