Page 36 of Keep Me (Rebel Hearts Heists 2)
“Come here, Honey Bunny. Let’s get us some champagne and when the dancing starts I call fucking dibs on the first dance. Have I told you how fucking sexy you look tonight?”
Blaine is standing behind me, his chest touching my back, as his deep voice rumbles in my ear and travels down my spine, all the way down to my core, causing me to clench as I feel a rush of wetness at the image that just formed in my mind. Me and Blaine in one of the guest cabins, clothing totally optional. I’m about to tell him what I’ve just thought when something, or rather someone in the corner of my eye catches my attention.
Pierce.
My heartbeat accelerates and my throat closes down as I move through the now crowded room, following the brown haired figure in a black suit. I can feel Blaine following me but I don’t say anything, not wanting to sound absolutely insane. I just caught a glimpse of man’s mouth, he had a smirk that looked sinisterly familiar but my vision was partially impeded by someone standing in front of him and a mask covering most of his features.
It can’t be, it can’t be. Pierce is fucking dead, right? My feet have moved of their own accord following the suited figure but there’s too many people and it takes me too long to reach him. I see the suit disappearing from sight through a door that leads to the corridor inside the boat.
Should I follow and see who that person is? I’m pretty positive that it can’t be my ex but I’d definitely feel better if I could establish that without any doubt.
“Sloane, what—”
Blaine has followed behind me and I’m about to tell him what I think I saw, but a booming voice stops me in my tracks. “???????! (Darling) My beautiful muse! You look absolutely spectacular tonight. Blaine, you’re the luckiest mofo ever!”
It’s Kronin, followed by his shadow, the huge and silent Lagi, looking more intimidating than ever in a dark brown suit. I feel Blaine tense up behind me and have to repress a laugh when he calls Kronin out on calling him a ‘mofo’. But the Russian is completely batshit crazy and his smile widens at Blaine’s scowl.
“Ah, but your girlfriend is going to model for me and that makes her family. So you’re family too and we can call each other mofo and other names, right?”
Blaine looks really taken aback, what do you say to your host when he puts it that way?
When I no longer fear that Blaine will punch Kronin in the face, I allow myself to look at him. He isn’t wearing a tuxedo, he’s actually in a pirate costume.
“You look, like Captain Jack Sparrow, Mr. Kronin.” The Russian billionaire smiles and shakes his head, making his blond dreadlocks undulate with the movement.
“??? ??????! ??????! (Exactly! Well done!) I’m Jack Sparrow. This is a masquerade ball after all, right?”
I can feel Blaine’s eye roll before I actually see it. River will never let him live it down that Kronin meant that we’d have to dress up.
And as if summoned by my thoughts, River appears by my side and greets our host with one of his trademark scary smiles that don’t reach his eyes. The makeup he has on for his joker costume somehow makes him look even more unhinged and unpredictable but now I know better. I know the depths of this man’s heart and how caring and loving he really is.
I don’t have a problem admitting that at the beginning I was completely terrified of River, aside from the fact that he kept suggesting that the guys should kill me to get away with their botched heist. It was a strange and unnerving mix of fear and attraction but I soon learned that once you get past River’s façade, that couldn’t be anything further from the real him.
River uses his crazy and dangerous persona only to keep the rest of the world at arm’s length and very few people are lucky enough to be allowed to see the real him. But Kronin doesn’t look intimidated by River or by Blaine, who leaves us to go on our private showing of Kronin’s artwork as agreed.
We walk out of the ballroom and down a long corridor that spans the whole length of the yacht. The lighting here is softer than in the room we just left and rather than hardwood, the floors are covered with a thick carpet that muffles the sound of our steps. So when we reach a stairwell that leads to the guest rooms on the top deck or to the crew quarters below deck, I don’t hear the man who’s coming up the same staircase. The stranger is coming up from the lower level and what makes me turn on the way up is the feeling of being watched rather than the sound of his steps.
As soon as I turn, he retreats turning on his heels and disappearing into the belly of the large boat. All I manage to catch is a glimpse of thatPhantom of the Operamask I spotted in the ballroom.
Again, my insides twitch with visceral fear.Pierce.There’s something about the way that guy walks and moves that reminds me of my ex. He’s also the same height and build.
Come on Sloane, get a fucking grip! Pierce is dead and you’re finally free from him, stop letting him keep you captive with a fear that now has no more reason to be. I take a deep breath and rush up the last few steps, following River and Kronin.
I seriously don’t know what’s wrong with me, why all of a sudden I see Pierce everywhere. Is it the relief that I finally can stop running that’s playing with my subconscious? It must be that, I decide. Probably I’ve gotten so used to being on the run, that my mind is struggling with the idea that it’s all over and that once this job is done, my future is just mine to do what I wish with.
We reach Kronin’s private quarters on the upper deck and I’m not surprised to see wild, excessive opulence everywhere I look.
* * *
River
I know that if you looked at me, especially until a few weeks ago when my hair was long, but even now, with my tattoos and the way I often dress and act, you’d think I’d be all up in this modern art shit.
And don’t get me wrong, some concepts are interesting to say the least like Kronin’s ‘shit art’ but in reality, the more abstract or weird we go, the less I can relate to it. And isn’t art supposed to make you ‘feel’? So give me the Mona Lisa or David any day over the weird stuff I’m suddenly surrounded with. There’s paintings and sculptures everywhere and while they don’t exactly meet my personal taste, I have to admit that they’re thought provoking.
The paintings are largely abstract and while I’m no expert, they’re pretty unsettling, as if the artist were on a bad drug induced trip when he painted them. The sculptures on the other hand are really wacky. My eye falls on a bronze one that unmistakably portrays an erect dick. It has a feminine hand wrapped around it and I’m kind of mesmerized by the detail of all the veins and ridges and bumps on the shaft.
I know that sounds weird as fuck, but shit, that has way to much detail to just be imagined. Maybe he had a model? Maybe it was made from a mold of his own dick? Who the fuck knows with this dude.
