…and Grace will lead me home.
Through trained instincts, I felt the shadow of someone fluttering around me even while in deep sleep. Slow and deliberate, I cracked my eyes only a peek to determine where and who.
The environment wasn’t mine. I was in a strange place, pleasingly more open and airy. Sumptuous and comforting.
The passing shadow tickled my psyche again, and my eyes opened to their full almond-shaped view.
A plump, Hispanic woman was by the bed, contentedly setting a dress down and smoothing it over with her palm.
With light effort, I jackknifed up, and from that rush of movement the memories of the night before came back all at once.
Shit.
I was at Chad’s place. This room was mine—temporarily. I was still in my attire from the night before, still at the edge of the bed.
“Ah, good morning, Miss. You up. I just about to wake you,” came a heavily accented voice. “I am Vivian, the housemaid. I here to attend you. I now ran your bath, and choose fresh clothes for you to wear today. Light and airy, yes? If you no happy with what I choose, it is okay, you choose for yourself. Now I go make breakfast. Is there anything you allergic to, Miss?”
For a moment I just stared at her, unsure of what to make of this. “Mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, egg plants, and lima beans,” I lied.
I was allergic to neither. Not allergic, just hated. I hated them and would prefer if she didn’t use them in anything she was preparing for me.
“Ah,” Vivian said with a smile, “You much like Mr. Niiveux. He allergic to all those, too.”
When a laugh garbled in my throat, Vivian looked at me funny.
Chad was a liar, like myself. He was allergic to none of those things. Like Ricardo and me, he just didn’t like the stuff. We used to pull this allergic thing on my father. And I couldn’t fathom how my father didn’t question the strange coincidence of Chad, Ricardo and me all being “allergic” to the exact same things.
Though why Chad would lie to his housemaid instead of flat-out telling her he hated the awful excuse for healthy foods was beyond me. Old habits die hard, I guess.
Biting my lip to quell my amusement, I gestured for Vivian to carry on.
Nodding, she made straight for the walk-in closet and I followed. It was spacious, neat, and organized, filled with tagged new clothes and shoes. “Is this…all mine?”
“Sí,” Vivian answered. “Mr. Niiveux make room and closet new for you last week. Strange he never do this for others. You must be very special. Very special.”
Last week? He did this last week? Well, wasn’t he a cocksure piece of shit? To be so damn positive I would walk into his trap and he would succeed in capturing me. Like a bird. Locked in his cage.
Vivian led me to a safe in the wall at the very back of the closet. “Your cash and passports here. The temporary code be 0000. When you ready, you change it. Now I leave you to have good shower and change from your stinky clothes.”
Affronted, I glared at her. “Are you saying I smell bad?”
With a shrug, Vivian reached out and scornfully pinched my biker jacket, then fanned a hand under her nose as she reiterated, “Stinky.” Heading out of the closet, she spoke with hand gestures. “I choose lovely white sheer for you. Sheer will make you more like beautiful lady.”
Then she was gone, and I was left staring after her, wondering what I was supposed to make of her. She was neither nice nor mean, just neutral. She wasn’t old or young, just in between, and she was pretty, as most Hispanics were, while nicely dressed in a close-fitting maxi dress.
Shaking my head, I took the duffel bag from the safe and opened it. All my cash was still there in stacks of twenty thousand. Ten different passports, three burner phones, and an all-purpose knife. Fifteen different fake IDs and driver’s licenses. I searched around for my Ruger LCR small handgun, but should have known better. It’s a miracle he left the all-purpose knife.
Although I’d given up on trying to escape while on assignments, I always traveled with a just-in-case duffel bag of cash. I had about three and a half million dollars scattered around the world in safe deposit boxes. Cash that I took with me to each country I was sent to, then rented a safe deposit box and left it there…Just in case.
The Voice forced me to kill, but he also paid me for each successful hit. Depending on the risk and difficulty of the assignment, after the job was done, I would receive anywhere between two hundred to five hundred thousand dollars.
However, I wrote the payment shit off as a tease and a headfuck. If I didn’t have freedom, what purpose was money to me?
Zipping the bag shut, I stuffed it back into the safe, changed the code, then went to the bathroom, where a warm bath was waiting for me, just as Vivian had said. Shedding my clothes, I looked at myself in one of the full-length mirrors on both sides of the long, marble vanity.
Below my ribs, on my right side where Chad had kicked me, was a disgusting purple bruising, but it was nothing I wasn’t used to. Thank hell he hadn’t caught my ribs, or I’d be in some serious pain right now. My cheeks were still red and slightly bruised from his slaps, but gratefully, they weren’t black and blue discolored or swollen. Nothing a little extra make-up couldn’t fix.
Climbing into the warm tub, I kicked back and allowed myself to soak and relax without a care or worry for a steady, undisturbed twenty minutes before draining the water from the tub, and going over to the rain shower. After another fifteen minutes under the rain shower, I blow-dried my hair, caught it back in a ponytail and went back into the bedroom.
On the bed Vivian had laid out black lace underwear with matching bra and a flirty white dress. Almost barfing at the thing, I went to the closet and chose black leggings and a white, sleeveless turtleneck that clung to me like a second skin.
Scary enough, the apparels were all a perfect fit. No idea how he knew what sizes to get.
Chad was a very peculiar man. And repulsively arrogant.
Fluffing my ponytail, I trekked out the bedroom, intent on taking liberties. Mainly because hunger was seriously starting to do a number on me.
When I got to the end of the hall leading out into the open-floor-plan penthouse, I halted, just for a second, to admire my captor.
In dark denims and an extra-slim fit navy blue button shirt tucked inside his denims, held up by a dark brown Emporio Armani leather belt, he was sitting on a bar stool at the breakfast bar, hunched over the morning paper while stuffing a strawberry in his mouth.
There was something about the way he wore his clothes that gave him this irresistible allure. More than the average man, his clothes were always extra-slim-fitted. And because he was lean built instead of heavily muscular, it just worked. On anyone else, the close-fitting style would probably come off as queer, but not Chad.
Chad owned it. Owned his style, owned his body, owned his appeal.
Just like no one wears a suit better than Matt Bomer, no one did tight-fitting semi-formal better than Chadrick Niiveux.
His dirty blond hair was damp and finger-combed backwards, the length a little too far down his neck than I preferred. One leg stretched out to the ground, the other propped up on the stool leg, his attention given solely to the newspaper on the counter in front of him.
Why did it please me this much to see him? To stare at him? I was supposed to hate this man for ruining my life. Not get hot and bothered for him, or beg him to kiss me, or dream of him making sweet, passionate love to my body.
He was not a good man. He could not be trusted. He was a liar, a manipulator, and a murderer. Not that I was any better. I was all of those things, too. But this particular man, Chadrick Niiveux, was not supposed to be trusted. Period.
Yet I did.
It was like that horrible episode from twelve years ago never happened. That’s what happened whenever I looked at Chad: I saw nothing, I remembered nothing, and I thought of nothing…but him.
How did he do that? I didn’t know.
But frighteningly enough, I liked that he did that to me. That he made me forget things. Made me forget purpose and reason. That he made me feel ineffable things. Things that made me believe there could be a better ending to my story.
This was sick, and fucked up.
Then again, my whole life had been sick and fucked up, so maybe sick and fucked up just had a certain appeal to me because I knew no better.
Chad’s brand of sick and fucked up, I liked it, I wanted it, I craved it.
After a year and three decades of standing and staring at him, I resumed walking, going to sit next to him at the breakfast bar.
The morning paper still held his attention. I wasn’t worthy of it.
I reached over and tugged his overgrown hair down his nape. “You need a haircut.”
Biting into his strawberry, Chad slowly turned his head to share his attention, and his eyes narrowed in on my face, seemingly assessing the mild damage caused by his own hand the night before. As a glimpse of remorse flickered over his features. He dragged his gaze from my face and swept it down my body before saying, “I see I got the sizes right.”
“To a T,” I agreed.
Vivian materialized, asking, “Coffee or tea, Miss?”
“Coffee.”
Vivian portioned me a decent breakfast—a dish loaded with something from each food group, poured me a cup of coffee and then disappeared.
Alone with Chad again, I turned to fire up a conversation, but he was already on his feet, closing the paper and readying to leave.
“Where are you going?”
An eyebrow winged up at me. “Here’s a fun fact: When Chadrick Niiveux’s not busy dodging hits at his head, he actually has a life.”
Just like that. Going about his normal life as if a couple of hours ago he hadn’t blown up my bike in Excelsior and set my fucking apartment on fire. And on the topic of last night, was any of that shit even necessary, or was he just one of those dramatic criminals? Blowing things up for effects and epics.
Cocky little shit.
“Being a dick doesn’t suit you,” I sneered at him.
Chad scooped up his cellphone from the counter, glanced at the screen and started in the direction of the elevator.
I hopped off the bar stool and followed him. “Am I supposed to just stay here and chew my fingernails all day?”
“A normal girl would paint them.”
“I’m sure you know by now I’m not a normal girl.”
Still reading from his phone screen, he mumbled, “There’s a library, there’s cable, there’s Internet. Do whatever.”
“Can I order a call-girl?”
A pause, then, “Do whatever you want, Blood. Just don’t attempt to leave the building.”
“Oh, right, because you’re ‘protecting’ me,” I said, keeping on his heels. “Um, from who again?”
“Later,” he replied when he got up to the elevator and poked the call button. He pocketed his cellphone. “We’ll talk on that matter later.”
“You’re lying.”
That got him to look at me. “Excuse me?”
Folding my arms protectively across my chest, I repeated, “You’re lying. There’s no one after me. You just want to scare me from leaving so you can keep me here as prisoner.”
He said nothing, his cheeks sucking in.
“Just kill me, Chad,” I pushed. “I don’t want to be your prisoner. I don’t want to be your do-as-I-say slave. I don’t want—”
My words got knocked back down my throat when he turned on me and grabbed my face painfully hard with one hand, glaring down at me. “Use the word prisoner or slave again, and I’ll show you exactly what it’s like to be imprisoned and enslaved. Don’t. Fucking. Push me.”
Holding my ground, I spoke as clearly as I could through my squished lips. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“That’s because so far, I’ve been playing nice. Maybe too nice.” Squeezing my face harder, he stepped closer so our bodies were touching, and brought his face lower, boring his malignant, pitch-black eyes into mine. “Do I need to give you something to fear, Blood?”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me,” I reminded him.
“Then stop fucking pushing me!”
My eyes squinted at his burst of anger, and the only reason I didn’t recoil was because he was keeping me in place. I could exercise my skills and fight him. But maybe I really needed to stop pushing him and believe him.
I didn’t know why I was even acting like this. Like I was suddenly dependent on him. Like I needed him to be there. To talk to me.
Him leaving to go wherever to do whatever was bothering me. I wanted him to take me with him or not leave at all. Because maybe…maybe he wouldn’t come back.
I sighed.
Silly. That’s what I was being. Silly. The man lived here. Of course, he’d be coming back. And I would get to see him then. We could talk then, and eat, and maybe kiss, and fuck.
Who the hell was this person inside me? It was as if my body had been hijacked my some wanty, needy bimbo.
As the elevator pinged open, Chad released me and stalked inside, making a furious rake of his hand through his hair.
When he turned to face my direction, I opened my big mouth and lied, “I hate you.”
Apparently I had no control over my mouth either. Why was I tormenting him? The words were right, because I should hate him, but they weren’t congruent with my actual feelings. I felt anything but hate for this man.
Rejecting the bait, Chad sucked in his cheeks and stared back at me, his gaze doing a sweep down my body and back up. “I really, really wish the feeling was mutual, Blood. It would make it so much easier to bury a bullet in your head and get it over with.”
A strange feeling crept from my toes upward, and I scraped my fingernails at my thighs to keep myself restrained as I watched Chad watch me, the elevator doors closing in.
The feeling won out, restraint broken, and I bolted forward, pushing my hands between the doors to stop them from closing, then launched myself at Chad.
He caught me, our bodies crashing violently into contact, our lips attacking each other’s, our tongues embroiling in a deadly war.
Chad’s hand reached out and flipped the switch to stop the elevator in the same time he shifted and slammed me up against the wall, hiking up one of my legs around his hip.
Body on fire, I grabbed at his too-lengthy hair and forced his head down lower so I could kiss him deeper. His tongue was so hard and probing. So commanding, bossing my tongue around. But my tongue was stubborn, defiant, fighting him at every swirl.
He rocked forward, his hard-on shouting ‘Here I am’, telling me he wanted me.
Moving one hand down between us, Chad dipped down into my leggings and panties, where he found me slick and hot and aching for him. He drove his fingers through and through the valleys of my folds before taking hold of my clit between his fingers and began massaging. The sensation felt so fucking amazing, I bit on his lip and rocked into his hand, again and again, until he massaged an orgasm right out of me.
I came with a shattering jolt, and cooled down in placating ripples, hips still rocking at his fingers until I went lax.
Removing his hand, Chad brought his wet fingers up to my mouth and I greedily sucked them in, loving the taste of myself and the masculinity of him.
Brooding gaze on my mouth as it sucked his fingers clean of my cum, he said in an easy, but threatening voice, “Better let this hold you until later. ‘Cause if you dare order a call-girl, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Thirteen years ago…
Rublevka, Moscow, Russia
Staring at the unsolvable math problems on the pages of her homework notebook, the girl bit her lip, and bumped her forehead down on her study desk in her room.
She was no good at mathematics. Blood usually helped her with her homework, but she hadn’t seen him in over two weeks, and her father and brother thought she needed to learn to solve the problems on her own.
That’s why she loved Blood more than them, because he always, always helped her and made things easier.
The girl hated math. She hated homework. She hated school as a whole. It all made her head hurt—
The air suddenly felt different.
Without even having to look up, she felt him appear at her bedroom doorway.
Her headache transformed into relief as she set down her pencil and swiveled her chair away from her study desk to greet him.
But her smile morphed into a gasp when she saw his face. His right eye was swollen shut, nothing but blackened, bruised skin clotted with blood. He looked as if he’d been tied to a wheel of a trailer truck and then dragged through the streets. A gash on the cheek, a busted lip.
Cold chills wound through the girl. Seeing him like that pained her heart to the very core.
As he entered the room, she started to ask, “What happe—” but he cut off her question with, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But—”
“Please.”
With a weak movement, he waved the J. R. R Tolkien book in his hand. “Can we read?”
The girl walked up to him and tipped up her chin to accommodate his great height. He was a well-grown teenager, she wasn’t even close. They were a wide eight years apart. “Only if you let me put something on your eye. I still have a half-tube of that smelly antibiotic ointment the doctors gave me when I broke my pinky finger.”
The girl would not let up if he denied her that much. He was used to getting whatever he wanted, but not this time; not unless he agreed to her terms. In any way she could, she needed to help ease his pain. Of course, she was no doctor, but maybe her ointment would help. It had helped with her broken finger a few months ago.
When he started to object, the girl fixed her hands on her hips. “If you say yes, we can read. If you say no, you can leave.”
The corners of his lips twitched, and she bet it was her mother hen pose that amused him. “Okay, Tweety Byrd, you win.”
As he went to sit on her bed, the girl ran into her bathroom, climbed up on the vanity sink and knocked around in her cabinet until she found the ointment. Hurrying back into her room while twisting off the cap from the tube, she shimmied herself between his legs, squeezed some of the gooey stuff on her fingertip, and then gently applied it on his swollen skin.
“Can you see out of it?” she asked him, because she couldn’t see his eyeball at all. Only swelling, black, and bluish purple.
“A little bit.”
“Does it hurt?”
He made to answer, but then the girl’s father’s voice broke into the room with a booming, “What the hell is going on in he—” but his words tumbled down a slippery set of stairs as a horrified expression took over his features when the girl spun around and her dad saw Blood’s eye.
“Jesus Christ, son!” he exclaimed, rushing into the room. “What—who did this to you?”
The girl tossed the tube of ointment and ran to meet her father halfway, pushing at his protruding beer gut with her small hands, stopping him. “He doesn’t want to talk about it, Dad. Leave him alone.”
But her dad wouldn’t budge, a worried, wide-eyed look on his face. “Son, tell me what happened so I can—”
The girl pushed harder at her father’s stiff stomach. “Dad! He doesn’t want to talk about it. Go!”
Still, he just stood and stared over her head like she wasn’t even there, until the girl had to resort to pounding his stomach with her fists. “Get out of my room, Dad! Getoutgetoutgetout!!”
With a scowl, the girl’s dad glanced down at her, then his face softened, as though finally understanding. Nodding, he walked back out the door, where he turned at the threshold and said, “Know that I love you, son. Know that I’ll always be here for you. You can talk to me at an—”
The girl slammed her bedroom door and clicked the lock. When she turned around, Blood’s head was hung low, staring at the book in his hands.
So angry, her little hands curled into fists at her side. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like that he was hurt. She didn’t like that his smile was gone.
“You need to tell me who did this to you so that, when I grow up, I can hunt them down and kill them for you,” the girl said, jabbing a finger at him.
Raising his head, he gave her a small smile. There it was. The smile she loved so much.
Waving the book at her again, he said, “You promised you would read if I let you put that shit on my face.” Easing down from the edge of the bed and onto the floor, he leaned back, stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles, then patted the space next to him. “Come, Tweety Byrd. Now.”
Biting down on her lip, the girl counted to ten to cool down. If he didn’t want to talk about something, she knew well enough there was nothing she could do to get him to talk about it. So she let it go and went to sit beside him.
He set the book in her lap, then pointed at his eye, still smiling. The smile was for her. She knew his smiles that were just smiles, and his smiles that were specifically for her. “One eye. So you have to read to me tonight.”
The girl rolled hers, opened to the bookmarked page, and picked up where they’d left off two weeks ago.
After an hour of reading out loud, her eyes began to droop, her reading frequently interrupted with yawns.
When she could go no further, she transferred the bookmark from its previous location to a new one, and closed the book as she said, “That’s it. My eyes are tired—”
The girl’s words stopped short when she looked to Blood and saw how intensely he was watching her, which made her wonder if he’d been listening to anything at all as she read.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, reaching a hand up to touch his face.
From his swollen eye, a tear found its way through the closed lids.
Heart twisting in her chest, the girl tried to console him with, “You taught me not to cry, Blood. You say they win when I do. So you shouldn’t either. Don’t give them your tears.”
Bringing his hand to cover over hers on his face, he whispered, “I love you, Tweety Byrd. Always remember that, okay?”
“I know you do. I love you, too. We all love you, Blood.”
He shook his head, furiously. “I want…I want you to never forget that I love you. No matter what happens. When our fantasy is ripped away from us and we’re thrown into the ugliness of the real world, I want you, Tweety Byrd, to never, ever forget that I love you.” His good eye closed. “Promise me that.”
The girl could only watch him. She didn’t know what was going on with him, but the pain on his face was more than she could take, forcing tears to her own eyes.
As if she were taking too long to give him her promise, his good eye flew open and he gripped her slender shoulders and shook her hard. “Promise me.”
The girl wasn’t afraid of him, though. He would never hurt her. People who loved each other didn’t hurt one another.
Leaning forward, the girl wrapped her arms around his middle and hugged him tight as she cried into his shirt. “I promise.”
That was the last bit of emotion Blood had ever shown to her, or anyone else. That sad, painful moment in time, the girl had later grown to understand, had been a goodbye.