“I don’t have my wallet, and I’ve already paid for this,” I took the glass and slammed it back without hesitation.
The burn was like fire, tracing its way down my throat and into my stomach. I remembered the feeling of George releasing his own hot liquid inside of me, and I choked, coughing and feeling my eyes water.
“Are ye alright?” Connor came around the bar to pat my back. It was late afternoon, and no one else was there. “Are ye sure a drink is what ye need, Vasily?”
Part of me wanted to rage at Conor. I could drink what I’d already paid for as fast or slow as I liked, and it was none of his damn business. But he was also as close to a stranger I could get, while feeling comfortable oversharing.
“I fucked up.”
“Ach, don’t we all sometimes?” Conor accepted my reply for the lifeline it was, going back behind the bar and getting a clean glass. He reached under the bar for a pre-tapped bottle of whiskey—Jameson, I noted—pouring me another two fingers and pushing it my way, “On the house.”
“Thanks,” I accepted without question, downing it as quickly as the first. I needed liquid courage to say any more, and the oblivion of getting drunk would mean falling asleep that night.
“What’s eating ye?”
Connor leaned his forearms on the bar, and I noted how veins popped out from the corded muscle. Conor was hot, and I definitely noticed it before. I just didn’t know why I noticed it until after. Would everything forever be before and after George?
Tapping my glass for a refill, I considered how to start. “I tried to…collect a new client for my boss. But I ended up being the one acquired.”
“Switching jobs?” Conor asked while he poured, unable to follow my convoluted explanation. “Or careers?”
“He had me almost ready to switch teams,” I tipped my third drink back and felt my body start to loosen, the tension leaving my shoulders as the liquor worked its magic. “But then I felt like he only wanted to use me, not keep me permanently.”
“No one likes to feel that way,” Conor nodded, as if he understood my predicament. “People want to be wanted, but they need to feel needed as well.”
Somehow, he got to the root of my problem. George wanted me, but once he’d had me, I wasn’t needed anymore. It made me feel dirty.
“Da, exactly,” I sat back, leaning my head back to stare aimlessly at the giant blackboard of random beers. “I lost all sense of who I was.”
Conor whistled, “Wild, mate. All that in the three days since I saw ye last?”
“The three longest, most uncomfortable days of my life.”
Also, the most exhilarating and life-changing. A big sigh gusted out of me and I bent over my arms on the bar. My head was spinning, but with less and less thoughts as the alcohol took hold.
“Well, good on ye for leaving the arsehole who made you feel this way.”
Conor kept trying to engage me in conversation until I got the will to get up and say my goodbyes. “Thanks for the drinks, but I think I need to sleep this off.”
“No bother. Hope to see ye in a better mood next time.”
I knew I couldn’t stay fucked in the head forever, but I doubted my mood was going to improve anytime soon. I didn’t have to be happy to be Bratva, I just had to listen to Kot Felix and do as I was told.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
GEORGE
Three weeksafter letting Vasily Kiselov walk out my front door, I was doing fine. Life went on without a blip. I was solid. Perfectly fine, in fact. Absolutely and completely… fine.
If I tore off all my bedding and broke a few plates that day, it was only because I was annoyed to lose my toy.
Josefina had asked if I wanted to talk when I came downstairs in sweatpants the day after, but I told her I was fine. While I’d canceled a few meetings about potential properties to invest in, I was still working out and eating, living my normal, healthy life. There was nothing to talk about.
The Kiselovs had given me three days to make sure Basil learned his lesson, and that was that. He no longer wanted to kill me, and I believed that, going forward, Basil would also question things that came from Ivanna. Though I was sure Felix had taken care of her access to the boy as well. I got one less day than expected with him, but I didn’t think the boy would try something so stupid again. Mission complete.
My personal goal of getting Basil to see his own sexuality as normal and not something to be ashamed of was on its way. He’d asked me to let him come as he was leaving, so I’d made progress. Hopefully, he was exploring it more. Though the thought gave me stomach pains and a headache.
Basil had wanted to go, and I didn’t control him. But I wanted to. Some part of me wanted to keep Basil beyond those three days. I needed to think of that stolen time as a precious memory and nothing more. I could get out there and explore it more, too–I just didn’t want to.
