Not whoring, I tell myself. Saving your damn foolish brother. But prettying it up did not make me feel any more like the noble, hard-working accountant my best friends thought I was.
“Should we be worried about Gina?” I ask, changing the subject.
Cynda frowns. “I know, right? Two months is one thing. But three? And she doesn’t even have a job? What’s going on? And why do I have the feeling the answer to that question is Tommy?”
Neither of us has ever met Gina’s boyfriend Tommy in person, but neither of us liked him. A sergeant with the Jonesboro, Georgia P.D., he’d met Gina at the strip club, then insisted she quit the strip club. Gina had acted like he was a total Prince Charming, but he’d came off as controlling to Cynda and me from the start.
And if you ask me, he didn’t save her. He told her she had to quit stripping or break up with him. So now she’d not only given up her job at Magic Peaches, but she’d also let him convince her to close down her Etsy store of cute crafts. And she’d stopped trying to get interior design jobs, even though that was why she’d stripped to put herself through college.
But all she seemed to be doing with that degree she’d earned was planning her wedding. She hadn’t updated any of her Pinterest boards in months, and she’d been talking less and less about herself during our monthly calls.
And now she wasn’t talking to us at all.
“I was thinking of taking some time off to drive down there in a couple of weeks,” I confess to Cynda. “Check on her myself.”
“That’s a great idea,” Cynda says. “Can I send you some gas and hotel money?”
“No, you keep that money for the twins,” I answer. “But I’ll call her right now and let her know I’m coming down there.”
“Don’t let her talk you out of the trip,” Cynda warns.
“I won’t,” I promise my friend. “She keeps saying she’s fine, but I don’t believe her. And I want to set eyes on her myself.”
“I wish I could go with you,” Cynda says, her pretty face twisting with regret.
Funny for someone who used to go through guys like toothpicks, Cynda had morphed from super vixen to super responsible over the last three years.
“No, Cynda, you work six days a week, and you’ve got the twins. Let me do this,” I answer.
“Are you sure?” Cynda asks, her pretty face twisting with guilt.
We’re all orphans of a sort. We all lost our moms to cancer, a fact we bonded over during our time in Atlantic City. Neither Gina nor I really know our fathers. And Cynda’s father passed away three years ago.
I’m the only one who isn’t an only child. But Clem often feels more like a responsibility than a brother while Cynda and Gina feel like sisters. Sisters I chose.
That’s why it’s easy to tell Cynda, “Don’t worry, I got this.”
We talk for a little while longer about the usual things. How work is going—boring for the both of us.
Cynda apologizes for not sending me her tax stuff yet, which leads to a discussion about whether tax season will be delayed this year because of COVID. And for how long.
I ask her if she’s dating anyone.
“Girl, who has time for dating? I’m just trying to get the twins and me to Pittsburgh.”
I frown. I get that she cares about the twins, but I’m not quite sure why she’s following them all the way to college. It feels a little…
I don’t know. Like she’s living her life for everyone but herself. But who am I to talk considering that I’m sacrificing my pride and three-full days of work to get my brother out of his debt?
“What about you?” Cynda asks, interrupting my sheepish thoughts. “You planning on finally giving yourself a hot girl summer after you pass this CPA exam?”
“I love how you assume that I’m going to pass,” I answer with a chuckle. “Or that I’m even capable of a hot girl summer.”
“Girl, you can do it. Put your back into it!” Cynda answers, making both her expression and her voice extra grimy with insinuation.
“Okay, Cynda, stop,” I say, laughing even harder.
But my laughter abruptly cuts off when the building’s back door opens…
And Vlad steps out.
He doesn’t look happy. Like, at all.
Chapter Seven
Maybe the doorman wasn’t merely looking the other way when I snuck out earlier.
There’s no one but him in the lobby when Vlad hauls me back in. But he appears selectively deaf and blind as Cheslav’s henchman drags me to the elevator.
“What is wrong with you?” I ask him. “I was just making a call!”
Vlad shoves me into the elevator and punches the button for the penthouse floor.
Last night he seemed pretty affable for someone breaking into my house. But now the mood’s all changed. He ignores me and simmers at the same time as the elevator whisks us up to the building’s highest floor.
He doesn’t talk until the elevator opens on the long hallway leading into the suite. And then it’s only to say, “Go ahead. He is waiting for you.”
That one ordered issued, Vlad takes a seat on a black stool beside the elevator that I didn’t notice when I was leaving. This must be his station, I realize. The one he was meant to guard.
And my outrage fades a little.
“Sorry if I got you in trouble,” I murmur. “My mom was a security guard over at Memorial stadium. If I’d known you were manning this station, I never would have left.”
Vlad’s expression softens. But only a little, before he repeats, “Go. You do not want to keep Mr. Rustanov waiting.”
I go.
And though, I know I did nothing wrong, it feels like a death march.
I find Cheslav bent over the game board, sitting on his coffee table. He’s standing on the red side this time.
The window frames him in a bright halo of light as he moves his piece. Like an angel. But when he stands up, revealing his whole outfit, I see that he’s wearing a red button-up shirt that stretches tight over his muscles and black slacks.
No, he’s no angel. In fact, he looks like the devil himself.
“Hi,” I say with a little wave. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Yes, you misunderstand somehow meaning of ‘no leaving.’” He sneers at me. “Just one lunch. Vlad walked away from his post for fifteen minutes to grab sandwich. Only fifteen minutes. But you managed to sneak out.”
“I didn’t sneak out; I went downstairs to call my friend.”
Cheslav’s eyes narrow. “This friend of yours. What is his name?”
I start to answer that my friend was a girl, not a guy. But then I close my mouth. First of all, why is he acting so possessive? He only has rights to my body over the next five days, not my heart. He has no moral or technical ground to stand on when it comes to whether I speak to other guys or not. Second of all, I don’t want Cynda anywhere near this thing.
“None of your business,” I answer.
“None of my business,” he repeats. His voice is completely level, but it feels like something inside of him is ticking.
Suddenly he reaches down and sweeps the chessboard off the table in one explosive movement.