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“I don’t know if I am, honestly,” I reply, my voice shaking with fear. This is too much for me. I don’t want to be a scared girl like he insists I am, but I’m starting to break. Tears are rushing to my eyes, and my legs feel like jelly.
Be strong. Be so strong it scares him.
I look him in the eyes, my lower lip trembling as I try to pull myself together. “Just let me go, Ivan. I’ll be alright.”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, darling, you know I can’t do that.”
“I won’t go to the police,” I insist.
He gets up from his chair, taking a cigar from his pocket and tucking it between his lips. He follows it up with the blue flame of a lighter, puffing smoke into the air between us. When he speaks, his voice is warmer. “You won’t need to go to the police because they will come to you. The Red Hitters have you on their radar, and they will torture you to get information about me.”
Torture? It sounds too extreme to be true. How could a police group have so much leeway with how they execute justice?
“I see that you doubt me,” Ivan says, scratching his prominent chin as he puffs smoke into the air. There’s a layer of stubble that wasn’t there a few hours ago.
“It’s hard not to doubt what you’re saying about the police. They sound more like a group of criminals than law enforcement.”
Ivan’s index finger shoots up into the air. “Ah, now you’re getting it. You need to play a criminal to catch a criminal, and that’s exactly what they’re doing. Nothing is out of bounds in this treacherous game. The moment you start thinking there are rules is the day you end up in a grave.”
“Please, don’t talk about graves,” I reply, pressing my palm into my forehead.
“It’s necessary.”
“I get your point,” I reply, looking up at him. “So, let’s move on from it. I’ll be careful, and the cops won’t be an issue.”
“You’re still not getting it,” he says, laying his hand on the black book. A bit of ash falls onto the cover from his cigar, which he brushes off. “But, according to the rules, I can’t force your hand. You will stay the night, and if you’re not convinced to remain here, you may return to your home in the morning.”
It seems like a fair deal, but a lot can happen between now and tomorrow morning. Because I live alone, nobody will miss me for the night, and possibly for a while after. If I go missing, it could be weeks or even months until someone checks on me.
Ivan gives me an earnest look, and I relent. “Okay, but just tonight.”
“Great, let's finish dinner. We can talk about anything. It doesn’t have to be about Dimitri,” he offers, pulling my chair out for me.
I sit down, tugging the end of my shirt over my bare thighs. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as Ivan lifts the chair, moving me back in place with so little effort that I feel like I weigh less than the shirt I have on. I can feel the heat of his large body behind me, and I smell smoke from his cigar.
I love it and I hate it at the same time. I always tried not to pick of the habit of smoking, but the stress from college gave me both a caffeine and a nicotine addiction. I managed to kick the caffeine for the most part, aside from the occasional afternoon coffee, but I crave cigarettes sometimes like crazy.
The itch is back, despite the weeks that have passed since my last relapse. Quite suddenly, I want to pull the cigar from Ivan’s beautiful mouth and stick it in mine.
I refrain, but as Ivan sits down, he notices me staring and takes the cigar from his mouth. “Care to join? It was rude of me not to offer, but I assumed you didn’t smoke.”
I shake my head so hard I get dizzy. “No, no, I don’t smoke.”
He smirks. “Trying to quit?”
I can’t help but laugh at how quickly he reads me. It’s amazing how he’s been able to do that, but it’s also terrifying. What else does he know about me that I haven’t told him? Can he see the way he makes me feel, the way my heart flutters when he is close to me? Does he know that when he grabbed me, I was equally frightened and turned on?
“You’ve had a tough day,” Ivan says, placing an unlit cigar in front of me. “That will take some of the pressure off.”
“You’re the devil,” I say, snatching the cigar off the table and putting it in my mouth. “But I’ve never been much of a saint either.”
He shrugs, pulling out his lighter and flicking it open. A blue flame licks the end of my cigar as I puff it to life. “I don’t claim to be anything but a purely wicked man, with purely wicked intentions. Rules don’t exist for men like me.”
“Except in that book,” I say, pointing my cigar at it. “You’re bound by some rules, at least.”
He narrows his eyes at me, choosing not to respond with words.
I’m glad that I can find ways to stump him. If not, he’d have so much power over me that I’d be forced to surrender to him. I can only imagine what he’d do to me then.
