Authors: Hazel Hughes
“Sometimes. Most reporters have them. Or they’re psychopaths. You see things that are hard to forget.” She shrugged. No big deal. It came with the territory.
He watched her, waiting for more.
“I used to hang out at the White Horse sometimes, when I was green—a rookie, you know. That’s where the foreign correspondents would go to drink and bitch about work and share war stories. Literally. So-and-so was embedded in Kabul. Whatshername was in Libya. The way they talked, you’d think they had the market cornered on gruesome and heart-wrenching. And don’t get me wrong, they’ve seen some shit.”
She sighed, trailing a finger over the glass of the window, following it with her eyes. “But you see a ten-car pile-up on the FDR or a domestic in Queens, you get images burned into your retinas that come back every time you close your eyes. There’s a lot of ugly in this world. You don’t even need to leave the city to see it.” She looked over at him. His gaze burned into her with its intensity.
“You’re right. There is ugliness everywhere. But you must turn your head to the beauty, or you will be swallowed by it.”
“Is that what you do?” She reached over and slid down the zipper on his jacket, running a hand over the tattoo of the orthodox cross on his left pec, tracing the line of his self-inflicted scar, the X over his heart.
He put his hand on top of hers, stopping her. “Ugliness is not only around us. It is in us as well. I take the ugly thoughts, and turn them into beautiful images.”
“Is that how it works?” she asked.
He looked away from her. “For me, yes. Better than chemicals. Though sometimes, they are the only way.”
She thought of the bottle of Zoloft in his medicine cabinet and nodded, zipping his jacket closed. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. He buried his nose in her hair and wrapped his arm around her.
“Love is best, though.”
She didn’t say anything, just nestled against him, enjoying the moment. They didn’t speak again until the cab pulled over in front of Sherry’s building.
“It’s actually good we came here,” she said, opening the lobby door with her key. “I think I’m running out of clean underwear. I was going to have to go commando.”
“And that is a problem?” He gave her a cheeky grin.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the stairs, suddenly excited and nervous for him to see her space. “This way. Just one floor up. As you can see, it’s a little less swanky than your place.”
“Swanky?” he asked.
“You know, fancy. There’s no doorman. It could do with a coat of paint, new carpet.” She picked at a chip of paint on the doorframe.
Turning her key in the lock, she felt a wave of dread wash over her. Something was wrong. Her key usually needed some fiddling with before it would turn. This time there was no resistance. It twisted as easily as if it had been oiled. She hesitated, her pulse quickening.
“What’s wrong?” Alexi asked.
“Maybe nothing,” she said, not believing herself. She let the door open slowly and stepped inside.
“My God.” Alexi stood next to her, taking in the shambles that was her apartment.
The floor was invisible under piles of books, papers and clothes. Her bookshelves had been tipped over, the drawers wrenched out of her dresser and left hanging. The sofa-bed looked like the victim of a violent knifing, white stuffing spilling out of long slashes in the upholstery. And everything, the walls, the furniture, the heaps of books and clothes, was spray-painted with wound-red exes.
Stepping carefully around the mess on the floor, Sherry looked into the nook that served as a kitchen. Every dish lay broken on the floor, every box or bottle opened and dumped on top. The airplane-sized bathroom was the same, pill bottles opened into the sink, their contents a slimy multicolored mass underneath a glop of shampoo. On the clear plastic shower curtain, a huge red X.
Behind her, Alexi put his hands on her shoulders, gently turning her to face him. Shock and concern filled his green eyes. “It was them again, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “So much for my chemicals,” she said. A smile quivered on her lips, threatening to turn into tears if she didn’t get a hold of herself. “And my underwear.”
He pulled her to him, clutching her fiercely, his cheek on her head. “Bastards,” he said through gritted teeth.
Sherry rested her head against his chest for a second. His arms around her were so strong, the emotion in his voice so protective, it was tempting to just give in to the tears that welled in her eyes, to let herself be vulnerable. But what good would that do?
Pushing him away gently, she took a deep breath. “Hey, it’s only stuff, right?” She shrugged.
She edged past him into the main room, kicking at one of the piles, trying to believe herself. As violent as the attack at the Hyatt had been, this somehow felt worse. More personal. As if they hadn’t only violated her space, but her memories, too. Using her toe, she unearthed a photo of her family taken in front of the Merlion on one of their trips to Singapore. She picked up the paint-misted frame. A middle-school-aged Randall’s eyes were crossed and his hand formed bunny ears behind her head. Her mother gazed up at her father with an adoring smile. Both her father’s face and Sherry’s own were obliterated, obscured under a blur of red.
Beside her, Alexi had his phone out. The muscle in his jaw was twitching rapidly.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“The police, of course.” He didn’t look at her.
“No.” She put her hand over his to stop him.
He turned his angry green gaze on her. “Why? Sherry, we have to do something. First they attacked you. Now this. What next?”
“If the police get involved again, Frank will shut my story down.”
He looked at her, incredulous. “Look around you, Sherry.” He reached over and ripped open her snap-front denim shirt, exposing the healing wound on her chest. “Look at this. What story is so important that it’s worth risking your life for?”
She twisted away from him, but he put his hands on her shoulders and wrenched her around to face him. “You don’t know these people, what they will do. I grew up with men like this. They will kill you then drink tea with your body under the table. They will crush you like a cockroach.” The words shot out at her like bullets from between his clenched teeth. His eyes were wild. His fingers dug into the flesh of her shoulders.
Her voice was cool and steady, belying the pounding in her veins. “Then maybe you should tell Sergei to call off his dogs.”
He released her, turning away and rubbing his hands through his hair. “Again with this.”
She put a tentative hand on his shoulder. “I know he’s important to you. It must be hard for you believe that he’s behind this. But he is.”
He turned back to her, so suddenly she had to take a step back. His gaze hadn’t softened. If anything it was harder, hotter. But his voice was ice cold. “Why? Why do you think he’s involved? What is this story about, Sherry? What are you not telling me?”
She looked away. “It’s about your company. ABC. When I was researching the article I wrote about you, I came upon some figures that didn’t match up. Did you read my piece?”
He shook his head. “I don’t read my press. Not since London.”
Sherry was surprised, given how he claimed to feel about her, but she pressed on. “You must know that ABC is a hair away from bankruptcy, though.”
He looked at her as if she was speaking Mandarin. “What are you talking about? The subscriptions for this year are full. Every performance is sold out.”
“Thanks to Sergei’s idea to sign you on with the company,” Sherry said. “You’re the white knight riding in to pull it back into solvency. But it might be too late. To quote your boss, it takes more money than you think to run a ballet company. Especially when millions of dollars in donations are disappearing, I might add.”
“Disappearing where?” The heat had gone out of Alexi’s eyes, but the tone of his voice was still glacial.
“Several different places,” she said, looking down at her feet, then back up at him. Adrenaline coursed through her, making her heart work double-time. “Maybe into Sergei’s bank account. Maybe to use for bribes to convince his principal dancers to lick the balls of the donors so they’ll be a little more generous. Maybe into a shoebox in your closet. Among other places.”
Alexi’s head jerked, as though he was genuinely shocked. “You think I take bribes?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you think of it as payment due for services rendered. When you go to these parties with the donors, it’s more than just dinner and drinks, isn’t it?”
He tilted his head to the side, perplexed. “What do you mean?”
“I overheard some donors talking at the benefit. About your tattoos. The ones that aren’t readily visible. Under your tights. And how they’d be willing to offer more if they could see them.” She kept her eyes steady and her voice cool.
He stepped closer to her. “You’re asking if I take my clothes off for the donors? Sometimes. If they ask nicely. People are curious. I have no shame. Have I ever done more than that? Once. But only because I wanted to. Never for money.”
“So the money in your closet?” She wasn’t about to back down now.
He tilted her chin up with one hand, looking into her eyes. “I like to think about you looking through my closet, trying to know me better. To understand me. But that wasn’t it, was it, Sherry? It was only for your story. That is all I am for you. A headline.”
She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t like that. It, I … it’s just compulsive. I wasn’t looking for anything. Just looking.”
Dropping her chin, he turned away from her, crossing his arms. “You don’t understand, growing up in this rich, spoiled country where your government and your banks are like mother and father. You trust them. It is different in the Ukraine.” He glanced over at her. “That shoebox is my bank. My salary, any money I get for photo shoots, it goes in there.”
“Well, you recently made a massive withdrawal, then,” she countered, wanting to believe him, but not ready to let it go.
“Yes. Some, I sent to my mother.”
“The one you haven’t seen in years?”
He looked at her, the muscle in his jaw twitching. “In the Ukraine, maybe your mother locks you in a closet when her boyfriend comes over, because if he sees this little brat, he will not want her anymore. Maybe she tells you that you are worthless. You are stupid and lazy and will never be anyone, never have anything.”
“Oh, Alexi,” she said, stepping toward him, but he held up a hand to stop her.
“But still, you give her money. Because she worked seventy hours a week to pay for your ballet lessons. Because she sold her grandmother’s gold to send you to Kiev for auditions. Because she is your mother. This is how it works in my country.”
Sherry just looked at him, her heart aching for him, for the little boy locked in the closet and the man standing in front of her now. For once, she had no words.
“That is where the money is. Some of it. With the rest, I bought this.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a long slim box, Tiffany blue. He opened it and held up the contents, letting the box drop to the floor.
Pave rubies in the shape of a pea-sized flower hung from the fine gold chain. He stretched his hand out toward her, dangling the delicate gold necklace on his fingertips. It was a peony, she realized.
She reached for it, but he snatched it back. “This was my surprise. But you don’t want this. Bought with money I made, what did you say? Oh, yes. Money from licking the balls of the donors.”
“Alexi,” she pleaded. “I was wrong. I’m sorry. I just saw the money, the gun, and I didn’t know what to believe. I know how close you are to Sergei. I mean, he, well, he pretty much owns you, doesn’t he?”
He looked hurt. “He is like a father to me.”
“Yeah, well, get ready to learn some hard truths about your father. I have documents linking Sergei to the missing donations, Alexi. Undeniable proof. He’s embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Alexi stared at her, unblinking. “It cannot be.”
Sherry looked at him, sadly. “It is.”
He searched her face, as if he could find the truth there if only he looked hard enough. His brow furrowed into a pained frown and his eyes closed. He brought his hand to his forehead, still holding the necklace.
Sherry reached for him, wanting to soothe the hurt away with her touch. “I’m sorry.”
At the touch of her hand, his eyes opened. He brushed her away, a look of resolve on his face. “No.” He thrust the hand holding the necklace into his pocket and pushed past her, out of the apartment.
“Alexi, wait,” she said, following him.
He stopped on the stairs, looking straight ahead. “Don’t stay here. It is too dangerous. Go back to my place. We will talk when I return.”
And then he was gone.
Chapter Nineteen
Sherry went back inside. She picked through the mess on the floor until she found an unpainted pair of underwear. Stuffing them into her bag, she left, locking the door behind her. The police would have to be called, she knew, but not yet. First she would file the story. Several days ahead of deadline, too. Frank would be thrilled.
She took the subway back to Soho. The whole ride, she couldn’t stop thinking about Alexi. Beneath the X-shaped scab on her chest, her heart ached, a literal, physical pain, at the thought of losing him.
It wasn’t his sharp-boned, masculine beauty or the way their bodies seemed to melt into each other when they were naked together. It wasn’t that he could literally bring a crowd of people to its feet with his talent or that fashion designers and magazine editor fought to have a piece of him. It wasn’t that he was as driven to succeed as she was, or as dedicated to his craft. At least it wasn’t
just
those things. It was the way he wore his pain like a badge, on his body, refusing to be owned by it. And it was the sweetness of his smile, the openness in his clear green eyes, and the way he turned both on Sherry, letting her know they were for her and her alone.
She didn’t know where he had gone or what would happen when he got back, but she knew that she would do everything in her power to make things right with him.
Back at his apartment, she cooked the noodles, put them in a bowl and covered it with cling film. She cleaned up the kitchen, washing, drying and putting every utensil away in its place. Then she sat down at his kitchen table and opened her laptop.
In her inbox, as promised, were the documents from her “anonymous” source, Katerina O’Gorman. Transcripts of recorded conversation. Bank statements. An international money transfer receipt. All implicating Sergei Antonov. They were all that she could have asked for and more.
Opening up the Google doc containing her ABC piece, she got to work, adding information, deleting speculation, and cutting any extraneous fluff. In a separate file, she attached the new documents. Then, having saved everything to the shared drive that only she and Frank had access to, she shut her laptop down.
After braiding her hair and twisting it up on top of her head, Sherry stepped into the shower. She had told Alexi everything. Well, almost everything. For some reason, she had decided to withhold what she knew about where Sergei was diverting the money to. Revealing that both she and his surrogate father had been keeping things from him was enough for one night, she figured. If he was able to forgive her for that, she would work on how she would tell him the rest. Though the fact that the funds were going to support the Russian dissidents in the Ukraine was what
The Sun
’s readers would care most about, it seemed almost insignificant compared to Sergei’s betrayal.
As she toweled herself off, Sherry was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. Looking at the clock, she saw that it was almost three in the morning. She pulled on one of Alexi’s t-shirts and flopped onto the bed, groping for her phone in her bag beside it. She called Alexi’s number, but it went straight to voicemail.
Please come home soon
, she texted, almost too tired to move her thumbs.
Burying her face in Alexi’s pillow and breathing in his orangey, soapy, musky scent, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
It seemed like only minutes had passed before she awoke, heart pounding, aware that she was not alone in the apartment. Reaching for her phone, she keyed in 911, just in case. There was no light coming from the door that led to the kitchen, but she could hear noises. The opening of drawers, the steel on steel sound of a knife being removed from its holder.
Her heart beating wildly, Sherry looked around the room for something she could use to defend herself. There was nothing but books and no way to escape. And the door was opening.
Sherry threw herself to the floor on the other side of the bed, crouching low, as the door opened. The room was dark, but the glow of the streetlights filtered through the windows, shining on Alexi, bare to the waist holding a bowl of noodles and looking at the bed quizzically.
“Sherry?” he asked. “What are you doing down there?”
She stood up, laughing as relief flooded over her. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Or wake you. But I was dying from hunger. These are delicious, by the way.” He lifted a fork full of noodles to his mouth, moving to sit on the bed.
“Are they? I didn’t try them.” She sat beside him, folding her legs to the side.
“You haven’t eaten?” He looked at her with concern.
She shook her head. “I couldn’t eat. I was too … worked up, I guess. After what happened at my apartment. Not just the mess. What happened with us.” She looked into his eyes hoping to find forgiveness there. He looked at her sadly. She wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Where were you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Later. Open your mouth,” he said. After twisting some noodles onto the fork, he raised it toward her. She let him feed her, eyes not leaving his.
“I was upset, too,” he said, spearing another forkful. “No, upset is such a small word. Open,” he ordered. She did. The noodles were good. Spicy and savory and rich in their silky sauce. She was ravenous, she realized.
“I was burning with anger and hurt and betrayal. Like, a … what do you call those things? For making a mark on cows?”
“A brand,” she mumbled around the noodles. A pang of guilt lanced her chest.
“Like a brand, right here.” He thumped his chest. “You can imagine.” He looked into the bowl, found a piece of meat and stabbed it with the fork. “To realize that the two people you love have been deceiving you. Open.”
She turned her head away. “No. You eat.” As hungry as she was, she couldn’t blithely nibble noodles, knowing how he felt. She had to explain. She had to make it right.
He shrugged, pulling the meat off the fork with his teeth. He chewed, staring into the distance.
“I’m sorry I kept things from you,” Sherry began, uncertainly.
This was unfamiliar territory, apologizing. Ever since she had come out to her parents as a journalism student, she hadn’t apologized for anything more than accidentally bumping into someone in line at Starbucks. If people didn’t like what she did, tough. That was their problem. But this, this was different.
“I wish I could tell you that I was doing it to protect you, but I wasn’t. I was doing it to protect myself. Like this married guy I used to date, I wanted my steady thing, and I wanted my something on the side. I wanted my Pulitzer-prize winning story, and I wanted you. In my head, I knew the two were mutually exclusive. I knew I shouldn’t be sleeping with someone in the company I was investigating, especially someone I suspected of criminal activity. But I was dazed with lust. I had to have you.”
He looked at her, fork forgotten in the bowl. “Lust. Is that all it is for you?”
She picked up the fork and fished around in the bowl. “At first, yes. Or at least, that’s all I let myself believe it was. And just like my ex, I knew where my loyalties lay. With the job. With the story. If it turned out you were in on Sergei’s embezzlement racket, I was ready to distance myself faster than a bullet train.”
Scooping a forkful of veggies and noodles into her mouth, she looked at him, but he was staring into the bowl, his mouth turned down like he had tasted something bitter.
“Then things got complicated,” she said.
He looked up at her. A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “This word again. Complicated how?”
Spearing a piece of meat, she lifted it to his mouth. “You like the barbecue pork?”
He took it, chewed and swallowed, waiting for her answer.
“Complicated like, I couldn’t walk away from you. Complicated like, I realized I would rather chop off the fingers of my right hand with a filet knife than be without you. Then it became even more important to hide the story from you, because when you found out … well, you know. It happened.”
He took the fork from her and put it in the bowl. “And if I had been involved with this embezzlement?”
She shrugged. “I would have killed the story. And been in love with a criminal. It’s not the first time in history it has happened.”
Shaking his head, he put the bowl on the floor beside the bed. “No. I cannot believe this. This is one of the things I love most about you. How you must find the truth.” He took her hands in his.
“Find, yes. Publish, maybe not.” She looked down at her hands, clasped in his. His fine, long fingers. So expressive on stage. And in bed.
Reaching up to stroke her hair, he said, “How could you be in love with a criminal?” His voice was a silken caress. He ran the back of his hand down her cheek and lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him.
“That is what you said, isn’t it?” he teased. “In love?”
She smiled. He kissed one corner of her mouth and then the other. “Say it again. Tell me about your
complicated
feelings for me.” He sat back, arms crossed, a smirk on his face.
When was the last time she had told anyone she loved them and meant it? Other than her parents. She sighed, feeling the blood rushing to her cheeks. She put her hands to them, but Alexi grabbed her wrists, pulling them away.
“You know I love this color. It tells me the truth that you want to hide. Now say it.”
“I love you, all right?” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts.
He pulled them away and lifted her onto his lap. “I like this, by the way.” He ran one hand along the hem of the t-shirt she was wearing, high on her thigh. “Very sexy. Better than a dress even. Now tell me again. Not so angry this time.”
She could feel him growing hard under her. Twisting to face him, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Her moist heat pressed against the naked skin of his flat belly. She leaned into him, whispering in his ear. “I love you.”
“Mm. Better,” he murmured, nuzzling beneath her hair to find her neck. With his mouth open, he kissed her. His teeth dug into her as his tongue pressed against her flesh. His hands roamed under her shirt, sliding up her back then down to cup her cheeks. “Again.”
“I love you,” she said. Unwrapping her legs from his waist, she rose to kneeling, straddling him, so she could slide his zipper down. She reached inside, finding him smooth and hard and naked. “Looks like I’m not the only one going commando.”
“Tomorrow’s laundry day.” He smiled, extricating himself from her grip. He stood up, pulling her with him and pressed her back against the wall. “Look in my eyes and tell me again.”
She linked her hands behind his neck and looked into his clear green eyes, eyes the color of the spring-filled quartz quarry near her parents’ cottage upstate. “I love you,” she said, earnestly, feeling it in her heart and her veins and her loins.
“Yes, like this,” he said. Lifting one of her legs, he wrapped it around his waist. He unbuttoned his trousers and let them drop to the floor. Not bothering to step out of them, he parted her slit and slid into her, filling her.
She closed her eyes, letting the sensation flood her. He pulled out slightly and thrust in deeper. Still deep inside her, he bent his head to kiss her, filling her mouth with his tongue as he filled her passage with his hardness. Sherry’s body thrummed. Every nerve stood at attention, aching with desire, as he pulled out and plunged into her. With one hand tangled in his hair, she reached down between her legs to touch herself.
She rubbed the top of her hot, aching bud as he massaged its underside with each thrust. He pulled his mouth from hers with a moan.
“Tell me again.” His eyes were glazed with desire, half open. She imagined hers were the same.
“I love you,” she panted. “God, how I love you.” He had stopped thrusting, but she continued to touch herself, feeling her pleasure building to the point of no return.
He ran his hands through her hair, his gaze traveling over her face and her body in wonder. “My flower. My beautiful, beautiful peony. Love is not a word strong enough for what I feel for you. There is no word.”
“So stop talking and show me,” she breathed. Her climax was beginning, shimmers of sensation radiating out from her core, building, getting stronger and more powerful.
His gaze not leaving hers, he lowered his hands to her hips and thrust into her, deep and hard, rocking into her, while her passage contracted around him. Gripping his shoulders, her short fingernails dug into his flesh as sensation so intense it was almost unbearable swept over her. He gasped, his mouth falling open. Pleasure wracked his body, and he came, too.
The rocking of his pelvis slowed, the grasp of his fingers on her hips released, but his heart was still pounding, his chest heaving. She kissed his neck and his jaw, loving the rough stippling of stubble against her lips, loving how he looked after he had just come, vulnerable and dazed and raw and open. She loved the innocent wonder in his eyes, as if she were a rare and precious gem he had just discovered.
She smiled, love-drunk and satisfied. Alexi, his breath returning to normal, gave her a sweet smile of his own before bending to kiss the corners of her mouth. Then, reaching down to cup her buttocks, he lifted her. She wrapped her other leg around his waist, and he turned to the bed, lowering them both down slowly, still inside her. Propping himself with his elbows on either side of her, he looked into her eyes.