Very Wicked Things (15 page)

I eased forward in my seat as far from him as I could, but he tugged me back, pressing me into the back of the chair.

I swallowed. “Because you’ll hurt them if they don’t.”

“It’s amazingly simple.” I heard the smile in his voice. “If people believed I’d give them more time, they’d think me weak. I despise weakness. Are you weak, Katerina?”

I shook my head. But I was weak. I’d never stood up for my mama; I’d never jumped in to save her.

I wasn’t brave or strong like Joan of Arc.

He came around to face me, and I smelled his aftershave, something mossy and dark. Revulsion coursed through me at our proximity.

“A business like mine is not established over-night. It takes time to teach the neighborhood what you’re capable of. It’s like training a dog to sit. You can tell the dog to sit, but he won’t get it until the choke chain is tightened. Because he needs the proper amount of pain to understand the master means business. If he thinks the command to sit might not bring pain, he might test me and resist the command.”

He sighed. “And, I hate disobedience. Our neighborhood was trained long ago that disobedience means swift pain. This makes my business easier and more pleasant. You understand?”

Yes.

The room seemed to shrink, and I gripped the edge of my seat, feeling as if my own choke chain was being tightened. I licked my dry lips. “Look, I want to give you your money now, but I don’t have it.” I held up a finger. “But once the house sells, I can throw in extra, perhaps the interest you didn’t charge?” I met his gaze, trying to read him, but it was impossible. “The market isn’t good for Ratcliffe right now, but I
know
it will sell. We just need the right buyer. It’s in a fair location for a business. And with the apartments upstairs—”

He tsked, interrupting me. “There is payment or there is pain. This is the only way it can be. No negotiation.”

The room grew quiet as I contemplated his words and he contemplated me, perhaps deciding if I was a predator like him or prey like my mother.

It’s hard to accept when a parent doesn’t love you, but it’s even more difficult when they simply feel nothing. I really didn’t matter to him except as a means to an end. I mean, I’ve always known he didn’t care, but he had brought me food a few times when I was at the end of my rope. Why had he done it? Perhaps he’d still have a smidge of feeling for my mama. Perhaps his conscience couldn’t allow an innocent child to die from neglect. Or perhaps more chillingly, he’d wanted to assess me, study me while she was gone. Had he ever considered hurting me too? Had he entertained the thought of ramming his fists into my flesh…or worse? I cringed, thinking back to the past, wondering about those times he’d come to the apartment, if he’d been a hair-trigger away from devouring me.

I swallowed. “We don’t have the money. We simply
don’t
. I could sell my car, and everything else we own, but there’s no way I can get anywhere close to twenty thousand. We don’t even have good credit at the bank, but once we sell the house—”

“Be quiet,” he barked, making me jump. I shrank back in my seat as far as I could.

He turned to a brown duffle that had been sitting on his desk. He unzipped it.

I drew up, expecting a hatchet or a gun with a silencer or maybe even a chainsaw. You never knew with the stories I’d heard about him over the years. What I didn’t expect was the Ziploc bag of vials he tossed in my lap.

“I’ve been thinking. Perhaps, there’s another way you can repay your debt.”

My fingers were stiff as I picked the bag up and peered at the white substance inside. Hello, Dovey the drug dealer.

“You want me to sell coke? You think your addicts will trust me?”

He waved away my comment. “I have plenty of corner boys. You’ll be selling much more. You’ll be peddling to those rich kids at your fancy school. Establishing a new clientele. To pay off your debt, of course.” He smiled, and chills feathered up my spine because it was so damn
genuine
.

“How much of my debt? What’s the value? I need numbers.” There. That was the Ratcliffe girl talking.

He shot me a look loaded with what seemed like approval. Did it take selling drugs to make him love me? Would he be interested in me as a real daughter then? I didn’t know what to do with that thought, so I pushed it away.

“There’s ten vials, and each one is cut into an eight-ball. They cost two-fifty each. Normally, eight-balls might be cheaper, but rich kids aren’t junkies. They aren’t looking for Wal-Mart prices.”

“There’s twenty five hundred dollars worth of coke in this bag?” I gripped it tighter. That was half of what my car cost.

He inclined his head. “Yes. And, your deadline is Saturday. I want you back here at the warehouse with the cash, and we can talk about giving you more.”

I stared at the vials, feeling desperate as I imagined me turning my classmates into addicts like my mama. And if I got caught there’d be no ballet in prison. All my dreams would be destroyed.

“Failure to do this will bring dire consequences, Katerina.” Had he read my thoughts?

“I am your blood,” I heard myself say, hating the admission, hating the neediness in my tone. “Part of you is in me. Doesn’t that count for something?”

He shrugged, his shoulders elegant in his jacket. “You’re a beautiful example to the neighborhood.”

I forced down the bitterness that rose up. “Please, just listen to me. I hate drugs. They killed Mama. I—I don’t want to sell—”

“Do not beg me,” he hissed.

Prey!
My breaths came as shallow inhalations. “Please. Have some mercy. Sarah is sick—”

He slapped his desk, making me jerk. “Do you want Sarah to disappear? Or your friend Heather-Lynn?”

I shook my head furiously.
No, please.

“How about one of your friends at that school?”

God, no.

“The list is long of things I can do, Katerina,” he said silkily. “I think your imagination can figure it out.”

I stared at him, heart pounding, my mouth dry. Somehow, I had to pay back the money.

Could I push dope?

He checked his Rolex, the conversation obviously over. “You work for me now. Until I say you do not.” He gave me a blindingly beautiful smile. “See you soon,
dotchka
.”

He nodded his head and walked out, done with me.

I rubbed my arms, trying to get warm, trying to hold myself together. My mind swirled, wondering if this had been his plan all along, to loan money to Sarah he knew she couldn’t pay back just so he could get a dealer into BA. But, I didn’t think so. He’d never paid attention to me before. It seemed more likely that Sarah had fallen into his web, and he’d grasped the opportunity to play with us.

Blondie marched to the door and motioned for me to come on. With sweaty hands, I picked up my destiny and followed him.

BY THE TIME I got home, it was one in the morning. I tried to be quiet as I came in the door, but it didn’t make a difference because Sarah was up. Alzheimer’s messes with your internal clock, so I wasn’t surprised. But her appearance sucked the wind right out of me.

Dressed in her yellowed, thirty-year-old wedding dress, she sat on a chair in the living room, clutching a faded wedding photograph of her and David I recognized from the mantel. With the billowy gown and her white face, she resembled an eerie ghost from the past, making the hair on my scalp tingle.

“Dovey,” she breathed, wiping her cheeks with quivering hands.

“What happened?” Trying to not stare at the oddness. And then trying to not glare at the bruise on her cheek.

“I woke up because I had this horrible dream about David with smoke and flames everywhere.”

I nodded. He’d died in a fire on an oil rig.

She gazed at the picture of them. “He wasn’t in bed, so I got up to look for him. And then, I couldn’t find his shoes by the door or his coat in the closet. I didn’t see his aftershave or any of his things. I don’t know why, but I wanted my wedding dress on. To feel closer—” she fisted her hands, making little gulping noises.

She’d forgotten.

“And then I came in here and saw our picture, and I remembered—everything. I remembered the police coming to this house and telling me he was dead.
It was like he died all over again
.” She sank back into the chair, her face twisted, tears flowing.

Her pain cracked my chest open, and I nearly broke in front of her, but I reined it in, knowing I had to be strong for her. And in that moment, her despair reminded me of Cuba’s grief tonight when he’d talked about Cara. It hammered home the fact that no matter how different we were, death comes for us all, rich or poor, young or old.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah,” I said, grabbing her some tissues. I sat down next to her on the chair. “I can’t imagine what that must have felt like, to relive his death.”

A few minutes passed until she finally looked up, her green eyes red and swollen.

She asked, “Where have you been? You shouldn’t be out this late.”

I sighed. “I went to see Alexander. He says you borrowed money. Is it true?”

She blinked and averted her eyes. “I needed money to repair the wood floor in the studio and we didn’t have it. Or if we did, I didn’t realize it. Your dance and school supplies for the year were overdue and then we bought you a car. My doctor bills and the medication. It all came at once, and I couldn’t seem to keep track of it all. I kept losing bills and forgetting if I’d paid them already.” She chewed on her lips. “We had the building for sale, and I assumed it would have sold by now, and I could pay him back. But, he sent his men today.”

I nodded, feeling defeated and frustrated all at the same time.

“They
hit
you,” I said.

Her brow wrinkled. “I know he’s not a good person, but he is your father. I don’t understand why he’d send those thugs to see me. He should help us when we’re in trouble.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Ah, this was her disease talking. Because never in a million years would a fully functioning Sarah have thought Alexander Barinsky gave a rat’s ass about me. Her mind was going, and I was failing her. Obviously. I mean, she’d gone to Alexander.

How had I missed it?

Worry gnawed at me, and I stood and walked to the window, needing some distance from the woman who’d raised me. It was awful and terrible, but part of me, fueled by a sense of impotence and doom, was angry with her because she’d put us in serious danger. And I hated that part of me, but it was real and it was there. I pushed it away—empathically. Because in the end, it wasn’t her fault she was wasting away mentally and eventually physically too.

I had no one to blame but myself for not watching her better.

She tugged at the sleeves on her dress, fidgeting like a child in trouble. “Is Alexander mad at me?”

Tears sprang to my eyes, and I told her the only thing I could think of. “No. It’ll be fine. He agreed to let us sell the house first. There’s nothing to worry about.”

She let out a big sigh. “Good. I knew he’d come through.”

I hid my disgust for him by changing the topic. “We need to talk about getting a nurse or a sitter to come stay with you.”

She bit her lip and clutched the tissue, and I took her hand and squeezed it tight. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking. What do you want?”

She took a deep breath and started talking, telling me things I think she’d held back for months. She told me how she felt like she was trudging slowly through quicksand just to get through the day, how each little conversation took all her concentration, how she couldn’t remember the ingredients to her famous hummingbird cake, and how she’d forgotten the steps to her favorite dance movements. “I feel like I’m being erased by a giant pencil, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Soon, I’m going to watch you dance and not know who you are.”

Her words had me in tears, slamming home the truth of her impending death. She’d taken care of me for the past eight years. Now, it was my turn to take care of her.

Somehow, someway, we were going to pull through this.

If that meant selling coke, I’d do it.