Page 22 of City Of Thieves
Tatiana
Bad sleep is like smoke.
The more you reach for it, the more it keeps slipping through your fingers, leaving you wanting and desperate. Wired and exhausted.
My pillow is soaked in tears, and my head is aching. Lying here in the darkness of my apartment, every choice I’ve made in the last few years is coming back to haunt me. My thoughts so vivid and monstrous at times, not even a couple of Vicodin can blunt their teeth.
I see the faces of everyone I’ve hurt and discarded hanging like portraits from my own gallery walls: Mom, Dad, Seb, my half-brother, Sam, all my friends…
I remember snippets from my old life.
I remember what it feels like to love and be loved, and the loss of that has me screaming into a clenched fist sometime around three a.m.
I think about Marchesi, too. I think about the silver scars on his face and knuckles. I think about the shadows I saw moving behind his eyes, suggesting a pain as great as mine.
Outside, dawn is approaching. Halos of light are starting to form around each skyscraper. I’ll need to leave in the next two hours if I’m going to reach Teterboro by seven a.m.…
I’ve justified this decision to myself a thousand times over the last two days. I swore nothing would jeopardize my trip to Moscow next week, but Marchesi has backed me into a corner. He’s right. I need the money to survive.I need his painting to keep my hopes of one day reuniting with my family alive.
I’ll tell Konstantinit’s a work thing. As long as I do as he says—whenhe says—he only yanks on my leash when I stray too close to the edges of my cage. Besides, I’ll be back in New York within forty-eight hours, leaving plenty of time to prepare for my flight to Moscow.
Once I return, I’m going to pay the bank loan off and send the portrait “Mary” to my mother as an anonymous apology. She’ll know it’s from me. It won’t even scratch the surface to make up for all I’ve done to her, but it’ll be a start.
Throwing off the white bedsheet, I step into the shower and let the water cover every inch of my body. Despite the heat, I can’t shake the stone-cold feeling that history is about to repeat itself.
Be wary of handsome men in good suits offering unattainable gifts, because they’ve never served me well in the past.
I was a teenager when I first met Konstantin.He was thirty-four and hungry. He poured compliments over my teenage insecurities, set fire to an obsession, and I’ve been trapped in his hellhole ever since.
The phone rings as I’m stepping out of the shower, my pale skin flushed and steaming, the chain on my silver locket tangling with my wet hair. Somehow, I know it’s a Marchesi wake up call, so I let it ring out.
It happens again.
And again...
That’s another thing about men like him: they only know how to use force and bribery to control a situation, while indifference is a far more useful weapon.
Show him a heart, and he’ll pierce it with a bullet.
The more I keep him at a distance, the safer I’ll be.
* * *
We arriveat Teterboro Airport with ten minutes to spare.
My driver, Andrew, glides the Cayenne to a smooth stop alongside the gleaming white Cessna. Marchesi is standing by the steps wearing jeans and a black leather jacket, filling out his casual attire in a way I hate myself for noticing.
The suit is gone.
The pretense is over.
But not for me.
I’m wearing an identical black pencil dress to the one I wore the other day, and I’m refusing to remove my Chanel sunglasses as I exit the car. He doesn’t bother to remove his sunglasses either, and for some reason I find this comforting. There are so many invisible barriers between us already. An extra layer just adds to the great divide.
“Ten minutes to spare,” he says, stepping forward to greet me. “I like a woman who doesn’t disappoint.” He tilts his head to one side, and I know he’s looking me up and down, repeating the same slow crawl of derision that I did to him in my gallery.
“Let’s keep this relationship strictly ‘reluctant,’ shall we?” I bristle. “What happened to the suit? Did the lease run out?”
