Page 86 of The Payback

“Say it. Say all of it because I won’t give you this opportunity again. Say it all now, and let’s bury it.”

She continues to deny me, her eyes boring into mine with years of resentment and anger brimming.

“You always were too scared to rock the boat. Perfect little Eleanor Carmichael: Perfect agent, the dutiful daughter, sucks up to the bosses, always does her paperwork early and files it correctly...”

“You’re an asshole!” she shouts. “And you took years of trust we had built and threw it all away in one fucking night. Do you know how hard it is for me to trust people? I could count the total of people I trusted on two fingers, Nikita! You were one of those fingers, and you fucked me as a distraction!” Her chest heaves as she gets it all out. “You fucked me, you left me, and then you left France. Do you know how hard I looked for you? I was sure you couldn’t have done it. I defended you!”

Her eyes fly wide as if she didn’t intend to say all that. And maybe she didn’t. The surprise on her face makes me think she didn’t even know how much she held inside her. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you know what it took for me to come here? To face you again? The girl you slept with, betrayed, then fucking abandoned?”

“I wanted to murder you, Nik. I wanted payback.” Ellie’s shoulders are shaking with rage as she pins me down.

“I’ve paid for it every day since I left. Every moment. Every lash of the flogger. All of it has been for many reasons, but the main one is betraying you.”

Her gaze softens a fraction, and I continue. “I had to do it,” I breathe. “It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with this life.”

She snorts with disdain, but I plough on. “You were never meant to be part of it.”

She flinches.

“I’d wanted you for months. So much so that I couldn’t even think around you. We were inevitable, and my biggest regret is that it happened the way it did. We were always meant to be, Ellie. The push and the pull was real. Our chemistry was and is real. ButIwas not. It wouldn’t have been fair to you if I’d let those feelings develop and evolve. You would have fallen in love with a lie.Thisis who I am.” I pull against her hands and try to encompass my room, the flogger, this life, with the strained gesture.

“This would have been better than the nothingness!” Ellie raises a hand and lands a shot to my side. She rages, landing blow after blow on my abdomen, causing me to shift on the floor below and sending more pain radiating through me. But none of it compares to the pain on her face. Knowing I caused that eats me alive from the inside out until I’m nothing but a pile of remorse and regret under her vengeful fists.

The blows to my body slow, and I reach up, wrapping my arms around her. She trembles in my grip; her body racked with shivers as the adrenaline high fades.

“Shhh,” I coo, my breath feathering the hair behind her ear.

Her body is heavy on mine, going deadweight with exhaustion.

“Look at me,” I say, encouraging her to turn her face towards mine. Her cheek rests on my chest, and I look down at the angel in my arms. Her eyes land on the flogger as it lies forgotten beside my head.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” she asks.

I sigh. I might as well get it all out on the table. It’s not as if I can hide this from her any longer. “I was raised in a Catholic family. Before my parents died, we were regular attendees at church, involved in every aspect, and my family was devout. After they died, I lost my faith. Why would God take them from me? How could he be so cruel as to snatch up two of his most pious members, leaving me behind?”

Thinking back to the hours and days after my parents passed, I was in a fog. I went through the motions, unable to think more than a minute ahead of the one I was currently suffering through. Then, Dimitri’s family adopted me, moving me from France to Russia and letting me grieve. I thought they were a gift from God, swooping in and giving me hope.

“Once the anger and disbelief faded, I attended church again with Dimitri’s mum. She never pushed but extended me an invitation every Sunday. One day, I went with her. The priest’s sermon that day included I Corinthians 9:27, where St Paul writes, ‘I chastise my body.’ Something clicked. I researched Roman Catholicism instead of Russian Orthodox; the more I read, the more interested I became.

“My parents were no longer there to punish me for my wrongdoings. The Aslanovs were more concerned with the end of the Cold War and focused on keeping the family in good with the Bratva. I was adrift, and when I stole a candy bar from the corner shop, instead of punishment, I was patted on the back for learning the ‘family business.’”

Ellie’s staring at my face, her eyes wide and unblinking. “What did you do?”

I chuckle at my adolescent ingenuity. “I unplugged the fan from my room and used the cord to whip my back in the early dawn.”

“Oh, Nik,” Ellie whispers, bringing her fingertips to her lips.

“It worked, though. With every strike, I felt freedom. Every cut, every welt was like releasing my sins into the universe and giving them to God. Atoning for my misdeeds.”

My chest expands, and I let loose a deep exhale, feeling some of the heavy weight leaving my soul. I’ve never told anyone how it started or why. Dimitri doesn’t even know the whole story, especially since the lack of parental punishment led me down this path. I didn’t want to sow discord between him and his parents when I was younger. I was just so grateful they took me in and then, later, well... later, I wasn’t around.

The one time we talked about it, we were seventeen, and he saw the marks on my back and asked if his parents had done that to me. I just shook my head and said it was a religious thing. Correct, but also wildly incorrect. The church has shunned self-flagellation since the Renaissance. I begged him to drop it and not tell anyone, and I trusted he would honour my request.

“Nik,” Ellie calls softly, returning my attention to the here and now. “I won’t tell you what you’re doing is wrong. Deep down, I think you know that, and if you want to stop, it has to come from you. But can I ask a question?”

I nod, tucking some hair behind her ear.

“Why were you doing this tonight?”

---