Room Twenty-Two: Hide and Seek
Axel smirks. “Would you like me to use stunning as an adjective to describe your wife instead?”
Samira places her hand on Max’s chest, and instantly his expression goes from anger to pure adoration. “Max, I’m gonna take Stella to the bar while you all talk about whatever you need to talk about.”
“How long have you been with Axel?” Samira asks as soon as we sit on our stools. She leans over and waves at the bartender. “We’ll have two cappuccinos.”
She turns to me, her eyes soft and warm. She’s breathtaking. So confident in herself, the world, and her place in it. Her being with someone as handsome as Max makes much more sense than me being with three men like Kian, Ronan, and Axel.
“So, how long have you been with Axel?”
“Um, I’m not sure if we’re together. It’s still relatively new, but I’ve known him most of my life. Well, I haven’t known him as such, but we’ve known of each other since we were in elementary school.”
Samira laughs and takes a sip of her Coffee, “Let me guess. He noticed how hot you got, and now he’s all on the prowl? What about the other guys?”
What about the other guys? I’m not sure how I’m going to answer her question. It’s not like our relationship is something most people would understand. Sure, poly relationships are more prevalent in society than they were ten years ago, but it’s still a hard conversation to have with someone. Hey, I’m with Axel, but I’m also with his best friends. I fuck all of them, but they only bang each other and me. They’re my boyfriends, but each other’s too.
A shadow lurks over me as the realization dawns that this will be a conversation I’ll probably have with people for the rest of my life if I stay with the guys. But if I decide to leave, would they let me? They said they would, but they also said they wouldn’t.
“It’s complicated,” I finally reply.
“You’re fucking all of them, huh?”
“What? No! I mean, what? How do you know?”
“The deadly trio. That’s how those three are known. They do everything together. Mind you, I’ve never heard of all three of them sharing one girl, but that doesn’t shock me. If they all want you and if they brought you here for their meeting with Max and Alexie, they trust you, girl. To them, you’re endgame. Men like ours have serious trust issues. It may not seem like a lot to you that they brought you here, but it’s the world. Trust me”
“I’m probably a commodity to them.”
Samira laughs. It sounds like chimes, pretty and sweet like she seems to be. She nods toward the table where all the men are sitting except for Mikhail. He’s standing behind Max and Alexie. “Girl, those men can’t concentrate on anything but you. Which in their line of work is a little stupid, so if you care about them even a little bit, you better make sure they know you’re theirs, and that’s where you wanna be. Trust me, these men rarely care about anyone or anything, but when they do, they are in it. They’re dangerous, but they love hard. I’m blessed to have Maxim’s love, and you, girl, seem to have bagged three of them.”
I’m about to answer her, but a man leans between us, blocking my view of Samira. “Now, what’s a pretty girl like you doing here without a man?”
“It’s a little presumptuous of you to assume I’m here without someone,” I respond.
He laughs as he trails a finger along my arm, making me flinch.
“You’d better crawl back to whatever hole you came out of before you find yourself buried six feet under,” Samira says.
“No one asked you,” the man snivels.
A scream escapes his mouth before he can say anything else. I don’t know what’s happening. All I see are the men surrounding him.
Kian’s holding the man’s head on the bar, broken glass and blood surrounding him. “No one asked me either, but I don’t care. When you decide to fuck with other people’s property, be prepared for other people to fuck with you.”
“Kian, I think maybe you should let him go. It’s broad daylight,” Max says, trying to talk Kian off the ledge.
“Let him do what he needs to do, Maxim. The man was rude to both of us.”
Max’s nostrils flare at Samira’s words, and he lodges a pen right in the guy’s eye.
Alexie laughs. “A little hypocritical, don’t you think, Max?”
“Pull him into the back,” Axel demands.
Kian lifts the man by his neck and drags him. We all follow down a corridor to a room in the back. Ronan opens the door, and Kian drops the man like he weighs nothing. The guy slumps to the floor, and fear washes over his face before he covers it, hoping to shield himself from whatever horror is about to be unleashed on him. One mangled eye oozes blood. He looks like he stepped out of a horror movie.