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I always wondered if she was talking about my dad, since my parents met in high school. She never clarified, and now I fear I’ve walked right into the path she fought to keep me away from.
Fortunately for me, Ruslan’s obsession with exacting his revenge has kept him occupied for most of our waking hours. I feel bloated and fatigued, but I doubt I look unwell enough to elicit a response from him. He has tunnel vision, and that might be the only thing preventing a confrontation that I can’t talk my way out of.
I mean, it would behisbaby too, so I refuse to feel guilty or beg for his forgiveness at allowing him to cum inside me. He’s far too old to be placing the blame on the woman, and it’s a bit of a shock to me that he doesn’t have a mess of kids running around to begin with.
Maybe I’m special.
But being special changes very little. I fear that no amount of logic or taking responsibility would remedy this situation. Ruslan has no time to worry about a surprise pregnancy – he has to find his brother’s killer.
The last time I saw him, he was pacing back and forth in front of the windows that overlook the bay, smoking a cigarette and muttering to himself.
Had I been listening closer, I might have been able to figure out where his head is at. I haven’t seen him eat more than a few saltines and a beer in the last two days, and I’m worried that his emotional instability combined with exhaustion and hunger is a one-way ticket to impending disaster.
He hasn’t been unkind or cruel to me, of course. If he had been, I would have taken my chances climbing out the second-story bathroom window, risking a broken ankle for the chance to free myself.
He’s just been distant and obsessive.
There’s a corner store a few blocks from the house, and I might be able to slip away for an hour once he’s exhausted himself enough to sleep for a bit. It shouldn’t be long now, but the unknown variables are eating away at me at a pace that I can’t keep up with.
It takes another three hours of pacing, smoking, and refusing to eat or drink before he finally sits on the couch for a moment. I can see in his eyes that his intent is to recenter himself, maybe take a light nap at the very most.
But the second he lies back, he’s out cold.
24
Vera
Ihave no money, and I can’t borrow anything from Ruslan without him asking what it’s for, but I have other options.
In the past, I witnessed many of my childhood friends stealing things from the pharmacy where I grew up. Candy, beer, pregnancy tests, whatever – it’s all the same to an underpaid teenage cashier. They don’t care what you take, so long as you don’t make a scene.
Ruslan’s house is huge, so I choose to strategize my escape in a more practical way than launching myself from the bathroom window. That might work if I never planned on coming back, but I need access to the house once I return again.
There’s a guest bedroom on the first floor, and the windows unlock easily enough for me to remove the screen and slip through without making much noise. I haven’t been outside of Ruslan’s house since we arrived, and it was dark enough to obscure the surrounding neighborhood.
I’ll have to make sure I know my way back.
If I take too long and Ruslan thinks I’ve run away, there’s no telling what he might do. He’s so well-connected and powerful in the bratva that he could probably find me three states over. Even if I was just down the road, I wouldn’t be able to explain to him why I’d chosen to slip away inconspicuously.
I remove the screen from the window, wincing as it snaps out of place. The siding scrapes my leg as I climb out, and a brief flash of paranoia grips me as I scan the scrape for broken skin. How would I explain an injury like that?
I haven’t thought this through. I didn’t thinkanyof this through.
Not the sex, not my participation in this revenge fantasy, nothing.
As soon as I stop shaking from nervousness, I take off running in the direction that looks the most familiar. I tried to take in as much of my surroundings as possible when we pulled up to this neighborhood, but so many of the houses look the same.
Expensive, boxy, and plain with excessively-manicured lawns.
When I glance around, the whole thing feels like an endless labyrinth of white-collar comfort, something I should have grown much more accustomed to by now. It seems that no matter how much time I spend around rich people, I’ll always feel out of place.
I have to consciously regulate my breathing in order to remain calm as I continue to venture further away from Ruslan’s house. Every block or so, I glance behind my shoulder to make note of any significant landmarks that would guide me back to my starting point.
If I weren’t on a mission, I’d stand on the corner of these sidewalks to tell myself stories about the people that live in these houses. I have enough experience with these types of people that I could come up with something pretty convincing, maybe even shocking them with the accuracy of my assessment.
They truly are some of the most uninteresting people on the planet, and their daily lives are overcome with nothing but petty, self-involved drama.
Or maybe that’s just what it looks like from outside their bubble.
