Page 12 of Ruinous Need

LISETTE

MERC AND BEN have convinced me to allow Chekhov onto the couch. He’s sitting between them, but I have to keep checking that he’s still in place.

Sometimes when I check, he’s looking back at me with those icy-blue eyes. I’m slowly getting used to the dog, but his eyes still disturb me.

Viktor’s friends have figured out that I’m not allowed to leave — they don’t ask why — and I’ve convinced them to keep me company at the apartment.

I don’t know how they rationalize this to themselves. Maybe growing up in the mafia has made them desensitized to weird living arrangements. Maybe they think Viktor has some kind of kink where he locks his girlfriend inside.

He’s been away all week, and it’s felt strangely homely, like these Italian mafiosos are the brothers I never had.

I’m hardly paying attention to the Keanu Reeves action film when the slam of a door brings my focus back to the screen.

But the flicker of the automatic hallway light tells me it’s not the movie at all.

It’s Viktor.

Looking exactly like the murderer he is right now. His black hair is wild, his eyes wide, and his skin is stained with blood. There’s something unhinged, unstable about him right now, and something tells me he will not like the scene he’s just walked into.

He strips off his black leather gloves as he approaches our movie night, tossing them onto the hardwood floor.

Merc pulls his arm away from my shoulders, but it’s too late. He glances at Ben with a plea for help.

He rises to meet Viktor. But it’s too late to block his view. “V, we’re just watching a movie.”

Viktor shoves him aside.

Those black eyes saw Merc touch me, and now they’re gleaming with rage.

“Having fun?” His voice is dangerously light.

I will myself not to notice the blood covering Viktor’s crisp white shirt.

Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react.

His presence, his absence, it’s all the same.

Don’t ask him where he’s been for the past week. You don’t care.

Despite the jealousy that rolls off him in tangible, dark waves, I can’t stop myself from noting the fact that he’s wearing a suit. And he looks good, the crisp black fabric accentuating his broad shoulders. The splatter of blood against his shirt highlights that this is a monster, not a man.

And I should be terrified to live with him.

I swallow.

Right now he’s a landmine that is about to explode all over one of his best friends.

“We were just watching a movie, V.”

From the looks on their faces, Merc and Ben haven’t seen Viktor like this before. Volatile and vicious.They back away, already heading to the hallway.

“How nice. It looked very cosy.” He smiles, but there’s no warmth at all. His eyes are strangely empty. He slams a fist into Merc’s face before they reach the exit.

Merc goes down like a sack of bricks.

“C’mon V. You’re being unreasonable. You know we wouldn’t have done anything.” Ben pleads his case as he picks Merc up, looping one hand around his friend’s shoulder.

Viktor shoves Ben, but he’s more of a match for the killer, pinning his right hand to his side until Viktor grabs his throat with a snarl. I don’t know why that animal, violent noise makes heat curl inside me.

“You didn’t do anything? Then why did I come home to find her curled up on the couch with both of you? You weren’t supposed to talk to her, and I come home to find you touching her?” The rage behind each word makes his tone clipped.

He releases Ben with a look of disgust, who drops to his knees as he rubs his neck. The danger in Viktor’s eyes doesn’t stop him from commenting.

“Lisette’s lonely. I don’t know why you’ve got her locked up here, but it’s fucked up.”

Viktor whirls back around to face him, stretching his arms. “If you ever touch my girlfriend again, you’ll have more than a sore neck to deal with.”

He turns his gaze to me as he says the word “girlfriend”. It’s a lie.

Confusion flashes through me, mixing confusingly with desire. Why is it I want Viktor to be my jealous boyfriend? I don’t. He’s not. I push it aside.

I glare at him, and he clenches his jaw, leaning down to my level until I can see his onyx eyes flash.

“Did you decide you are scared of me, after all?”

Merc and Ben sidle down the hallway. I watch them go and will myself not to focus on Viktor. To look past him and not react. Not to feel my cheeks flush with anticipation. Because there is something dangerously hot about the way he’s looking at me right now.

“If you don’t speak to me, Lisette, I have other ways of making you talk.”

I stay quiet. I won’t give him the satisfaction.

I don’t let myself think about what he means.

“They might not be so pleasant for you. But I’ll enjoy them very much.” He smiles again, and it’s a genuine smile this time, so blinding that I see why he doesn’t use it often. He doesn’t need to, with a face like that.

I turn my face away from him and concentrate furiously on the movie.

I am not thinking about Viktor. I am thinking about Keanu Reeves doing whatever he’s doing in this boring fucking action movie. Is this what Viktor does on a day to day basis?

Wait, but he’s not the hero in this kind of movie. He’s the bad guy. The one who wears a mask and kills people without a second thought. And it’s fucked up that I like that.

When I wake up, I find my head on Viktor’s lap. Did I do this? Or did he?

My arms are looped around his thigh as if I was determined not to sleep anywhere else.

Viktor’s raking a hand through my hair tenderly and speaking to me quietly. Like he thinks I’m still asleep.

The steady rhythm of his deep voice is a far cry from the unhinged madman who just punched his friend in the face and strangled his other best friend. I wonder if I’m dreaming.

I breathe evenly to keep up the illusion that I’m sleeping. I want to hear what he says when he thinks I’m not listening. His hand on my hair is firm yet soothing.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Lisette.” I can feel the bulge of his erection under my cheek. Uncomfortable and enticingly close to my mouth. “Teasing me like this. Thinking that there won’t be consequences. I don’t like to see other men touching what’s mine.”

He traces a hand down my flank, so lightly that I think I might be imagining it, but his touch is sure. Like he’s claiming what’s his.

Then his fingers squeeze my ass and I realize Viktor knows I’m awake. I meet his eyes and it’s dizzying.

“You didn’t think you’d get away without punishment, did you?”