Page 85 of The Payback

I know they’ve been distant since that night in Dimitri’s studio with Alexei—tense and uncomfortable. Leaving them to work their shit out was perhaps the wrong approach.

Since digging into Ellie’s appearance in our lives, I’ve discovered their marriage is legitimate. They are legally married and have consummated their union. Doubtful that Interpol and the other connected agencies would try to forge or skip documentation easily obtainable by interested parties. All it takes is a request for information or a quick hack job, and they’d find the marriage licence filed appropriately.

Something sick twists in my stomach when I think of the lines I’ve crossed over the past few weeks.

I groan and get up when there’s a lull in their conversation. Now that Dimitri has all but confessed his love for Ellie, I need to flee.

Dimitri and I exchange words, but they barely register. I’m desperate to get out of here. To find my safe space and atone. I feel like shit for tempting Ellie away from her marital bed and deceiving her for so long.

I try to laugh things off, but that sick feeling remains. Ellie is a kind and patient woman—the woman Dimitri needs. They paint a pretty picture together, side by side, on the barstools, and they belong together, whether they know it.

Ellie laughs, and some of her sandwich shoots out of her mouth. She blushes, shrugs, and cleans it up, her eyes pinging between Dimitri and me. Fuck, she’s sweet, sexy, and far too good for either of us.

They need more time to talk things out. I need tonotbe here as they patch things up and I’m left in the dust.

Reality sets in, and I’d like to lick my second-choice wounds privately.

“I’ll be upstairs. Enjoy your sandwiches,” I say, brushing off my ass despite knowing the floor is pristine as fuck, and storm up the stairs.

By the time I reach my room, I’ve worked myself up into a torrent of self-loathing and self-pity. Ellie is married, and I was sucking on her tits in the car like she was mine. Like she belonged to me.

She’s broken the sanctity of marriage, and instead of turning her away, discouraging her and pushing her back to her husband, I’m dragging her down to hell with me. I shove the door open and fall to my knees in the middle of the space.

In a frenzy, I reach under my bed and take out the flogger, gripping the handle so tightly my knuckles turn white and the leather creaks under my palm. I take a deep breath, tilt my head down, and begin a prayer for Ellie’s salvation instead of my own.

She deserves it. I don’t.

Tension fills my body with every line of prayer and pitiful breath. As I finish the first round of prayer, I lift the flogger and the tails cut through the air, landing on my back. The pain isn’t immediate. That comes a second later, drawing out the exquisite and blissful torture.

I beg God again, lifting my torture device to the other side, letting it fly through the air and land on the opposite shoulder. My skin is hypersensitive after the first two hits, all the blood rushing to the surface and giving the sensation of pins and needles.

I count ten strokes, and the pain intensifies as hit after hit land in the same spots, abusing the already sore flesh.

Tears stream down my cheeks, but I grit my teeth, not letting myself stop.

“Nik!” Before my next hit can land, Ellie is in front of me, pulling the flogger from my grip. We end up in a tug of war as she tries to wrestle it from me. I’m not done, though, and stopping midway is unacceptable.

Doesn’t she know I’m doing this for her?

“Nik! Stop it!” She yanks at the flogger, the tails flying wildly between us as we try to tear it from one another. She lets go, and I fly backwards, landing on my inflamed back.

The pain is immediate and feels like fire racing up my spine. She clambers over me, pinning me with her hips and shoving her hands against my forearms.

“Get off of me, Ellie!”

“No! Not until you stop this. You said you would come to me! You said you wouldn’t do this. What the fuck, Nik?!”

“I’m doing this forYOU!” I shout, the tears of pain turning into ones of hopelessness. Isn’t that the same thing, after all?

She rears back. “For me? What the hell? No, you’re doing this for yourself. The same way you do everything.” Ellie cuts herself off, but there’s more on her tongue she wants to let fly.

I want her words to flay me the same way the flogger does. I deserve nothing less than the worst she can throw at me. Lost in my inner turmoil, I crave my destruction more than my next breath.

“Get it out, Ellie. You’ve been dancing around it for ages now. Tell me. Hit me.”

She shakes her head, biting into her lower lip, and her eyes are glassy with unshed tears. I hurt her badly when I left Interpol. She got into trouble because of me, and now I’m hurting her again. I can’t stop, and the sick part of me whispers that I don’t want to.

Because the only way to not hurt her is to stay away from her, and I can’t do that.

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