Page 30 of Deception

Perhaps he’s right. All this time, I’ve waited for him to make his killer move. Maybe he’s already made it. He’s filling me up with all this guilt that I don’t know whether I’ll be able to live through. All along he’s made it clear that he wanted to break me, and right now it feels like he already has. He’s cracked my shell so that he can watch me split open for him.

“He fucked me.” And I let him.

Elif meets my stare in the mirror, nodding her pity. It should anger me, but it just hurts. It physically makes my body ache with every second that his breaths echo in my head. Grunts and curses that make my skin break out in goosebumps while the emptiness inside me swells. All that’s left is longing so deep and so strong that it smothers me.

“Tomasz fucked me.” The words slither from my lips, warming me from the inside out.

It’s wrong. My need for him is immoral. A transgression for which there is no penance or price to right. There’s just this endless pit of guilt and disgust and want.

“He fucked me,” I repeat, the sob ripping through me without mercy.

It chokes my insides, making the gaping absence he’s left in his wake starker and torturous.

I begged him and implored, and not once did I try to stop him because when he looked at me, he was just a man looking at a girl. And he wanted me too. He saw, he wanted, and he took.

12

TOMASZ

The Georgian sun bores down on us the entire drive to the coast. It’s never this hot in September, and as we drive up the curving hillside road, the cooler air does nothing. The ruins of an old watchtower rise ahead of us, breaking up the green and blue of the surroundings.

“Watch your back,” Anton, my driver and bodyguard, tells me when we get out of the car. “The Sarapovs will have their cars on the other side.”

“Where are the men?” Pushing my rolled sleeves up to my elbows, I inspect our surroundings.

It’s quiet with only the distant hum of the ocean and rustle of the trees peppered towards the shade of the crumbling stones. Shaking out my wrist, I rotate my watch before checking the time again.

“Mikheil is late.”

“I told you,” he bites out quietly while opening his suit jacket to inspect his holstered weapon is at the ready. “I don’t trust the Georgian cunts to stick to their word.”

“In that case, I hope your men are good to go.”

Tapping a message out on his phone, he nods at my remark. Today is the beginning of discussions to a truce. We allow the Sarapovs to move their product through our port, and they aid us in moving ours through theirs. Moving artillery to the Middle East through them is a lot more economic than having to bribe every fucking politician and their friends. It also diverts our shipments away from the Romanian bastards to avoid starting an unnecessary war. One we would crush them with, but that would put us right in the middle of the Interpol operation that’s vying for them. Another reason to divert our route of business.

This is a favour for a favour that could make both our clan and the Sarapovs greater. More money and more power that would make the Vassily name more than just a feared whisper. Although, I still believe that the only way to make it roar is to take the Sarapovs out of the picture completely and take over their operations. If my father hadn’t pinned the next shipment on this deal pulling through, we would be here with very different intentions.

“We’re surrounded,” Anton murmurs under his breath. “Take the gun and be ready.”

“Are you scared?” I pause halfway up to the tower.

Anton gives me that pissed-off look that tells me his SVR hunch is on high alarm. The man is always one step ahead, and it’s one reason I trust him. I wasn’t sure about his history with the Russian secret service when my father appointed him to be my personal detail. Over the last fifteen years, we’ve found ourselves in some precarious situations that I don’t think I would’ve made it out of without him at my side. Anton is one of the very few people that has earned my respect.

“I’ve told you before that caution isn’t the same as fear. Caution prepares you?—”

“Yes, yes…caution saves my life.”

“Take the weapon.” Holding his semi-automatic pistol towards me, Anton side-glances around us.

“Do your job,” I retort, ignoring the proffered gun and starting up the path again, with him following close behind me.

“You remember the easy exit I showed you on the map?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” With a deep breath, he adds, “There’s a boat at the bottom, and the path down the east side is the shortest. It’s also in open view, so we know the Sarapovs are too chickenshit to pursue down that route.”

“Tell my father that,” I laugh over my shoulder at him.

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