“Why?”
I stared down at the bottle in my hand and thought about lying. I could have told him I had been drunk, overwhelmed, confused. Anything would have been easier than telling the truth, but the way he waited made me feel like he already knew.
“Well, my estranged husband thinks he still owns me, so he pops up sometimes and I never know when he watching me, so I use the back instead of the front and that’s the truth.” I explained noticing how Lev didn’t move and the hand at my waist stayed where it was. I took another deep breath. “I never knew what kind of mood he was going to be in.”
His eyes sharpened slightly, but he still said nothing. He was a listener, so he let me finish. “Before I moved, he watched everything,” I said. “How long it took me to get home. Who called, who texted, or if I stopped somewhere after work, he wanted to know why. If I took too long in the shower, he wanted to know what I was doing.”
Lev flexed his jaws, but he didn’t interrupt. I kept talking because stopping would have been worse. “The garage was the only place I could breathe for a few minutes without him standing over me. Sometimes I would park, turn the car off, and just sit there in the dark.” I confessed. “I knew the minute I opened that door; I had to become whatever version of me that kept him calm.” I blinked hard. “I hated going home.”
For the first time all night, I wasn’t smiling for money, and I wasn’t pretending like I had everything under control. I was not Navy from the club, dressed in crystals and performing like nothing in the world could touch me. I was just a woman admitting that the place she was supposed to feel safest hadbecome the place she feared most and that’s why I was in the situation I was in.
Lev leaned back slightly, but his eyes never left mine. “What he do to you?” he quizzed. I hesitated and then my mouth opened, but nothing came out. He pressed his hand a little more firmly against my waist, in not in a way that hurts, but just enough to let me know he was there. “Tell me,” he said again.
For some reason, sitting in that dim VIP room on the lap of the man I owed more money than I could afford to lose, I believed he actually wanted the truth. The words sat in on the tip of my tongue a second before they finally found their way out. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Lev didn’t rush me. He sat there with that same unreadable expression he’d worn since the day I’d met him, giving nothing away while somehow making it feel like he expected the truth. I lowered my eyes to the bottle turning slowly between my hands before taking a swig.
“Rome wasn’t always…” I paused, searching for the right word. “He wasn’t always the man he became. When we first got together, he made me feel protected. I thought having somebody who wanted to know where I was all the time meant he cared.” I let out a quiet laugh at my own ignorance. “I didn’t know the difference between somebody protecting you and somebody trying to own you. It started off little, asking where I was, or who I was with. Shit like why it took me fifteen minutes to get somewhere instead of ten.” I swallowed. “Then it became checking my phone, questioning every conversation, accusing me of things I wasn’t even doing all because he was doing it all.”
I could still remember trying to defend myself. Trying to prove things that never happened. Trying to satisfy a man who had already decided I was guilty. “It got to the point where I was explaining why I stopped for gas.” I chuckled in a low, nervous tone. “Imagine having to explain why your tank was on E.”
Lev never interrupted, not once. He removed the bottle from my hand and took a sip straight from the bottle while I continued. “He controlled everything.” I looked down at my hands. “And because he made more money than I did…” I shrugged. “He made sure I never forgot it. That part stung more than I liked admitting. “He’d pay every bill in the house and yeah it sounds good when you say it out loud, but every argument somehow ended with him reminding me who paid for what and when he got mad, sometimes beat my ass.”
I didn’t cry because I’d cried enough over Rome’s ass. “He never had to apologize because he’d come back with flowers or jewelry or a vacation and I’d convince myself that’s just how relationships worked. Then he got another woman pregnant. I don’t even think that was the part that broke me. I think what broke me was realizing he’d already been living another life while making me feel guilty for breathing too damn loud.”
Lev’s eyes never left mine but for some strange reason, I could tell he didn’t like what I was telling him. “What happened after that?”
“He emptied my accounts.” I looked over at him. He knew if I had money, I’d leave. So, he made sure I couldn’t.” My shoulders rose and fell again. I stayed longer than I should’ve because I didn’t know how I was gonna survive.” I laughed in bitter kind of way. “Funny thing is I survived anyway.”
The words lingered between us in silence for a few seconds before I continued. “When I stole that money.” I closed my eyes for a second. “I wasn’t thinking, I was desperate and I knew exactly what I was doing.” I admitted finally looking into his eyes without shying away. “I did the crime, so now I’m doing the time.”
Neither one of us spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable either, in fact it was needed this time. Eventually, I pushed myself to my feet as the weight of everything I’d just admittedfelt like a weight lifted off my chest, there was something freeing about finally saying it out loud. I reached into my rhinestone pouch and pulled out the stack of cash Mr. Chambers had handed me minutes earlier.
Straightening the bills in my palms, I crossed the small space between us and held them out. “Here’s three thousand.” I said. Lev looked at the money before taking it from me. I dug back into my bag again. “Hold on.” I told him.
He watched me fish around until my fingers wrapped around the tiny receipt book I’d started carrying. It wasn’t fancy, it was just a little carbon copy booklet I’d picked up from an office supply store. Most people would’ve thought it was ridiculous, but I thought it kept people honest. Flipping to the next blank page, I uncapped my pen and carefully filled in the date, the amount, and the running balance before tearing the top copy free. Then I flipped back one page which was the receipt from the last payment, and I tore that one out too.
Holding both slips between my fingers, I handed them over. “This one was from when you came by my place.” I pointed to the other. “And this one’s today’s.” I tapped the total I’d written near the bottom. “This three makes twenty-two thousand. I’ve got twenty-eight thousand more to go.”
For the first time since he’d walked into the room, something almost changed across his face. It wasn’t a smile because Lev didn’t strike me as somebody who smiled often but there was the faintest hint of amusement in his eyes as he looked down at the little receipt book still resting in my hand. “You made receipts.”
I smiled feeling like my damn cheeks were red and filled with heat. “I like keeping records.”
He nodded his head. “So I see.”
“I don’t want no confusion later.” I slipped the pen back into the spiral binding. “When money is involved, folks remember things differently.”
He looked at me another second before folding the two receipts together and slipping them into his pocket without another word. I blinked because honestly I hadn’t expected him to keep them, but I was learning it was always a method behind his madness.
He stood up adjusting the cuff of his watch. “Get dressed.”
I frowned. “For what?”
His gaze settled on me. “Come take a ride.”
That was it, he once again didn’t give me an explanation, or no damn destination. He turned and walked toward the door as if the conversation was already over.
I stared after him. “A ride?” The door closed behind him. I looked around the empty VIP room before blowing out a long breath. “What the hell…”
