AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We’re getting married.” I say it more for myself than anyone else. I’m not anywhere close to actually processing or accepting it. I’m mostly just checking to make sure that I do in fact understand what that series of words means, just as a general concept. As for what it meansfor me in particular?That will take lots of time yet (and maybe a therapist) to unpack.
Ivan only nods in answer, holding open the back door into the alley.
I step through it and into the cool shade between the buildings. The cement is damp the way it always is, condensation trickling from the air conditioners and pooling on the ground. There’s the sickly sweet scent of food rot emanating from the dumpsters at the mouth of the alley.
It’s all so normal. So mundane. I could almost believe everything that just happened was some kind of twisted nightmare.
Then Ivan steps in front of the daylight coming from between the buildings. He’s all too real.
“I need my stuff,” I blurt.
“Yasha will grab whatever belongs to you inside and bring it to my house later.”
“Not that stuff. My stuff from home.”
“Like?”
“Like…normal stuff!” I snap. “Human stuff. Clothes and my phone charger. I need a toothbrush.”
“I can replace all of that,” he says dismissively.
The walls seem to close in tighter. I feel my freedom shrinking, evaporating like it was nothing. Like it was never there to begin with.
“I don’t want to replace it,” I grit out. “I wantmystuff. I’m going to my apartment.”
Ivan checks something on his phone and shakes his head like he’s bored. “No, you’re not.”
“You can’t stop me.”
He blows out a breath. “I just made it clear that I can do whatever I want.”
“And you want to hold me against my will?” I challenge. “You want to kidnap me and force me to marry you?”
I don’t really think there’s any hope that I’ll appeal to some deep reservoir of morality inside of him. But then he stiffens. He pockets his phone and turns to me with rigid, careful movements.
“I want to keep you alive. I want to keep youbreathing.” He stalks closer to me. “You don’t have a single fucking clue how much danger you’re in. A sniper just tried to shoot you in the chest and you want to parade back into your apartment for a goddamnedtoothbrush.”
It sounds ridiculous when he says it like that.
“This isn’t about a toothbrush. It’s about my freedom.”
“Take that up with whoever has a hit out on you.”
“Feels like semantics,” I mutter.
He stands tall, looking down his nose at me. “You have no concept of the danger you’re in or the saving grace I’m offering you.”
“You’re offering me a gilded cage,” I say. “But I’m supposed to be okay with it because you’re going to buy me whichever toothbrush my heart desires?”
“A gilded cage is a lot better than a coffin, wouldn’t you say? That’s where you’ll be if you go back to your apartment. It isn’t safe.”
I shake my head. “My apartment is safe. It’s in a nice neighborhood. I’m on the—”
“Fifth floor,” Ivan finishes. “You have a balcony overlooking a flower stand and you live across from an elderly couple with two cats.”
Angela and Geoff open a new bottle of wine every Friday night and bring me a glass. When I make brownies, I take them a pan. They’re Geoff’s favorites.
But I’ve never told anyone about them. The only way anyone would know any of this is if they’d been watching me.
