Fractured Ties by Bethany-Kris Page 0,64
man nodded again but said nothing more. Once inside the building, Maya was quick to take in the sixties carpet in the hallway that desperately needed replaced, and the faded paper on the walls where she couldn’t even make out what the design used to be.
“I think they were lotus flowers,” Kolya murmured, noting the way she stared at the wallpaper while they walked down the hallway. “But who knows?”
She said nothing until they had climbed two flights of stairs, Kolya unlocked the apartment that belonged to him, and she was allowed inside. He flicked all the lights on at once, and then left her side for the first time.
It allowed Maya to explore the dank apartment—frankly, dank was a nice description. He had very little furniture, and what he did have was worn and severely outdated. The floor was a cracked linoleum that made noise when she walked on it, and in the kitchen, an entire counter of empty vodka bottles littered the space.
She wouldn’t say the space was dirty, but it was lonely.
And too empty.
Maya found Kolya in his bedroom—or rather, pulling items from the closet when she walked in. Even here, his bed was nothing more than a mattress and box spring on the floor with a sheet tossed over it, and clothes piled up on the side.
“Why here?”
“Hmm?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Here, this place. Why do you live here?”
And live like this?
She held back from adding that, too.
“I don’t follow,” Kolya said.
“Well, you have money.”
And he was a Boykov.
Kolya shrugged, seemingly understanding what she wasn’t saying, and turned around to face her. “I didn’t even need this place. Just to stay out of the fucking rain is enough for me, yes?”
Maya frowned. “It seems very … lonely.”
“That’s how I liked it, dushka.”
“That’s a little sad.”
Kolya dropped a black duffle bag on the floor, and a few items of clothing inside it as he bent down to rearrange the items. “I never needed anything else.”
“But … don’t you want a home? Something to come back to at the end of the day?”
He hesitated and then glanced up at her. “I didn’t have anything to come home to.”
Didn’t, she noticed.
Past, not present.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Kolya nodded, and went back to his job of packing up whatever clothes he seemed to want to take with him. Maya watched it all in silence—unusual silence, as he might tell her.
Because, yes, she was thinking.
Constantly, now.
About him.
• • •
The knocking echoed through the hotel room, and sent Maya flying out of the bathroom to answer the door. She’d ordered room service for lunch when Kolya called to say he wasn’t going to get back in time to eat with her, and it was just about the time the food should arrive.
She didn’t even think to look through the peephole.
Why should she?
Kolya had a man at the door.
Maya yanked the door open with a smile and then promptly turned in to a block of ice at the sight of the man waiting on the other side.
Well-dressed.
Hair slicked back.
Broad shoulders.
Cold eyes.
Vadim.
The man smiled thinly at the sight of Maya. Behind him, the man Kolya always had watching the door stood with his hands at his back. Well, she supposed given that Vadim was the boss, he didn’t have much of a choice but to let him in.
Kind of like me right now.
“You look out of breath, girl,” Vadim said. “Did I interrupt something?”
“Is my face painted?”
Vadim arched a brow. “Partially.”
“Then, yes, you interrupted me.”
“My apologies.”
Yeah, he sounded sorry. Maya wasn’t exactly the type to be purposely rude to anyone, but Vadim hadn’t exactly done very much to make her feel welcome … let alone safe. In fact, when she was in his presence, he pretended like she didn’t exist, and if he did notice her, he acted like she was trash.
How was that supposed to make her feel?
Vadim gestured at her, and the half-closed door. “Care to let me in, Maya?”
Not particularly.
It didn’t look like she had a choice, though.
12.
VADIM DIDN’T give Maya the chance to step back and allow him inside the hotel. No, he simply gave her a cold smile before he drifted in the doorway and basically forced her to move, or he would have been the one to move her.
By the time she had closed the door—although not before she saw the man Kolya left to watch her pull a phone from his pocket—and turned around, Vadim had already crossed the room. He made himself right at home beside the