Her Russian Brute: 50 Loving States, Idaho (5 page)

S
he shined
her ridiculously small phone light at him, and he shined his much larger one at her. What he saw caused his breath to catch.

A girl,
da
, just as Gregory had said, but her moon-shaped face was like his. Beautiful on one side, but destroyed on the other.

One side was lovely. With bronzed skin, a wide nose, and brown eyes so big, he could still see them clearly behind a pair of large tortoiseshell glasses, even in the shadows. But the other side of her face was destroyed. No, not destroyed, he realized after a moment, but heavily damaged. Covered in green and blue bruises and very swollen. He’d seen this kind of bruising before, too many times to count. He’d usually been the one inflicting it. But never on a woman.

Based on the girl’s small and plump stature, along with her glasses, he doubted she was a fighter. No, somebody had punched her. More than once. With what looked like a solid hook.

He stared at her in the light of his lamp, and she stared at him, both obviously taken aback by what they were seeing.

He opened his mouth to once again ask what she was doing here. Only to be caught off guard when she suddenly shoved him backwards.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” she demanded. “Are you crazy or something? Huh? Caging Brian up like he’s some kind of dog!?”

Ivan glared at her, and suddenly understood the American term, “spitfire.”

“This man was on
my
property. Not only trespassing, but spying on me. This town has strict laws about trespassing. By all rights—”

“Are you freaking kidding me?! Nobody has the right to keep a person locked up in an unheated building without a real bed or access to food, water, and a toilet. Brian has asthma and he’s over sixty years old!”

“No need to bring my age into this discussion,” the prisoner, who Ivan could now see had probably dyed his graying hair brown, said behind her.

“Shut it, Brian!” she returned over her shoulder. “Now is not the time for vanity! The point is, he’s a monster for caging you up like this.”

The girl turned back to Ivan, her eyes blazing with righteous indignation. “What kind of person does this to another human being?” she demanded.

“The kind of human being who finds a drunken
spy
on his property. And now I have
two
trespassers.”

His voice was hard enough to convey threat, but inside, his mind was scrambling with questions.
Who was she? How did she know the prisoner? Why wasn’t she flinching at his face?
He knew she could see it clearly by now.

But all she said in the wake of his implied threat was, “Look, you have to let him go. He’s got a sick spouse at home. And classes to teach. People who love him.”

A teacher.
Alexei had sent a teacher to spy on him?!?

“Why would Alexei send a teacher to spy on me?” Ivan asked her, finding this latest bit of information nearly impossible to believe.

The girl stopped, clearly wondering the very same thing. They both looked at the older man and she said, “Brian…?”

A beat of silence, then the man said, “Well, I might have slightly exaggerated my contributions during the Vietnam War.”

The young woman let out an exasperated groan. “Oh Brian, please tell me you didn’t give Alexei-freaking-Rustanov that bogus spy story!”

“It’s not bogus, dear girl. I delivered quite a few secret messages during that war!”

“Brian, you were a signalman—not a spy! And you delivered messages with
flags
! I can’t believe you agreed to do this!”

“We didn’t really use flags. I was in the Army, not the Navy—we had to erect our own
radio
towers, you know,” Brian replied testily. “Ask anyone, dear girl. We signalmen were a most valuable part of the war effort in Vietnam—!”

“Okay, okay, Brian…just please stop talking,” She shook her head and held up her hand at the older man before turning back to face Ivan. And to his surprise, she once again met his eyes with seemingly no trouble at all.

“So apparently he really
was
trespassing, but obviously you can see he’s harmless…”

“Harmless! I am hardly harmless,” the older man complained behind her. “If not for that ill-advised drink of Dutch courage at that sad establishment that passes for a bar in this town, I most likely would have completed my mission—”

“The point is, you can’t keep him here,” the girl told Ivan, speaking over the offended man as if he were nothing more than a frustrated child.

She continued to hold Ivan’s gaze, fighting for the old man despite his foolishness and despite the obviously painful injuries to her face, which confused Ivan even more. Who was this girl? And why wasn’t she afraid of him?

But somehow he managed to keep his expression as aloof and detached as possible, determined not to let his confusion show. “If the judge tells me I should release this man, then I will,” he informed her.

“When does the judge get here?”

“In the spring.”

“Great, we’ll come back then.”

She grabbed the prisoner’s arm and started to move forward, probably hoping to take Ivan by surprise again.

But not this time. He got in front of her before she could take so much as two steps.

“He is my prisoner, and you have no rights here. I was thinking of letting him go before you showed up. But you have pissed me off, so now he stays until spring.”

Her eyes widened, “What? That is ridiculous, not to mention grossly unfair—”

But then she stopped. Ivan got the feeling she wasn’t the kind of person who railed against life’s unfairness by the way her eyes darted back and forth. He could almost see her mind working over what he’d just said, as if the situation were a math problem she was trying to solve.

“No, I can’t leave him here,” she mumbled, seemingly to herself. “Eddie is sick and he needs him.” She shook her head as if making a final decision. “No, no, I can’t leave him here…”

She looked up at Ivan and said, “So how about if I stay here in his place? Like as collateral.”

Ivan blinked. Half sure he hadn’t heard her correctly. “You are offering to stay here with me?” he asked, not quite believing his ears. “Until the judge comes in the spring?”

A
t the same time
, Brian cried out, “No, dear girl, you have school! You’re almost done with your classes! And this is no place for you.”

“Yes, I have school and you have Eddie,” Sola responded. “One will still be there when I get home in the spring, but one might not.”

“I can’t let you do this. He’s a monster. His servants have barely fed me enough to survive. I can’t let them do the same to you.”

“Brian,” she said, taking her worried mentor by the arms. “You are like a father to me. You believed in me when no one else did. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m young and I’m strong and I don’t have anybody waiting for me back in Valencia. You have Eddie and your students. I can easily survive a few months in this cell, but if anything happened to you…”

Her eyes teared up at the thought of any harm coming to the man who’d seen a director with promise where other professors had only seen a poor undocumented Guatemalan who’d somehow gotten into the most prestigious art school in California—perhaps only to fill some quota. She shook her head at him, insisting, “You have to let me do this. You have to go. You know you have to go, and we don’t have time to argue about it.”

“No, you do not,” The Russian said, butting into to their conversation. He regarded them with hooded eyes and a bored sneer, like her and Brian’s drama wasn’t interesting enough for him.

“Also, I have not said whether I will accept the trade.”

She threw him a murderous look. Let him try to keep Brian here even one more freaking moment. He might be the big, scary monster in this situation, but she’d lost everyone she loved by the age of fourteen. She knew how to fight for the few people in life who were precious to her. And Brian and Eddie were definitely precious to her.

Judge be damned. She’d punch this guy in the throat with Brian’s car keys before she’d let him keep Brian here even a second longer.

She took a step forward, prepared to do just that.

But then the large Russian turned and yelled over his shoulder. “Gregory, are you still out there?”

“Yes, sir,” came a voice just beyond the building’s open door.

“Please escort my cousin’s spy to his rental car. Miss...”

He looked down at her, waiting for her name.

“Sola,” she answered, giving him her nickname, not to be friendly, but because the less this crazy dude knew about her, the better.

“Sola,” he repeated with a familiar sneer. It reminded her of Alexei Rustanov, the Texas billionaire by way of Russia, who’d funded the opera she and Brian had worked on last summer.

Hang on…Alexei Rustanov was Russian, too. Were these two somehow related? And if so, why had Alexei sent Brian to spy on him?

“
Sola
will be staying here in our prisoner’s stead until the judge comes in the spring. Escort Mr. Krantz out of town.”

“Yes, right away, sir,” the voice said, betraying no sign of surprise whatsoever.

“Go, Brian…” she said, pressing the keys into his hand before he could argue with her again. “We’ve only got an hour until the road closes, and Eddie is waiting for you. I’m not leaving. And if both of us disappear, Eddie won’t have anyone.”

Brian must have seen her point, because he finally started walking. “I’ll be in contact with Alexei Rustanov. He got me into this, I’ll make sure he gets you out of it.”

She could only smile. He might be asthmatic and cold, but nothing—not even a crazy Russian—could keep signalman-turned-director Brian Krantz from delivering a dramatic line as he made his exit.

Still, she kept her eyes on the Russian as Brian moved past the hulking man to the outbuilding’s door.

He’d agreed to her bargain, but seriously this dude was acting exactly like a villain in a bad action movie. And she’d sat through enough of those with Scott to know they were the kinds of guys who would pretend to agree, only to snap a hostage’s neck when you tried to make the exchange.

And this guy could definitely snap poor Brian’s neck. Even though he was wearing a pea coat, Sola could see those were muscles, not fat, underneath all that wool. Stretching the fabric so wide, she had to wonder if the coat, which fit perfectly, hadn’t been custom tailored for him. Being from California, she didn’t know much about winter coats, but she highly doubted there were many high-quality coats available that fit that well for guys as big as him.

To his credit, the Russian let Brian slide past him with barely more than a small sneer.
It must be a family trait
, she thought, remembering every time she’d been sneered at by Alexei Rustanov, the domineering billionaire who expected everyone to do exactly as he said.

They stood like that in their wildly mismatched stand-off. Listening to the men speak outside. “Right this way, Mr. Krantz, I’ll drive you to your car. Are you okay to get yourself down to the main road and to the airport?”

“Yes, I think so…” she heard Brian answered, his normally strong voice feeble with cold.

The voices faded into distance, and then she could hear the faint sound of a car starting up.

That was when Sola released the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. Brian was safe. In the car and on his way home. She could relax now… in the cold, dark cell she’d be calling home until spring.

“Follow me,” the man in front of her said, turning to head back toward the cell’s door.

“Excuse me?” she said, not understanding.

“You would like to sleep here then?” he asked, his crystal blue eyes cutting toward the silk dog bed on the floor.

“No,” she answered. “But don’t I have to? Isn’t that part of the deal?”

He grunted, irritation flashing across his half-damaged face.

“The
deal,
as you call it, is you stay here until spring.
Here
can be in this cage, or
here
can be in my warm house. I will let you decide.”

Then he walked away, as if to say it was up to her whether she followed him or not.

Sola studied his receding back warily. Her answer should have been obvious. Of course she’d rather stay in a place with some kind of central heating. Or a fireplace at least. But…

In the end, her shivering body made the decision for her. Stiffly propelling her out of the building and into the pitch-black night before her mind had time to chime in.

The sun, which had been in the process of setting when she’d first arrived in Wolfson Point, was now completely gone. And the only reason she could see anything in front of her was because the Russian’s house was lit up in the distance, and the Russian was trudging slowly towards it, carrying that retro looking oil lamp.

From Sola’s vantage point out there in the cold, snow-covered darkness…the stone manor looked warm and inviting.

So why was her heart beating way faster now? And why did she have the feeling that following this so-called monster into his warm house was an even more dangerous proposition than staying behind in the freezing cage?

A
woman opened
the door as they walked up a short set of stone steps to the manor’s huge back entrance.

“Name’s Hannah, miss,” she said as Sola followed the Russian through the door she held open for them.

“I’m Sola,” she answered, a little taken aback by the smiling servant.

After meeting the beastly Russian who’d imprisoned poor Brian, she certainly hadn’t expected to receive such a warm, friendly welcome to the main house.

“Well, I’m mighty pleased to meet you, Sola,” Hannah answered. “There’s a guest room all ready for you. Second door from the top of the stairs.”

A worried pang jolted through Sola at the thought of being so near a staircase in an unfamiliar house. But at least it was warm in here, so really, she couldn’t complain.

She looked around the small entryway beyond the door. It led off in two different directions. One toward a wide back staircase, and one toward a closed wooden door with the most delicious smells wafting out from behind it. Sola’s stomach grumbled, noisily reminding her she hadn’t bothered to eat since her call to Lorraine at The Thirsty Wolf this morning.

This morning…wow, that seemed so long ago.

It had only been a few hours since she was nothing more than a grad student in California, wondering whether or not to press charges against her abusive ex-boyfriend.

And now…

She studied the wide back of the man who had yet to break stride as he headed toward the stairs.

And now…she was someone’s prisoner.

Sola remembered what Brian had said about barely being fed during his time in the cage, and she wished like hell she hadn’t been so cheap on the flight out. She should have just ordered a meal from the overpriced menu selection.

“Hannah will bring you something to eat in an hour or two,” the man told her, coming to a sudden halt outside a closed door.

“Thank you,” she answered politely. Even as her stomach grumbled in protest at having to wait any longer for a meal.

Apparently, the Russian could hear her stomach, too.

“I am Russian. We eat late. But I know about you Americans and your early suppers. Hannah will make exception for you.”

“You’re Russian…” she repeated, remembering her question from earlier. “So are you, like, related to Alexei Rustanov? Or do all you Russians have the same sneer?”

A faint smile almost made it’s way to his lips. Almost. “Alexei is my cousin.”

Oh. Well, that explained it.

“Come,” he said.

He pushed open the door and walked into the room, once again expecting her to follow.

She did, and was stunned to find a very cozy bedroom with an ebony four-poster bed, a dark red Berber carpet, a little red couch, and a piece of furniture she recognized as a high-backed dressing bench, thanks to the high school summer camp production of
Beauty and the Beast
she’d directed a few months ago.

The room even had a fireplace, which she imagined would do a lot to reduce the large house’s nighttime chill.

As if reading her thoughts, the Russian—who had returned to the doorway, and was studying her with those crystal blue eyes—informed her, “Hannah will start a fire for you when she brings your dinner. I know you Americans are not that skilled at using real fireplaces anymore.”

“Ah…thank you, I guess?” she responded, not quite knowing what else to say.

And there they stood, watching each other with the same careful suspicion.

Yeah, he was definitely a Rustanov, she noted. She hadn’t recognized it in the shadows of the small jailhouse, but it was easy to see now in the bright light of the bedroom. He had the same perma-sneer going as Alexei and his brother, Boris. The same high, chiseled cheekbones, too, along with that weirdly intense glitter in his eyes.

But unlike those two, this Russian’s face had been through something. Something bad. Something that had presumably made him take refuge here in this remote and isolated mountain town.

“This isn’t
Beauty and the Beast
,” she found herself blurting out.

His crystal gaze narrowed. “What?”

“This isn’t a
Beauty and the Beast
-type situation,” she told him. “I’m not going to fall all over myself and sleep with you because it’s winter and you can’t get any more hookers up here until spring. I want to be straight with you about that.”

Also, she didn’t want to get used to this amazing room if she was only going to be tossed back in the freezing jail cell when she refused to put out.

A shadow crept over his face. “I understand. You want this room, but you do not wish to sleep with someone who looks like I do,” he gestured towards the deeply scarred side of his face, “in order to get it.”

“No!” she answered, struggling to keep her voice level. “I don’t want to sleep with you because of
you
. I don’t care about your face. My dad had a cleft palate—you know, a hare lip?—and he was the most beautiful person I’ve ever known. But you—you’re ugly on the inside. Only a really messed up person would put someone over sixty years old in an unheated jail cell and then refuse to release him, even after discovering he had a very sick partner at home.”

The Russian stared at her for a long time. So long, she wondered if he was trying to decide whether or not to throw her back in the cell. But then he said, “I did not know he was so old when I put him in there. Or that he had a sick partner.”

She shook her head. Was he serious?!

“You shouldn’t have had to know that! I mean, who does that? Who locks people up in unheated cages and leaves them there for days on end with hardly anything to eat or drink?”

Again the long stare, as if he was having trouble processing her words. She wondered if maybe his English wasn’t that great and she’d spoken too fast for him to follow. But she held his gaze, refusing to back down from what she’d said, even if he didn’t understand all of it.

In the end, he was the one who gave in. His eyes darting away from her as he said, “If you need anything, ask Gregory or Hannah. After tonight, you can go anywhere you like. But not on full moon nights. On full moon nights, there is a strict five o’clock curfew in town, and you must stay inside.”

Her eyes moved quickly from side to side before she asked the obvious question.

“Uh, what exactly happens on full moon nights?”

“It is difficult to explain, even I have trouble understanding it,” he answered. “But simply put: you are not allowed to go out on these nights. It is a very important town rule and it must be followed.”

“Okay…” she said, feeling like she’d stumbled into some kind of Beckett production. No, Pinter. No…both. This whole situation felt strange and dangerous, like the two playwrights had collaborated on a very surreal Russian performance art piece.

“And since I’m going to be living here until the spring, I guess I should ask: what’s your name?”

He flinched, as if this question had taken him totally by surprise. “I am Ivan,” he eventually answered. “Ivan Rustanov. Have you heard of me?”

She shook her head. “Should I have?”

He looked hard at her, sneered, and then let his eyes run over her outfit in a way that made her want to pull the lapels of Eddie’s old jacket closer together over her breasts.

Usually this big jacket brought her comfort. When she wore it, she felt like she was wrapped in one of Eddie’s patented bear hugs…something she really missed now that he could no longer give them. But at the moment, the jacket didn’t seem to be providing nearly the amount of comfort or coverage she needed.

“Tomorrow, Hannah will take you into town for more clothes. You will shop for a better coat, too, and a hat that is not silly. You will need both.”

“Okay,” she started to say, but was cut off when he turned and abruptly left the room.

She watched him go in a swoosh of black tailored pea coat, and felt completely baffled. By their conversation. By him. By this new and very weird set of circumstances.

Then the door slammed shut, effectively placing a barrier between the large Russian man and any of her remaining questions or comments.

I
don’t care
about your face.

Her words continued to haunt him. Long after he’d eaten dinner. Long after his ten mile evening run on the treadmill in the home gym.

He only bothered with the nightly exercise so he’d have an easier time falling asleep. That and about a half a bottle of vodka, drunk afterwards in the main study, usually did the trick.

But that night, he was in his study and nearly a whole bottle of vodka in, and he still couldn’t get her words out of his head.

I don’t care about your face.

Surely she’d been lying. But he recalled how she’d met his gaze so easily. How many woman had done that since the explosion?

Zero. Save for Boris’s wife…right before she punched him during last year’s Christmas dinner. And that didn’t count.

No, women didn’t look at him anymore. And when they did, it was nothing like it had been before. Now he most frequently saw horror mixed with pity.

But this woman had looked right at him. In the outbuilding, and in her room.

She’d looked
right
at him.

Yes, it had been with hate blazing in her eyes.

But not pity. Not pity…

I don’t care about your face.

He’d been feeling so dead inside just twenty-four hours ago, but now…

Now his cock pulsed behind the zipper of his tailored pants, the newly erect flesh between his legs begging him to take it in his hand. To do what he must to get her words out of his mind.

Drinking his vodka, he rubbed himself through the soft fabric. Kneading. Wanting. But not granting his body’s wish.

He’d fucked his hand too much over the past year. It was something he did to stay clear headed. Tug and kill. Tug and kill. Tug and…

I don’t care about your face.

But there was no one left to kill. Only her. Sleeping in the bedroom next to his. He could imagine her soft, curvy body tucked under the bed’s heavy blanket. Could see himself slipping between the flannel sheets with her. Taking off those glasses, and that silly raccoon hat. Keeping her warm with his tongue between her legs, while his hands explored all the smooth, tawny brown skin he was sure to find beneath all that tweed and denim.

He’d dated a lot of tall and thin models when he’d been Ivan Rustanov, international heavyweight champion. But there was something about this woman… cute but fiery…short but big, with wide hips and thick thighs. He could almost feel those soft thighs around his waist as he drove into her, taking what he wanted without having to worry about her breaking underneath him. She was similar to his cousin’s wives. The kind of woman built to take a Rustanov man.

He’d take his time with her.
Da
, he would. He imagined himself fucking her slowly, while looking into her pretty brown eyes, no longer hidden behind glasses. And she’d look back at him. Not with pity, but with desire, because of what he was doing to her.

A hot, molten sensation startled him out of the fantasy, followed by a wet, sticky goo that he couldn’t quite believe, but easily recognized from his teenage years, before being cool had trumped hormones.

He’d come in his fucking pants! Come just from thinking about her staring into his ruined face.

Come like a teenager for a woman who’d already told him she’d never sleep with him because he was ugly on the inside.

Which he was.

As the Americans would say, “Fuck my life…”