Page 32 of Refrain (Beautiful Monsters #2)

The asshole on my tail is pretty good. They keep up no matter how many detours I take. Their loss though. I’ve got a full syringe in my pocket. I’ve got no fucks left to give, and they’re not even trying to hide. I hear their footsteps. Their breathing echoes off the walls, ragged and unsteady.

By the time I reach the stoop of my place, I’m already reaching for the knife in the mailbox, and I wait while the punk sneaks right up to my front door.

“You got a problem?” I turn, keeping the weapon hidden beneath my sleeve .

They’re standing just beyond the bottom step, their face hidden beneath the hood of a jacket. A familiar jacket. Then the hood falls back, and a mane of dark hair catches the light.

“Are you all right?”

The sound of her voice knocks me back against the door as everything I’ve been blocking out until this point comes rushing back.

I want to wash the blood off my hands. I need to shower, scrub away the stink of death and pain.

I finished my last cigarette somewhere during the walk here, but my hand is already pawing through my pockets in search of another.

I feel more like Arno than ever—I need to drown in a vice. Anything but her.

“Fine,” I grit out. Then I turn to the door, get it open, and shove my way inside without bothering to invite her in. It’s rude. It’s the only way I know how to save myself. “Goodnight—”

She easily muscles me aside, grabbing my chin with her free hand and angling my face toward her.

A curse slips between her lips as she traces a corner of my mouth with the pad of her thumb.

The slight touch stings, and something warm dribbles down my chin.

Oh, that’s right. The fucker did manage to land a good hit before Francisco pinned him down.

I shake my head, batting her hand away. “It’s nothing—”

“You’re bleeding.” It’s everything, she might as well have said.

She scans my face, hunting for any more injuries. The caring-nursemaid act isn’t natural for her. I see the way her hand starts for the edge of my jacket before she presses it to her side at the last minute.

“It’s deep. You’re going to scar—”

“It’s nothing.”

“Nothing,” she repeats. She has that look in her eye. The same one Dante used to get back in the day, when he would tell me to go to bed, and I claimed I wasn’t tired. “Sit down.” She jerks her chin over to the couch and then marches toward it, leaving me to follow .

I’m a dog on the leash of her scent. She smells clean, if that even makes sense. Clean the way an old, worn, stained T-shirt does once it’s been run through the wash a few times. It’s broken in and ragged, but any trace of its struggle has been thoroughly scrubbed from the cotton.

I wonder what she’s tried to scrub from her brain. Her hair is wet—a fact that doesn’t make sense until I notice the thunder rumbling through the walls. I’m wet too, dripping water all over the damn floor.

She grabs a towel from the counter and tosses it in my direction. Then she sets out on a determined scavenger hunt through my kitchen. Without waiting for permission, she snatches up a length of paper towel and some ice from the freezer. Another dishrag. A glass of water, too.

She approaches me, juggling her tools in her arms, and I cross over to the couch.

It feels good to sit down. I’ve forgotten how long I’ve been on my feet. They ache like just about everything else on my body. I’ve probably worn my sneakers out within this week alone.

“Sit still.” She issues the command while she comes closer.

I expect her to stand in front of me, just beyond my reach, but no… She sinks down, right between my spread legs. I can’t smother the impulse that has me attempting to bring my knees together, but I just wind up trapping her between them.

She inhales sharply at the resistance, but she doesn’t pull away. If anything, she stiffens her shoulders and reaches up to grasp my chin again, each finger searing hotter than a branding iron. She makes her mark on me without even trying, every bit as brutal as the damn Cartel.

“You really should be more careful with your face,” she scolds while manipulating the damp paper towel in her free hand. She’s not gentle when she dabs at my mouth.

I suspect that it’s by design—punishment disguised as treatment .

“I’m fine.” I try to pull my head back, but her fingers tighten their grip.

“You’re bleeding.” She withdraws the paper towel and holds it up as evidence.

Splotches of dark red speckle the surface. The cut must be worse than I thought. When I don’t deny it, her mouth flattens into a smug line, and she returns to her work. I guess this is karma; it’s my turn to play the role of patient.

“I suppose you need a story to take your mind off it,” she adds so casually that one might expect something along the lines of Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood .

But, no, happy and sweet is not her style.

“So, what will it be?” she wonders without looking up.

“A story about a duck or…something else?”

The question reminds me of one of Arno’s games of Russian roulette. It’s not clear which option holds the bullet.

“Performer’s choice,” I tell her in the end.

She shrugs, but the grim expression that takes over her face is anything but casual. The words come slowly, but it’s obvious where they lead.

“I…I was fifteen when I was sold to Piotr Petrov. I still remember that day so clearly. It was like a nightmare, too vibrant to seem real.”

Damn it. The pain in her tone slices through me like a razor. I shake my head to cut her off. “You don’t have to tell me this—”

“I want to.”

No. She needs to. For whatever reason, the truth is burning a hole in her throat now.

I never thought I’d get to hear the story of her past. I’m not sure if I want to.

But stopping her would be worse. Pain is like that—it can sink into your veins like poison for years before seeping out.

From your pores. From your throat. You can’t pick the way it gets expelled. You just suffer through the purge.

“I was fifteen.” She dabs at my mouth again and then stares down at the bloodied bit of tissue.

After a second, she sets it aside and picks up the ice cubes she wrapped in the dishtowel.

I grit my teeth at the icy sensation and try to grab it myself, but she evades my grasp until I let her hold it there.

“My father was a boss in a drug-running syndicate back in Russia. Heroin. Liquor. He was no saint, but even now…looking back, I can still feel just how much I loved him.” Her eyes flutter shut for a brief second and reopen ice cold.

“One day, the syndicate fractured. Two leaders got into a power struggle. The others were left to take sides, and my father…he chose wrong.” She sucks in air.

Lifts the ice pack. Frowns and sets it against my jaw again.

“He sided against a man named Wilhem Petrov who, once he’d cemented his power, made sure that those who stood against him realized their mistake. ”

Her hand falls. She’s staring at the floor now, her hair framing her face like a halo of shadow. Pain paints her body in shades of gray. Her eyes seem darker. Her skin paler.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” This is more than a morbid game of show-and-tell for her.

She shakes her head to clear it and reaches for the bloody rag again.

“They came in the middle of the night,” she says.

“They dragged us all from bed and into my father’s study.

They made him watch as they slit his wife’s throat in front of their daughter.

Then they blinded him with the end of a lit cigar and made him listen while they took turns…

” She dabs at my mouth again. Faster. Harsher.

I don’t react to the pain. I bite it back and watch her face. Her eyes are wide, haunting, and yellow.

“While they…” It takes her three tries before she gives up saying exactly what. She’s up on her knees now, her hand still pressed to my face, those eyes distant.

I bet she’s not even seeing me anymore. What she’s looking at, she doesn’t like.

My hand is on her shoulder before I realize it. I can do that much—comfort her like this and not have it mean a damn thing. She doesn’t shrug me off at least. Maybe it helps.

“When the last man took his turn…they finally put a bullet in my father’s brain.

Then they took my sister. She was so little.

” Her voice breaks on a harsh gasp. She has to inhale to find the words again.

“A baby who’d barely started to talk. I used to call her little fox because of her hair.

I never saw her again. I hoped they would kill me, but they had another use in mind.

Piotr, Wilhem’s son, had a business in America smuggling girls to rich men for sex.

They might as well make money off me before they killed me. ”

She swallows hard. Breathes deep. Tries again. “I wasn’t like Domi. Not in the end. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t smart. I was a slave . I surrendered my identity. I became a pet. A plaything. A toy. Whatever role helped me to avoid a beating.”

“But you got out.” I’m not prodding her. Just stating the facts.

She nods, steering the direction of the story. “One day, Piotr went too far.” She grits her teeth, but it takes her only a few seconds to swallow the pain and keep talking. “They left me in an alley just outside the club. I would have died if a friend hadn’t found me.”

“Ivan Ivanov?” It’s a leap of logic, but she nods, proving my hunch about why she took Domi to his territory the day we got her from the station.

“Ivan. He took care of me. He helped me get an education. Find employment. Live.”

But it’s not really living for her. I can see it in her face. I know that slack-jawed expression. How dead you can feel inside when you know you’re powerless. How addicting the power can be when you finally vanquish one of your demons.

Even with Vlad dead, she’s still not living.