Chapter 42: Chapter Forty-One

Another body has been discovered in Pike's Market. Jane Doe had no identification, and no missing reports have been filed. She was believed to be a prostitute and homeless. –The Seattle Tribune

Maya

We talked about everything that had to do with nothing important.

Sunlight crept through the window early that morning.

I forced my eyes shut, not wanting to leave the bed or deal with the heavy stuff—the questions still rolling around in my brain, the memories, the flashbacks.

I shivered.

It wasn't pretty.

My memories had always been about the later years, when I pushed myself in school and sports.

The early years? Were filled with getting pushed out of the house at age five because my father's associates were coming to visit. Why did it matter? I'd ask my mom, what if I play quietly.

I stumbled past one of the men as my mom ushered me out the back door. He grabbed her arm, then looked down at me with a frown.

“Leave it,” she snapped.

My mom was rarely rude, especially to my father's associates.

The man bent down to my eye level, his breath smelled sour, and his face was white as a ghost. “So, you're the bastard.”

Those were his words. I didn't know what the name meant, but the way he said it had made me think it was a bad name to be called.

When I brought it up to Nikolai, he simply kissed me and told me he was sorry he couldn't keep the bad away—sorry that he had failed.

If anyone failed in this scenario, it was my father… he was a complete lunatic. My only saving grace was that I wasn't actually related to him, only to my mother. Thank God.

My gut clenched. Was my mother even safe?

“You look very deep in thought,” Nikolai said without opening his eyes.

“You can't even see me.”

“I can feel you,” he murmured, “and you feel stressed.”

“I'm not stressed,” I grumbled, frowning harder.

His eyes blinked open. “God, you're beautiful.”

“I better be, I put on lip gloss and brushed my hair at least a hundred times throughout the night in fear you'd wake up and scream.”

“Very funny.”

“Don't believe me?”

He ran his left hand through my hair, and of course, his fingers got caught in the tangles. I tried to pull away, but he continued combing it with his fingers.

“I think I like you messy… less polished. It fits you.”

“Are you calling me a mess?”

“A hot mess. The adjective changes everything, don't you think?” The corners of his mouth lifted into a heart-stopping smile.