156

Adrian
“How are you?” I ask my younger sister in our mother tongue. I try to talk to her every day or two. The whole time I’ve been gone, I’ve battled guilt over leaving her there alone. She’s come a long way in the year since she’s been free, but she still has bouts of debilitating paranoia and depression brought on by her PTSD. She suffers from agoraphobiafear of leaving the house. She’s getting counseling, but I’m still so afraid she’ll relapse.
“I’m fine.” She gives a groggy laugh. “I just woke up. It’s six a. m. here. You texted me to call when I woke up.”
“Right, sorry. Have you left the building since we last talked?”
“No, but I’m going out tonight.”
Right. It’s Thursday, which means Story’s band is playing.
Nadia’s not entirely alone in America. We live in the Kremlin. Not the real Kremlin, but the lakeshore Chicago high rise owned by Ravil, my bratva pakhan. The neighbors call the building the Kremlin because only Russians live there. Unless you count Ravil’s lawyer wifethe one who got me off on the arson charges after I burned down Poval’s sofa factory which was really a sex trafficking front.
Oleg’s American girlfriend, Story, also lives there.
I grit my teeth. I should be thrilled any time Nadia’s willing to leave the apartment. It took me months and months just to get her out of the building. But I fear she’s more than a little fixated on Story’s younger brother, Flynn who plays in the band. And Flynn is a fucking player.
He’s the last guy my sister needs to throw herself at. Although, that might be the saving grace. Flynn is too busy with all the fangirls throwing their panties on stage at him to pay any attention to my socially phobic, extremely damaged sister.
“Is Sasha going?” I don’t want her there if there’s not another woman.
“Yes. Sasha and Maxim, Oleg, and Maykl.”
“Good. If you need to leave early, you tell Maykl, and he’ll take you back.” Maykl promised me he’d look after Nadia while I was gone. He’s the bratva brother I knew from Russia. Newer to our cell, like me. Honorable. I trust him with her. Also, I told him I’d cut off his balls if he touched her, so there’s that.
“I…I think I will stay.”
Fuck. I fear she’s really obsessed with Flynn. Should I say something? I should. I need to warn her that he’s a heartbreaker.
No, I can’t bring myself to. It’s the first interest she’s shown in anything since Poval kidnapped her from home almost two years ago. And if this gets her out of the building, it has to be a win. I just fear a heartbreak would be the end of her.
Literally.
She was suicidal for a long time.
“You’re going to work today?”
“Of course,” she chides me. “You think I can’t make it to work because you’re gone?”
“I’m just making sure.”
Ravil, in all his benevolence, magically found work for my sister when I finally found her and brought her back with me. Just like he took me in and showed me the ropes when I arrived in Chicago, following the trail that led me to the sofa factory, he found a place for Nadia.
Since she’s still learning English and is afraid to interact with people, he gave her a job cleaning the Kremlin. Never mind that he already has at least five other Russian immigrants on the payroll for the same job.
Now that she’s coming out of her depression, she does a little babysitting for him as well.
“You’ve showered?” Sometimes personal hygiene goes out the window when she’s in a funk.
“I will shower after work.”
Right. She wouldn’t go out to see the Storytellers without showering.
“Eaten breakfast?”
“I will. Adrian, I’m fine. What about you? What are you doing? When are you coming home?”
“I just have some business to take care of. I’ll be back in a couple weeks… if it all goes well.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Her voice is tight with strain.
“Don’t worry about me,” I tell her. I don’t intend to die at Poval’s hand. I know it’s a distinct possibility, but I plan on making it home alive. With justice served.
I sneak a look at Kat, who doesn’t deserve her role in my vengeance. She’s frantically working her wrists against the zip ties.
“Ravil wants you to call him. He said it’s important.”
“Yeah, I will. I have to go, Nadia. Call me tomorrow when you wake.”
“I will.”
I hesitate. “Have a good time tonight.”
“Spasibo,” she thanks me. “Do svidaniya.”
“Do svidaniya.” I say goodbye and hang up then walk to Kat’s side. “Hey,” I say sharply. “You’re only hurting yourself. You won’t get free. Stop trying.”
“Go fuck yourself, mudak.”
Asshole is the same in Ukrainian as it is in Russian.
I don’t have a thing for hurting women. In fact, it’s the opposite. Knowing what my sister suffered, the idea of hurting a woman makes me sick. But Kat looks so beautiful right now with her wrists tied over her head. Her lips are chapped which makes them red and pretty and very kissable.
I rub my forehead.
I shouldn’t be getting emotionally involved with this girl. That should be the farthest thing from my mind right now. I should be channeling Ravil’s cool business-like approach. Show nothing, give nothing. But instead I find the need to claim this girl. To comfort her. To show her who’s boss in a sexier way than using zip ties on her poor wrists. The way she liked it last night.
Kateryna is a beautiful, sexy girl, and last night definitely tweaked me in a way I didn’t expect. I may have not thought I had a thing for the school girl outfit or playing dominant, but now I do. Now I definitely do. I will never forget what it felt like to make her come all over my fingers after spanking that pretty little ass red.
“They hurt,” she complains. “My arms hurt. My wrists hurt. I can’t be in this position any longer!”
Da. She’s right. I need to change things. I pull my pen knife out of my pocket and cut the zip tie around her wrists loose, catching her hands to keep her from hitting me.
And she does try. She hits and kicks at me, suddenly a violent little ball of venom. I have to pin her down on the bed, my knees straddling her waist, my weight falling into manacling her wrists with my hands. I sit on her pelvis to pin her down.
After a moment of useless struggle, she goes still, breathing hard beneath me. Her gaze is less angry than it is…hurt?
This is why I shouldn’t have mixed business with pleasure. I am fucking this up so badly.
“Let me go.” Her eyes fill with angry tears.
“Don’t make this hard, dietka.”
She changes tack. “I need to use the loo.”
It’s probably a lie, but what can I do? I’m not going to make her soil the bed. “Okay. Let’s go.” I should put the zip ties back on her, but I decide to take the risk and just hang onto her. She’s small and not trained in hand to hand combat like I am. She could get lucky and take me out, but it seems highly unlikely.
I ease my hips up from hers and swing a leg off the bed, tug her by her wrists to pivot her up to sit then stand. Her glare still holds the same hurt I saw a moment ago.
I fold her wrists behind her back one at a time then turn her to face the bathroom and walk behind her, holding her prisoner.
When we get to the bathroom, she uses the toilet then turns on the shower. “I feel gross,” she says sulkily. Without looking at me, she starts stripping off her clothes, starting with her knee-high socks.
I shut the door and lean my ass against it. “Fine. Use shower.” I fold my arms over my chest.
There’s no window in the shower. She’s not getting out. It seems harmless enough.
She unzips her skirt and lets it drop, then she takes off the blouse, her bra, and finally her panties.
I try to keep my gaze… well, diffused. I can’t very well look away or turn my back. She might bash my head in with the back of the ceramic toilet tank. But it’s damn hard not to appreciate her beautiful body. She has full, ripe breasts that contrast with her tiny rib cage and narrow waist. Not much in the hips department, but her legs are shapely, and that ass…so cute.
She ignores me and pulls off the elastic bands holding the ends of her braids to unwind her long dark hair. She steps into the shower and slides the frosted glass door closed.
“Don’t you have any conditioner?” she demands.
“Nyet. Why would I need conditioner?”
“I need conditioner. Do you know how tangled my hair is going to be?”
“Sorry, printsessa.”
She whips the shower door open to flip me the bird. I give her a hard look even though her brat act is totally growing on me. She slides the door closed again, but not before I get an eyeful of her wet body, even more glorious with droplets of water dripping down, begging to be licked.
Damn.
She’s in there forever. I think about telling her to hurry the fuck up, but what does it matter, really? This is the only chance she’ll get to be free of the zip ties, I might as well let her enjoy it.
“Who is Nadia?” she demands after a stretch. I hear the accusation in her voice.
Suddenly, the hurt in her eyes and voice makes more sense.
Fuck.
That means she’s already attached to me. Attached enough to be jealous of a girl who calls me on the phone.
Why did I have to get sexual with her last night?
I don’t need this complication.
She doesn’t need this complication. Or does it make it easier? No, that was my thinking last night. Get her to my place consensually to avoid further trauma. But it’s really more of a delayed trauma.
Because ultimately, there’s one way this ends: with her father dead by my hand.
How’s she going to feel about that if she thinks we’re friends? Lovers?
I don’t answer, turning the angles over in my mind. I’m not practiced yet at making split-second decisions. I’m the cleaner. The one who thinks through things after they happen. I take time to chew over a situation.
Suddenly, she flies out of the still-running shower, the handle of my razor clutched like a weapon. She leaps on me, straddling my waist, and tries to drive the handle of the razor into my eye. I catch her wrist, which is slippery and wet and storm forward into the shower, where I pin her back against the tile wall. Water soaks through my clothes, fills my boots. I bang the wrist of the hand holding the razor against the tile to make her drop it.
“Who is she?” she screams. “Why did you fuck with me? Why” Her voice breaks.
“She’s my sister,” I say, all my reasoning out the window now. “I shouldn’t have fucked with you. I shouldn’t have. It was wrong. I’m sorry, malysh.”
“Why did you?” she croaks.
“I didn’t plan on grabbing you last night, all right? I was just following you. Learning your habits. But you noticed me. And then those mudaks tried to rape you.”
“You raped me!” She tries to head butt me again, but I move my head to the side. My nose feels slightly swollen and bruised from her earlier attack. “Why didn’t you just…why did you?”
Her confusion guts me. “I’m sorry. You were tripping. I didn’t want the drugs to enhance the trauma. So I waited.”
She stares at me, soaking it in. “You didn’t want… you were saving me from a bad trip?” Water droplets bead on her lashes. Her black eyeliner from last night has been washed clean, and she’s even lovelier this way.
I nod.
“And Nadia is your sister?”
I ease back and let her slide to the shower floor now that the fight’s gone out of her.
“Da. She’s…” I stop myself. I don’t want to tell Kateryna the details of what her father did. It’s bad enough I will be taking him from her. I don’t have to ruin her image of him, too.
“Your father ruined her.” I leave it at that, backing away and closing the shower door.