Page 16 of Refrain (Beautiful Monsters #2)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHLOE
I should take the money and run. I keep telling myself that, even as my feet carry me farther from freedom. My arms ache, weighed down by several grocery bags. Juggling them takes most of my energy as I set my sights on my destination and choke down my doubt.
The house at the end of the block looks deserted, but when I circle around it, I find a rickety gate unlocked. A concrete stoop leads to the back door, nestled beneath a worn awning. I mount the steps and knock once. Not even a second later, it opens from the inside.
“I see you decided to join our little party after all.” Espisido appears in the doorway, and I bite my lower lip at his expression. His narrowed eyes betray suspicion, and they probe the shadows at the edge of the property before he steps aside. “Come in.”
They’ve eaten again. A box of pizza contains two remaining slices. There’s no sign of Domi in the narrow kitchen, but a faucet is running deeper inside the house.
“I see someone went shopping,” Espisido remarks, drawing my attention back to him.
I press the bags into his hands .
He rummages through each, one by one. When he spots a new pack of cigarettes, his lips split into a genuine grin. “You’re a lifesaver.”
I shrug the gratitude off. “Those things will give you cancer, you know.”
If anything, his grin widens more. Pearly-white teeth serve as the basis for the breathtaking expression. I almost can’t tell where it ends and the wariness he hides so well underneath begins.
“Cancer, maybe,” he says. “But not an aneurysm any time soon, and that’s all that matters to me.”
He might be onto something. There are worse vices he could choose—if he hasn’t already.
“Domi!” he calls, raising his voice. “Let’s get you pretty.”
A door opens down the hall—the one to the bathroom, I presume. A woman steps out, wearing only an oversized T-shirt, with a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. She sizes me up in a single glance. “You came back.”
“Fire Engine Red,” Espisido reads from a box of hair dye before I can say anything in return. “What do you think?” He tosses the box to Domi as she pads closer.
“Pretty.” She fights to keep her expression blank as she eyes the box—but I know that look. She’s picturing a new life tucked inside next to the bottle of dye. Will it bring her better fortune than the last? She sighs, uncertain of the answer. “Let’s get it over with.”
After steering her to a chair near the table, Espisido cuts her hair first. Short.
She’s left with barely enough length to scrape into a ponytail.
Her expression is stoic as she eyes the shorn, dark strands falling into a heap at her feet.
When he starts to open the box of dye, however, she squeezes her eyes shut.
“Short hair I can work with, but just…just don’t leave me bald.”
Espisido chuckles. “I’ll see what I can do. ”
I don’t know what makes me creep closer to him. My fingers won’t stop shaking until I snatch up the directions and listlessly flip through the pages. Somehow, I find myself wearing gloves and helping to smear the dye over every inch of the girl’s head.
We work quickly, cleaning up the hair on the floor while the dye sets in.
Afterward, Espisido makes her wash it out in the sink.
Unsatisfied with the color, he opens another box of red and repeats the process before sending her off to shower with a bottle of shampoo fished from one of the shopping bags.
He waits until the bathroom door closes and the water starts to run before he turns to me. “Thanks. I don’t think I could have gotten her here without your help.”
It doesn’t seem worth pointing out that, in this case, self-preservation and “help” are two very different things. To make use of the awkward silence, I move past him, positioning myself near the opposite end of the kitchen.
“I’m glad you got her away,” he adds. “But it’s funny.
” The lowered octave of his voice sets my body on edge even before he comes up behind me.
“I know you haven’t brought anyone with you.
But I still can’t help wondering why you would cut through Ivan Ivanov’s territory, of all places.
Especially given your feelings for dear old Vlad. ”
Alarm stiffens my spine. So he’s not as unfamiliar with the map of hell as I’d hoped. “It’s hard to plot a course when you’re running for your life—”
“Uh-uh.” He shakes his head and takes a step in my direction. The act moves him out of the path of the light, draping his face in shadow. “Don’t play dumb with me. First, you know Vlad, and now, Ivan.”
“Is that so?” I address the question to the wall. My palms are slick. Thoughts crash through my head in disjointed bits and pieces.
It was stupid to come here. Stupid to stay in this goddamn city. With Piotr looming overhead, trying to ignore him at all was just fucking stupid.
“What do they call it? Pobratim. Blood brother. That’s what all the big-name Russians in the Syndicate refer to themselves as, isn’t it? It’s a little strange that you would run toward one after you just killed the other—”
“Milo Olenov. Ever heard of him?” My throat aches in the wake of that name, but I can’t seem to lock the words back. “He was Ivan Ivanov’s true pobratim . Before Vlad. After Vlad.”
“Hmph.” He’s smart enough to process the words without saying anything in return. All he does, in the end, is reach for one of the shopping bags. “I’m guessing this shade is for you.” He holds out another box of dye I only vaguely remember picking up.
I take it, but the motion draws his attention to my injured arm.
“Shit. Take the jacket off,” he commands, hissing between his teeth. “Let’s see what you’ve done.”
“W-what?”
He grabs my wrist and steers me closer to him. I suck in a breath. His grip is loose—I could break away if I wanted to. But I don’t, even as he takes the box from me and places it on the table.
“Let me see.” He has my arm out of the jacket’s sleeve in seconds.
Warm fingers gently hold the limb out, displaying the row of gauze.
His touch is electric, as if all of his nervous energy is eager to seep into my skin.
“Just as I thought,” he grouses, gazing at patches of red speckling the bandage.
“You must have ripped some open. I should have added no heavy lifting to those care instructions.” He meticulously peels the bandage back and sighs in relief.
None of the stitches are torn, though the area around the wound is bleeding and inflamed.
“I don’t care what you do or where you go from here on out, Yellow. Just don’t mess up my work.” He wets a rag beneath the faucet and returns to carefully dab at the wound the way a painter might touch up his masterpiece with a brush. He’s careful. Gentle.
I can’t stop myself from flinching with every touch. Maybe it’s the suspense. Or the next question lurking within his gaze. I’m waiting for it. My teeth sink into my lower lip as if imparting strength. I’m ready…
But, when Domi reappears from the bathroom with a damp mop of bright-red hair, either he’s distracted, or he saves that question for later. “You look cute,” he declares.
In a way, she does. She looks cute, for a battered, broken shell of a girl who can barely keep her eyes open and her guard up. I recognize the way she juts her chin into the air; she doesn’t want to seem weak.
But the artist apparently has x-ray vision. “Go crash in my bed,” he tells her. “It has fresh sheets. I’ll check on you in a bit, and we’ll go from there.”
She doesn’t argue. With one last searching glance in my direction, she enters the bedroom and then closes the door behind her.
“You’re really going to keep her here?”
“Not here.” He’s seated himself at the table and withdraws the pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “I know a place where she’ll be safe. In theory, at least.”
“In theory.”
“There’s a friend I know,” he adds after a moment’s silence. “He has a bar where she can work for a few days. Lie low. It’s not ideal, but then again…”
I finish the statement for him. “It’s not being forced to work a street corner, either.”
“That too.” He lights the end of his cigarette with a jet-black lighter.
Hypnotized, I watch him inhale the first puff. He drags on it as though it’s more vital than oxygen, his lips parted and glistening pink.
“What about you?” he wonders, exhaling a cloud of smoke. It obscures his face, making it impossible to read him. “What does an informant do as her day job?”
“Keep her mouth shut,” I say, dodging the question. “How does an ‘artist’ come to rub shoulders with one of the main players in the Russian Syndicate?”
“Well, you don’t mince words, do ya?” He takes another drag on his cigarette and then lets it dangle between two of his fingers. “You tell me something. I’ll answer a question of yours in return. That’s how this game will go. Khorosho ?”
“Okay.” I take a step closer to the table and meet his gaze directly. “I’ll go first. How did you meet Vlad?”
“I think it might be better if he told you that story.” He flicks the end of his cigarette into an ashtray. “My turn. Who are you running from? Really. Don’t feed me some line about Vlad.”
“Vlad’s dead—”
“And you’re even more spooked now than you were around him,” he declares, so damn smug. With one flick of his gaze, he strips me naked, but it’s not my body he wants. Just the pitiful soul shivering underneath. “Why?”
I can’t help the tired laugh that trickles out of me. Hell, maybe it’s genuine. He’s unknowingly pointed out the utter depth of my stupidity, and I don’t even have the energy to play pretend.
“If I told you, you wouldn’t want me here. Believe me.”
“Try me.” He takes another puff.
Suddenly, it’s impossible to maintain eye contact. I break it and stare down at the table. He has his other hand pressed flat against it. For all of his bravado, he’s just as on edge as I am.