Page 31 of The Kingpin's Call Girl

Chapter Twenty-Nine

EDIE

I zigzag my way home, superspy-style—subway to crowded store to different subway line—keeping my head down and my face arranged in a don’t-talk-to-me scowl that masks the trembling chin and burning eyes underneath.

The city blurs around me as I focus on just one thing: nobody gets to see me fall apart. Not here. Not yet.

We had a connection—something raw and electric and real.

I didn’t imagine it; I couldn’t have. The way he looked at me when he thought I wouldn’t notice, how his voice would soften when we were alone.

I know he felt it, too. And yet he cut me off so coldly, like severing a limb without anesthesia.

But my pain goes beyond rejection—I’m haunted by what Luka must have endured as a child.

Those scars weren’t just physical; they told a story of suffering no kid should ever know.

And then he sends me away forever.

I get it. I went too far with the brokenhearted kid comment. But really, what sort of parents would send a boy to such a place? And then leave him there? He probably was a brokenhearted kid at one time, but he definitely isn’t one now.

I pass a donut shop, the air thick with the scent of sugar and fried dough, and keep on walking, scowl in place.

Well, this is what I wanted, isn’t it? For him to reject me? The bland-and-boring act didn’t work. No, it turns out all I needed to do was show some genuine understanding and compassion. To actually give a shit about him.

My phone shows a zillion texts from Bender.

He wants to meet, of course, in the same part of the park where we met before, and he has my class schedule, so there’s no way I can put him off.

We set the meet and I go to classes, barely making my eleven fifteen art history course.

I settle into the dark auditorium that smells of sour candies and body spray and try to concentrate on the pottery fragments that flash up on the screen.

You were a good lay, but it’s gone on too long.

Luka went on a bloodthirsty rampage and enjoyed it, I remind myself. He’s practically a mass murderer.

And I slept with him. Scratch that—I loved sleeping with him. And if I’m honest with myself, I’m glad he yanked out that man’s windpipe with his bare hands.

The guy deserved it from the sound of it.

The slide on the screen switches. Another pottery fragment from a famous excavation of the catacombs below Rome. I try to focus. I was excited about this area of knowledge because of the way it showed a transition of style.

Now I feel... empty.

I slide my finger over my chin and a tender, nearly raw area—a whisker burn. I’m back in bed with his coarse whiskers against my skin and his thick fingers between my legs, getting me off.

Do you know what it feels like to take a man’s life with your bare hands? It feels fucking amazing.

I’d be tempted to think it was a wild tale except for the scars and the fact that he and Orton spoke in Latin when they were planning the Razvan meeting. Latin is exactly what a strict and retrograde school teaches. And clearly, they believed in extreme forms of punishment.

I decide not to tell Bender any of it. No way will he know what was said in that room. The original Lazarus gossip seemed like public knowledge, at least for these Albanian clan guys, but planning a secret meeting? I won’t tell.

The school stuff feels private, too. Like a secret he told me, even if it was part of an angry outburst designed to drive me off.

It’s so Luka. He doesn’t get close to people. Everything needs to be a transaction, and as soon as somebody gives a shit, he goes feral.

No, Bender doesn’t get any of it, and I don’t care. I’ve already given him more than he could ever have dreamed. And Luka and I are done now, and it really is for the best.

I sit in the darkened room looking at slides of Roman pottery, but I feel him all over my skin.

The student next to me scribbles furiously. Damn. What am I missing? I lean over, trying to read what she’s writing. I can’t see. The professor drones on. I start writing whatever he says. Usually, I can tell if it’s important. Now I can’t.

I scribble senselessly.