CHAPTER FOUR
Squeezy was in the pub at lunchtime, as agreed. He’d followed Gregory from the Tate, just as Ben had asked him to, and had discovered the Russian was staying in a large house just outside London. He appeared to have a couple of security men with him, and the house was alarmed. Ben nodded. “Can you do it?”
Squeezy just gave him a derisive look.
Ben bought them another round.
“You want them all dead or just the main man?”
Ben didn’t hesitate. “All of them. And I’m coming with you.”
Squeezy shrugged. “More the merrier. Give us the nod and it goes down.”
§ § §
There seemed to be no point delaying his plan, but he wanted to check the place out for himself before he committed his old friends to such action. Nikolas was back at the mews house for the rest of the day, arranging some of the repairs and alterations, so it seemed like an ideal opportunity. He took a taxi to the corner of the street address Squeezy had given him and waited until he saw the two security men by the car on the driveway. He checked out the perimeter wall, and at a suitable point levered himself over and went silently to the side of some patio doors. He could see a security camera, but it was pointed down the driveway and not at the windows where he was standing. He took a breath and leant around to peer in. He snatched back and let out his breath very slowly.
Gregory and Nikolas were sitting with their feet up at the table, smoking, playing cards, and drinking vodka.
§ § §
Ben made his way back to the new apartment and took Radulf out for a run in the park. The park wasn’t big enough to run as far as he needed to, but the familiar pounding helped him calm down just enough not to do anything stupid.
Nikolas didn’t return until just before first light the next day. He was very drunk and stank of cigarette smoke. He crawled into bed fully dressed and lay on Ben, who hadn’t been asleep.
“Hello, Benjamin.”
Ben let a long silence fall between them. Pain put a hitch in his voice when he finally spoke. “Did you sleep with him? And not just in the way I mean—in any fucking way. Did you fuck him?”
Nikolas jerked back then lost his balance when one elbow seemed to collapse, and he fell heavily onto Ben’s chest. He rolled off and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. “I’m spinning around. How odd. Are you spinning?”
“Did you fuck him? It’s a simple question.”
“Ack, these things are never simple.” Ben turned on his side to look at him. Nikolas did the same then sighed. “Of course not. You need a heart to want someone, and I gave mine to you, Benjamin. Or did you forget?”
Ben closed his eyes, smiling; the world—his world—was back on its correct orbit. “You’re going to regret saying that if you remember any of this in the morning. But, trust me, I’m going to remind you. You’re so drunk.”
“I am. I was Russian for the night, and I’m very out of practice.”
“Why did you lie about where you were? Why not just tell me you were going to see him?”
“Would you’ve let me?”
“Me, let you? Since when did you need my permission to do anything?”
“Since forever. You’re spinning now. Why are you spinning?” He frowned. “I don’t feel―” Ben grabbed his arm and forcibly pulled him from the bed. He was just in time. Head held over the toilet bowl, Nikolas discovered he was hardly Russian at all.
When it was over, it began again. Ben had never seen anyone so sick. He was quite impressed. He reckoned Nikolas might regret the not-eating thing in the morning.
He was right. Nikolas had been shot, starved, raped, beaten, and tortured, but nothing had prepared him for the hangover he woke to. He managed to crawl out of bed at midday, and then only as far as the bathroom, where he spent another half hour retching.
When he made it to the living room and sat down at the table, even the coffee Ben put in front of him sent him back to the bathroom. He finally managed to stay at the table and drink some water in the middle of the afternoon, and even then his voice was a husky croak, and his hands were shaking.
Ben slid into the chair opposite. Nikolas tried to look at him, but his bloodshot eyes seemed too heavy to hold up. He put his head down on folded arms and groaned. Ben ran his fingers through his blond strands. “You’re getting absolutely no sympathy from me, by the way.”
“Did I…do anything? Say anything? I don’t remember.”
“You admitted you slept with him, Nik.”
Nikolas jerked his head up then winced and held his temples. He frowned. “Then I was lying. Why did I lie? Why would I sleep with him when I have you? That makes no sense. Oh.” He put his head back down. “You’re being funny. I’m highly amused.”
“Why did you go there?”
Unbelievably, Nikolas managed to make his odd gesture of dismissal, despite hardly being able to lift his hand without groaning. “We’ve come to our agreement.” He stood up very deliberately and headed back toward the bathroom. “But I will tell you later.”
He’d still not fully recovered the next day and kept a very low profile, lying on the sofa, pretending to read. Ben kept him topped up with coffee and some light food and left him to his misery. He had work to do.
He’d revised his initial plan to take out Gregory’s security men. He hadn’t been in the best of moods at the time, but now in the light of day, and basking in Nikolas’s apparent faithfulness, he’d decided it was only Gregory who needed to go. Therefore, an attack on the house was probably unnecessary. Also, he’d now discovered through Squeezy’s observations of the Russian’s comings and goings that Gregory was driven every day into Chelsea, same time, one driver. Ben’s bike was still in pieces in a burnt-out kitchen; he needed new wheels.
He therefore did something very uncharacteristic; he fired up Nikolas’s laptop. He put in a search, and then, without warning, utterly defenceless, he fell in love. It hit him like a punch to his solar plexus; it took his breath away. Nikolas was in the kitchen on the phone, talking in Russian, yet again. He could hear traffic noises faintly from below. Radulf was chewing on something. He swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment to see if it was still real. It was. He sensed Nikolas come into the room but couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen, even for him.
Nikolas came and stood behind him, hand on his shoulder. “We need to talk.”
Ben just nodded.
“Why are you on my computer?”
“Because I don’t have one.”
“Huh. What’s that?”
“It’s a Ducati.”
“Uh.”
Ben turned, his eyes wide. “Just uh? Look at it!”
Nikolas frowned but dutifully did as Ben asked. Ben stood, went to the window, came back, sat down. “It’s called…the Monster Diesel.”
“I’ve been able to read English for many years. So?”
“That’s me, Nik. That was my name—my nickname in the Regiment. And see…it’s described as military urban chic. It’s my bike. It’s me.” He added in an awed voice, “It’s fate.”
Nikolas laughed. “You’re military urban chic now, hmm?” He kissed the top of Ben’s head. “Buy it. It’s your birthday next week. I remembered.”
Ben turned. “Seriously. Just like that?”
Nikolas seemed very slightly shifty. “It might cheer you up. When I tell you what I need to tell you. Come.” He sat down on the sofa and patted the space next to him.
“I’m okay here. Just tell me, yeah?”
Nikolas sighed and stretched out his legs. Ben noticed a slight wince but decided it was a play for sympathy so he ignored it. “Gregory has cancer.” Nikolas glanced up to see how this was received and added quickly, “I believe him. I’ve seen the doctor’s reports—The Royal Marsden in Chelsea. It’s why he’s in London in the first place. Lung cancer, which has now―I’ve no idea how you say this in English, but it means spread? Anyway, it’s done that thing. It’s now in his―I don’t know English for this either. I’m sorry.” He put a hand to the side of his neck. “Here, but not the throat?”
“Lymph nodes?”
“Thank you. It’s in his liver, too. He’s smoked since he was a boy, and Russian cigarettes were very dangerous then. Toxic. So…” He glanced up again. “Please, come here, sit down beside me?”
Ben did as he was asked. So far, he hadn’t heard any actual bad news, but he loved Nikolas enough not to let this thought show. “So, he has, he says, only a few months.” He tipped his head to one side, regarding Ben. It was a heart-breaking gesture, and Ben suddenly felt some sympathy for Gregory who’d lost this and would never have it again. On that sense of his own good fortune, he cupped Nikolas behind the neck and pulled him closer, their foreheads resting together.
“I’m sorry.”
Nikolas nodded then pulled back slightly. “He’s very bitter, I think. Not resigned at all to his fate.” He shrugged. “It didn’t help, therefore, when he saw my picture in the paper and realised I’d decided my own fate. And then to see me again at the restaurant with…everything I have now. Very bitter.”
“This is the part I’m not going to like, isn’t it?”
Nikolas pouted a little. “He wants to return to Russia and die with dignity there at a time he chooses.”
“And?”
“He doesn’t want to die friendless and alone.”
“He wants you to go to Russia with him?”
“Yes. Now we’ve come to it. He wants me to travel with him to Russia and stay there until―To ensure he dies when and in the way he’d want.”
Ben was silent for a moment then confessed quietly, “I can arrange for that to happen here. Today…tomorrow. He’ll die quickly and quietly.”
Nikolas put a hand down to his leg, rubbing it unconsciously, and Ben reckoned it must have actually been hurting him, for his thoughts seemed far away. “I wouldn’t like that.”
Ben made to rise, but Nikolas caught at his arm and drew him back. “I’ve been thinking a great deal about this, Benjamin. Will you hear me out?” Not giving him time to refuse, he continued, “You want a new me. You don’t want me to be Aleksey, even though all of this seems to pull me back to him. Well, don’t you think this is the right thing to do? Don’t you see what I’m trying to say? People like us…” He clenched his jaw and glanced at Ben, seeing his incomprehension. He tried again. “You and me, we won’t have families, children, people with us at the end. We’ll be always alone except for others like us—if we’re lucky.”
“Jesus, Nik, what the fuck?”
“He’s alone, Ben. He’s old and alone, and I don’t want to be like him one day.” He rose quickly with a wince when he put weight on his leg so suddenly. “Would you do this thing for me one day if I asked you? A few months, that’s all. Isn’t it the right thing to do? You tell me? I’m trying to be this new man you want me to be! I need your help to be him.” There was a catch in his voice. “I’m sorry.” He abruptly left the room, and Ben heard him slam something in the bedroom. Ben remembered Nikolas once telling him, “You take emotionally and you don’t give back.” He didn’t much like himself at that moment.
He rose and went into the bedroom. Nikolas was standing at the floor-to-ceiling window, staring out at the view of the park. Ben went up to him and enfolded him in his arms, pressing his face into the blond hair he loved so much. “Will you promise me one thing?”
Nikolas didn’t respond, so Ben just continued anyway. “Promise me you’ll come back, and promise me you won’t sleep with him. Or with anyone, I guess. And that means what everyone means by that, yeah? Sleep, as in fuck, or anything to do with fucking—which includes kissing. Anywhere. And don’t start smoking again. And make sure you eat?”
Nikolas chuckled. “That’s a great deal more than one thing, but I’d promise you anything you want, Ben. Take advantage of this moment.”
Ben held him off. “The most important is that you come back.”
Nikolas nodded. “I can’t live without a heart. Of course I’ll come back.”
They kissed, a slow tease of teeth and lips and tongues until everything was hard and aching and ready. Undressing seemed to take forever and was incredibly erotic in the bright light of day where all that need was evident. They kissed as they lay upon the bed, slow now, taking their time so nothing was forgotten or done in so much haste it wasn’t important and special. It was like a first time should be. Ben wondered, as he carefully eased Nikolas open, whether this was the destination he’d always been working toward with this man, their first time.
They took turns with each other, moving around the bed in a slow dance of warm skin, hard muscle, and soft, silky hair which snagged fingers and caught their spill and tangled to make them laugh. The afternoon passed as they dozed—in each other, on each other—and then woke again to start again, bodies becoming sensitised, then sore, but still they needed to feel skin rubbing, teeth biting, tongues licking, and always one part or other of their bodies joined.
They were disturbed at last not by Ben’s hunger, although this had been somewhat on his mind for the final few hours, but by a tentative scratch at the door and a whine. Ben chuckled. “He wants in.”
“I’d say he wants out.”
“You take him.”
“And whose dog is he?”
“Yours?”
Nikolas mumbled something in Danish then began to stir reluctantly. “Ours. Come, we’ll walk him together.”
Ben felt a twist in his gut at the effort Nikolas was making. They threw on clothes and went down together in the elevator. If one of his friends saw him dishevelled and clearly well fucked, then they did. He couldn’t care anymore. If Nikolas was trying so hard to find the real man under all his layers of disguise, then so would he.
They walked slowly along the paths of the park, Radulf off his lead, busy with his own concerns. Occasionally, their hands brushed, and Ben wondered whether either of them would ever progress far enough to be able to hold hands in public. Nikolas appeared to read his thoughts for he plunged his hands into the pockets of his jeans and gave Ben a small contrite smile. “There are many things to arrange before I leave.”
Ben nodded glumly.
“I don’t want you to stay at the apartment. Too much temptation for one so young.”
Ben gave him a look. Nikolas amended with a smirk, “I have a new tenant. Exceptional references. Friend of my wife’s, actually.”
“Ex-wife.”
“Huh. Yes. Even better. Anyway, I couldn’t turn down an extra £33,000. I’m having it put into your account so you’ll have money while I’m away.”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? That’s almost more money than I was making in the army.”
Nikolas stopped and turned to him. “A week, Ben. That’s the weekly rental.”
Ben paled. They continued walking. After a few minutes, Ben nudged him. “Don’t hurry back too fast then, ’k?”
Nikolas laughed softly. “What else? The damage to the house will be repaired soon. Move back in there. I can’t vouch for the smell, but you shouldn’t set fire to people, it’s a hard smell to get out of the walls. We’ll buy you your bike before I go. I’d like to see you―” He stopped and took a breath.
Ben slipped his hand into the back pocket of Nikolas’s jeans. Nikolas didn’t object. “I’ll be fine. Few months. It’ll be like when I was on an op, yeah? Only now it’s you gone and me waiting. I don’t want to ask, but when are you leaving?”
“The day after tomorrow. It’s arranged.”
“Will you be able to keep in touch?”
“I think telephone communications have reached Russia, but I’ll check before I leave.”
“Well, that’s that then.”
Nikolas nodded. “If you need anything, Philipa would help you, despite all that’s happened. She’s genuinely fond of you. Keep in touch with Kate. But not too much touch, maybe. And…that’s understood between us, yes?” He turned, dislodging Ben’s hand. “Touch. We agree now. We don’t―I―Other people. Either of us.”
Ben didn’t even look around to see if they were observed. He leant across and kissed Nik to silence him then said distinctly, “You don’t need to ask, Nik. Yes, we understand each other.”