Scarred (Lost Series Book 2) (13 page)

Ethan was more dangerous than ever. More deadly, more secretive. And I wished that he would let me in, just a little.

River

W
hen I woke up it was to screams. How my life had changed so much that I didn’t immediately jump out of the bed in fear I don’t know, but I didn’t. Instead I pulled on some pants and a shirt from my packed bags before palming the knife Pavel had given me. When I opened the door I didn’t move to leave.

“Is Ethan okay?” I asked. Pavel looked down at my hand holding the knife and smiled.

“You should tuck your forefinger in the hole at the end and hold the handle in your hand. The blade should be pointing downward, that way you can shield as well as cut.”

Without thinking I did as he said. “Is Ethan okay?” I asked again.

“He’s meting out retributions,” Pavel answered.

I nodded and then headed downstairs.

“I wouldn’t go outside, River.”

“I don’t plan on it. Whoever he’s hurting it’s because they deserve it, but I want to be there when he comes in. I want to be the first face he sees.”

“Why?” Pavel asked, his gaze boring into me.

Why? Because he needed some softness to hold the darkness at bay. Because we opened a door and stepped on to a new plane in our relationship and I wanted to make sure we stayed there. And because I wanted to make sure the man I cared about was okay.

Because I had no doubt that killing someone hurt him in ways he wouldn’t admit.

Instead of saying any of that I simply said, “Because he needs me.”

Pavel didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. I knew what I felt was right and so I waited for my husband. Ignored the screams and grunts. Didn’t give a shit about the sound of a body hitting the floor. I didn’t even move when Pavel brought in a hot bowl of water, needle, thread, gauze and towels. The only thing I cared about was seeing that door open and looking into Ethan’s eyes.

I wanted to see what it did to him to kill, to end a life. I wanted to see what he kept me from for so long. What he thought I wouldn’t understand. I wanted to know so I realized just how much he cared for me. If he did at all.

It didn’t make sense, I realized that, but at that moment, it did to me.

Ethan was a man of so many horrors and delights. His hands were death, but they brought me to life. And each time he kissed me, I tasted a future so sweet it slayed me. Our story wasn’t one of pretty butterflies and rainbows. It was littered bodies and broken bones. Bruised hearts and shattered dreams. But somehow we could fit our jagged pieces together and become whole.

Or at least that was what I hoped for.

When the door opened, I saw more than I could have realized in Ethan’s face, and it terrified me. Around him I could see headlights moving away and the shadow of a crumpled form on the ground. Ethan was covered in blood, and dripping it on the floor. But his eyes, they said so much.

There was pain and agony there. Rage, hopelessness, and shame. I felt my chest squeeze and my heart stutter behind my ribs. As I stood on shaky legs, Ethan took one step towards me and then lifted his hands toward me. And then I saw revulsion in his gaze as he looked at his hands. Bloodied hands. Killing hands.

He stepped back, but I rushed towards him. “Pavel get that body outside gone and then clean this floor. I’ll take care of Ethan.”

Ethan’s hand was slick in mine, the blood warm and slightly sticky on my palm. I didn’t let go of him. Instead I stripped him, slowly. His shirt fell to the floor in a soggy heap. His belt and slacks went next. I let go of his hands long enough to kneel down before him and untie his shoes. Silently he lifted one leg and then the other so I could remove them and his pants. When he was naked in front of me I pulled him towards the bowl with hot water.

I cleaned my husband. Watched blood sluice away from his body and run rivulets on the floor. I didn't think I could have got him up the stairs and to the shower. His stare was blank as I cleaned him. With each pass of the towel I looked for a new wound on his scarred body. Some nicks wouldn’t take more than some pressure to stop the bleeding. One, high on his shoulder, would take stiches though.

After I dried him off I wrapped a towel around his waist and sat him on the side of the couch. Pavel was gone, taking the body God knows where, so I couldn’t ask him if there was liquor.

“Baby, I have to stitch you up. Do you want a drink?”

“Don’t need it,” he said.

“It won’t be as bad if I give you something to make you numb.”

“Already numb,” he answered. His voice sounded hollow and it scared me more than anything.

“Okay.”

I threaded the needle and then got it ready. A slight blackened color on the tip told me that Pavel had already set it to fire to cleanse it. I had to take care of my own wounds enough that I knew how much this was going to sting.

“Ethan.”

“Yes?”

“Look at me.”

He turned his gaze to me and I pressed my lips to his. It was a soft kiss, meant to sooth. His lips were cold against mine. I needed him to come back to me, to grip me, to feel alive against me.

“I’m here,” I whispered against his lips.

“Thank you.”

I barely caught his words, they were so soft, but they lit me up like a Christmas tree. He closed his eyes and rested his head on my shoulder. My monster, my killer, broken in so many ways. But I could see the man he once was. The man that was still tucked in there where he wanted no one to see.

I pinched his skin together, shouldering his hiss. Every time I pushed the needle through his skin I whispered words that meant nothing, hoping to take his mind from the pain. It took a while, keeping the stitches close and small, but when it was done, I was satisfied it was properly closed and he wouldn’t get infected. Now I just needed to get him cleaned for real and to bed.

“Come on, Baby.”

“Holding my hand, he followed me up the stairs to our bedroom. I heard Pavel enter the house and call out it was done before I closed our door. Ethan still said nothing as I pulled him into the bathroom and sat him down on the toilet. It didn’t take long for me to get the shower running nice and hot. After everything was laid out, I stripped out of my clothes and took the towel from him. We stepped into the shower together and I pushed him under the spray.

As his cold skin warmed, I snuggled against him. In this space, with steam rising around us, and water cleansing sins away, I realized that for all of Ethan’s strengths he needed me as much as I needed him. He may have been the stronger of the two of us because he could physically overcome any enemy. Or because he was a part of an organization that relied on his strength. But I was strong too. I was the one that could be there for him when no one else could. When no one could soothe the beast inside of him.

I was the woman who Pantera could cling to when the world around him was too dark for him to find his way back. As his arms closed around me, pulling me tight into his body, I knew he was clinging to me, gaining solace in a way he never had before. I had never seen myself as powerful before. I could handle myself and, before Derrick, I was reliable, but I was always a follower. The girl I was before would have run screaming from what was happening outside or cowered away in the corner because I didn’t understand.

The woman I was now knew panicking would have only made everything worse. Knew that my assistance had freed Pavel’s hands to clear evidence away and not worry about his vor. I was doing something, worth more than I did before, because it mattered to these people. I wasn’t just some pretty girl with drawings and dreams about having a date with a celebrity, or getting hurt because my crush hadn’t been interested.

I was becoming a bratva wife.

And so I did what any woman should do for her man when he needed her. I let him use me to ease the pain. Slowly I raked my nails over the tops of his thighs and nipped his chest. The water slid over my skin like I moved against his, steady, hot, and so wet. His skin became a road map under my tongue. Each scar deserved a lick, each bullet wound a kiss, and each slope a bite.

I worked him over until my knees hit the tiled floor. And then I looked over my prize. His cock. There are many beautiful things in the world, and his cock was one of them. Even slightly hooked because of the scar tissue there, it was still perfect. His heavy balls hung down between his legs, tantalizing me to take a lick. I didn’t fight the temptation. I ran my tongue over the soft skin and flicked the tip against the floating eggs I felt. His scent, stronger here, seeped into me. Warm, musky, male. 

I traced the underside of his cock with my tongue, until I got to the bulbous head. Tangy flavor seeped from the hole and I lapped it up. I wanted to taste it in the back of my throat. So I sucked him down.

“Fuck,” he hissed.

He tunneled his fingers into my hair, pressing his fingers against my scalp. I didn’t fight him. My body flowed with him as he fucked in and out of my mouth. Bracing my hands against his thighs to keep steady, I swallowed him down. He tasted delicious as he hit the back of my throat. My jaw ached, my lips were stretched far enough to make them hurt, but it was so good.

Each burn of his advance was perfect, his retreats a chance for me to feel him fill me up again. As he moved he came to life. Those eyes were full of desire now, his skin flush and rosy from the heat. My Pantera was back, in the flesh, dominating me once again. When he ripped me from his cock and lifted me up against him I laughed.

“Crazy fucking broad.”

“Fuck me,” I demanded.

His eyes blazed a moment before he slammed my back against the tiles. Between one breath and the next he was inside of me, his hips setting a vicious rhythm. Now it was my turn to fall apart, to shatter against him, to cling. He was a maelstrom, ravaging my pussy, stretching it to the edge of pain. Each pounding thrust sent shocks through my body. The tile was rough on my back, scraping my shoulder blades, but even that was perfect.

We were disastrously perfect.

In that shower, fucking the man who would kill for me, I was something more. Not just River, victim and college drop out. Not the girl who got the shit beat out of her and kept going back for more.

I was Pantera’s fucking woman.

The crazy broad that liked to take a beating, because I was strong enough to take it.

And strong enough to say ‘fuck you’ to anybody who had a problem with that.

I came, dragging my nails down Ethan’s back, drawing blood, marking him, delivering my own sort of pain. And then he was coming, deep inside of me, locking us together.

A lock and key, inseparable, and always in need of the other.

She pulled me back. From the edge. From the desperation. Without even knowing it. Building me back, brick by brick.

Ethan

S
o what happened?”

My fork froze on its path to my mouth. The cut of medium steak that looked appetizing just a moment before didn’t look so good now as my stomach rolled. I wondered when she was going to ask, but she hadn’t last night after we got out of the shower. Or at all today as we lounged around. Now, over dinner, one of the most normal things we ever did, she wanted to swing back to the left.

“You’re not supposed to ask about the business, River.”

“You should know that I don’t like listening to orders.”

“Bullshit,” I told her.

“That’s different. When we’re in bed, of course I do, and a whole bunch of times when we’re out of it, but telling me what to do when it comes to how you’re feeling is off the table.”

“It doesn’t matter how I’m feeling, River. Things just are.”

“We said no more lying, Ethan.”

I sighed. Yes, we had, but that didn't mean I was suddenly going to tell her every fucking thing on my mind. I wasn’t built like that and my operation couldn’t take that. Snitches got people killed, before they found themselves in the dirt. The less she knew about business, the safer she was too.

“I can’t tell you, River.”

“How about this? We agree that if it’s about your mental state you get it off your chest. We don’t lie, so if you can’t answer don’t say anything at all.”

My mental state? What the fuck did she mean by that? I was always fucked up in the head. Pure and simple. Anyone who killed like I did couldn’t say they were sane. I did the things I did because I could compartmentalize what was going on around me. Sometimes I got nightmares, other times I didn’t. But if I had to talk to her about everything that could fuck me up she’d be writing books.

“River—”

“I don’t mean your normal shit, Ethan. I’m talking about stuff like last night, when you came in here like a fucking zombie. I want to know what threw you off kilter so bad.”

I didn’t want to talk about killing Samuel, because it wasn’t the killing that messed my head up. It was Leo. Mikhail’s brother, turning his back on revenge to save my fucking life. About seeing my best friend’s little brother, all grown up, in the business, and looking at me like he wanted to rip my throat out. And then he saw my pain, and I think he realized what I said, about it being an accident when I gave my testimony at trial had been true.

Everyone had seen footage of that testimony.

And then he pitied me. I saw the transition from anger to pity in his eyes as I made Samuel scream and it tore me up.

I didn’t want to talk to her about any of that.

“No.”

“Ethan—”

“No!” I slung my plate across the room and it shattered against the wall, food going everywhere. But River didn’t flinch. Instead she narrowed her eyes at me and stabbed the table with her fork.

“You don’t have to act like an ass. It hurts, okay, to talk about shit you don’t want to. I get that. But you have to talk about it sometime, to someone. That doesn’t make you any less of a man than you are. Holding that shit inside only fucks you up even worse.”

“And you’re better than me at talking about shit? Look at what happened to you!”

I was furious. Clenching my hands on the table in to tight fists stopped me from flipping the whole fucking thing. I wanted to break something, anything. I wanted the feeling to go away. That raw feeling in my throat that made me wish I wasn’t born, that things had gone differently. I didn’t want her to bring those things out.

Last night she did something no one else had. She accepted what I did and hadn’t judged me. Instead she wiped everything aside except for caring for me. I know it probably frightened her, made her think of so many bad things that could have happened, but she held me. She lifted me up through it, waded into the fucking muck and pulled me out.

But I couldn’t. Not for her. Not even for her.

“You’re right,” she said. She let go of her fork and stood from the table.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked as she pulled her shirt over her head.

“Shut up and listen. These,” she said pointing to the four long gouges down her stomach, “were from the bastard that Derrick sent to my room. They weren’t allowed to rape me, because he wanted the chance to. You see, he was the first man I ever had sex with. I didn’t want it the first time either, but he taught me to like it.”

I felt cold. The first man. That meant, I was her second. The second man to take her, and I frightened her the fuck out of her mind. No wonder she ran.

“I—”

“I’m not done. These burns here on my hip? Those were because I wouldn’t stop drawing pictures. I went to school for art, you know? Wanted to be some big artist with shows in the gallery. Derrick thought it was a stupid hobby once he got me living with him. He kept me locked up so I couldn’t go to class, and then he beat me so I didn’t want anyone to see me like that.”

That piece of shit. The fucking worthless, asshole, wanker!

“The scaring on my back? He gave me those by dragging me back and forth, without a shirt on, over gravel because I wouldn’t suck his friend’s dick one night at a party. You see his women do whatever he wants, and as long as I don’t let anyone in my pussy, I’m okay. Of course, the next week he was accusing me of cheating, and he broke my jaw.”

She kept talking. Pointing out every wound. Telling every story. She poured it all out, how they met, how she fell in love with a psycho. How she so innocently told him one night after reading a book, she wanted to try some spanking and rope play. How she knew those things turned her on, but she hadn’t understood how far they could go.

How painful it could get—or how much she’d like it.

She stopped liking it when he wouldn’t stop when she said no. When he beat her and slapped her around. She liked spanking and dominance, liked to feel like she was flying, and what she liked most, people would think was too rough, but none of it should have left marks and bruises on her. Not really.

She told me every sordid detail, tears in her eyes and her voice breaking when she said she stopped having friends and hanging out. But what shattered her more than anything? Was realizing she was some sick deviant because she liked being controlled, and she couldn’t seem to break away.

How fucked up was she?

But she wasn’t.

“You’re not,” I said out loud, because we both needed to hear it.

“What?”

“You’re not fucked up. You like pain and pleasure. Hell, a lot of people do. You like to be slapped around and your sex rougher than most people can take. That doesn’t matter. You’re submissive, but that doesn’t make you a fucking doormat. Look at you, you’re fighting me right now.”

She froze. I don’t think, until then, she realized how much she changed in her own ways.

“Being submissive is not synonymous with not being a human being. I’ve seen very healthy slave relationships, and you aren’t even to that point. What you hated was Derrick, the way he twisted your needs. He introduced you wrong, and tied your desires into his sick fucking game. Don’t let him win.”

“And who’s beating you?”

“What?”

“Who’s the one you are letting win because you can’t let it go?” she asked.

I smiled sadly. How exactly was I supposed to ignore her question when she’d opened up to me? I sighed, that aching feeling come back again.

“The internet doesn’t tell you Mikhail was my best friend. That we grew up on the same streets and eventually started running with the same crowd. It doesn’t tell you the fight we had was our first non-sanctioned one. We were supposed to pool our money together to give to his mother. You see, his grandmother was sick, and she needed a surgery we couldn’t afford. We hadn’t gotten into the big times yet.”

River put her shirt back on and came and sat on my lap. If felt good to hold her while I spoke. Helped me remember it was in the past.

“The fight shouldn’t have been that hard. We were evenly matched, sure, but we fought two different ways. I got distracted. My girl at the time was there, cheering me on, and so was his. We weren’t used to a bloodthirsty crowd like that. You don’t please them, you don’t get paid. We fought harder than we should have. When he kicked me and I blocked it, I was on a rush, high on adrenaline, and didn’t pay attention to how much force I was using.”

“But it was an accident, Ethan.”

“I still killed him. There isn’t any way to erase that, or stop what I felt from coming. I stopped the fight, immediately knowing something was wrong. But the spectators booed and threw stuff at us. I grabbed the phone from Susan, and called the ambulance myself. That’s when people realized he wasn’t getting up, his leg was at an awkward angle, and he was growing pale.”

“My God.”

“They ran, River. Ran because they didn’t want to get caught up by the police. I stayed, waiting for the ambulance, even when he told me to get away and take care of his family. I couldn’t leave him there to die. When the police got there, his girlfriend started screaming that I’d done it, and they took me one way as the ambulance took him to the hospital. I found out later he died on the way.”

I took a deep breath. I never told anyone that story. I could picture it so clearly. Hear the screams, the sirens, and Mikhail’s quiet voice telling me it wasn’t my fault, I had to run. But I didn’t and I suffered because of it.

“That was brave of you to stay there with him,” River told me. She gripped my face and forced me to look at her.

I shook my head, but she didn’t let me look away.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

I knew. I knew that. It didn’t change anything.

“Last night I found the man who betrayed me, but I also found out that Mikhail had a brother.”

“The man who betrayed you was Mikhail’s brother?”

“No, his second. His… Pavel. Look, there are several heads of each family, River, and I will never tell you who they are. If you were ever to meet them, I’d tell you then, but not now.”

“Okay.”

“But one of them wanted revenge on me because he hated that I gained the status I did so young, and with some of the support I got. He was jealous. His second was Mikhail’s younger brother. Instead of letting his boss kill me off, which would have got his revenge, he exposed him and saved my life. I killed his brother and he saved my life. Taking a life is always hard, no matter how easy it may seem, but nothing could hurt me more than that.”

“Ethan, how did you not know Mikhail had a brother?”

“Some vors have mistresses. They have children with them. Those children aren’t recognized, and usually kept away from the family on pain of death. If Mikhail had told anyone, then his brother and whoever else knew could have been killed.”

“He was protecting you. Maybe it’s only right that his brother saved your life.”

“How?”

“Because it’s what Mikhail tried to do. Maybe you deserved that second chance more than you realize.”

It hurt to listen, but my heart was desperate to believe. After everything I’d done. All the evil, foul shit I had my hands in, I deserved a second chance. A chance to hear this woman tell me, to keep her safe. To give her a second chance at life. I wasn’t sure.

I couldn’t be sure.

But maybe it was better to believe that and fight for it, than to not, and squander what gifts we might have been given.