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The water turns cold in my shower, jolting me out of the memory, my chest aching like I’ve taken a physical blow. I can feel how swollen my face is, my nose stuffy, and my jaw hurting from clenching it so hard, and I wonder how long I’ve been crying. How long I’ve been lost in memories from years ago, memories that most of the time I can lock away.
There’s supposed to be a healing process to grieving, I’ve been told. Time is supposed to healsomething, but it all feels fresh, every time I let myself think about it, abouthim. So I just don’t.
I left St. Louis. I left all of that—our apartment, all of our little haunts that we went to together over and over, his grave. I walked away from it, renamed myself, and started a different life.
But I just can’t seem to get away from the fucking underworld of mafia and Bratva and gangs that seem determined to infiltrate my life no matter what I do. Jamie wanted out—and I wanted out forus—but without him, it was too easy to stay with what I knew. If it hadn’t been for Nikolai taking an interest in me at a club he saw me dancing at here, I might not be where I am now.
The money,I remind myself, as I get out and dry off, avoiding looking at myself in the mirror. With the money I’m making from this job—being paid double, essentially, plus a bonus—and what I’m still making during my nights at the club, I might finally be able to put this all in my rearview. I might be able to walk away from all of this bullshit for good, and give myself enough space to really start a new life.
A new name, a new home, a new city. A chance to reinvent myself all over again.
The only complication in all of that is Finn. He makes me feel things that I buried all those years ago, along with the only man I ever really loved. If I let them in—if I lethimin, I’ll just be repeating the past all over again.
If I was going to let myself love someone again—and that’s a hell of a bigif—it wouldn’t be another man wearing leather and riding a motorcycle. A man who works for what is essentially just a bigger, wealthier, and better-organized gang, a man whose life is enforcement and violence.
The only way that ends is with me losing someone I care about again. A month, a year, five years from now, it would catch up with him. It always fucking does. Jamie’s brother is dead now, too—I know, because I kept checking for obituaries for the rest of the gang members I knew well for years after I left. So are two of his best friends. A couple more are in jail. Being in that life—reallyin it, not just living in it on the outskirts and hustling as a dancer or an escort—means being locked up or killed eventually.
It was more than just knowing I’d make a bad Bratva wife that kept me from letting myself fall completely in love with Nikolai, from ever trying to convince him that what we had could have turned into more, and itcouldhave. Until he met Lilliana, there was a chance. I know he felt something for me, too. But I wasn’t going to marry a man in the Bratva—not even the man who stood to inherit it.
Knowing what I do about what happened to Lilliana and Nikolai’s sister Marika, I feel vindicated in that decision, even if the loss of what Nikolai and I had still hurts. Finn would just be more of the same.
I need to finish the job, leave this city, and put him and the rest of it in my rear-view for good.Allof this.
As I dig out a pair of soft sleep shorts and a tank from my dresser, I reach for the thin leather wallet buried in the pile of clothes, the real reason I went for this drawer, even if I want to pretend otherwise. It’s soft and supple in my hand—worn down at the edges from being kept in the back pocket of a pair of jeans, and I hold it for a long moment, trying to fight the urge to open it.It’s just going to hurt,I tell myself, but everything hurts tonight—body, mind, and soul. What’s a little more?
I know what’s in there by heart. Jamie’s driver’s license, long expired by now, his handsome face scrunched up in the picture they took before he was ready. A two-dollar bill that I found in a parking lot outside the movie theater we always went to, that he swore was lucky.Not lucky enough,I think as I swallow past the lump in my throat, my fingers sliding past it to reach for the small stack of pictures tucked inside.
There’s a strip from a photo booth at his best friend’s wedding, increasingly silly pictures where we’re both so clearly trashed. A picture he swore was his favorite of me, leaning up against the wall behind the club where he kissed me for the first time, in a black leather miniskirt and matching triangle top, my hair in that same messy bun. I hated it—I always thought I looked exhausted in the photo, unable to see past the clear bags under my eyes and the way my makeup had rubbed off a little by that point in the night—but he’d sworn he loved me like that, a little messy, a little undone.
I flip through them to the last one, the one thatIlove the most, the one that hurts the most to look at. His best friend Jesse took it, a picture of Jamie and I on his motorcycle, me clinging to his waist as I rest my chin on his shoulder and look out at the camera, both of us so clearly happy. Jamie had grown out a beard, and I close my eyes briefly, shoving the photos back in the wallet before I can remember how much I loved the scratch of it against my neck, the way the beard oil I bought him smelled, vanilla and cedar mixed in with the leather and smoke and engine grease scent that made uphim.
I push the wallet back into the drawer, feeling the ache spread through me, missing Jamie and wanting Finn and hating Matvei all at once, the emotions warring inside of me until I feel so exhausted that it’s all I can do just to put on the clothes I’d taken out and collapse into bed, hoping that I don’t have nightmares about what happened tonight.
I can’t afford to be this out of it. I have a week before I’m supposed to see Matvei, but I have to work in the meantime. A fresh wave of exhaustion crashes over me just at the thought. I burrow deeper into my bed, wondering if there’s a way for me to plead sick for a night or two before I remember how much I’d be losing out on by doing that. I’ve never called in sick to work the entire time I’ve worked for Nikolai, either—he’d know something was off if I did.
The best I can hope for is that I’ll be too exhausted to dream.
Asha
Iarrive at work the next night expecting my usual roster—only to be stopped by Callie as I walk in, her face a little confused.
“Sorry, Asha, but I thought you should know—someone blocked out your next three nights for themselves personally. So you’ll be seeing just the one person—”
I blink at her. It would take a huge sum to do that—I have more than a few clients who would be capable of it, but no one who has shown the inclination to buythatmuch time with me. Also, it would mean—
“Someone shuffled my other clients around? Who on earth would Nikolai allow to do that—”’
“It was booked a few days ago. He asked which days hadn’t been blocked out already, and—” Callie frowns, looking through her tablet. “It was that Mr. O’Sullivan. The new client. He must have really taken a liking to you, hm?” She flashes me a teasing smile, and it’s all I can do to keep my expression neutral.
You son of a bitch. It’s the most high-handed thing Finn has ever done in the brief time that I’ve met him, and as nice of a gesture as I know it’s probably meant to be, it pisses me off nonetheless.
“Must have,” I manage, heading for the double doors. “Thanks, Callie.”
I grit my teeth as I head for my dressing room, already pulling my phone out of my purse. It irritates me more because he’s giving me exactly what I wanted—a way to get a break while still getting paid for it. But having the time blocked out means there won’t be any tips left—and it also means I won’t have any way to distract myself.
The moment I’m in my dressing room with the door closed behind me, I call Finn. He answers on the first ring, and from the smug tone in his voice, he was expecting my call.
