Page 1 of Captured By the Bratva

1

CATHY

Iforce the apartment door open with a shove of my shoulder.

“Jimmy,” I call out as I dump my handbag. “I’m home.”

My exhausted feet drag on the cheap wood floors as I pass the notes piled up on my desk. My original plan was to come home and work on my book but I’m too tired. A twelve hour shift at the diner without a single break because Susie called in sick again. All I want to do is sleep.

I push the bedroom door open and freeze at the sight.

For a second, I’m ten years old again, watching Bobby Driscoll kissing Samantha Johnson. Ten minutes earlier he’d given me my first kiss, told me he’d never want another girl as long as he lived. Said we’d get married and have children and grow old together.

Then he kissed Samantha right in front of me. I’d gone home and told my mother. I’m not even sure why. She just told me the same thing she always said.You can’t trust anyone, Cathy.

Those words bubble up in my mind as I push open the door and see Jimmy in bed with someone else’s arms around him, lips locked with his. The woman looks up at me, then back at Jimmy, a smirk forming on her lips. “I thought you said she was pretty.”

I feel something break open inside me, like a dam splitting down the middle. You can’t trust anyone.

A laugh bubbles up, rough and bitter, and I can’t stop it. My mother was right.

Jimmy flinches, pulling himself away from the other woman as he stands up, trying to pull up his jockey shorts like he’s been caught in some innocent accident.

He sounds irritated rather than ashamed when he speaks. “Cathy, you’re not supposed to be home for another hour.”

“I’ll go and come back then, shall I?”

“This is not what it looks like.” His voice thick with forced calm. The woman beside him stares down at the sheets, face flushed, as if she’s the one who has any right to feel ashamed.

“Not what it looks like?” My voice sounds strange, hollow. “Because it looks like you’re fucking someone two weeks before we’re supposed to get married.”

I don’t know where the words come from. I feel like I’m watching someone else, like I’ve slipped out of my body, drifting somewhere above this twisted scene. I’ve never shouted at him. Not once. No wonder he’s looking so surprised. “How could you?”

Jimmy sighs, scratching the back of his neck. “I…I messed up, okay? I mean, people make mistakes. You know that. It doesn’t mean anything.”

He looks up at me, his expression slipping into that familiar, practiced charm, the one that worked so well when we first met. “Last bit of freedom and all that, yeah? You can understand that, can’t you?”

I feel nothing but a sick, cold rage. He thinks he can brush this off with some excuse, with the same hollow words he used every time I caught him lying about something smaller. But now, the lies are stacked too high, like I can’t breathe under the weight of them.

I step forward, crossing my arms, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. “A mistake is getting on the wrong bus for work, you weapons grade piece of shit.”

He sighs, looking at me like I’m a child who can’t understand grown-up complications. “You’re making this a bigger deal than it needs to be. Men…we have needs. It’s only natural.

“You wanted to save yourself for the wedding and I get that, but it’s been two years of saving yourself. You really expect me to just jerk off in the bathroom all that time? Come on, you’re not that dumb, are you?”

The words hit me like a slap, and my mind races back to when I was fifteen, with my only real boyfriend, Marcus. He’d pulled me aside six weeks into what I was sure was something real. Started explaining that he’s begun seeing someone else because he “needed someone willing to put out.”

“I thought we had something special,” I said and he replied, exactly the same as Jimmy. “Men have needs. Come on, you’re not that dumb, are you?”

I hadn’t argued back then; I’d been too afraid of being left alone. I lasted another three months with that asshole before he dumped me. I didn’t even have the spine to break up with him.

God, I cringe just thinking about it. Now I’ve gone and done it again. Is this my lot in life? Are there no decent men anywhere or is it me? Am I the problem?

I feel anger climbing my spine, pulling my shoulders back. First Bobby. Then Marcus. Now this.

“You’ve been sleeping around the whole time we were together, haven’t you?’” The words are hard and cold in the air between us. “God, I’m so stupid.”

Jimmy shrugs, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Cathy. Pretend the world is all pixies and daisies and you’re a wonderful writer who’s going to make it? Or you could face reality and grow up. You’re not thathot, you can’t write for shit, and all men fuck around. That’s all there is to it.”

---