Page 102 of Ruthless Rustanovs
“Hi,” she said, sitting up on her forearm. She could only wonder what she looked liked. Dressed in his bulky t-shirt, likely black eye, wild curls in a frizzy tumble on top of her head—since she hadn’t tied it up last night.
“What’s up?” she asked, trying not to feel self-conscious.
“I come back to room last night. No Sascha. I look for him on balcony, in other bathroom, and then I find him in here. My guard dog curled up beside your bed.”
Oh, so Sascha was a boy. She hadn’t bothered to check last night.
“Sorry,” she said with a chagrined smile. “I kind of have a way with animals—especially if they’re male. My mom says my grandma on my father’s side was a siren.”
He stared at her for a long black-eyed second and then said, “Or maybe he recognizes kin. He is dog. You live like dog. He comes in here with you.”
She tilted her head. Okay, this guy… he had a way of insulting her so brazenly, it was hard for her to actually feel insulted. Just bewildered. “So you came in here to compare me to your dog?”
Another dark look, and despite the much more sophisticated clothes, he put her in mind of a frustrated beast. Nostrils flaring in and out as he glared at her.
“You are quarter siren, but you live like dog in that basement.” He sat forward, thick forearms settling on his thighs. “Tell me, do you know about men like Cyrus? What they do to siren girls like you?”
She shook her head with the feeling she didn’t really want to know the answer to that question. As it turned out she was right.
“They give you drugs,” he informed her. “Then they give you to somebody who breaks girls like you as job. Rape you over and over and keep you on drugs until you are addicted and will do whatever they say for next hit. What did you think happened to girls who came before you?”
“They quit because of the obviously shitty working conditions?” she answered, truthfully.
“No, they do not quit,” he answered, tone scathing as acid. “They were broken. Cyrus lets men use them after fighting is done. That way all money comes back to him, even if house loses on fights. He lets men use them until they are too old or too far gone. Then he gets new girl. You were new girl.”
She expelled a breath, strangely more upset for the women who’d come before her than herself. “Those poor girls. Is there any way to help them?” she asked him.
He flinched. Almost like her question had taken him by complete surprise. “No, there is no way to help them.”
“Oh,” her shoulders sank. More souls to add to the list of people she couldn’t help.
The memory of Trevor’s broken body lying in the road came back to her in a flash then. Along with the image of her sobbing. Begging him and anybody else who would listen not to go, to stay here with her, not to die—
She broke out of the memory, clinging to her numbness like a lifeline.
“Okay, well, thank you for the advice,” she said to the intense man sitting in front of her.
She swung her feet around so she could get out of the bed. “No more taking jobs at underground fighting rings. Message received. Thank you. Seriously, thank you for all you did. I’ll be getting out of your hair now.”
But as soon as she stood, so did he, effectively blocking her exit with one move of his giant body.
“You are scared of me now,” he said, bending his head to look down at her. “After you saw real me. Who I really am.”
It was a statement not a question, but her answer would have been the same either way. “No, I’m not scared,” she told him. “Just grateful. And sad for those other girls. And I don’t want to overstay my welcome here, so I’ll just be going.”
But instead of stepping out of the way to allow her to leave, he stepped even closer. Towering over her as he said, “You should be.”
“Sad?” she asked.
“Scared. You should be scared of me. After last night.”
She smiled then, broken and wry. Yeah, she supposed she should be. But…
“I’m not,” she said, looking up to meet his gaze. Bold as she used to be. Before Trevor. “I don’t care how many dudes you kill. I ain’t going to be scared of you.”
A few dangerous seconds ticked by, and then he sneered, “You are stupid girl. But you make my dick hard.”
Her eyes widened. “Okay, well, I guess that’s supposed to be some kind of compliment.”
“I will make you offer,” he continued, still sneering. “Instead of dying like dog in some Greek’s basement, you will become my pet.”
“Your pet?” she repeated, looking down at Sascha.
“No, Sascha is guard dog. Not pet. The men in my family…” He sliced his eyes to the side as if trying to figure how to explain this to her, even though English wasn’t his first language.
“The men in my family. We are known for keeping a certain type of woman. A woman we take care of, who in return takes care of the needs every man has. We give this woman many things, and she gives us whatever we want from her, anytime we want it. Do you understand my meaning, Siren?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I think I do. You all have a whore on the side,” she summarized, voice blunt. “It’s like a family tradition, and you want me to be your whore.”
“No, Siren, let me make this clear. Not my whore. My pet. If you are to sell yourself, I would have you sell yourself to me. But I do not pay for sex. I pay for ownership.”
“Wow. Just…wow.” He watched the siren girl blink in surprise, his own body tight with tension, as he waited for her answer.
It scared him how much he wanted her to say yes. How much he wanted to own her, to take this woman into his bed, and know he could keep her there as long as he wanted.
But she didn’t answer. Just kept shaking her head and saying, “Wow” on long expulsions of breath.
His brother was the negotiator, not him. The only two options for the deals he ever entered into were “agree” or “fight.” But with this girl he found himself as close to negotiating as he had ever come.
“I know I am not easy to look at. Especially to pretty girl like you. But you have seen what I can do in dark. It does not have to be bad between us, Sirena.”
She stopped shaking her head and squinted up at him. “What?”
“I said it does not have to be bad—”
“No, not that part. Go back to the part where you claim not to be easy to look at.”
Now he squinted, once again confused by her response. “I know I am ugly, but in the dark it will not matter.”
She looked at him for a beat. And then she burst out laughing.
His stomach dropped. She was laughing at him. Like the boys in the Siberian coal town where he grew up used to laugh at him—well, at least they laughed until he became big enough to stop their laughter with his fists.
“I will not be laughed at,” he told her, voice low and dangerous.
“I’m sorry,” she answered, still laughing. “But what do you expect when you say crazy shit like that? If you tell a joke, I’m going to laugh. Okay, sure whatever. You’re ugly. And I’m like a blonde Barbie doll. Fine, whatever. I get it. Just stop. I can’t breathe!”
It took several mystified moments of watching her laugh so hard there were tears in her eyes before he realized, “You are being serious. You do not think I am ugly.”
“What? No! You’re like…the most beautiful. I can’t stop myself from looking at you. Are you kidding me?”
“No, I do not kid,” he answered quite seriously. “I am not…like you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Like me how? You mean you don’t have small tits and a really nice ass? Well, no you don’t have the small tits. But man, you do have that banging body, them cheekbones, and those eyes.”
“But…but…I am only half.”
She shook her head. “What does that mean?”
“I am half my Buryat mother, and half my Russian father.”
Her eyebrows shot to the top of her head. “Wait, wait, wait! Are you trying to tell me you don’t think you’re fine because you’re bi-racial? Because as a half-and-half myself, I think you might have finally managed to insult me.”
“That is different. You know this. You are very beautiful girl and I am…” He didn’t know the right word in English. Could barely believe he was having to explain this to her. “…not.”
Another burst of laughter exploded out of her, her shoulders shaking with it. “Boy, if you stopped glaring at everybody like you was fixing to pull a gun on them, you’d have plenty of girls dropping their panties when you came around. No need for me!”
That supposition hardened his gaze. “It is not other girls panties I want.”
That finally brought her laughter to a stop. And he said into her silence. “You are maybe little serious about thinking me handsome, but I am more serious about wanting you as pet. How will you answer my offer, Siren?”
“How will I…?” She shook her head as if coming out of a daze. “Okay, this has gone all the way from a one night stand to what the hell? But let’s just say you’re serious about this mistress stuff—”
“Pet.”
“Pet stuff, whatever. What’s the deal exactly? How does this work? I come home with you for however long? Back to Russia?”
“No, not back to Russia,” he answered quickly.
“My brother wants to me to go to school. Get degree. He has found place for me in a German program. If you agree to this, you will live with me there. You will want for nothing. And if you like, we can send you to the Berlin Arts University for opera degree.”
Her eyes widened. “Me? Singing opera like them ladies on TV?”
The look of wonder in her champagne eyes made an unfamiliar warmness tug on his heart.
“Da,” he answered. “You can be even better than those ladies, I think. With right training. If you want.”
“If I want.” She tilted her head, like he’d introduced a foreign concept into her life. “I never thought I’d get any kind of higher education. My grades weren’t that good in high school. All I’ve ever really been good at is singing and cheerleading. But learning to sing opera, that sounds—”