36
“Blaire?” Charlie softly calls out from the threshold, his voice raspier than usual.
I lick my dry lips, scratching a spot on my neck. I subconsciously knew this was going to happen, him wanting to see me, but I haven’t mentally prepared.
Just nod and say yes to everything. It’s what I did with Maksim, and it worked every time.
Charlie shuts the door, and then his heavy footsteps get closer and closer, causing a clammy sweat to break out all over my body. When he’s standing in front of me, dominating my personal space, I meekly look up at him through scraps of my hair.
His expression drains, turning white with guilt at the sight of my bruised face, but I don’t look away. I study his clothes—baggy black joggers and a matching black hoodie—aware it’s not his usual, fitting attire, but the material still defines his bulky, muscular frame. His hair is a rowdy state like he hasn’t washed it in days, inky strands sticking out all over the place, and the typical bronze color of his face is gray, unkempt stubble dressing his full mouth. He looks a mess, and I don’t understand why. Glancing at his blue eyes, I notice they’re sunken and tired with dark circles lining the sockets. I can smell liquor on him, too; spicy, stale brandy. He smells exactly like he did in my dreams, when I imagined he was checking in on me after what happened.
Maybe he feels guilty for what he did? Maybe that’s why he looks like this?
I finally blink away at the floor, at his feet, and cuddle myself to hide my naked breasts.
“I hope you don’t mind me being here,” he says, settling in the chair next to me, sitting forward with elbows on his knees. “I miss you, and I wanted to see you—I’ve wanted to come see you every day for the past week, but I-I just...” he trails off, brooding in struggling silence.
I don’t know where to focus my eyes, nor do I know what to say. I feel naked—and I am naked, apart from my panties.
“Blaire...” he croaks eventually, I assume preparing to apologize. But then he clears his throat and seems to change direction, stating that the nurse said I’m supposedly feeling better now. “She informed me she’s been checking you over, and that you’re eating a little more every day?”
Still half hiding behind my hair, I scowl at him, at his soul penetrating gaze, but then I glance away. I need some clothes.
He shifts forward on the chair, making it creak under his weight. “What is it, baby?”
I recoil against his endearment. He has no right to call me that anymore. He hurt me.
“Can you get me a top or something to wear?” I say to the floor.
He’s on his feet rummaging through the closet before I take in my next breath. He comes back and tells me to lift my arms, so he can help me into one of his big t-shirts, a black one with a deep v-neck. I reach out with trembling limbs, detesting my obvious nerves. His grip on my wrists is shaky but delicate as he loops the arms of the t-shirt over my hands, then over my head. When I’m swamped in the soft fabric, he carefully pulls out my hair and drapes it down my back.
I let out a long, relieved breath, feeling so much better now that I’m clothed. I lean away from him, and he resumes his position on the chair, elbows on his knees. One of his feet passively tap, tap, taps on the floor. He won’t stop observing me, either. I wish he’d just say something, so we can get this over and done with, and then he can leave.
I rub my throat where the bruises from his belt still spoil my skin. His breathing changes as I do, coming deeper and harder.
“Blaire, I-I don’t even know how to begin apologizing for what I’ve done,” he whispers eventually. “I know I need to apologize but at the same time, no amount of words will matter.”
I shrug, using my feet to push myself back in the chair, to stuff myself in the corner.
“I don’t know what happened,” he confesses, watching me as he does. “I just...snapped.” A moment of silence falls on him, creating a sphere of distance between us until he asks, “Are you in a lot of pain, baby?”
I shake my head, moderately ashamed that I didn’t fight harder when he was attacking me. If I had, he’d be sitting here bruised from head to toe. Not me.
But, when all is said and done, I care about Charlie. I couldn’t ever hurt him.
My name crackles in his throat like he’s going to cry as he says, “I’m so sorry, Blaire.”
“Don’t be. It’s my fault.”
“No...no it’s not. Hey, look at me, please?”
The back of my neck pricks as I peer over at him. His intense, blue eyes are red and watering, bloodshot with obvious exhaustion.
My chin quivers uncontrollably. I want to cry so badly, for him, for us.
“It’s not your fault,” he says softly, glancing back and forth between my teary eyes. “I spent an entire evening butchering men; I knew I shouldn’t have come near you while in that state of mind. It’s my fault—oh please, don’t cry, baby.”
“I killed your friends,” my voice comes out low and beaten, spilling with tears, “you said I deserved—”
He shakes his head, cutting me off from speaking. “Doesn’t matter what I said. Nothing you could do would ever justify me hitting you.” He glances down and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re my queen...I swore I’d never lay a hand on you, and when I said it, I truly meant it.”
I know he meant it. If there’s one thing I’m certain of right now, it’s that I know he snapped in his mind. I know he didn’t mean to hit me.
But he did hit me. He broke the most important promise between us.
“When we were together for those three months, when I bought you from Maksim,” he explains why he’s never snapped before, “things were different. Things were so good. I wasn’t working properly. I wasn’t butchering people. I was in a good place...you brought me to a good place, Blaire. You saved me from myself.”
“I understand,” I say. It’s all I’ve got.
“You shouldn’t have to understand, baby. What I did was wrong. I’m supposed to look after you, make you happy, and keep you safe.” There’s more to what he’s saying, a silent confession, but he just can’t seem to find the right words. “I shouldn’t be the creator of your hell.”
Well, at least we agree on something.
“After what happened, I sent my men to go find James.”
“No!” I yelp, sitting forward so fast my stomach pangs. “I-I haven’t left, Charlie.” I hold my belly to ease the ache. “I’m here and...I’m here because I knew if I left, you’d go after him. Leave him alone, Charlie!” I yell, defensive of James.
“Hey—” Charlie gets up to kneel in front of me, and he tries to take my hands, but I shrink away. “Sorry,” he whispers, drawing back. “I-I won’t touch you.”
“My brother...” I say.
“James is all right.” He lifts a hand to emphasize the piety in what he’s saying. “I’ve supplied him with sufficient funds and told him to go live his life, under the agreement that he doesn’t try to take you again, and that you don’t try to leave.”
I can’t fucking believe what he’s saying. It’s like he’s hammering nails in my coffin.
“Tatiana and everyone else knows to leave him in peace, too, or I’ll have their heads. I promise, your brother is okay.”
We stare each other out in a second of tense quietness. I try to relax back in the chair, but it’s nearly impossible. I don’t like the agreement that James is only safe as long as I stay, but what else can I do? I’m only here right now because of James. He spent the better part of his life trying to protect me, so now, it’s my turn to repay the favor. I might be angry at him for setting the wheels in motion to my downfall, but he’s still my brother.
“Blaire, please, talk to me. Scream. Hit me. Anything.” Charlie knots his hands together as if praying to me. “I watched the CCTV footage...I know you told James that you loved me.”
What the fuck does that matter now?
Growing angry, I breathe in the stench of alcohol on him, detesting the idea that he’s been living it up getting drunk, probably at the safe house with another redhead imitation of me, while I’ve been here emotionally decomposing in my own misery.
“All you’ve done is lie”—my face turns with repulsion, while his lights up in shock that I’m speaking—“I know Arjana isn’t living happily in Mexico. I know you don’t have Maksim’s body. I know you had my brother and Robert... And, do you know what is worst of all this, Charlie?”
He shakes his head, practically holding his breath for my revelation.
“I didn’t care,” I say, and his blue eyes rush with tears. “I had already forgiven you.”
His head hangs in shame. “I can’t warrant giving the Albanian girl to my brother,” he says, and his shoulders lift in a defeated shrug. “He wanted her, and it’s who I am—though, I knew it was wrong because I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”
I fiddle with the neckline of the t-shirt I’m wearing, lifting it to cover my mouth, while watching him collapse with confessions.
“I told you I had Maksim’s body because I thought that if I didn’t, you’d go looking for him. And I had just got you back...I couldn’t risk you running off with all that was going on.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Charlie shrugs again, tenser this time. “I sent a team to go fetch him from Rumo’s driveway after you shot him, when we were at the hospital, but he was already gone.”
This baffles me. I can’t imagine who would want his body—apart from wild foxes. That includes Tatiana.
Thinking of her makes me wonder if Charlie has pursued punishing her for agreeing to help me get James out of the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has. He seems to be the master of retribution.
“Rumor has it that your old trainer, Demetrius, took him,” Charlie says, and my tummy knots, “but a previous acquaintance of mine—who’s been training with him—insisted he didn’t. She vouched for him.”
I trust Demetrius doesn’t have Maksim’s body, either. Why would he want a corpse?
And who is this she? Who is Demetrius training now? How does Charlie know her?
“I’m aware Luna told you that I had Robert and James,” Charlie admits.
“So, what, are you going to hit her now, too?”
His head darts up, aghast by my rebuke. “No, course not. I-I wouldn’t dare...” Words fail him. He knows he has no merit to back his defense.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had Robert?”
“Oh, c’mon, Blaire...if I did, you’d have lost your mind worrying about where James was.”
“So, why didn’t you just tell me you had my brother, then? Or, is it true that you were hiding the truth to kill him? Make it look like Robert did it, right?” Of course, I know he wasn’t planning on killing him—Luna confessed she lied—but I’m bitter. Right now, I’ll say anything to hurt him as he’s hurt me.
“No,” he snorts with affront. “I wasn’t gonna kill him. I wouldn’t do that to you, no matter what bullshit he was spitting at me. I know you love him, and he spent his life trying to protect you, Blaire...I hold that boy in high esteem for what he did for you.”
“Then what happened, Charlie, because I’m confused?”
“When I got my hands on him, he was all fucked up on heroin, and after the state you were in when you came home, it felt cruel for you to see him like that. So, I set him up in a nice hotel with a twenty-four-hour medical team to get him clean. My intentions were to reunite you both as soon as he was well—that’s why I needed two weeks, Blaire.” The lump in his throat bops up and down as he pleads his case, swearing he was going to get rid of Robert, then talk to me about James, and let me decide what to do with my brother. “That’s why I brought him back here to the house, so you could see him once we’d talked. But, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you, no thanks to Luna.”
I hug my knees to my chest, blinking at him, wishing I didn’t believe him. But I do.
“Why did you wait so long to kill Robert, Charlie? If you had him for over a week, why did you wait?”
“We were getting rid of the Albanians in France as a punishment—and Nic wants to take over their affairs, so I needed Robert alive for internal intelligence on his syndicate,” he confirms what Luna told me, word for word. “Trust me, it wasn’t easy letting that motherfucker live a second past what he deserved. I wanted to butcher him every fucking second of every fucking day.” His head hangs again, hands pressed to the floor near his knees. “How can I ever show you how sorry I am for hitting you? You name it, Blaire, and I’ll do it.”
The one thing I want from him burns on my lips, daring to come out.
“I won’t let you go,” he says to the floor, dashing my hopes. “I love you too much.”
“If you did, then you would let me leave. You would let me go and meet up with my brother, so I can at least try to find some peace.”
He glances up at me, devastated, touching his chest as if hurt by my words. “Can’t you find peace with me? Has it all been so bad?”
My heart squeezes against knowing better.
I stuff my face in my knees, wanting him to go. If he isn’t going to set me free, then what’s the point in discussing things? He’s basically apologizing and saying, but fuck you. Nothing changes.
Perhaps I can save the Albanian girl at the least. If I ask him to set her free, will he? I hate the thought of another girl living in misery with the Decenas, a reproduction of me.
“Is your tummy still hurting, baby?”
I shake my head in my knees.
“Are you still bleeding a lot?”
I shrug. “Not really.”
“That’s good,” he says under his breath, talking as if my period is something of a big deal. “The worst of it should be over by now.”
“Will you let Arjana go?” I ask in my knees, croaking to clear my throat. If I can spare her, it’ll mean something.
“If I do,” Charlie says, his voice just as croaky as mine, “will you try?”
My head lifts, and I scowl at him. “Try, what?”
The remorseful look on his face suggests he means us.
No!
I won’t lie. I won’t pretend I can emotionally recover from what he did to me. He hit me! He hit me when he swore he wouldn’t!
I look at him, painfully gutted that this is what we have amounted to. Bargaining. The true cost of love.
“All right,” he says, nodding a couple of times. “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.” He pulls a mobile from his jogger pocket, and without my promise to try, he dials someone. He presses the glass button, so his phone is on loud speaker.
The dial tone sets in, and Nic answers in Spanish with a casual, “What’s happening?” His words are muffled like he’s eating. “Is Blaire okay?”
“Blaire’ll be fine.” Charlie sighs, kneading his temple. “I’m calling about the Albanian girl.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Charlie says. “You need to get rid of her.”
There’s a long pause, and my heart is hammering in my throat.
“Why?”
“I can’t sugarcoat this, Nic, so, I’m just gonna say it. Blaire knows I gave the girl to you, and she wants you to let her go.”
Nic laughs, then I hear slurping. “Course she does. Girls don’t like knowing other girls are being abused. Just tell her Arjana is gone. She’ll believe you.”
“Tis’ not about just making Blaire feel better anymore. You know what’s happened. I want to make it right.” He glances up and between my eyes, as if it matters—as if I’ll believe him.
I want to believe he’s truly sorry. Something in me is screaming, just let this go. But I can’t. I won’t! I do believe he wasn’t going to kill James, and that everything he’s ever done was for my benefit, but it doesn’t change the fact that he laid his hands on me. He’s just like Maksim. Worse. At least my master didn’t hide behind reasons and false merits.
“Buy her something pretty and she’ll—”
“It’s not enough!” Charlie yells at Nic, and I flinch, pulling the big t-shirt over my knees. “My girl’s upset, and I’m not having it. Find another toy—perhaps your wife, the one you seem to have forgotten. I know she misses you; she bombards my cell with calls every damn day.”
“You want me to kill Arjana?” Nic says, ignoring Charlie’s insistence that he should reunite with his wife.
“No,” Charlie says. “Give her some cash and a passport, and send her on her way. I want to know she’s gone within the hour, Nic, or you and I are gonna have a problem.”
When he hangs up, I tell him that he can leave now.
He shoves his mobile in his pocket, looking at me with intense panic. “You’re not even gonna try?”
I tuck my arms in the t-shirt, so every inch of my body, but my face, is hidden. “What’s the point? It doesn’t matter what I want, Charlie. Whether I try or not, you’re going to make me. You’re not going to let me go.”
“You belong with me,” he says, shakily gesturing at the tiny space between us. “You know it, and I know it.”
“There’s a difference between belonging and wanting to be somewhere,” I say. “I’m not your toy to do with as you please. Just because you say I have to stay, doesn’t mean I want to. I...I’m scared of who you are now.”
His knees buckle under him and he crumbles, begging for my forgiveness. “I won’t ever lay a hand on you again, not like that, I swear it, Blaire! Give me a chance, please? I’ll prove it to you, baby. I won’t hurt you again!”
“You can’t possibly know that, Charlie.”
“I do know that. I fucking swear it, Blaire! I-I will admit, it’s gonna take time—but it’s time we won’t have if you leave.” He reaches under the t-shirt I’m wearing while still pleading with me, but I kick at him to get him off, warning him not to touch me.
“Oh, please, Blaire...don’t do this!” His hands rest on the edge of my chair, scorching with urgency to touch me, to physically reconnect with me.
“What I want or need, doesn’t that matter to you anymore?”
“Course it does!” he says with desperation. “What you want or need means more to me than anything else—but I won’t let you go. I can’t.”
“That’s because you’re selfish,” I spit wrathfully. “You’re fucking selfish.”
He hangs his head in deeper shame. “Yeah, I know I am. I’ve always promised to give you choices, but I can’t this time.”
I scoff at him, looking away. I kick at his hands once more, telling him to go and leave me alone. “I don’t want you here.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” he chokes on every word, battling desperately to reason with me. “Please, tell me what I can do to make you happy again. You wanted me to set that girl free, and I have. You want me to ensure your brother’s life, and I will for as long as he needs my protection. Anything you want, anything but a life separate from me, you can have.”
“I want you to go,” I say through gritted teeth, narrowing my eyes. “I don’t want you here. Why won’t you go and leave me the hell alone?”
“All right! All right!” He lifts defensive hands. “If you want me to go, then I’ll go.” The floor creaks under him as he stands from kneeling, dithering about for a second like he has something more to tell me.
“What?”
Reaching for his face, he nervously scratches his stubble. “We’re boarding a plane for Mexico tomorrow.”
Mexico!
I gawk at him, horrified by the idea of spending more than five minutes with him, let alone leaving the country with him.
“No, Charlie, I-I don’t want to go.”
He regards me with upturned eyebrows, hemorrhaging pity. “I’m sorry, baby, but I need to go home. I’ve been away from Mexico for nearly a year now. My people are forgetting what I look like—and they want to meet you. I want you there, Blaire.” He pauses and sighs through his nose, as if choosing his next words carefully. “I’ll fix this. When I get you home, I promise, I’ll fix what I’ve done. I. Need. To. Fix. This.”
What about what I want? Doesn’t he care that he hurt me, that he made me cry? He knows I want to leave him, yet he’s just going to take me to Mexico?
My heart drums in my throat, while a million bogus reasons for why we should stay here whizz around my head. None have credibility. So I resort to crying.
“Charlie,” I sob his name, sudden tears pouring down my cheeks, “please, don’t make me go to Mexico. I’m begging you!”
His head tips to the side, scorching in pity. “Stop crying, baby.”
“I will stop when you tell me we’re not going to Mexico!” I screech, shaking to get my words out. “Charlie, please?”
He stares past me at the door, unable to look me in the eyes now. His shoulders are hunched, fingers itching at spots on his legs, and he constantly chews at the corner of his mouth. I think he’s considering my request, and I’m absolutely stunned.
I wait, and wait, and wait, expecting him to say yes. My pulse is screaming and my hands are shaking. But he doesn’t say yes. He shakes his head and wanders off for the door, dashing my hopes a second time.
I frantically tug at the t-shirt so I can move. I turn around on the chair on my knees, looking at him from over the back. “So, what, you can beat me, and I just have to suck it up, or you’ll hurt my brother?”
He flinches to a stop, visibly injured by my words.
“Charlie, why are you doing this to me? I’ve always wanted to please you and keep you happy. I never wanted to do anything bad to you—just let me go!” I scream, and he steps forward, but I shout at him to stop. “Don’t you dare walk away!”
My heart hurts as I watch him watching that door like it’s the means to his salvation. Seeing him so broken hurts. But I can’t live like this. I don’t want to exist in a world where people hurt me, and I have to forgive them for them to do it all over again. Because I don’t doubt he will hit me again. It’s in him. That darkness never leaves someone.
“Is this how the other half lives?” I ask, erratically pointing at the balcony doors. “Out there in the world, is this how people treat each other? Because if it is, then perhaps I should just let this go, no?”
Charlie is honest in telling me that if a normal man did what he did to his girl, they’d be in jail.
“Though, not you, huh?” I say, my voice shattering with more tears. “Because you’re Charlie Decena,” I hiccup with sobs, “you can do whatever you want and fuck the world, right?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Blaire,” he says softly, taking another step toward his salvation. “I expect you to let this go and try.”
“Or what?” I hiss. “Are you going to hit me again? Or strangle me a little harder? Or perhaps rape me this time?”
“Or you’ll just be miserable!” he spins around to yell, and I cringe in to the chair. “I’m sorry.” He massages his temples, screwing his eyes open and shut, and turns for the door. “I-I need to go.”
“Why?!” I scream suddenly, so hard my eyes bulge. “So you can take some time to crawl out of the darkness while I’m left here rotting in it?!”
His head whips around to me again, and he looks at me with such intense sympathy it drives me crazy with anger. I won’t pity him. He doesn’t deserve it!
A red mist comes over me, and I scramble off the chair running up to him. I scream that I hate him and smack his face hard enough to make my palm sting, knocking him into the door. “I hate you! Why did you do this to us?!” I go into a blind rage of hitting him, slapping and punching, and he just stands there letting me. My knuckles crack when I clout him in the face, causing his nose to burst open with blood. “I fucking hate you...” I choke on sobs, crumbling to the floor. He crumbles with me, cocooning me in his arms and legs, in his warmth and his once homely smell that is no longer my home. That’s agony, Charlie no longer feeling like Charlie. I make another pathetic attempt at slapping him, but it’s a light thud on his chest. I am defeated with what’s happened to us.
“You ruined everything,” I whimper, gripping his hoodie with my nails, “and now, it’s over.”