Page 12 of Unspoken

He finally tears his gaze from the newspaper and looks up at me. Our eyes meet and an unexplained feeling of unease bubbles in my stomach. It’s like this man sees right through me, knows my secret. A bloody X-ray machine in a human form.

I hate it.

I hate this absurdly ripped, hard-faced wanker my brother found somewhere.

As I stand before him, a thought rushes through my mind. My grip on the coffee falters—a splash of dark liquid blooms on the carpet. A few defiant drops fall on Logan's polished leather shoes.

"Oops." I feel victorious all of a sudden, a sensation of triumph washing over me. I even offer up a smile. "I do hope it's not the only pair you own, Muscle," I say, feigning innocence.

Unfazed, he stares up at me with those penetrating gray eyes and then responds blandly, "Your brother will buy me another one." He sets aside the newspaper and inspects the damage with detached calm, then plucks a tissue from the embossed decorative box on the table next to the couch and wipes the coffee off his shoes.

I seethe silently. This man is an immovable mountain, and I'm the wind, howling and raging to no avail. With every thwarted attempt to shake him, my spirit sinks deeper into a quagmire of hopelessness.

Fine.

Incapable to come up with any clever quips fast enough, I huff out some sort of sound and trudge back upstairs, dragging my feet to my room where the silence is deafening. A blank canvas begging for chaos. So I oblige. My fingers slam the power button on the sound system connected to my phone and whatever last song I played, it erupts like a sonic boom through the entire place. Black Sabbath.

Fuck, yeah.

I turn up the volume.

The walls rattle with the bass, vibrating through the floorboards as if the house itself is having a convulsion. I picture Logan down there, fuming beneath that stone facade, trying to read his fucking museum artifact, but when I sneak a glance over the balustrade during my casual walk across the second floor, he's as unruffled as ever, nose still buried in some article.

Doesn't he have anything better to do?

Like polish his gun.

Does he even own one?

Or did Vlad let him borrow a piece from his extensive collection he hides in the glass cabinet in his office?

I shake my head. The man's composure is maddening.

Hours bleed away. Black Sabbath gives room to Sex Pistols, then some raging metal band Alfie always listened to when he was drunk. I'm bored, waiting for the Muscle to break, so I draw some stuff on my iPad to release some of my own tension. Eventually, my ears begin to protest. The pounding in my skull mirrors the beat, and I can't decide which is worse—the headache or Logan's indifference.

With a frustrated groan, I kill the volume. Glorious silence swoops back in. I toss the iPad with an unfinished illustration on the bed.

Fine, so the new guy is harder to crack than the previous two.

This calls for a new tactic.

When I get downstairs, Logan’s in the kitchen, munching on the massive sandwich and chatting up one of Vlad’s countless housekeepers, Rosario. In Spanish. She laughs at whatever he says and sets a glass of orange juice in front of him.

"Would you like one too, Mr. Alexander?" Rosario asks immediately in English when she sees me. I’ve told her multiple times to drop the "Mister" part and just call me Sasha. It’s weird when someone who could be your mother addresses you this way.

I’m hungry and angry. I think Americans have a word for it.Hangry.

But something a lot like pride has my tongue all twisted up and instead of saying "yes," I say, "No. Not in the mood." Then I walk up to the fridge and pull out an unopened bucket of ice cream.

Rosario immediately offers a spoon and a small bowl, but I ignore the bowl and only grab the spoon. "Thanks."

Throwing a quick glance at Logan eating his lunch, I leave the kitchen.

After aimless wandering through the upper floor and occasionally peaking at the couch Logan occupied all morning, I change the tactic again.

I walk to the main balcony on the second floor overlooking the backyard and climb over the balustrade, settling onto it with the careless grace of a cat to spoon ice cream from the bucket like it's the last meal on earth.

Afternoon light slants across the garden below where Ivan paces with his phone glued to his ear like an insistent leech. He’s probably engrossed in who knows what. Some dodgy business deals you're better off not knowing about.

---