Forty-five minutes later, a pale and still shaken Katie made her way topside. After delivering his frightening statement, Roman had lifted her onto the bed, told her he was going to make them something to eat for lunch and left her alone in the cabin to pull herself together as best she could. It had taken a while. Katie had alternated between uncontrollable shaking, angry tears, pacing and, of course, breaking into the safe in the closet. Breaking into places was both a habit and a pleasurable pastime.
Of her hometown connections, only Riley knew what Katie was capable of and even her gorgeous car thief, chop shop owning bestie had no idea the extent of Katie’s proclivities. As Katie had stared into the contents of the safe, a plan beginning to form, she was quite glad Roman had no idea of the extent of her abilities or he might have hidden these a little better. Of course, she couldn’t use them until she got her hands on his phone and figured out his passcode. She relocked the safe and pushed the stack of clothes back in front of it, knowing he’d purposely tried hiding it from her. Like she didn’t know all high-end yachts had safes in the closet. Her darling benefactor had a yacht even bigger than this one and it had a safe in every closet.
Katie approached the breakfast table on the lower deck with caution, her eyes widening at the massive spread of bagels, smoked salmon, cream cheese, fruit, vegetables, and assorted breads and cheeses. She couldn’t hold back a laugh of surprise and delight when her eyes fell on a bowl of freshly made popcorn, her absolute favourite treat. How well Roman knew her one weakness. She eagerly popped a handful of popcorn into her mouth, then reached for a fresh strawberry. Maybe a weird combination, but she loved them both and she was starved. She closed her eyes as she sank her teeth into the perfectly ripe berry. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until that exact moment. When her eyes slid back open, they encountered the dark, hungry gaze of her captor.
“Was wondering if you were going to show.” His deep voice wrapped all around her as he rounded the table and held a chair out for her.
She sat and allowed him to push the chair in. She waited for him to take his own seat, putting distance between them before giving him a snarky reply. “I don’t intend to starve myself, Roman. I told you, I’m not into self-harm anymore.”
He stiffened, his cold, dark eyes on her face, taking in every part of her like a man that had been starved for years. And, as far as he was concerned, he had been forced to go without his main sustenance for almost two decades.
“You know about self-harm?” he asked.
She sighed, reached across the table and filled her plate with all of the delicious offerings he had painstakingly prepared for her. Her heart weakened a little more. It was all her favourite foods. She happened to know for a fact that he hated lox and capers, two items she piled on her plate with abandon. He really must be some kind of talented stalker, because her parents didn’t eat this kind of stuff either. She only ever ate it alone in restaurants when she went out.
She spoke almost absently, more intent on the food in front of her, when she replied to his question. “Just because I mutilated myself doesn’t make me stupid,” she said, taking a huge bite of bagel with salmon, cream cheese and capers. “Of course, I googled my compulsive need to cut the shit out of myself.”
She nearly choked on her food when his fist hit the table so hard the platters jumped. She stared at him, hardly daring to move. She realized right away that it was the way she spoke about herself he took exception to. Apparently, words like ‘mutilation’ and ‘cut the shit out of’ didn’t sit well with her stalker/wannabe boyfriend.
Before he could fly off the handle, she quickly changed the subject. “So… umm… was that a hot tub I saw over there? So amazing that they can put hot tubs on yachts these days, you know? Something about being able to watch the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean from the comfort of a hot tub.”
Really nice, Katie. Now it sounds like you're inviting the angry, kidnapping mobster to take a dip in the hot tub with you.
His penetrating gaze never left hers, though the anger cooled into a more speculative look. She wondered if he was picturing them in the hot tub together. The coil of tension in her chest began to ease until he spoke.
“Why did you marry him, Katie? Fuck, almost anyone would have been better. How the fuck did you choose such a spineless piece of shit…,” he trailed off as if the memory of Colin wasn’t even worthy of further words.
She gasped, her fork clattering to the plate. Why couldn’t he just have a normal conversation, like normal people? Like about the weather, or food, or the freaking hot tub. She knew he wasn’t going to let her get away without answering his question. She studied her plate for a few seconds and decided to answer him as honestly as she could.
“He wasn’t always a horrible jerk, you know,” she said a little defensively. She’d had this conversation before. Her mom had never liked Colin or the way Katie had rushed into the marriage without a proper wedding. As always, Katie’s dad had been largely absent and without an opinion. Not that her dad didn’t care, because he did. He just didn’t often engage and was usually busy running errands for the mob.
Roman leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. She tried not to notice the way his arms strained against the fabric of his shirt. She didn’t need those kinds of thoughts right now. She needed to be working on how to get the phone she knew was tucked in his back pocket.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
She sighed. What could it hurt. He already knew one of her darkest secrets.
“I met Colin at a gallery show in Seattle four years ago. I was shopping for a client.” She had been casing the gallery for a specific painting for a client with an eye for eclectic works as well as the higher end stuff. It turned out to be one of the few times she’d just outright purchased a painting and turned it over to the client for a profit. A novelty, what with her ability to get hard-to-find items. “It turned out Colin was one of the artists showing his work in the show. He was impressed by my artistic knowledge and asked me out for a drink after the show. We had a lot to talk about, having art in common. After our drink, he invited me to see his studio the next day.”
Roman’s knuckles tightened against his biceps. She didn't really want to keep talking, afraid he was going to explode again, but he said, “Continue.”
“Th-there’s not really much to tell,” Katie said, eyeing Roman nervously. She didn’t understand why he wanted to rehash her history with another man. He clearly didn’t enjoy hearing it, and her relationship was over now. So very, very over. He’d made sure of that.
“You were obviously impressed enough to keep seeing him,” Roman gritted out. “What kept you going back?”
Okay, apparently they really were going to talk about her deceased ex-husband. Katie pushed her plate aside, her appetite now completely gone. She clasped her hands in her lap and shrugged. “He was a decent artist and he… he seemed to genuinely like me. He asked me to come see him, so I tried to make it into Seattle when I could, in between jobs for my clients.”
It had been a hard several months. Colin had demanded so much of her time that she hadn’t been able to see much of her family or friends further down the coast. When she tried to explain to him that she needed more time to herself, he would threaten to break it off with her. As soon as she backed off, he would apologize and beg her to come see him, blaming his artist’s temperament for his outburst. She would reluctantly go back to him only to find an apartment filled with flowers and romantic declarations. In hindsight, she now saw his abusive manipulation for what it was. Before the year was up, she found herself maneuvered into a marriage she wasn’t sure she wanted.
“We got married in a county clerk’s office, just the two of us and a witness,” Katie said in a rush, as though making a confession. “My mom was so disappointed, but Colin didn’t want a big wedding. He didn’t really believe in marriage before me.”
“So what happened to convince him otherwise?” Roman asked, an edge of sarcasm to his rough voice.
Katie pleated her fingers nervously in her skirt and then let it go, watching the way the white cotton fabric wrinkled under her relentless grip. So like her. Pure and pretty one moment, damaged and ugly the next. She smoothed the skirt with her hand, pressing the silly thought away. She was always letting her dark thoughts in. She lifted her eyes and caught Roman’s shadowed gaze in her own as though he could read what was in her head.
She started speaking before he could demand to know what else she had been thinking. “C-Colin said he wanted to be tied to me as closely as possible, as close as man and wife. He could be romantic that way… when he wanted.”
“Manipulative,” Roman grunted.
Katie nodded. She wasn’t going to deny it. Her ex-husband had been emotionally abusive. “Yes, he knew exactly what to say to a young woman who had already isolated herself from the people that cared,” Katie said, deciding to be completely honest with Roman. “If Colin hadn’t been manipulative, I never would have stayed with him, or married him. I may be into self-inflicted pain, but I wasn’t that masochistic. Two years married to him was enough to try even the sweetest of saints. If he hadn’t instigated our divorce, I would not have been far behind with the papers, no matter how many romantic gestures he tried to pull. Believe me, there’s a reason I took so many overseas jobs.”
Roman’s eyes flashed and then he chuckled. Katie’s lips quirked and she stuffed a piece of melon into her mouth.
She nearly choked when his eyes became razor sharp and his words hit her like bullets. “This man, your husband, the only way he would have let you go is if he found something out about you that could have fallen on his head as well. He divorced you and kicked you out to put distance between him and your activities, but he couldn’t retract his claws completely. Maybe, like the little bitch he was, he wished to let you go. Maybe he even did for a few months.”
Katie knew from her gasp and the flare of her eyes that she was confirming his words, but she was helpless against his verbal investigation. God! He may speak like an uneducated thug, but his brain was razor sharp and currently directed at her. She knew it wouldn’t take him long to figure out what she’d been up to over the years. She was almost surprised he hadn’t figured it out already. It all boiled down to that conversation on the floor of her tiny kitchen, when she had been eighteen and he twenty-five. When she had begged him for more time. More time to live her life and explore the world out from under his terrifying shadow. He had let her fly.
Yes, he had watched her, but never too close. If he had, then he would have known about the cutting, known about her ex, known about her illegal activities and he would have snatched her up long ago. He would have swooped in and saved her, like the avenging angel she knew him to be.
“He couldn’t let you go, could he, Katie?” Roman’s deep voice washed over her like a midnight blanket. She shook her head, helpless to look away from him. “He had to keep you close, so he blackmailed you each month. He got the best of both worlds, the culero fuck. He got your money. Cash, which he kept hidden so the feds couldn’t link him to you if you got yourself in trouble. And he got your gorgeous body, which he couldn’t give up. His greed fucked him in the end, Katerina. If he’d actually walked away from mi mujer a year ago, as he intended, then maybe I would not have hunted him.”
Her breathing went from fast and frightened to nonexistent as his eyes slashed right through her. His lips formed terrifying words that she forced herself to listen to, despite her need to hide in denial. His finger came up to tap his lip and then point at her in promise. “I lie. He was dead from the first moment he touched you. I could have made it quicker though, if he’d been a better man.”
A whimper made its way up her throat and passed through her lips as they stared at each other. She suddenly felt everything sharply. That happened to her sometimes. She usually walked through life in a numb haze, looking for her next adrenaline fix. Except occasionally the numbness would lift and the bright, shiny world would suddenly rush at her. She could feel the boat rocking gently underneath her body, hear the waves slapping against the sides and feel the heat of the sun beating on her head and skin. She focused hard on these things rather than think about how hard her heart beat for the man sitting across from her.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, moving his large frame to lean forward in his seat.
“I should be,” Katie whispered. “You kill people. You k-killed Colin.”
His eyes sharpened and she knew he was pleased with her answer. “But you aren’t.”
She shook her head.
He stood abruptly, pushing his chair away from the table. He stalked toward her, each step felt like a step closer to her doom. She knew what he wanted. It was a miracle he’d waited this long. And he only waited because he’d been shocked by the scars on her legs. Apparently, he was over that shock now.
He stopped next to her and, taking her chair, pulled it away from the table with her still in it. “Stand up.”
She looked helplessly up at him and whispered, “What are you going to do to me?”
He held out his hand and said, “I'm going to hurt you, Katie. And you’re going to thank me for the pain I inflict on your body and soul. You belong to me, you always have and I take care of what is mine.”
With trembling fingers, she placed her hand in his and allowed him to pull her out of the chair.