Page 73 of The Payback

“No. Whether or not you like it, you are in my life, and it sounds like we’re essentially partners again. Or a trifecta or whatever if you count Dimitri. So, as your partner, I am asking you to come to me. Can you do that?”

Reluctantly, I nod. I can go to Ellie, but that doesn’t mean I won’t go to my room right after and whip myself bloody again.

CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

Dimitri

While Nikand Eleanor are with Sergei, I’m pacing back and forth in the living room. Things here have been tense, and that’s the exact opposite of what I want in my home. This is the only place I have to escape the tedium of this life. The place I can drop my façade and justbe. Well, as much as one can when their live-in bodyguard had been reporting to Sergei until recently.

It went against my every instinct to send her with Nik. If he is still working with my uncle, this is a chance to prove that, and Eleanor knows it. I’d briefed her before lunch, telling her to watch for signs of anything unusual. It’s easy to believe Nik’s words, especially when promised with such intensity, but seeing them interact might shed some more light on the subject.

Still, my skin crawls at the distance. She is mine, and I’m not there to protect her. My suspicions about Sergei and the fact that she’s meeting with him unsettle me. But Eleanor insisted I sit this one out. She claims she can get more from him without me present.

She’s probably right, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Nik will watch out for her. He has to, and I have Igor driving them today for an added layer of security. Thinking back on it now, threatening Nik’s life before they left might have been unnecessary.

I can’t help but notice that something in him has settled recently. Where he’d been tense at Eleanor’s sudden appearance in our lives, it seems like a corner was turned last week. The frustrating thing is I don’t knowwhatcorner exactly, though I can guess.

As I rake my hands through my hair, I stride towards my office. I need to get this nervous energy out; there’s only one solution when I feel like this.

Sliding the painting on the wall over, I find the biometric button and press it with my thumb. There’s a whisper of sound as the hidden doorway between the bathroom and my office slides open, and instantly, I feel calmer.

I round the corner, step through the panel, and flick on all the lights. Alexei’s remnants have been removed, and I spent the rest of that night washing the last of the evidence down the drain in the centre of the space.

Then, of course, I’ve spent every night down here or on the couch. Eleanor hasn’t exactly asked me back to bed, and I refuse to push her on this. I know she feels something for me, and steamrolling my way back into her good graces will only lead to disappointment when this happens again.

No. She needs to choose to let me in. To accept all of me. And if she happens to miss me beside her as much as I miss being there, then all the better. At least in the last few days, she’s started making eye contact again. The baby steps are infuriating, but I am a patient man. I can outlast being outside her walls; she will crumble eventually, and I’ll catch her.

No matter how hard she tries, our chemistry is too great to ignore.

Looking around the room, one would think I’d feel remorse for the actions that caused this rift, but all I feel is pride at a job well done. Eleanor sent the phone to a contact to get more information from it, so until that happens, I can take satisfaction in knowing the offenders have been punished. We just need to know who put out the hit on us. It could be anyone from the other organised crime syndicates, and the list of suspects is too long to make a dent in.

I walk to the north wall in my studio, pick up a new canvas, and set it onto the easel I’ve dragged out of the corner. I slide a stool over and wheel the cart with my paints and brushes to the centre of the room.

Deep breath in, stress out.

I repeat my ritual four times, closing my eyes and grounding myself in the present as I open the supplies I need. The scent of paint thinner reaches me, sending a tendril of creative energy through me, and when I’m calm, I open my eyes, staring at the white surface in front of me, bare and open to possibility.

There are a million things to paint, and not enough days in this lifetime to create them all. My eyes trace the canvas as my brain fills the space with a conjured image—still blurry on the edges, but the focal point is vivid.

With a pencil, I block out sections as the image clarifies in my mind and in front of me. It takes a little while, but when I step back, I cock my head to the side and survey what I’ve done—what my brain has been screaming at me to let out, like it’s been locked up and has now been released, seeing the sun for the first time.

The figure in the middle is clearly Eleanor, her wedding dress on, facing away from the observer with New York at her feet. But hands are reaching for her. Four, in fact.

I know whose hands those are. And as reluctant as I am to admit it, I need to paint this. It will prevent me from working on anything else if I don’t. This obsessive need to work on the piece will take over my mind, and I cannot focus until it’s done. Shoving it aside has never worked for me.

Hundreds of completed canvases lean against the opposite wall—some of which are my pride and joy, while others are horrible. Those are the ones I’ve struggled to complete, while another piece demanded all my attention, but I fought against the need to paint it.

I am single-minded in every aspect of my life—even my hobby.

The paintings dotting my apartment remind me of who I am and why I’m fighting to end this life of servitude to an organisation I don’t believe in. They portray the hopelessness I feel when I think about my life, the responsibility that has been mine since my father becamepakhanand the weight of being the heir was placed on my shoulders.

I dip my brush into some paint and begin my work. I turn on a playlist on my phone, and my hands fly across the canvas. For all the control I have in my life, I cannot employ the same tactics when I create. There’s a fervour to my work. A rush. A need to pour everything out of me in violent strokes and disorderly manoeuvres. My phone dings, but without thought, I cancel whatever alert it is and continue.

Brush strokes, finger smudges, anger, frustration, and passion all blur on the canvas as the framework of the painting takes shape. I lose myself in the careful execution of some parts, and the chaotic, frenetic energy overtakes others.

My phone chimes with the app for the lift, and I put my brush down as I step back from my work.

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