Stephanie
Every day, just as it has been for the last six months or so, I wind up in a pine-scented, concrete-floored and metal-shelved prison.
The sign outside says “Turner Hardware”, just as it’s said for the forty years this shop has been in my family.
I grew up here. Running down the aisles, dueling with my dad with dowel-rod swords, and, when I got old enough that dad didn’t have to child-proof the store by putting all the fun stuff out of reach, I actually got to learn how to work with these tools.
Dad always said I had a knack for this sort of stuff. I started out fixing things, and graduated — literally — to fixing people.
This store paid for nursing school.
This store is my family’s past, a part of my heritage that built my future.
Now it’s my prison.
Just being here makes my chest feel tight.
Just being here makes me feel like my lungs are constricting, like no matter what I do I can’t get enough air.
Just being here makes my heart pump double-time because I know that there’s a chance that, at the end of the day, when I shut the lights off and lock the doors and think that I’m all alone and that I made it through the day okay, he’ll show up.
And then I’ll learn that every gnawing, gnashing fear inside me still isn’t up to the task of describing just how awful he is.
I take a deep breath and step inside.
“Good morning, Ms. Turner,” comes a sing-songy cheerful voice the second I come in the door. Then, her voice changes a bit. “What happened to your wrist?
“Good morning, Sabrina,” I say to her as I step in the door. “It’s nothing serious — just a sprain. I hurt it at the gym.”
She’s at the cash register, as usual. Younger than me by at least six years, she only started working here a bit before I came back into town. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and completely inept when it comes to tools.
I’ve seen her hold a hammer upside down. Twice.
We should have fired her a long time ago — she hasn’t learned much since she started — except I really like having someone around who can put at least a little bit of a smile on my face.
“Frank called in sick,” she says, once I’m halfway down the hammer and nail aisle towards the poorly-ventilated room that serves as the store’s office. Even though Sabrina’s nice doesn’t mean she can’t sink my whole day.
I groan.
“Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll be in the office. Page me if we get any customers that need help. Or any customers at all.”
Frank’s the only other person Dad and I keep around and even paying for that is stretching the budget. But he’s worth it; he knows everything about tools and could sell a space heater to Satan.
“Sorry, Ms. Turner,” she calls out.
I get into my office and settle down at my desk.
The walls are eggshell white, decorated only with a couple old family photos and a few cracks that criss-cross their surface.
My desk — what used to be my dad’s desk — is old and worn, but it still shines, polished with elbow grease, sweat, and more than a few frustrated tears.
It’s covered in bills, now. The kind they write in red ink and bold font.
I take a few aspirin from my purse, swallow them, and then start to work. Mostly I stare at the bills and feel like, if this store were a patient at my hospital, we’d have taken it off life support ages ago.
But it’s hard to watch your childhood die. And it’s even harder to kill your father’s dream.
“Dad, what the hell did you do?” I mutter to myself as I start organizing bills by priority, by who needs to be paid now and by who seemed nice enough the last time I talked to them that they might give me a little more time.
I was a nurse, but now I’m an accountant and an undertaker and my morning drags on like a funeral procession.
“Ms. Turner, there’s a customer here. Um, you should probably get up here. Now, maybe,” Sabrina’s voice buzzes at me through the scratchy speaker on my desk phone.
She sounds excited.
Maybe it’s a big purchase. Maybe we’ll make some money today.
Thank God.
I get up and jog to the front of the store.
And stop.
He’s here.
In all his six-foot-three, hard-muscled, Italian-accented glory, wearing a tight-fitting t-shirt that clings and reveals more than it covers. He’s got his hands in his pockets, leaning back against the front counter, a casual grin on his face.
I’m staring.
Sabrina’s staring.
And he is smiling right at me.
“Good morning, bella.”
Confidence oozes from him his green eyes are burning so bright it’s a wonder the lumber aisle hasn’t caught on fire.
How did the janitor find me?
And why is a janitor following me?
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” I say.
“I wanted to see how you were doing,” he says, his eyes drifting slowly from my face, down my body, to my wrist as he talks. I can’t help it — I’m imagining how it would feel to have those powerful hands caressing every part of me; how it would feel to hear him growl my name in my ear just before he tells me exactly what he’s going to do to me.
I blink.
I don’t even know who the hell this guy is, aside from ‘janitor’.
“Who the hell are you?” I blurt out.
Sabrina blinks at how harsh my voice probably sounds.
“Luca,” he says. “And you?”
He’s still staring right at me.
I blink and then look down at my wrist.
Oh, that’s right. That.
“I’m fine. It’s probably only a grade one sprain, or a very light grade two,” I say, holding it up and rotating my wrapped hand and wrist in a slow circle to show him I can still use it. “Oh, and I’m Stephanie.”
He smiles again, and it’s bold and genuine.
“I’m glad,” he says. “You know, Stephanie, before you hurt yourself, I was watching you. While you were training, of course. You were going pretty hard. So, I said to myself, I have to find out why this woman is training like she’s in a title fight.”
The way he says my name, with his accent, it’s like he’s rolling me over his tongue. There is nothing restrained about this guy. It doesn’t matter that we’re not alone.
Sabrina’s blushing.
Hell, I’m blushing.
“How did you find me?” I say. “I didn’t tell you or anyone at the gym where I worked. I don’t even think I told anyone my name…”
“It wasn’t hard to look you up. I just asked around for the most beautiful woman in town.”
I roll my eyes, but I can feel heat on my cheeks just the same and Sabrina silently mouths ‘wow’.
“Besides, you put your name on the release forms when you checked in with Ana Maria.”
So, a janitor was poking around my release forms?
I don’t care how hot he is, that kind of creeps me out.
Luca comes a bit closer, moving past Sabrina to stand right in front of me. Sabrina’s eyes drift downward, straight to his ass, and she blushes, but doesn’t look away. Or even blink.
“Look,” he starts. “I’ll be honest. I didn’t come here just because I wanted to see how you were doing. Or to make sure you aren’t going to sue me or my gym. Though Ana Maria wants me to remind you that you did sign release forms.”
I frown a bit, confused. “You own Reyes Boxing? Aren’t you the janitor?”
“Part owner. I bought a piece from Mr. Reyes a while back and I help him manage it. Which includes getting a bit dirty from time to time,” he says, eyes looking into mine for a moment. Piercing green and full of the kind of suggestion that gets my pulse pumping. “If you’d like some free lessons, call me.”
Luca takes out of his wallet a business card with “Reyes Boxing” emblazoned on it and, beneath that and written in pen: “Luca Moretti – Owner” along with a phone number.
“Thank you,” I murmur while turning the card over in my hands.
It takes a second for my mind to take everything in.
“Why are you doing this?” I say, shoving the card into my pocket.
“Maybe you have me wanting to know just why a beautiful woman is attacking a punching bag like her life depends on it. Or maybe it’s something else. Whatever it is, your beauty definitely plays a part in it.”
He reaches out and lightly takes hold of my injured hand. This close, he’s overwhelming; raw sexuality and danger just emanates from him.
The rational part of my brain tells me I do not need this in my life right now. That whatever it is about him that feels dangerous could be similar to the shit I’m mixed up in.
It makes me think of my own problems. Of Vladimir and Yuri and everything they’ve promised to do to me.
I take a step back and I shut down.
Luca is too close. Too intense. Too much.
“You should go, now,” I say.
My voice cuts into him.
It’s short and sharp and his smile flickers out of existence. One eyebrow creeps upward.
He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something or press me. Instinctively, I start to tense up, shrink, and withdraw inside my shell because I sure as hell don’t want to talk about something this personal with him.
Especially with Sabrina standing right there.
He looks at me a second, and then he smiles and says, “I hope I’ll see you around, Stephanie.”
He leaves. Just like that.
I relax.
I can feel Sabrina watching me once Luca drives off.
“What was that about? He seemed really nice,” she says.
“I just wasn’t interested in him that way, is all. Besides, I have stuff to do.”
Another uncomfortable moment slides by, Sabrina waits a second with her mouth open while she pieces together what she wants to say. “Ms. Turner, are you blind?”
“No, Sabrina, I can see just fine.”
“Then couldn’t you see he was just trying to help—”
I cut her off. “Sabrina, I’ll be in the office. Call me if an actual customer comes in.”
My shoes squeak against the concrete floor as I turn on my heel and stalk back to my office. I throw Luca’s card in my desk drawer and I sit down and distract myself with bills and spreadsheets and other reminders of just how down-the-tubes my life is.
* * * * *
The day drags by in a fluorescent slog until my desk phone buzzes at me again.
“Ms. Turner, I’m ready for you to sign off on my register total. You can take your time, if you want.”
I blink and then I buzz her back.
“I’ll be right up.”
The lights on the main floor are dim, the floor’s been swept, and Sabrina’s register cash count is hardly different from when she clocked in this morning. I sign off on her timesheet and follow her out into the parking lot.
It’s just her car and mine out here, just as it has been most of the day.
“Have a good night, Sabrina,” I tell her as I lock the doors behind us.
“You too, Ms. Turner.”
I watch her leave, leaning back against the glass doors of “Turner Hardware”. Her taillights disappear down the street before I let out a sigh that feels like a sob.
For not the first time since I’ve come home, I think about getting in my car and driving until this is all behind me.
There isn’t another car on the road right now. Arroyo Falls and the rest of the surrounding area gets real quiet at night.
I could make it pretty far before anyone noticed.
But that’s all just a fantasy. I have to stay here. I can’t leave my dad. I know what will happen to him if I do. And I know that there’s a good chance that, no matter how far I go, Vladimir and his organization will find me.
The air is still. At peace. I close my eyes and fight back the tears. I don’t know how, but I’ll make it through this.
A rough voice rolls out of the dark. Heavy footfalls echo off the busted pavement of the parking lot. Streetlamps shine on a cracked smile and I shrink back against the door.
“You know, I always look forward to these nights. Checking up on your tight ass is the favorite part of my job.”
We’re alone.
He stops just in front of me. Smelling like harsh smoke and harsher alcohol, with a nose that’s been broken more than a few times and a crooked smile that drips sleaze. He looks me up and down and reaches out to rest a calloused hand on my shoulder.
He squeezes, fingers kneading me and he exhales a long, slow sigh.
I want to flinch and shrink away, but I know that will just encourage him more. Early on, he taught me my choices were to put up with his minor violations, or to fight back and be violated even further.
“How’s my favorite little bitch? You know, I was thinking about you this morning. Nice and slow, for a good ten minutes until I shot my load.”
I wish I could run.
His voice is like slime running over me. I fight for my backbone, trying to turn my disgust and fear into anger.
“What do you want, Yuri?”
Another squeeze, his fingers stroke my arm, and he chuckles. “Do you really want to know? I want to find out if your pussy tastes as good as I imagine. I want to fuck you, right here, right now. I’ll bet your ass would look incredible in the streetlight, with you pressed face-first against your car and my cock buried in that sweet pussy of yours.”
He licks his lips and chuckles again. “When Mr. Sokolov is done with you, I’ll see if he’ll give me a taste. You’ll probably be so busted by then it won’t cost me too much.”
I shudder and my stomach turns.
“I’ll bet you taste like strawberries.”
But, for all his talk, I know he won’t go any further. Yet. Vladimir Sokolov — Yuri’s boss — has told me many times how he’s going to fuck me bloody before this is all over. That he owns me, and he’ll be the first to break me in. In a twisted way, that gives me some courage. As long as my family keeps paying up, Yuri can’t really touch me.
Somehow, that makes me brave.
“Enough fucking around, Yuri. What the hell do you want?”
I must’ve sounded too harsh, because he shoves me back into the door — hard. My head snaps backwards and cracks into the glass and I stagger to my knees.
“What I want is what you owe, and not any of your fucking attitude.”
He stands above me, looking down. Spit dribbles from his lips as he rakes his eyes over my body. “I like you like that, on your knees like a filthy whore. If you’d rather pay another way, I’ve got the cash.”
Head pounding and heart racing, I tell myself again and again that he can’t really hurt me.
I grit my teeth and stand up straight, and taking the keys from my pocket, I unlock the door to the shop. Every step of the way back to my office, Yuri’s hot breath is right on the back of my neck.
I open the wall safe in the office and pull out the week’s earnings and throw it down on my desk.
He looks over the pathetic pile of cash and, without even counting it, says “You’re short.”
“It’s all we have. Just take it and go.”
The bills disappear into the pocket of his jeans but he makes no move to leave.
“He’s not going to be happy, you know.”
“It’s all there is. This was a slow week. We’ll cover the rest next time. I promise.”
His scarred face comes close to mine and a smile cuts lips apart.
“My offer still stands: let me fuck you in the ass and I’ll pay every last cent you owe for the week. Think about it.”
I don’t look away even though I want to.
I don’t take a step back, even though every last part of me wants to shrink away from this despicable excuse for a human being.
I need to be strong.
“No. Take that to Vladimir and get the fuck out of my store.”
I shove him.
He barely moves an inch. He just laughs.
“I’ll be seeing you,” he murmurs, twining a lock of my hair around his fingers and leaning in to smell it.
I keep my knees locked. My eyes straight ahead.
I need to be strong.
I can’t let him see me afraid.
It takes forever for him to let me go. Then, with one last voracious stare that violates me to my core, he leaves.
I stand in my office and watch him go. I keep thinking that he’s going to come back; that I crossed some line back there and he’s going to make me pay for it.
Minutes pass.
Drained. Afraid. I sink into my chair
My heart feels like it’s in a vise.
I’m alone.
The only one who knows the danger I’m in is the one who put me here.
Time passes in the dark and I fixate on how long I have until Vladimir Sokolov gets tired of toying with me, how long until I go from being a struggling pawn to being one of his possessions.
In that pressing dark, surrounded by my fears and my family’s failure, I sleep.