17
CORA
He’s kidding. He has to be kidding. Right?
Right?!
Ivan leads me back through the kitchen. I keep hold of his hand only because I’m not sure I can navigate the restaurant by myself right now.
I’ve spent too many hours here to count. I’ve worked opening shifts and stayed long after closing. Any other day, I could do cartwheels down the hallways with my eyes closed.
But right now, my mind is a complete and utter blank.
As we walk into the kitchen, I look to the counter where Ivan killed the man. Five minutes ago, it was a stomach-turning bloodbath.
Now, though, it’s spotless. No blood. No body.
“Your guy does quick work,” I say softly.
Ivan looks towards the counter and shrugs. “He’s had practice.”
Goosebumps sprout across my shoulders and down each arm. Who is this man?
He saved my life and then turned around and took another ten minutes later. I’ve always known people aren’t black and white. My mom was a perfect example of that. There are no angels and demons. No clear delineations between the good and the bad in the world.
But Ivan Pushkin lives in the gray space like no one I’ve ever known. I can’t make sense of him.
“We’re getting married.” I say it more for myself than anyone else. I’m not anywhere close to actually processing or accepting it. I’m mostly just checking to make sure that I do in fact understand what that series of words means, just as a general concept. As for what it means for me in particular? That will take lots of time yet (and maybe a therapist) to unpack.
Ivan only nods in answer, holding open the back door into the alley.
I step through it and into the cool shade between the buildings. The cement is damp the way it always is, condensation trickling from the air conditioners and pooling on the ground. There’s the sickly sweet scent of food rot emanating from the dumpsters at the mouth of the alley.
It’s all so normal. So mundane. I could almost believe everything that just happened was some kind of twisted nightmare.
Then Ivan steps in front of the daylight coming from between the buildings. He’s all too real.
“I need my stuff,” I blurt.
“Yasha will grab whatever belongs to you inside and bring it to my house later.”
“Not that stuff. My stuff from home.”
“Like?”
“Like…normal stuff!” I snap. “Human stuff. Clothes and my phone charger. I need a toothbrush.”
“I can replace all of that,” he says dismissively.
The walls seem to close in tighter. I feel my freedom shrinking, evaporating like it was nothing. Like it was never there to begin with.
“I don’t want to replace it,” I grit out. “I want my stuff. I’m going to my apartment.”
Ivan checks something on his phone and shakes his head like he’s bored. “No, you’re not.”
“You can’t stop me.”
He blows out a breath. “I just made it clear that I can do whatever I want.”
“And you want to hold me against my will?” I challenge. “You want to kidnap me and force me to marry you?”
I don’t really think there’s any hope that I’ll appeal to some deep reservoir of morality inside of him. But then he stiffens. He pockets his phone and turns to me with rigid, careful movements.
“I want to keep you alive. I want to keep you breathing.” He stalks closer to me. “You don’t have a single fucking clue how much danger you’re in. A sniper just tried to shoot you in the chest and you want to parade back into your apartment for a goddamned toothbrush.”
It sounds ridiculous when he says it like that.
“This isn’t about a toothbrush. It’s about my freedom.”
“Take that up with whoever has a hit out on you.”
“Feels like semantics,” I mutter.
He stands tall, looking down his nose at me. “You have no concept of the danger you’re in or the saving grace I’m offering you.”
“You’re offering me a gilded cage,” I say. “But I’m supposed to be okay with it because you’re going to buy me whichever toothbrush my heart desires?”
“A gilded cage is a lot better than a coffin, wouldn’t you say? That’s where you’ll be if you go back to your apartment. It isn’t safe.”
I shake my head. “My apartment is safe. It’s in a nice neighborhood. I’m on the—”
“Fifth floor,” Ivan finishes. “You have a balcony overlooking a flower stand and you live across from an elderly couple with two cats.”
Angela and Geoff open a new bottle of wine every Friday night and bring me a glass. When I make brownies, I take them a pan. They’re Geoff’s favorites.
But I’ve never told anyone about them. The only way anyone would know any of this is if they’d been watching me.
“How do you—”
“It was easy for me to find you, Cora. Your neighbors were willing to tell me anything I asked. If that sniper knew where you worked, he sure as fuck knows where you lived.” Ivan reaches out and taps the center of my forehead where the killer’s bullet might’ve gone. “Think it through. You’ll see that I’m right.”
The fight in me vanishes all at once.
I thought I was safe. But Ivan knows everything about my life and we only met twelve hours ago.
Who else knows?
He is still standing in front of me when the door swings open. It’s the man who escorted Jorden outside and cleaned up the body. Yasha, I think he said.
“The inside is clean and the manager scrubbed the tapes. I got the backups, too, and everyone else is clear on the story,” he explains. “When the cops come asking, they’ll say the robbers were wearing masks, no discernible features, nothing noteworthy to share as a description. Same ol’, same ol’.”
How many times have they done this before that it has become a routine? They have a built-in story that they feed to witnesses.
“Tell the kitchen staff to wait half an hour before they call the police,” Ivan orders. “That will give me time to get Cora out of here and somewhere safe. There’s no way to know how many hitmen have been sent to—”
“My friends!”
Guilt hits me hard. I’m a terrible person. How has it taken me this long to think about my friends?
“They’re fine,” Yasha dismisses. “All the shots went through the windows. I got them to safety while the shooting was still going on.”
I spin to Ivan. “They have to come with me. You said it isn’t safe here, right?”
“Let me take care of this.”
“Sure, ‘cause you’ve done a fan-fucking-tastic job taking care of things so far. You show up, and within minutes, my work is in literal tatters. I don’t even know if I’ll have a job after this. You might have just gotten all of my friends fired. How are any of us supposed to survive when—”
“If your friends are in danger, it has nothing to do with my choices and everything to do with yours,” he growls.
“Mine?” I yelp. “You’re telling me that all of this is my fault? Are you serious?”
“What the fuck did you expect to happen? Everyone else at that party would have killed to be in that office. Did you think the other ladies-in-waiting would give you a polite golf clap and congratulate you on a job well done?”
Yasha is biting a knuckle to hold back a laugh, but I ignore him. I have to; my entire body is burning with shame.
“I never would have touched you if I’d known—”
“But you did. Choices and consequences, Cora.”
“Stop saying that!”
He steps closer, but doesn’t touch me. It doesn’t matter, though. I feel his presence like a finger stroke down my spine. My body shivers closer to him. Parts of me remember what it felt like to be this near. To smell him. Feel him. Taste him.
“Don’t pretend you would have walked away from me if you’d known who I was. You did know,” he chides. “You knew who I was and you still decided an orgasm from me was worth whatever trouble might come.”
He's right. I knew who he was when he touched me. When I asked him to make me scream.
Ivan takes my silence for agreement. “Good. So we’re agreed. You’ll play my wife and I’ll take down whoever is after you.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything.”
He grimaces. “On second thought, maybe I should get an actual chain.”
"I appreciate your help, but this is my life on the line. I don't even know you. Either of you!" I rub my throbbing temples. "I'm not going to marry someone I don't love. I ran from that fate once before and I'll do it again if you make me."
The words tumble out of me before I can stop them. Ivan leans back and looks me over.
I should learn to keep my mouth shut. Ivan knows too much about me already. I don't need to hand him more ammo.
"Unlike whoever you ran from before, I have the power to drag you back," he says after a long, strained silence. "I'll do it as many times as it takes."
"But why do you even—"
"This isn't forever, Cora. It's for now. Until we catch whoever is after you."
I huff out a breath. "But why do you even care who is after me? Who am I to you?"
He raises his hand and grazes a calloused finger across my cheek. "No one. You’re an empty vessel I can use as I please. As bait. As a wife. That’s what makes you perfect for this, Cora.”
His words shouldn’t hurt. I don’t know him. I don’t want to know him.
“I’m not going to be your bait.”
“Then you and your friends will die.”
He says it so bluntly that it steals my breath away. Like any good predator, Ivan notices the weakness and moves in for the kill.
“You told everyone at that party your name was Francia. Whoever is after you might not know any better. They could go after the real Francia, too.”
I chew on my lower lip. “So her apartment…”
“Compromised,” he says. “You both need protection. Unlike our deal last night, my services now come with a price. Cooperate with me and I’ll make sure your friends stay alive.”
I’ve heard a million different versions of this compromise before. I’ve seen them play out.
My mother crying in her walk-in closet, surrounded by a designer wardrobe she wore with pasted-on smiles.
Girls I grew up with making “good matches” with men who sent them on tropical resort vacations so they could fuck another woman in their bed.
Marriage in Ivan’s world is an exchange, a sacrifice. Life isn’t a fairytale. Every good thing comes at a price.
The question is whether I’m willing to pay it.
“So if I pretend to marry you, you’ll protect Francia and Jorden?” I ask.
“You’re going to pretend to marry me either way,” Ivan clarifies. “But if you cooperate and make it easier for me, then yes, I’ll help your friends.”
It’s almost as if I don’t have a choice at all. So I might as well make the best of it.
“As soon as I know my friends are safe, I’m gone.”
He nods in agreement. “If your friends are safe, that means the threat is dead and I have no further need for you.”
Slowly, I extend my hand.
Ivan’s envelops mine. Warmth and too many memories flood through me. Memories of his hot breath on my neck. His fingers exploring other parts of my body. As soon as we shake, I jerk my hand back.
He watches me wipe my palm on my pants and smirks. “This should be fun.”