38. STORM

My stomach jumps and I sit up on the cot as the deadbolt flips open. This time, Darya is gone and Arkady is accompanied by two muscleheads, though not the same ones he brought to Nick’s house.

Sweet Child of Mine blares through the fabric of his vest again, and Arkady yanks out his phone. Hits “ignore” again and turns to the other two.

“If my father calls you, you don’t answer. Got it?”

They nod, positioning themselves on either side of the door.

“Nobody gets in,” he says. “That means Darya, too. Understand?”

They nod again and he closes the door behind him. He grins at me.

“Those two are fucking morons, but at least I know they’re loyal to me and not my old man,” he says.

“How fortunate for you,” I say dully.

“You know, you’re making this way harder than it needs to be,” he says as he sits next to me on the cot. His eyes are darting all over me. “We could be good together.”

I glare at him. “What the fuck would I get out of that?”

He grins, showing a mouthful of capped teeth.

“My father isn’t gonna live forever,” he says. “In fact, his old man died when he wasn’t much older than my dad is now. Time for new blood.”

I shake my head at the thought of it: this lunatic running a mob operation?

“So you’re planning to take over, is that it?”

“You know it, baby. And I’m gonna need a girl on my arm. The kind who can take care of a family. Be the respectable one, the, whaddaya call it? The matriarch. The mother of my children.”

Jesus Christ. One minute he’s talking about me stripping on the stage of the Long Island club, the next he’s talking about marrying me. He really is insane. The thought drives a wedge of ice into my guts – any hope I might have had of reasoning with him is gone.

And yet with it comes a clarity of thought for the first time since he brought me here. I fully understand now that there’s no reasoning with him. He’s a rabid animal, and rabid animals have to be put to sleep.

Which means, when I finally do attack, I don’t have to hold back. I can put everything Nick taught me to use before I join him in the afterlife. And if Arkady happens to show up there, we’ll take him on together.

Jesus, now I think I’m going insane.

“What do you think?” he says, fidgeting madly. “The main squeeze. Not the only one, I mean, duh. But the main one, you know?”

My stomach churns as I force myself to smile at him.

“Well, why didn’t you say that before?” I ask. “All that talk about stripping kind of turned me off. But this matriarch thing – that’s different. Money, power. Everything I could have had with Nick.”

His wild eyes brighten. “I knew that was why you stayed with him!”

“A girl has to make her way in the world,” I say. “I go where the money is.”

“Well, I don’t have it all yet, but once the old man is out of the way, it’s all mine. And then you’ll be set.”

I nod. “That sounds good.”

“Just gotta get one thing over with,” he says, and before I know what’s happening, he’s undoing his belt.

“Wh-what are you doing?” I stammer.

“Gotta break you in, sweetheart.” He slides the belt out of its loops and unbuttons the top of his pants. “Why did you think I was so obsessed with you?”

“I don’t understand…”

“It’s not easy to find a virgin who looks like you,” he says. The look in his eyes clearly shows he meant it as some sick compliment. “I never had one before. Never been the first guy for any girl.”

The nausea is back as he takes off his vest and starts unbuttoning his shirt. There are two men standing at the door. The noise outside means no one will hear my screams. I’m all alone.

Intention and focus.

I hear Nick’s words in my head as clearly as if he just spoke them in my ear. The time is now. I’m done being a victim. If I go down, I’m going to go down fighting.

“There’s just one little problem with that,” I say coyly.

Arkady stops in mid-strip, his eyes clouded with confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“Nick already got my cherry.”

His face twists into a mask of outrage that gives me a deep and abiding satisfaction I never knew was possible.

“You bitch,” he hisses. “You – ”

“All day, every day.” I grin.

As his hand curls into a fist, I hear Nick again in my mind: Fight with everything you have, with no thought about consequences. If someone tries to hurt you, they’ve made their choice.

Arkady loops his fist towards me in a haymaker that has no hope of landing. I counter by driving my own fist straight into his oncoming bicep muscle. The look of pain on his face makes me grin.

“You fucking bitch…”

I’m not prepared for the kick, and my left knee explodes in pain as the pointed toe of his shoe connects squarely with the muscle right above it. Worse, it makes my whole leg feel like a dead log.

He swings an open hand directly for my face and I let it land. The force of it turns my head all the way to the right, even draws a trickle of blood from the corner of my bottom lip. But it gives me a whole new clarity of thought, too.

“I’d tell you you hit like a girl,” I say, grinning. “But you don’t.”

My own right hand loops towards his chin an uppercut that carries the full force of my twisting hip, and his drug-addled brain doesn’t register it until it’s too late. The pain in my knuckles as it connects with his jaw is sweet.

His head snaps back and he stumbles into the door, almost tripping over his own undone pants. I poise myself for a stomp kick to the chest as a follow-up, but the door flies open as I do, and the force of it colliding with my foot sends me back into the cot.

“Grab her!” Arkady shouts, wiping blood from his mouth.

Instantly the muscleheads are on me, each grabbing an arm. I twist like a hellion, but it’s no use. Each of them has a good hundred pounds on me.

Then Darya appears in the doorway with a bottle in her hand.

“Can I?” she asks, eyes dancing.

“Be my guest,” Arkady growls. “Bitch needs to learn her place.”

She puts a piece of cloth over the mouth of the bottle, and by the time I realize what’s happening, the sweet smell is in my nostrils. Darya keeps the cloth clamped over my mouth despite my struggles, until the fumes finally take effect. The world tilts upside down.

Then blackness.