Page 35 of White Rabbit
“What a shithole,” Ivan muttered behind us.
“Try living here and never leaving for two years.”
“Never?” Valariy asked.
I shook my head. already the claustrophobia of the small one-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor was closing in on me and we weren’t even there yet.
Valariy pulled me closer to his side as we trudged up the narrow stairs to the upper floors. There was no elevator and I was pretty sure the stairwells weren’t up to code.
“This squalor. This is why he sold out to anyone, even while working for Petrov,” he said, lifting me when we encountered a cracked step. I didn’t tell him it had been that way as long as I could remember. The apartments had no laundry facilities and the only time I got to leave Rad’s was when I went to the basement to do the washing.
At the apartment door, he fitted the key in the lock—Rad’s keys. I recognized the stupid poker chip keyring. With some manhandling, he was able to get inside.
Arms wrapped around myself, I followed Anatoli and Valariy inside, Ivan coming in behind me. Valariy flipped the light switch but nothing happened.
“Probably didn’t pay the bill. Again,” I said, moving past them and opening the heavy drapes over the living room windows to let in some light. I almost wished I didn’t. The place I’d kept meticulously clean, with the little supplies I had, had fallen into filth. It looked as if he had picked up or cleaned a single thing in the past three months.
“I used to keep it spotless,” I said to no one. But now, I didn’t have to. I didn’t need to care what this place looked like.
Moving past the men, I opened the curtains in the bedroom so I could see to get my things. I wouldn’t touch the few clothes I’d had here, but I had other things I’d collected. Change here and there from doing laundry or cash Rad had left around when drunk. Though tempted, I never took it all. Just a little. Just a bit he wouldn’t notice.
There were notes I’d hidden inside my books, things I’d learned about disappearing and not being traced.
“What the fuck is that?” Anatoli exclaimed. When I followed his gaze, I saw the chain and shackle attached to the end of the bed—a bed where I sometimes slept if Rad was “in the mood” or feeling benevolent. Other times, I slept on the threadbare floor next to the bed. After the first few weeks, those were the only times I cried. The only times I allowed it. When he was asleep and I was curled up alone with now blanket, wishing for death.
“I wish I could kill him again,” Valariy growled.
“I wish you could,” I breathed. My words startled me. Once upon a time, I would never have thought that. Now… I supposed I’d changed and saw things differently than I had before I’d hit rock bottom, before my rose colored glasses had been ripped away and I’d been left in desperate straits. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the change in me, but Iwassure that I was glad Rad wasn’t walking the earth anymore.
“Let me just get what I want, and we can go,” I said, noticing Ivan and Anatoli had pulled out penlights and were looking through drawers.
“Look inside the cookie jar and flour canister in the cupboard over the kitchen sink,” I told them before I ducked into the closet and wiggled back to hidey hole behind Rad’s suits, where I used to read whenever he had “friends” over.
I glanced over my shoulder to be sure I was alone. Valariy and his men were in the living room, Returning my attention to my task, I groped for my flashlight then found the duffle bag Rod had tossed in the space at some point. After dumping out his junk and grabbing the few bills he must have tossed inside andforgotten about, I started packing my things. The few personal items I still had and the two books with my notes. I grabbed the rolls of socks I kept shoved inside the boots I’d worn here that February night two years ago. I’d tucked cash inside the socks before I’d folded them.
Not wanting anything else, I crawled out of the back corner of the closet then glanced back over at the three men. They were pulling back couch cushions and looking though cupboards. I had no idea what they searched for, but they were busy so I headed into the bathroom.
The last thing I wanted was my change jar hidden there. Rad never touched the cleaners under the sink—clearly. The apartment was filthy after only a couple months. On its side in the back, cushioned by a cloth, was the plastic jar where I stashed coins. Opening the jar now, I shoved wash clothes inside the cushion the rattle of the change. Moving quickly, I zipped the near-empty duffle.
I’d squirreled away these things to get free of Rad, but now…he was dead, and in many ways, I’d escaped the proverbial frying pan only to land in the fire. Now, when the time was right, I’d use them to run from Valariy.
I couldn’t be part of this life. I couldn’t be helpless, a fixture in his house for when he wanted to fuck. I couldn’t… I couldn’t be weak and a victim or a pawn anymore.
But God help me, I couldn’t escape that I was coming to love him. God help me, indeed. I’d fallen for a beast.
Chapter 20
Valariy
Sitting at my desk, I held the ring in between the thumb and forefinger of both hands, rolling it back and forth and envisioned the best time to put it on Brecklyn’s finger.
I hadn’t lied to her. Legally, by my illegal means, we were married. We’d started well, but since that day when she’d seen me shoot Jovanovic, she’d been pulling away. Maybe it was seeing his execution. Maybe, it was what had happened afterward. I made sure she came, but fuck, something inside me snapped when she ran.
We’d still slept together every night for these last two weeks. I craved it; she seemed to need it, too. At least, she acted as if she did. And it was just as wild and dirty as the first night we’d fucked.
But something was different.
I watched the diamond in the ring glint, an unfamiliar ache in my gut. Maybe, it was that she wasn’t sure of me, of my intention to be with her forever. Putting this ring on her finger might now that. It wasn’t just any ring. It had been my mother’s, and she’d worn it until her death to cancer when I was a teen.
