14
I played until the sun set, turned on the living room overhead lights, and tried to compose for two more hours. The most frustrating two hours of my life seated in front of a piano. I hated everything I put down. It wasn’t bright enough. It had no lift. The music felt . . . manufactured.
The song I wanted to write was going to be sweeping and moving, but darkness kept creeping in. It threatened every measure. It tainted each chord. I blamed the untuned piano and the boy who seemed to be hiding from me upstairs. How could I write anything in this space that wasn’t ominous? Or sexual?
I fought myself on every note.
Loud rap music had thumped for more than an hour from the room that contained a treadmill, a weight machine, and a rack of free weights. After it cut off, I heard Vasilije go into his bedroom. He’d been in there for a while. Hours. Was he was avoiding me?
I couldn’t turn off my thoughts about him. Should I go up there? I was wasting time sitting at this piano when I should be trying to gain his trust. I needed a partner when the time came to take down my father.
Instead, I stalled and told myself when I finished the song I’d seek him out.
I scribbled another measure in my notebook, slammed down my pencil, and let out a sigh of frustration.
“Having fun?”
I jumped at Vasilije’s voice, making the piano bench squeal across the hardwood floor. I found him standing on the stairs, his gaze cast down on me and his expression unreadable. He wore jeans and a t-shirt, and no holster. No gun, unless it was tucked in the back of his jeans. He looked relaxed, casual, and almost . . . normal. Like any other regular guy.
As he moved down the stairs, I stood from the piano and closed my book. “Sometimes,” I said quietly, “it’s hard to write.”
His eyes were as black as the piano keys. “Has to be, especially when you don’t have any feelings.”
Like I’d done from the beginning with him, when I didn’t know what to say, I said nothing. His feet were bare as he padded across the floor, silently approaching. It was cold in the huge room, or at least it was by the windows. Most of the back of the house was glass. Wasn’t he freezing? Goosebumps lifted on my skin.
“I ordered dinner,” he announced. “Make yourself useful and set the kitchen table.”
Confusion slammed into me. “For you?”
He glared like I was being stupid. “For us.”
Us. The word was unsettling and interesting. I shivered and refused to examine whether it was from a chill, or anticipation. I went hunting in the kitchen for plates and silverware, ignoring the flutter in my stomach. Dinner at the table meant conversation, and I was eager to glean more information from him.
I’d also confessed my darkest secret to him during our last real conversation, and the way he’d looked at me after . . . Like he was proud. It was so wrong, yet it filled me with warmth. We were strangers, but there was a connection too powerful to suppress. We felt less like strangers now.
When I’d found everything I thought we’d need, I sat at the kitchen table, listening to him answer the door and pay the delivery person. Vasilije appeared, set the white plastic bag on the table, and dropped into the seat across from me.
He helped himself to the Chinese takeout, then stared at me expectantly.
I grabbed one of the open cartons and dumped some food on my plate. I wasn’t hungry, but I ate anyway. It gave me something to do while I worked up the nerve to start a conversation. Vasilije didn’t seem like he was going to. He ate quickly and barely looked at me. The screen of his phone was far more interesting than the Russian girl across from him.
“May I ask you something?” I said.
He set the phone down, and his shuttered gaze focused on me. He gave no other indication, but I felt like that was enough for me to proceed.
“How did your parents die?” I knew the answer, but I hoped by asking, it might cause him to open up.
“My mother was killed in a car accident when I was five.” His voice was empty. “My father was like yours. Gunshot. Last April.”
“I’m sorry,” I said automatically. “Did they catch the guy?”
They had.
Ivan worked with the Serbs for years before we turned him to our side. He’d seen how powerful the Russians were becoming, and he’d felt disrespected by Vasilije’s father, Dimitrije. Ivan had been happy to carry out my father’s horrific plan and launch the first strike in the war.
The moment I’d overheard what had been done, how Ivan had burned a house down with a family trapped inside . . . it still haunted me, a year and a half later. I was glad the Markovics had caught him and made that piece of garbage pay with his life. The man who’d killed Ivan was sitting across from me, staring at me with chaos swirling in his eyes.
The rumor was both Vasilije and Luka had been there to witness their father’s death at Ivan’s hands, and the younger, more ruthless Markovic son didn’t hesitate. Luka Markovic didn’t have the stomach to avenge his father’s death, and had fled to the east coast. Vasilije had killed Ivan and ascended into the position of next in line to run the Markovic business behind Goran.
Vasilije considered my question for a long time. Too long, and an odd sensation prickled over my skin. Ivan had killed Dimitrije. My father had heard it straight from Goran when they’d negotiated the unstable and short-lived truce last year.
“There was a shit-stain named Ivan who died here, down in the basement. A baseball bat, a whole bunch of times, right here.” The devil tapped two fingers to his temple. “That shit was messy. It took forever to clean up.” A slow smile worked its way across his lips, flashing his dimples. “But it was worth it.”
I wasn’t fast enough to hide the tiny burst of satisfaction from my face. I was glad Ivan hadn’t gotten a quick death. A little bit of justice for that poor family he’d murdered.
Vasilije blinked back surprise. “I tell you this guy got brained with a bat, and you don’t look sick. You’re not disgusted. You kinda seem interested.” His expression shifted toward excitement. “Goddamn, Oksana. You want me to tell you all the details? How his blood and brains went everywhere? What his skull looked like, caved in like a rotted pumpkin?”
I shrugged. “If he killed your father—”
A dark, serious expression overtook him. “Ivan murdered a family. Normal, nice fucking people who didn’t have shit to do with anything, all because their daughter was dating my brother.” His eyes hardened. “Your people did that.”
My heart tripped over itself. I was outraged by what my father had ordered, too, and I didn’t want Vasilije to see me as an enemy. “The same ones who’d drug me and put me to work in a brothel? Does that sound like they’re my people?”
Yes. It sounded exactly like my family’s business . . . because it was.
Vasilije took a bite of his food and stared vacantly over my shoulder. I felt him slipping away, and scrambled to find anything to keep the conversation going.
“Was it satisfying? Killing the man who murdered your father?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I thought you said . . .” I was so confused. What did he mean he hadn’t done it? “You didn’t kill Ivan?”
Vasilije leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Was it satisfying killing the guy who’d touched you?”
“No.” I frowned, not liking the topic change or the focus being placed on me. I closed my eyes, unable to look at him as I said it out loud. “And yes.”
A pleased chuckle came from him. “Tell me about it.”
“I don’t want to.”
His eyebrow arched up. “I don’t fucking care.”
I swallowed a breath. I was willing to do a lot to make this work. Sacrifice my body, and do things I wasn’t proud of, but talking about Ilia was a hard line to cross. I grabbed my plate, stood from the table, and marched to the sink.
“Get back here,” he ordered.
The silverware rattled on the plate as I set it down and turned on the water. His chair moved noisily and his angry footsteps pounded toward me, launching my heart into my throat. It was the first time I’d disobeyed him, and I gripped the edge of the sink, preparing myself for his reaction.
A hand latched onto my waist and he reached around me with the other, slapping at the handle to turn the water off. His fingers bit into my flesh, but I stayed quiet.
“What the hell,” he snarled, “makes you think you get to say no to me?”
He spun me around and pressed his hips into mine, pinning me against the counter. He leaned over, forcing me to bend back awkwardly as his cold body loomed above.
“I shot him and he died,” I said in a rush. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“There’s nothing to tell?” He mocked my nervous voice and tangled a hand in my hair, yanking me back further. “Bullshit. Where’d you shoot him? How many times did you pull the trigger? What kind of gun was it?” His intensity built with each question. “What happened after, Oksana?”
“Please,” I whimpered. “You’re hurting me.”
“Talk, and I’ll stop.”
My throat closed up. I couldn’t force my lips to move or my vocal cords to produce sound, and I watched the rage gather in his furious eyes.
It was so scary, it stole my breath.
Abruptly, his grip in my hair was gone and he stepped back. I nearly fell forward into him—and then I was falling as he bent, wrapped his arms around my thighs, and threw me over his shoulder. As he stood, it squeezed a grunt from me. His bony shoulder dug into my stomach, and it was disorienting being upside-down, hanging in the air.
“Vasilije!”
He trudged toward the living room, making me bounce painfully on him. His voice was so deep and dark, I felt it vibrating up his back.
“I warned you,” he said. “I always get what I want.”