Day 5
Total goat fuck of a day.
I didn’t wait to get the word from my brother about if I had to deal with the truck again. I knew what the answer was going to be, and I knew any communication with him was going to be far more than I could handle with the screaming headache I wake up to.
My kit’s tucked back away behind the water heater in a false wall. I could get it and patch myself up, but I talk myself out of it. I’m not an addict anymore, but I know how quickly it can happen again. The kit’s gotta stay locked up at least another month or two. I’m gonna be itchy as fuck today. I’ll have to leave my gun home because if anyone cops an attitude today — and they will; I know who saw that video and how it’s going to spread — it’ll be hard to resist pulling a gun on them.
I cut myself a bump of oxy to clear the worst of the fog and wrap myself around Ana’s warmth for another minute before it kicks in and I get ready for the day. I never check my phone. I don’t even turn it on. I don’t wake Ana up, either.
I needed her last night. I needed to take care of her and make sure that she was in a good space. I needed to do that.
I’m not blaming her for what I had to do to settle myself, but it was the reminder I needed that this is nothing more than a game I’m playing. This isn’t real. That expiration date on this bit of madness is exactly what I need.
Today’s site is a weld shop three miles away. That’s the one silver lining. It’s close enough that I don’t need to get a ride from Kostya. I suck down a couple of cigarettes and a cup of coffee on the walk to level myself out.
It doesn’t work.
The shop has five employees working, doing what they need to do in order to keep the business on the up-and-up to cover for the chopping that happens in Bay 6. Three of them don’t notice my presence, not for anything except a nod of acknowledgment, but the other two are staring at me. One of them murmurs something quietly to the other, who smirks at me like I’ve just been ratted out.
I’m starting to think I’d rather be taking advantage of the time I have left with Ana than dealing with this shit. If nothing else, Ana likes my cock. She might not care for the rest of me, but that doesn’t matter when I’m buried five rungs inside her.
Mikhael shows up with the truck, this haul coming up from Phoenix. He whistles low when he sees me, but the sound makes my temple pulse. “Boy, I wasn’t sure if you were still alive,” he calls out with a rough laugh.
“Yeah, just keeps happening, I guess,” I mutter as I approach the tailgate.
“Figured I’d pass you on 17 as the mob boys were escorting you to your castration,” he jokes, not getting the hint when I narrow my eyes at him. No, he pushes it further by opening his door, pausing to spit on the ground, then looking up and waggling an eyebrow. “That’s your thing, right?”
I walk right up to him with my hand out like I’m reaching for his keys, but as soon as he hops out of the cab and hands them to me, I pull my other fist back and clock him right in the cheek. He holds his hands up in surrender as I slam my forearm over his neck and walk him back against the side of the truck.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, you got me?” I snarl at him. “You saw nothing, and you never will. It doesn’t exist in that shit rat brain of yours.”
I release him once his chin presses into my arm, the best nod he can manage. This time when he spits, it’s tinged with red.
“Fine, fuck. Whatever. But what I’m seeing, I was expecting your brother to be the one driving you to Phoenix.” He huffs his way back to the tailgate, and we start unloading. He usually runs off the first chance he gets, but he’s sticking to me like dog shit on my shoe, constantly firing off texts, intercepting the men who arrive to get their goods. I’d love to say he’s just keeping everyone away so I don’t flip out on anyone else, but I’m not as stupid as he is. He’s moving slow as fuck, dragging the process out, jumbling up shit and making more work for me. He’s keeping me here.
And obviously he’s texting with Artyom. I’m not surprised, only furious when he shows up an hour after I would have finished the truck if Mikhael hadn’t fucked everything up.
Artyom likes to think he’s not as hot-headed as me, that everything he does is deliberate and if he attacks, it’s always justified, but he’s as fucked as I am. He just doesn’t have the voices to silence, so he doesn’t need drugs to manage himself.
Oh, other than today, apparently, because he barely has his Mazda 3 in park before he’s flying out of it and slamming into me like a goddamn rabid coyote. My morning cocktail is starting to wear off, so my legs are shaky enough, my reflexes dulled enough, that he knocks me on my ass.
“You stupid piece of shit!” Artyom snarls. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I could fight back. Since we’re on the ground already and gravity’s no longer working against me, it wouldn’t be anything to pin him. But I just lie there as he gets himself together.
“You pull a stunt like that and then turn off your phone? I was stuck having to figure out where your head was from stupid ass Mikhael.”
“Hey!” Mikhael peeps out as though he’s offended, but he knows exactly how dumb he is.
Artyom isn’t having any of that either, and only when he lays off me for a second to glare at Mikhael do I notice his hair’s wild from running his fingers through it and his eyes are bloodshot. He’s had a rough night, and yeah, that’s probably on me, but he also didn’t make any big effort to get back early from Vegas. It’s gotta be past noon, and it’s only a four-hour drive. I don’t even know why he was there to begin with. He’s not a gambler, and he’s been serious about his girlfriend, Jana, for ages.
He pops up onto his feet and grabs me by the collar to get me up as well, but I’m dead weight. Lying down like that gave me the chance to think about how much better my life would be if I was lying down in a bed, dozing under the massive pile of blankets that Ana has added to every day and seems to think I won’t notice because she sandwiches them between the sheet and the duvet.
“If you don’t get up, I am going to run over your legs,” Artyom threatens.
I snort and mutter, “Not until you get a lift kit,” but I’m already dragging my ass up so he doesn’t respond to that, instead leading me into the weld shop and bellowing for everyone to get out. The workers shut down their equipment and scatter as quickly as they can without ruining their current projects, but it’s another five minutes before the bays have been emptied.
Artyom takes that time to pat down my pockets. I’m not sure what he’s looking for, but he comes up with the usual suspects: my billfold, my cigarettes and lighter, and my phone. He turns it on, holding it up to my face to force it to unlock, and starts to scroll through it as it vibrates wildly with incoming texts. “You’ve fucked up,” he mutters, more to himself than me, I think. “You have fucked up. Fucking shit, you have fucked up.” When he pushes the phone back at me, I stick it right back in my pocket. “You’re getting rid of her.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“They’re threatening retaliation.”
“There’s nothing to retaliate for. I told Tony she’s mine for fifteen days. I am taking what’s mine.”
“You raped her on camera! You sent it to them so they could all see it. You sent it to me ! What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “ Did I rape her on camera? Do you truly think that’s what happened?”
He opens his mouth, ready to scream at me again, make more of those accusations, but then something clicks and he has to huff out an irritated redaction. “Okay, I’m betting it wasn’t as . . . nonconsensual as it looked?”
I shrug.
“She still needs to go,” he says more gently. “You’ve had your fun with her. You proved your point. Now send her back. I’ll have Kostya—”
“Kostya doesn’t touch her. She stays right where she is until that debt is paid.”
Artyom slams his fist down on the workbench he’s leaning on. “That debt wasn’t to you! I decide when the debt is paid, and it’s paid.”
I get close enough that when I lift my fist, he leans back. But it’s my own chest I punch. “ My debt. The debt you and Tony both owe to me and Ana for using us as your pawns. Neither of you gave or received anything. Our flesh was your transaction.”
Artyom puts his hand on my chest, and it’s only then, when my knuckles hit the fragile bones of his hand instead of my own chest, that I realize I’ve punched my chest at least half a dozen times. “Brother,” he says softly, his bloodshot eyes staring down my own, no doubt equally bloodshot eyes. They always are. I gave up on hiding behind Visine ages ago. “Mikhael says you’ve been acting strange this morning, and Igor says he smelled something when he was doing his patrol last night, so I’m going to ask you this once, and please don’t fight me. Roll up your sleeves.”
“You asshole,” I hiss, hoping he doesn’t hear the vibration in my voice. His guess isn’t wrong, but that’s why I don’t shovel it directly into my veins anymore. Not when I know how to control myself and only do it when it’s medically necessary.
The voices make me do terrible things.
I roll up my sleeves and show off my unmarred veins. His glower of a response tells me he doesn’t believe me.
“You tell Tony he will shut his men up and expect to see his sister when the debt is paid, or I will tell them that he pissed away their money on black jack in Vegas.”
The way Artyom blinks tells me I’m not actually far from the truth even as he blusters with, “That’s not what happened, and you’re not telling anyone that.”
I shrug as my phone buzzes in my pocket. I’m sure it’s just another notification from overnight, but this is why I’ve kept it off. I can’t resist checking it. “Maybe not, but the fact that he sold his sister to us for $150,000 tells me he fucked them up financially somehow. Shit, I wouldn’t sell Kseniya for anything, but for $150,000? I might not have it, but I could certainly find it with a quickness.”
Speaking of Kseniya, that’s who the message is from, a quick, cryptic message about how I’m lucky I’ve got such a loyal girl. I’m not going to pretend I have any such thing, but I level my own peevish glare at Artyom. “Why is Kseniya with Ana right now?” I ask softly, dread sinking like sludge in my gut. Yeah, I had her visit with Ana the other day, and I did tell her to visit whenever she wanted so Ana wouldn’t feel so alone — I’ve already been stressing about how I’m going to explain it when I return Ana because it’s not like I can tell Kseniya why she’s here to begin with — but it can’t be a coincidence that she’s there now.
Artyom purses his lips as he waits way too long to answer. Finally, he gives up on trying to come up with a decent lie and says, “I sent her over there to get Ana out.”
“You piece of shit.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
I look down at my phone to see yet another message from Kseniya.
KSENIYA
ANA’S BLEEDING.