“Same time tomorrow night, doc.” The car door slammed.
Slowly, I entered back into the building and searched every exam room for the missing girl.
Nothing.
The lobby lights were turned off, but the computer was still on. I went over to it to check the names, but only one was on the list, Galina. Who the hell had the other girl been? And where was she?
My eyes started to blur. It was time to go home, but first I needed to talk to Jac and tell her never again to involve herself in my business dealings. If I needed to put the fear of God into her, so be it. The last thing I needed was to lose more family.
In order to prevent crime downtown, law enforcement has doubled its cops on duty during the late evening hours. –The Seattle Tribune
JAC HAD TAKEN ONE LOOK AT my pale face and motioned for me to follow her to the door.
“Nikolai said you could take me…” My voice wouldn’t stop shaking. Damn it! What was wrong with me.
“Sure thing, honey.” Jac said in a sweet voice, like a switch had been flipped from earlier. I immediately felt comfortable once we were in her black Buick Encore.
I shivered even though I wasn’t cold.
Once we’d been on the road for a few minutes Jac started to hum, it was… eerie, the fact that she wasn’t talking.
I opened my mouth to say something when she reached over and gripped my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin. “So now you know.”
“Know?” I repeated. “What do you mean?” I tried to pry my arm free but she was freakishly strong for being in her late sixties.
“What he does, sweetheart.” Her words were nice; her voice, however, sounded… bitter, angry, and hurt. “He works with the girls who spread their legs, it is why his research is so good. Have you never wondered? He is the only doctor in existence that can study diseases the way he does, who can use his own brands of medicine not approved by the FDA. What he does is important, what you do with that information will either save your life or end it.”
Finally she released my arm.
I rubbed it and slid further away from her so the door and seatbelt were poking into my lower back. “I would never betray him.”
“Good.” Jac nodded. “Sometimes though, a promise is not enough. Who’s to say you wouldn’t rat him out if your father threatened your life?”
“My father…” I kept my voice indifferent. “…couldn’t care less about me. Trust me, I’m the last person in the world he cares about.”
“Smoke and mirrors.” Jac cackled.
Holy crap, she was crazy! Did Nikolai know?
I looked down at my arm and frowned, there was a bloodied handprint where Jac had been gripping my arm.
And two more handprints on the steering wheel of the car.
We pulled up to the building.
I calmly, opened the door, offered my thanks, and moved as fast as my legs would take me to the elevator pushing the button harder than necessary.
“Come on, come on.” I stomped my foot a few times, then nearly had a heart attack when the doors actually opened and a person shuffled past me.
I was being ridiculous. I wasn’t some lost virgin in a horror movie, running up the stairs instead of down, or hiding in the basement. It was Jac, she’d been working with Nikolai for years.
Just as I was straightening my shoulders and getting ready to walk in the elevator a hand grabbed my shoulder from behind.
I turned around and screamed.
Jac took a step back, a smirk across her lips as she dangled my purse in front of me. “I figured you’d want your things.”
“Sorry.” I placed my hand against my chest while my other grabbed the purse. “Jumpy tonight.”
“I’ll say.” Her frozen smile didn’t crack. With a tilt of her head she gave me a nod then walked back to the running car.
Her hands were clean of blood.
And when I looked back down at my arm, it only had a faint remnant of red.
Had I imagined it all?
Or was she really bat shit crazy?
My nerves were shot by the time I made it onto my floor and into my apartment. I locked my door then double checked that the locks were in place. Once that was done, I walked over to the fridge pulled out a bottle of chilled wine and began to drink straight from the bottle.
A knock on the door sounded ten minutes into my drinking and shaking.
“Who is it?” I asked, in what I hoped would sound like a calm voice.
“Nikolai.”
Safe.
My mind whispered that word to me over and over again, until finally, I took the two steps to the door, unlocked it and let him in.
He looked like absolute hell.
From the dark circles under his eyes to the white shirt pulled out of his slacks.
Nikolai took one look at the wine bottle, swiped it off the counter, then started repeating what I’d done—drinking straight from the mouth.
“How is she?” I asked, joining him on the white leather couch, tucking my feet underneath me while he handed me back the bottle. I took a swig and waited.
He checked his watch—that was odd—then met my gaze with one of complete chilling indifference. “In exactly forty-two minutes, she’ll be dead.”
I gasped as he pried the bottle from my hand and took at least three long swallows.
“You… killed her?”
Nikolai laughed, actually laughed like I was making a joke. “What do you think?”
I gulped and shook my head “I really don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Did I pull the trigger? Stop the weak heart?” He cursed under his breath and ran his hands through his hair. It was getting long, I noticed absently, curling at the nape of his neck. I liked that; it made him look less controlled, more human.
He had a beautiful side profile, something that I imagined artists would kill to paint or sculpt. I reached out and touched his face.
His eyes closed as if my touch soothed him, and then he placed his hand over mine keeping it against the roughness of his five o’clock shadow. “You can touch me? You can bear to look at me? Even after all you’ve seen today.”
“You helped them,” I said in a weak voice. “Or are helping them…”
“Help—” He bit out the word. “—is such a weak, troublesome word, with such myriad meanings that I simply don’t understand it anymore. Maybe I never did.”
“Drunk already?” I joked.
He smiled against my hand. Then, as it dropped from his face, he clenched my fingers in his. “You’re important to me, I hope you know that.”
“Yeah,” I croaked. “I think I do.”
He caressed my arm and then frowned as he leaned down and examined the marks Jac’s nails had made in my skin, along with the blood I still hadn’t washed off.
“What is this?” His cold voice left me filled with dread.
I tried to jerk away. “Nothing.”
“Maya,” he growled. “Who the hell dared to lay a hand on you?” His voice was furious as his eyes flashed with rage. “Tell me. Now.”
“Jac,” I said in a wobbly voice. “It’s like she just… snapped in the car, she kind of th-threatened me and then wouldn’t let me go… I think maybe she’s over worked or something because she’s been acting weird all night… and at first she was so nice, I just—”
Nikolai interrupted me with a kiss, his mouth pressed so hard against mine that I fell back against the couch cushions, his warm body was both searing to the touch yet comforting in an odd way. When we broke apart for air, he cupped my chin forcing me to look him directly in the eyes. “I’ll take care of Jac. Just do me a favor… don’t allow yourself to be alone with her. Insanity runs in the family.”
“You know her family?”
Nikolai hesitated than stated in such a quiet whisper I almost didn’t hear him. “I am her family.”
He looked away then moved to sit back so our bodies weren’t touching anymore. “I’m her gran
dson.”
A nervous laugh welled in my throat, but I suppressed it. “Didn’t see that plot twist.” I usually made light of a very scary situation with joking. I really needed to stop doing that. “So she must be very protective of you.”
He frowned, staring off into the distance. “She doesn’t give a damn about me.” His laugh was hollow. “She cares about… tradition.”
“I’m not following.”
“Every man and woman in our family has had the same occupation for as long as I can remember… my father broke tradition forcing my grandmother to take up the family…” He sighed deeply. “…business. I followed in my father’s footsteps, not hers. She’s been pressuring me to do otherwise.”
I handed him the wine bottle. “You probably need more of this.”
“Probably.” He pushed it away. “But I’d rather drink from you.”
“You want me to pour wine in my mouth so you can drink from me?” I teased.
He laughed, an actual laugh that echoed off the walls and ceiling only to wrap itself so tightly around me that I knew, I’d never be free of it, free of the feeling I had whenever he was near.
His laughter faded as his eyes darkened and met mine. “I want to drink you.” He leaned forward, and his tongue slid against my neck. “Taste you…” His lips brushed a kiss across my jaw. “And not have any of the taste dulled by wine or anything so common as food or drink. I want your uniqueness to drown my senses and I want it right now.”
Thrills rushed through me. “Demanding.” It was the only answer I could give as he started pulling my white shirt over my head. Once my arms were free, he shrugged and then kept stripping me. I didn’t protest, because I didn’t want to. I just wanted him.
And the more I had of him, it was like the more I needed.
I popped my knuckles as a memory of white flashed before my eyes only to be replaced with dark brown eyes. “Let me taste you.”
“Now you ask?” I groaned. “When you’ve been doing nothing but telling for the past few hours?”
“Pain I give… pleasure I seek,” he answered. “Will you let me touch you, Maya? Will you allow it? Please say yes, I don’t think I could survive with no.”
“Yes.” I moved for him just as he reached for me. “Yes.” Our mouths met. Yes, yes, yes.
“Let me pleasure you,” Nikolai whispered. “Let me see you, all of you, in the light, against the white.”
I did as he asked, stripping free of the rest of my clothes.
Nikolai slid from the couch, moving to his knees, then grabbed my thighs, pried them apart and whispered, “And now, I worship at your feet.”
“Blasphemy.”
“Not at all.” His eyes locked reverently on mine. “Blasphemy is replacing God… I’m simply honoring His most perfect creation in the only way I know how.”
“With pleasure?”
“Always… pleasure I seek.”
I froze.
So did he.
His mouth opened and then closed.
But instead of questioning him, or allowing myself to put two and two together, I closed my eyes and said. “What are you waiting for?”
“Oh Maya, it seems like I’ve been waiting years and years.”
The last cognitive thought I had before his mouth was on me was the familiarity of his smooth movements.
And how being with him, felt like coming home.
As if I’d run away and gotten lost.
He’d given me a map.
And I’d found my way back.
You have to learn to walk before you can run. –Russian Proverb
SHE FELL ASLEEP IN MY ARMS… I tried not to fixate on the way her forehead furrowed while she dreamt, just like I tried not to feel guilty over the fact that her entire existence with me was a lie.
A giant test.
It all led back to keeping her safe.
I glanced around the white room.
So similar to the one she’d been placed in after she’d been kidnapped.
Similar to all the rooms Petrov used.
Right along with the sick bastard’s white masks that he forced people to wear whenever they entered his parties.
His men never realized they were getting taken to me because they always assumed the masks meant that they were going to another orgy. Instead, the car would always take a detour to one of the many apartments.
My fixation wasn’t with blood, like she’d guessed.
I absolutely hated white anything. Hated it with such a fiery passion that it took me years of conditioning myself not to puke every time I walked into a modern office with white fixtures, or modern apartments. I’d had to surround myself with it so I would stop reacting.
Petrov enjoyed watching the blood… he chose the white, not me. He loved to see how much he could make people suffer. And bleed.
And he always kept cameras trained on me when I did my work.
Except for one time.
One time, he made an exception.
He shouldn’t have.
But I refused to work otherwise.
It was my gift to her. The only one I’d been able to give.
She moaned in her sleep, I knew the dreams that haunted her at night, and I was powerless to stop them.
With a sigh, I checked my phone.
Jac: Taken care of.
Nikolai: Thank you.
Jac: It’s my job. Our job.
Nikolai: Any word on the girl you claim escaped when you let her in the clinic?
I knew Jac was lying, she’d had blood on her hands, the very same hands that had touched Maya. My grandmother was finally snapping. I added that to the list of things I could blame myself for.
Jac: I have no idea what you are talking about.
Nikolai: Going to bed.
Jac: Is she with you?
Nikolai: Goodnight, Jac.
She didn’t respond. If I didn’t do something, rein her in, she was going to do something stupid, or end up getting herself hurt.
After being gone for so long I didn’t think it wise to suddenly take another extended vacation to either kill my own family member or toss her to the wolves. I wouldn’t be so callous, but I would take away her memories enough to settle her in a nice retirement home… she deserved peace. At least I could give it to her the right way.
The nightmares of my family’s past had haunted her for far too long, the sins, she alone carried on her shoulders, it wasn’t her responsibility, not anymore. It was mine.
One that would sure as hell end with me.
I lifted Maya into my arms and carried her into the bedroom, laying her across the down comforter, wanting so badly to tell her the truth but drowning in the fear of what that would mean for both of us.
Her father only agreed to our terms as long as I could prove the false memories had stayed intact.
I was supposed to report to him after a year.
What the hell was I going to say now? She remembers, but it’s okay because I’m watching her?
“No loose ends,” he’d stated over and over again.
The only answer was to find the last two houses in Seattle and burn them to the ground. Ending my research was a small price to pay to save her life… if the houses were gone, then she would no longer be a threat.
Because locked away in that mind of hers… was the key to her father’s undoing… a girl seeing what she should have never seen.
“Bury it,” he’d demanded. “I don’t care how. Just bury it, or she dies.”
“She’s your daughter!” I yelled, already entranced with the girl I’d seen but a handful of times at her father’s side. I protected her, it was part of my job, and now he was asking me to go back on my oath.
“She knows too much!” he spat. “Either you kill her, or you make her forget…”
“She’s too young,” I argued. “To alter her memories at this age… to replace them, I’d have to create real trauma, real memories to cover up the others, don’t you see? Her brain is
too strong, she isn’t one of your foot soldiers. She could die!”
“I don’t care if you have to wipe her entire damn memory, just make her forget. I pay you to make people forget.”
She was blindfolded, tied to one of the metal chairs in the white room, bleeding profusely. If I didn’t stop the bleeding, she would be too weak to go through the process.
“Damn it, Petrov, she’s sixteen. Just bribe her with a new car.” I paced the room, my knife clutched in my hand. I should have never said yes to him, should have never allowed myself to be bribed. Then again, had I not, Maya would have been dead. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. She was an abomination to him, born out of wedlock between his wife and an Italian Mafioso.
“No.” Her father uttered a Russian curse. “She is a liability. Make it go away, or she dies, and her death will be on your hands.”
I had no choice.
“Fine,” I whispered. “But I work alone, leave me.”
Petrov hesitated briefly.
I crossed my arms. “No cameras. The last thing you need is for this to come back to you.”
She whimpered, her head falling forward. Shit, she was going to lose consciousness soon. What the hell had he done to her? The doctor in me screamed in outrage, the monster rubbed his hands together.
Petrov strode to the door and unplugged the camera next to it. With a final warning gaze, he stepped through the opening and shut the door behind him, blanketing us in darkness.
I reached for the white mask, hands trembling, then very slowly tied it around my head.
I apologized to her, in my head of course, and I swore that someday I would save her. Just not now. I prayed that she’d understand, that one day she’d thank me.
I expected Maya to pass out. She was only sixteen, beautiful, but so young. She lifted her chin as if to say, do your worst! And I had to respect her in that moment. Sweetheart, I would do my worst, and then, when she swore fealty… I’d do my best work, and save her life.
I stopped staring at her sleeping form, and backed up against the dresser, one of the white masks fell onto the floor.
I’d put simple triggers everywhere in the apartment and nothing… we’d made love a few times… and still nothing extraordinary other than Maya remembering her childhood friend.