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The figurative silence was deafening because you could hear the music just fine. That steady base kept time with my heartbeat, pounding anxiously against my ribs.
I wanted to die that very moment. Just give in to my shame and let it suffocate me until I stopped breathing. Instead, I went on the offensive and got in Misha’s face. Or as close to his face as I could, because of how damn tall he was compared to me.
“I had it handled!” I snapped.
“I have no doubt,” he replied, his voice still icy, clearly not believing a word out of my mouth. Why would he? I was pinned against a wall by a slimy piece of shit, seconds away from being sexually assaulted. Again. So, yeah.Totallyhad that handled.
I shook my head, moving to sidestep him. He slid in front of me, tucking his hands in his pants pockets but blocking my exit nonetheless. It would have been nothing to shove him out of the way and bolt, so why didn’t I?
“Who he is?” Misha asked, his head tilted slightly. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. How did henotknow who Ken was? Or maybe he meant, who was he to me?
Regardless of whatever question he was really asking, I clapped back with, “None of your fucking business.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I told you once before, if you’re not going to fight for yourself, I have no problem doing it for you. This man is a threat to you and I want to know why. If you won’t tell me, I will dig up every skeleton in your closet—withoutyour permission. Or, you can stop being so goddamn stubborn for once and tell me the truth.”
My shoulders slumped, paralleling my gaze as it fell to the center of Misha’s chest. It might have been the adrenaline crashing or the fact I was bone tired. It’s not that I didn’t want to fight for myself, like Misha thought, it’s that I’d been fighting for so long I was fucking exhausted. I’d lived a dozen, shitty lifetimes already and the weight of it was killing me, but it wasn’t enough to actually end my suffering. That was the cruelest part of all.
“What do you want to know?” I asked weakly.
His hand came up under my chin, tilting my head back gently until I forced myself to look into his sky-blue eyes. “Tell me everything.”
20
MAREK
After I agreedto tell Misha what he wanted to know, he silenced me with a finger to my lips and led the way to his car outside the club. Anton seemed surprised when we popped out into the alley together and said something in Russian. Misha didn’t answer him initially and yanked the rear passenger door open himself, holding it for me, but I didn’t miss the look he shot Anton’s way as I climbed in. Once I was inside, he practically lunged at his driver and relayed something under his breath.
Whatever was going on between them, Anton didn’t react in any discernible way, other than to mumble something back and then get behind the wheel.
Misha slid onto the bench seat next to me and closed the door a little more gently than he’d opened it. I left my hand laying on the seat near him, waiting to see if he’d touch it like he had the night he whisked me off to rescue Axel. He didn’t. He didn’t even look at me. So it was no surprise that we didn’t speak the entire way from Delirium to Misha’s cozy, little apartment.
Parking out front, Anton resumed his door duty and gave a curt nod to Misha, even though Misha hadn’t said a word. It looked like an agreement or an acknowledgment of some sort, but I had no idea what. I’d pretty much given up trying to guess what the looks and nods and scowls meant, even though the tatted-up guys had no problem interpreting the silent commands.
Once we were in the living room, I sat with my hands in my lap, waiting for Misha to initiate the conversation since he was the one who told me to zip it earlier. Plus, I wasn’t going to provoke him when he was furious. And he must have been furious since he didn’t even stop to pet Nadia on his march through the living room to the window.
After staring outside for a moment, Misha turned and unbuttoned his dark green jacket, taking a seat beside me on the couch. Silently, he gestured for me to begin. I guess he’d said all he wanted to say to me at Delirium.
I inhaled a breath and let it out, blowing away the last granule of my pride.
“It was the last thing I ever thought I’d do,” I said, staring at my hands instead of him. Normally I loved watching him, trying to see if I could catch a glimpse of an emotion beneath that calm visage, but at the moment I couldn’t bear to see anything on his face, whether it was pity or disgust or understanding—I didn’t want to see any of it because seeing would mean I knew what he was thinking, what he was feeling, and I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to see a guy I’d come to care about looking at me like that. He said he wouldn’t judge me but there wasnoway he’d feel the same at the end. Not after he heard the whole story.
“When you’re starving, when you’re freezing. You’ll do anything. Everyone says they won’t, but they will. Morality goes out the window when every cell in your body is trying to survive in the worst conditions possible. So, I turned that part of my brain off—the part that cared about right and wrong, good and bad, clean and dirty. I lost my virginity to a guy in a Prius for twenty fucking dollars. It was just supposed to be a hand job.”
I scoffed, shaking my head and picking at my fingers idly. “He had other ideas, I guess. Once that happened, what did the rest matter? It was easy money. Yeah, I tried to quit, tried to find some other way to make ends meet, but then my brother Levi fucking OD’ed and someone had to pay for the cremation otherwise the city was going to dump him in some potter’s field like garbage. And then Axel needed to see a surgeon because one of Crystal’s shitbag boyfriends broke his fucking arm. Bri always needed something and then Ezra came along… Crystal was never around to be a mother, so who else was going to pay for shit? I couldn’t let them die.”
Misha didn’t say anything, even when I took absurdly long pauses. He didn’t move, either, but I knew he was watching me, listening to every word, probably taking inventory of everything he’d need to bleach after I left, starting with himself.
“Ken came into the picture about two years ago,” I continued quietly. “I met him at Cloud 9, that social club with the view of the city, you know? Well, after a while he came up with an arrangement. I’d be his—exclusively—and he’d take care of everything else. I took him up on it. I mean, why wouldn’t I? I didn’t have to worry about food or where I was going to sleep. He set me up in an apartment and paid for everything, just like he said. And it was fine, for a while. Then his requests started getting crazier. He wanted to tie me up. Choke me. Pour fucking candle wax all over. Fine. Whatever. He wanted to see me with another guy. Fine. He wanted me to do shit tohim. Fine. It was all par for the course with a rich white guy. Nothing really shocked me by then and I couldn’t walk away from that kind of money. The kids needed it too much.
“I started getting concerned when he cut me one night. Out of nowhere, just—” I stabbed downward with an imaginary knife, flexing my hand as phantom pain flared on my right side. “Took a knife to the back of my fucking shoulder. I still don’t know what he was doing. I don’t know if he actually tried to kill me or what. All I know is that when I told him to get the fuck away from me, he didn’t. He reminded me that I ‘owed’ him and he took what he wanted. When I called him out on it the next day, he said he was drunk and blubbered through this big apology. I should have fucking left right then but, like a moron, I didn’t. Things were fine again for a while and I started to question if it reallyhadbeen that bad, or if I got it all twisted in my head.
“Then this one night, about a year ago, we went to a party with some of his colleagues. I should have known something was up the second we got there. But by then I was so used to getting hammered anytime he came around, so that’s what I did. Put on my tux, downed whatever liquor was in the apartment and away we went.
“He started making out with me in the middle of this fucking party and told me he wanted me to blow him. I was shit-faced, so I didn’t care. But then he made this motion, kind of thing, with his hand and someone else started grabbing me. And then more people were touching me, groping me, and he kept talking about how fucking perfect I was and how happy he was to finallyshareme with everyone.”
Bile rose in the back of my throat so quickly, I covered my mouth with my hand to keep it from spilling out. Swallowing it back down, I grimaced and carried on, hoping I could redeem my earlier stupidity with the next part. “That time, I got the fuck out of there. I went and packed my shit and I left that night. I told him I was done. I changed my number, quit my job. I’ve been trying to dodge him ever since but he keeps finding me, no matter where I go. He gets me fired from every single job. He’s had me evicted from apartments, had my bike towed and impounded. He’s everywhere. And now he knows I’m at Delirium…”
Even after I was done and he was all caught up, Misha continued to sit there, not speaking. I didn’t know if I was supposed to stay or go and he wasn’t giving me any clues to work with.
