He wants me where he can see what I’m doing, who I’m with, but without being in my life in any meaningful way. He can’t make his damn mind up what he wants. One minute, he’s telling me I’m staying, then he says he’ll let me go, but only partially. He still wants me where he can keep track of me.
Fury ignites in me. He doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to come into my life with his presence, his charisma, his innate damned understanding of what I need at times, the calm dominance that makes me okay when I’m falling apart, then simply walk away. He most certainly doesn’t get to walk away and keep me close. If we’re really going to end this, then we end. Closure. I’ll need to get far away and lick my wounds for an awful long time. It’s going to hurt.
When we reach my apartment, I stare at it, feeling strange and off kilter. This place seems like somewhere from another life now. Familiar, but strange, like a long-lost memory come back to haunt me.
We all clamber out of the car and walk toward the downstairs entrance. The glass doors reflect our forms back to us, and I stare for a moment. I’m flanked by three huge men. I’m not tiny, but I look childlike next to them. Vulnerable. I don’t want to use a gun, ever. However, learning to defend myself, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
“Do you know how to fight? I mean like self-defense stuff?” I ask Konstantin.
“Yes,” he answers, not looking my way as his gaze sweeps the garage and the doors in front of us into the basement foyer.
“Will you teach me?”
That has his gaze snapping my way. “What?”
“I don’t want to learn how to use a gun, but I do want to learn how to protect myself. When I was little, I took a judo class. I only completed a few weeks because I broke my wrist, not in the class, but it meant I couldn’t go for a couple of months. I never got back into it. They taught us, in this class, that your body size and innate strength doesn’t matter. So long as you know the techniques you can defeat your opponent, using their strength against them.”
“I can teach you, but the stuff I know, it’s more brutal. It’s…” He stops walking for a moment. “I’m not trained to deter someone, Cassie. My training? If we got to the point of fighting, we were trained to use deadly force.”
Oh.
“I can teach you,” Reece says. “I’m a black belt and can easily teach you some basic moves that would buy you time in any situation.”
“Okay, great, thank you.”
We ride up the elevator in silence, and when we get to my door, I’m nervous. My God, the place must stink. I haven’t been back here since the day Konstantin made me go with him. There will be my breakfast plate, still unwashed, probably growing a forest of mold by now.
We enter the apartment, and I stop dead. It’s clean. Spotless. I don’t understand. I walk in and turn to Konstantin. “Did you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Clean the place?”
He shakes his head.
There’s a note propped up by the kettle. I rush across the small space and read it.
Hey bitch,
Well I’m officially worried now. This is not normal. I don’t care how confidential your work is, you don’t simply disappear for weeks on end! No, bitch, you don’t get to do that. I’m worried sick. Your place was a mess. I let myself in with my key to frankly do some snooping ’cause Vanessa and I are convinced you’ve been taken and are being held against your will.
In all seriousness, Cassie, if you read this, be careful. I investigated our new boss, and he’s scary. Very bad connections! Dangerous people. If you read this and need help, call me. If you can’t talk, but need me to call the police, put broccoli into one of your sentences and I’ll know you need help.
If I don’t hear from you in another week or so, I swear I’m calling the law.
Be careful. You’re my number one bitch. I love you.
Suze.
The note gives me a moment of happiness. Suzy’s worry and care warms me. I need to make sure she knows I’m okay or she’s going to do something dangerous.
Bohdan comes up behind me and reads the note. “I cannot begin to unpack the ways your friend would make