Under His Ink Read online

  I was so unsettled that I’d ended our session after less than an hour. Blaming it on my back, I just needed to get out, get into bed and sleep. Maybe then in the light of day I’d be able to make a good decision.

  I crept into the apartment carefully to keep quiet. Rachel woke up with a pin drop. She was always awake so early that she was usually passed out by ten, eleven at the latest. I slid my shoes off and crept past her room.

  “Hey!” came a loud call. At least it sounded loud in the middle of the night when I was used to silence when I got home.

  Without thinking, I winged my keys straight out into the dark. My heart thundered in my chest. She was never up this late.

  “What the hell, Dahlia?” Rachel said, glaring at me and rubbing her forehead.

  “You scared the shit out of me, Rachel,” I said, clutching my hand to my chest.

  “I mean, I only live here,” she said, bending down to retrieve the shop keys.

  “Sorry. Why are you up so late?”

  “I had a work thing,” she grumbled. I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. Of course.

  “When don’t you have a work thing?” I asked.

  “It was a special project I’m working on. It went in a direction I didn’t think it would,” she said, and I didn’t miss the scarlet flush across her face. She plopped down on her bed. What exactly was she up to?

  “Tell me about it,” I said, pushing off the door and sitting on the bed beside her. The need to say something burst free from my mouth before I could stop it. “Have you ever gotten involved with someone you know is just going to seriously fuck with your head? Like maybe completely destroy you, but you can’t help it?” I asked, lying down on her bed. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. Ivan was a distraction. A distraction that threatened to consume me whole. I knew it would be a wild and delicious ride, but I couldn’t deal with his stuff and mine.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, lying next to me.

  “It’s nothing. I’m being stupid. I don’t have time for complications. I don’t have time for attachments. Gotta keep it light, right?” I got up off the bed. Rachel grabbed my arm.

  “Dahlia, you know you can talk to me. I’m here for you. I can go out and get a carton of ice cream and we can watch a movie or something. I don’t really feel like trying to go to sleep right now either.”

  “Sounds good, but instead of ice cream, we can order some Chinese food. Plus, we still have that macaron tower your mom sent over,” I said, hustling out of the room. I wasn’t hungry in the slightest, but if she was up, she’d keep asking questions until she got the info from me. She was a kind and sweet interrogator who caught you off guard, and then you started spilling all the secrets. “I call dibs on the raspberry ganache ones.”

  We ordered some beef and broccoli, egg fried rice and lots of General Tso’s chicken. I grabbed the bags from the delivery guy and had an egg roll in my mouth before I even put them down. We gorged on the delicious macaron tower until I thought I would burst. My phone buzzed beside me on the couch. I jumped up under the pretense of filling my bowl with even more food, leaving Rachel on the couch, and sneaked down the hallway and accepted the call without saying a word.

  “Did you make it home safely?”

  “No, I was murdered on the way, and this is my ghost communicating with you.”

  “Funny. You always had such a terrible sense of humor.”

  “You just never got my jokes. Thanks for checking up on me. I made it home safely. I’m grabbing some food and then heading to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I want to see you outside of our sessions.”

  “No.” The word leaped from my throat without hesitation.

  “We have a lot to talk about.”

  “Does it have to do with your tattoo?”

  “You know it doesn’t.”

  “Then we’re not talking about it.” Talking about the past was a surefire way to destroy the little bit of peace we had when we sat side by side for hours on end. Breaking that peace would spell disaster for the two of us.

  “Ivan, we’re not doing this. Either you come into my shop and I do your tattoos, and we keep it just that, or you can find someone else to do it. I said everything I had to say about you back in that gravel parking lot. If you want out, I can help you with that, but I’m not going to let you suck me back into your world. I can’t.”

  There was silence on the other side of the line. It was quiet for so long I checked to make sure the phone was still connected.

  “I’ll bring food tomorrow.”

  The tightness in my chest I hadn’t even realized was there, loosened the slightest amount. “You don’t need to do that.”

  “I’ll bring pelmeni.” He dangled that tasty Russian dumpling in front of my face, and even though I’d stuffed myself full of Chinese food, the deliciousness of pelmeni had me practically salivating. Once I’d brought myself to be able to eat them after him, I’d never found a place that made them like the ones he’d treated me to.

  He was bringing out the big guns.

  “Not cool. You don’t play fair.”

  “I never said I would.” His deep voice sent shivers down my spine. “I’ll bring two dozen.”

  “Don’t be silly; be sure to bring some for yourself as well.”

  His chuckle made goose bumps rise on my arms. Even over the phone, he had an effect on me I couldn’t deny.

  “Maybe I will.” It felt like we were two different people. Like this was the simple flirtation of two people who’d just met. Not two people with a past so screwed up that most people would have run screaming from the room. And a rap sheet to show for it.

  “Good night, Ivan. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Good night, Dahl.”

  I ended the call and slid back into the room on the couch beside Rachel. She put on another movie, and I tried to keep my eyes open.

  Ivan: There are so many other things I can do for you if you’ll let me, Dahlia.

  Me: I don’t need anything from you. I’m doing your tattoo and that’s it.

  Ivan: Maybe I’ll have to stop asking and just tell you what I can do for you.

  I vowed not to look at my phone after that. My phone vibrated so much that I tucked it under my leg before Rachel figured something was up. A few messages from him rolled in throughout the night. I willed myself not to read them, but I sneaked a peek anyway.

  Ivan: The first time I saw you in that yellow and white uniform, you reminded me of the sunrise.

  Ivan: Our first dance was to “The Killers Human.” I can’t hear that song without thinking about how beautiful you looked that night.

  Ivan: When you climbed out the window of your house and I caught you, I never wanted to let you go.

  Ivan: I’ve never seen a woman able to eat so many pelmeni. I think you set a world record last time.

  I finally dragged myself into bed as the sun crested over the horizon. Ivan’s messages made me laugh and more. It had been a long time since I’d let a guy get close to me. I tried to keep things casual. Not get too attached. Attachments were the surest way to heartbreak.

  Ivan: I’ve never wanted to be with another woman as I much as I want to be with you.

  But his texts were like being transported into the past. Reminders of our time together, however short it might have been. Its mark was branded on my soul no matter how much I liked to pretend it wasn’t.

  9

  Ivan

  Late nights weren’t out of the norm for me, but the on-edge feeling I had around Dahlia meant my nights were more restless than ever. Between Dahlia and Elena, it was a miracle I’d gotten to sleep at all. Elena’s disappearance hadn’t worried us as much as it should. She was resourceful and knew when to keep things to herself. Including leaving us out in the cold on her plans.

  I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat at my table. A stack of envelopes sat in front of me. Collecting the mail hadn’t been high on my list of th
ings to do. I hadn’t gone through them. Now I wished I had. A hand-addressed letter with familiar handwriting was tucked in among all the other crap.

  Elena believed that Sergei had eyes and ears everywhere. She didn’t know the limits of his surveillance, so she was always extra careful when it came to that. Someone threatening your life and using you for leverage against the last of your family had a way of doing that to a person. My gut soured that I hadn’t been able to protect her. Hadn’t been able to get her here earlier, but doing things on the up-and-up had its disadvantages, namely time. She’d been visiting the embassy regularly to tutor embassy staff in Russian, so as not to raise his suspicions. It gave her the chance to covertly apply.

  I scanned her letter. Written in her own version of a code that we’d all perfected through years of texting and e-mails, but for some reason she’d thought a letter would be best. The paperwork had finally cleared. It would only be a matter of weeks, if not days until she could get here. After so many years. The threats had hung over the heads of all three of us, and we were so close to finally being free of him.

  What came after was something else we’d have to figure out. There were so many scenarios we’d run through. Do we leave the city? Can I hold everything together with Sergei gone after what will effectively be a coup? What about Dahlia? I couldn’t ask her to give up the life she’d made for herself to be by my side. But I couldn’t live away from her. The loyalty of the men we’d turned was even more important than ever before. Now the life of the woman I loved hung in the balance.

  Sergei would have to be dealt with, and if I had to do it with my bare hands, I wouldn’t let him threaten the lives of any more of the people I loved. I grabbed my phone off the table and headed downstairs with Elena’s letter in hand. After ten minutes standing in front of his door banging on it, I finally called.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “Out.” Low music pumped in the background.

  “Where? You never go out.”

  “I know. What do you want?”

  This was so much more important than whatever the hell he was doing being secretive. Whatever it was, he’d tell me eventually.

  “I just got a letter. She should be here soon,” I said, swallowing past the lump in my throat.

  “Thank God. Finally!” Alexei said, his voice tight. “Are you going to tell Sergei she’s been located?”

  “Fuck no. And let him know his leverage is gone? I’m not saying shit until her plane touches down here.”

  “How do we get her to the airport without him knowing?”

  “It seems she’s making the arrangements on her own. Erik will be bringing her over. She has the visa. That’s the most important thing.”

  “I told you we should have just done it the dirty way.” Smuggling her in would have had a host of problems, not to mention that the idea of her being locked in a detention center made my blood boil.

  Sergei would have found a way to make that happen if we tried to get her to the US illegally. Laughable, that the man at the head of one of the biggest Russian crime families on the East Coast would send his only niece to jail to get back at Alexei and me. To keep her in Russia meant keeping us under his thumb. Over there he could operate even more freely and in the open and he had many more connections than we could ever stop if he decided we weren’t being cooperative.

  “And he’d have found a way to make us pay for it. To make her pay. Now, he won’t be able to.”

  “We’re going to have to handle Sergei as soon as she lands.” Alexei’s voice was tight.

  “I know.”

  “Are you ready to take over as the head of the Volokov family once it’s time?”

  He’d been the captain my uncle never believed he could be, except it was for me. Making sure when we made our move, we’d have the firepower and support we needed. Get Elena there. Alexei had no interest in the power the family wielded. He didn’t want anything to do with it, but he’d have my back. To ensure that there was always someone in the family I could trust.

  So it fell to me to take over for Sergei, but not the way he’d always planned. Not in the way that would secure his legacy. That had died with his wife back in Russia and son a little over a decade ago. He’d turned to blackmail, to murder, and destroyed any loyalty we’d ever had to him. And payback was waiting just around the corner.

  The trip to the shop always had me on edge. I varied my route every day. Sometimes I’d take a taxi. Other times I’d drive over and park in a nearby garage or walk. There was nothing suspicious, but I needed to make sure someone wasn’t following me to her. Any threat against her made me want to burn that mansion of horrors down, destroy my uncle and screw the consequences, but I had to be smarter about it.

  My routine with Dahlia was torturous, as it made my addiction to her that much keener. Sitting beside her on a daily basis with her hands all over my body, but almost never being able to touch her. We worked her way across my back, moving on to a new section while the piece before it began to heal. She’d managed to keep her distance, always evading my touch whenever possible after that first massage. My back throbbed and ached, but it was a constant reminder of what she’d done to me. The mark she’d left on me and would forever leave on me.

  Feeding her pelmeni was my surefire win. The dumplings meant I bought more time with her. A better chance to sit when she wasn’t jabbing her needles into me. Stretching our evenings from business into something more. I was an open book about most subjects, but I knew it was only a matter of time before this all came crashing down. She’d ask a question I couldn’t answer, or worse, a question where the answer would scare her. Answers that were on the tip of my tongue every time I was near her.

  I stared at her pictures on the wall, my gaze scanning over the hundreds of frames I’d seen for weeks now. They seemed to go in chronological order. The ones at the top were more clinical, snapshots that showed the tattoo and nothing more. As the pictures progressed, winding their way down the wall, they became more artistic. They seemed to capture not just the tattoo, but also the person she’d done them on.

  “Do you take pictures of all your work?”

  She peered over my shoulder, and I turned my head to look at her. Our lips were within inches of each other.

  “Not all. Some people don’t want their pictures taken. Especially the criminal cover-ups,” she said, turning her tattoo gun off.

  “What about me?” The colors of so many of the tattoos jumped off the walls.

  She slid the cool liquid across my upper back and covered my skin with plastic wrap like she did every day. My back was a motley patchwork of tattoos in various states of healing. “Do you want me to take a picture of them?”

  “My shoulder should be fine. You can’t even tell they were cover-ups. What do you do with them?”

  “With the pictures? Nothing. I put them up on the wall.”

  “You should show some of these off. I mean, I don’t know anything about art, really, but I have been to a gallery opening or two. These are something people would like.”

  She glanced up at the pictures covering her wall. “These? These are for me, and some are for my clients.”

  “You’ve got an eye, Dahl. The same one that created this”—I gestured to the flaming bird sprawling across my shoulders—“is a talent no one could ever overlook.”

  “Thanks.” She ducked her head and started to get up from her chair. I caught her wrist and stared up at her.

  “I’m serious.” My thumb traced a small circle on the inside of her wrist. Her pulse raced under my fingertips. I lifted her hand slowly, not wanting to break the connection between us. Her breath caught as I pressed my lips to the inside of her wrist where my thumb had been.

  “You should show them to people. Share them.” I placed another kiss there. She sucked in a sharp breath, but she didn’t pull away. “Let other people outside of the shop see your work.” I slid my hands along her forearm, keeping my eyes locked onto hers the e
ntire way. She stared at me like she was a little drunk, her eyes slightly glazed. Like I always felt when I was around her. Off-balance and unsure, which was something I’d never experienced before or since her.

  She was it for me. I just needed her to see that. Needed to work to convince her. I gently tugged her forward, and she took a step, then another, closer until I had her standing between my legs. Her bare skin was inches from me, with her cutoff sweatshirt showing just enough skin to make me want to see more.

  I put my hand on her waist, my rough hands on her silky-smooth skin.

  “I’ve missed you, Dahl.” I traced the small circles there too. “I never should have left you.” Her breath hitched, and then her eyes cleared. She jumped back like she’d been burned, breaking the contact between us. The loss of the heat of her skin made me want to reach out again, but everything in the way her back was ramrod-straight and tightness in her shoulders screamed No! Stay away!. She cleared off the tray, throwing out some things and sterilizing others without another word. I should have known better than to bring up the past, but we couldn’t ignore it forever.

  I could wait. I could be patient. That was what my entire life was. A practice in waiting for what you wanted, because you knew when the time came and you got it all, it would be even sweeter than you would imagine.

  I knew when I tasted her again, it would be even better than before. She was different and so was I. That early adulthood had been peeled away. Beaten out of us by life, and when we recaptured what we had, the taste couldn’t compare to anything I’d imagined.

  She stood in front of the corner sink with both her hands gripping the edge.

  “What are we doing, Ivan?” she asked with her back to me.

  “We’re trying to remember who we were and figure out who we are now.”