Sweet Collateral

“Do I not own this fucking house?”

“Language!” She jerks her head towards Anna, and I take the gun, putting it in the kitchen drawer. Anna ducks her head, covering her amusement.

Samuel strolls into the kitchen typing on his phone. “Morning.” His suit jacket is open—hair damp from the shower. He’d look like a respectable young businessman if it weren’t for the tattoos crawling up his neck and covering his hands and fingers. “Anna,” he jerks his chin as he takes a seat.

“You’ve met Samuel. He works for me.” She says nothing. Maria places a plate in front of Anna and then me, making one for Samuel.

“So, Anna, where are you from?” He already knows where she’s from, but I smirk at his effort to draw the little Russian into conversation.

She looks at him blankly, and I almost want to laugh.

“Think you might have finally found a girl you can’t charm, Sam.”

He smiles. “Ah, come on. I don’t bite.”

She glances at me and something passes between us, something unspoken. It’s like she’s looking for permission. “Moscow,” she finally says.

In my periphery, I catch him looking at me before he clears his throat and starts talking about a couple of bars I own. To Anna, it would all sound legitimate, but we really just use the bars to clean money. I find myself looking at her every so often, watching the way she slowly eats her food, savoring every bite. She’s filled out in the last couple of weeks, and as her health has returned, it’s impossible not to see how beautiful she is.

“Rafe,” Samuel says impatiently. I look at him. “A little distracted?” I glare, and he laughs as he bites off a piece of the bacon in his hand. Anna gets up and as quiet as a mouse, just leaves the room. I let out a breath. “She’s pretty,” Samuel says.

“Fuck off.”

“Don’t pretend fucking whores is beneath you.” He laughs.

“She isn’t a whore!” My muscles tighten with rage and the urge to grab him by his throat rides me hard. A whore chooses to have sex for money. Anna was a slave, taken against her will and raped. I tighten my fist on the table in front of me. “I have work to do.” I push away from the table, grab my gun from the drawer and leave the room.

I know nothing about the little Russian should rile me. Samuel calling her a whore, should not bother me in the slightest. It’s just a word. And yet I want to tear him limb from limb for disrespecting her. Shit, this is a problem.

14

Anna

I sit at the edge of the pond, tearing little pieces of bread apart and tossing them into the water. The orange and pearlescent fish rise to the surface, spots of luminous color in the darkness of the water. The pond is like a bubble, closed off from the outside world. The solitude brings a sense of serenity that soothes my fraught soul. I hear a noise behind me and whip my head around to find a shadowy figure lingering near the hedge line. Cigar smoke wafts on the air, and then a tiny cherry red glow illuminates the hard features of Rafael’s face. Only a few weeks ago, I hated him and everything he stands for, but I’ve come to trust him. Every night for the last week I’ve come out here to the gardens, and every night I see him. Sometimes we talk, sometimes he says nothing at all, but each time he leaves, he seems angry or maybe upset. I always think he won’t come back, but here he is. Maybe I’m a fool. Engrained instinct tells me to shut him out—interested only in the most basic survival, and Rafael is a threat to that, to the resistance I’ve taken so long to build. But then there’s this other part of me that’s getting louder. I think she was unleashed the day Rafael put a gun in my hand and helped me to shoot a man who had wronged me. That girl is angry and wounded, but she craves something more than just existence and survival. My body has become this war zone between the two parts—the accepting and the fighter—

two halves of the whole. Rafael gave me that, and for the first time in a long time, I allow myself to feel something I have always blocked out: hope. Dangerous and intoxicating, and it smells like cigar smoke mixed with expensive cologne and just a hint of beer.

Dark eyes watch me, twinkling in the darkness like a predator stalking its prey. I turn back to the fish and hear him move closer until he’s standing behind me. My skin prickles with awareness and my heartbeat quickens, as every instinct demands I turn around and face the threat that I know he is. And yet, I know he won’t hurt me.