Page 29 of The Den of Sin
“We can just sit on the tailgate, in the back, and talk.”
I watched him go around and lower the tailgate. He really was handsome, in a boyish kind of way. Nothing like Vasili. It was probably why I agreed to go out with him. He was a safer alternative and could never hurt me like my first lover did.
Regardless of the fact that I caught Ryan with another woman and he’d betrayed my trust, my world didn’t shatter as loudly as it did the morning after I gave myself to Vasili. Yes, it hurt, but the pain was more like a dull ache.
We both lifted ourselves up and sat in the back, our feet dangling off the truck.
“You better not do incognito traveling in this truck,” I told him. “This scrap of metal will probably not make it out of the city. You want to be safe, not incognito stupid.”
He chuckled a low, strangled laugh. “Still worried about me?”
I turned my face his way. “I don’t want to see you hurt or in a dangerous situation, if that’s what you are asking.”
“So you care?”
“Ryan, why are you here?” There was no sense in debating whether I cared or not.
The silence lingered and I thought he might have changed his mind about what he came here to say.
“That woman, she meant nothing.”
I watched my feet dangle back and forth, back and forth with his words choking the air between us.
“Then why do it?” My voice was strangled. When I was growing up, my mother always taught me that every action had a consequence. Of course, I didn’t realize that she was speaking from experience. But she was right. Each choice I made had a consequence. I wanted Vasili but was purposely blind to the ruthlessness that lurked underneath those expensive clothes. I settled for Ryan because I thought he was a safe alternative. Despite the fact that intensity of what I felt for Ryan didn’t match what I felt for Vasili, it still hurt. “You wanted us to move in and there you were-”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I was a fool,” he murmured. “I let your friend’s promises get the best of me.”
I turned my face to him, frowning. “What do you mean? What friend?”
“Tatiana’s brother.”
Every single piece of hair stood up straight on my body, tension like an elastic rubber band ready to snap.
“Vasili?” The name choked out of me in a whisper.
“Yes. He promised me a Sony Picture movie with a starring role and a five-year record label contract.”
“If you slept with that woman?” I was amazed that my voice was so calm.
“No, if I broke it off with you.” His hand pushed through his hair, making it an attractive, boyish mess.So unlike Vasili.“So I told myself if I no longer had you, I’d drown in other women while you are on my mind.”
The buzzing in my ears started as a low hum and intensified with each second, threatening to drown out all the reasons I had left. I wanted to lash out, scream at the top of my lungs, rage. I finally understood murder by passion because I was so damn furious I could kill. Vasili was a fucking bastard. A manipulative, arrogant, cruel bastard.
Screeching tires breached the fog of my anger, but I didn’t raise my head to see who it was. I focused on the boiling fury within me with images of me murdering Vasili Nikolaev.
“That explanation sucks,” I muttered. I’d never jump into bed with the next person, just to drown out the memory of another. Or maybe I did it too? While trying to forget Vasili, I’d settled with Ryan. “Who was the woman?” My voice was calm or maybe I just couldn’t distinguish anything anymore.
“I don’t know. She followed me through each concert of that last tour. Got VIP tickets to hang out with us.” I wouldn’t put it past Vasili to have gotten those VIP tickets for that woman. There weren’t too many people that could afford VIP tickets. But to be able to afford them at every concert destination, you needed a wealthy person. Ryan continued explaining in a hopeful voice, but regardless whether he was seduced or not, I couldn’t overlook what happened. “Initially, I accepted his offer then changed my mind and told him I wasn’t interested. Tatiana’s brother sent her, but I didn’t know about it until earlier this week.”
The anger was bitter on my tongue. He hated me so much, he had to destroy everything good left in my life.
The screeching tires neared and then suddenly a ball of dust raised all around me, and Vasili jumped out of the car, striding towards us like the devil in a black Armani suit.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Vasili’s voice had both Ryan and me startled. “I told you if I saw you near her, I would spill your fucking brains.”
I blinked my eyes, watching the scene in front of me through a faraway lens. Vasili had Ryan’s body lifted off the truck, his inked fingers wrapped around the fistful of his shirt and raised up in the air.
