Endless love a psycholog.., p.5
Endless Love: A Psychological Romance, page 5
“Mr. Taylor here,” Bradley looks over at Nate, “was wise enough to go to the police after his assault. Or, at the very least, his brother was, just before Mr. Taylor was taken to the hospital. The local police were quite unable to determine who the assailant might have been, but they contacted the FBI, since there was a possibility of linking it to one of the criminal organizations in the city. We, of course, are well aware of Mr. Kariyev’s connection to you, Ms. Williams, and your former connection to Mr. Taylor. All put together, and with some simple tapping into your phone, we were able to put together that Mr. Taylor had recently sent you some unsavory messages. We were also aware that Mr. Kariyev had been tracking your phone and laptop activity. He must have been aware of Mr. Taylor’s—shall we say, threats to you, and engaged in some good, old-fashioned vigilante justice. Which, of course, we disapprove of, being the law.”
“You were what?” I pivot, looking at Ivan, my mouth dropping open. But he still won’t look at me. He’s staring directly at Bradley, never flinching, and the expression on his face is near-murderous. For the first time, I can see the man that Ivan says he is, clearly, in his face. I see a man who could work for an organization like the one he says he’s a part of. I see a man who could do what he seemingly did to Nate. And it terrifies me.
It also makes me wonder, in some small, wicked part of my mind, what it would be like to have a man like that in love with me. Protecting me. Keeping me safe, forever, from men like Nate. From men like Bradley, who I still don’t trust. Who I maybe trust even less now, after everything he’s said. Some deep, instinctual part of me says that I shouldn’t go with him. But I’m trapped, and I don’t think I’m going to be given a choice.
Bradley’s smile broadens as he finishes, but it still never meets his eyes. “Now, Mr. Kariyev, we have you on assault. Your information has been useful, but not useful enough. So you’ll also be brought up on kidnapping and trafficking charges, for the abduction and attempted trafficking of Ms. Williams—”
“That’s not what happened!” I burst out, but once again, Bradley continues talking over me.
“If you don’t want to die within a few days of being sent to a supermax facility, Mr. Kariyev, you’ll give us more information than you have thus far. Of course, that information won’t buy you your freedom any longer. It will, at most, buy you your life. In solitary, of course. But that’s life, at least.”
“And you’re coming home with me,” Nate interrupts, looking at me. “Charlotte, I’ve had enough of all of this. I get that you were pissed about the cheating, but I’ve explained myself already. There’s no reason to throw away five years of a relationship over it. You’ve gotten me back with this trash—” he looks disparagingly at Ivan, then back at me. “It’ll be hard for me to get over the fact that he’s touched you, but I’m sure in time—”
Before Nate can finish his sentence, Ivan shoves himself forward, putting his body in between me and Nate. “You’ll touch her again over my dead body,” he spits, and this time, Bradley’s smile does reach his eyes.
“That can be arranged, Mr. Kariyev,” he says smoothly, and I feel Ivan tense.
“Charlotte, get in the car,” Ivan says, his voice low, and Nate almost immediately interrupts him.
“Charlotte, come here. What you saw in that piece of trash, anyway, I’ll never understand, but we can talk about your little rebellion later—”
“I’m not a child!” I snap, lurching around from behind Ivan to glare at Nate. “I’m not going to let you talk to me like that. And I’m not a dog, for you to whistle at—”
“Enough,” Bradley snaps. “You’re coming with me, Ms. Williams, for questioning. And then—”
“She’s not going anywhere.” Ivan’s hand comes up, and I feel all the blood drain from my face as I see a gun in his hand, one that I have no idea where it came from. “Except with me.”
6
IVAN
Putting a gun in Agent Bradley’s face is far from the smartest thing I could have done. But I’ve long since established that when it comes to Charlotte, all of my better sense goes out of the window.
This is just another symptom of that.
I knew that Agent Bradley had it out for me. I still knew that this morning, when I called him on the burner phone and told him what had happened, and that I needed his help getting Charlotte out of trouble. And I’d believed him when he’d said that he would help.
I’d believed him because he’d helped Sabrina. I don’t know for sure where she is, or if the promises that the FBI made her panned out, but I know that my father didn’t get to her. If he had, I’d know that. Which makes me think that Bradley kept his promise to help her.
It made me think he’d keep his promise about Charlotte.
Right up until I saw Nate get out of the car.
I was still willing to play along, if it meant Charlotte getting to safety. I would have let Bradley throw me into the deepest, darkest hole in the most maximum security of prisons if it meant that Lev and my father couldn’t get to her. There’s nothing I fear more than prison—not torture or death—but I’ll take it if it means she’s safe. I’ll do anything to make sure she’s safe.
Especially because all of this is my fault.
But I knew when Nate started talking that Charlotte wouldn’t be. That he’d find a way to end up taking her home. That Bradley doesn’t give a shit what happens to her—that maybe he resents me enough to let her be a scapegoat, because it would be one more knife to dig in.
I can’t let that happen. So I slip the gun free, fast enough that Bradley doesn’t see it coming, and level it at his face.
“We’re leaving,” I say flatly, coldly, but the smile never leaves his face.
“You really think I came here alone?” He doesn’t flinch, and just behind him, I can see the other doors to the black car opening. Two more agents. “They’ll bring you down, Kariyev, and take her. Who knows what happens then? She probably doesn’t have enough answers for us. Not enough to make protecting her worthwhile. I wonder if your father will still want her, with you dead or locked away? Probably, even just as—”
“I’ll drop you before they get to me,” I growl. “Call them off, and let us go.”
Behind me, I can feel Charlotte flinch. I know what this must be doing to her. This is already more than she could have ever imagined dealing with in reality, a gritty level of violence before a shot ever goes off that she should never have had to confront. And now that Bradley has drawn his line in the sand, there will be more.
I should never have gone near her. But I did, and now it’s too late. And I can’t even say I’m sorry.
Not and have it not be a lie.
Bradley drops in the instant before I pull the trigger, with an instinct born of years of training. He’s a piece of shit, but he’s good enough at his job to know when a bullet is coming. My shot goes wide, just missing one of the other agents, and I react in the split second before they fire, pushing Charlotte down to the asphalt as their bullets hit close to us, spraying bits of it in both our faces.
They’re not going to stop shooting until they’ve killed us, or fucked up my car so badly I can’t drive. Bradley is already starting to push himself up, and I fire again from where I’m lying on the ground, clipping his arm. He grabs it, rolling onto his back with a groan as blood spills out onto the asphalt, and Charlotte lets out a high-pitched scream.
Winging Bradley might have distracted the other agents just long enough. “Get in the fucking car!” I growl at Charlotte, shoving myself up and firing twice more at the other agents’ feet, spraying gravel at them as I bolt for the driver’s door. I want to fling her into the car myself, but I don’t have time. All I can do is hope like fuck that she follows instructions as I yank the door open, jumping inside, and shoving the key into the ignition.
To my relief, she slides in next to me, just as the agents fire again. I slam my foot down on the gas, the car peeling away, and for a second, I wish I’d angled it so I could have run over Nate’s fucking face.
Or at least his hand.
Gunshots are still peppering the asphalt behind us as the car swerves, and Charlotte screams, clinging to the side of the door as we jolt out onto the road, accelerating as I drive with only one thing in mind—getting us as far away from that fucking motel as I can.
When I finally look over at Charlotte, I can see that her face is paper-white. She’s still gripping the side of the door, frozen still, her lips pressed tightly together. She hasn’t cried, not through any of this, and I don’t know whether to be impressed or worried. I can’t think of many other people who wouldn’t have. At least a little.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her finally, when we’re back on the highway and it’s clear that we’re away from any pursuit. I intend to stay on the highway for a little while, and then get off on surface roads, to make it harder for them to follow us. “I had no idea that he would pull that shit. I definitely didn’t know that Nate would be there—”
“Because you thought you killed him?” Charlotte swings sharply towards me, her face bloodless, and I’m so shocked that it takes me a second to answer.
“What? No, of course I didn’t fucking think I—”
“So you did do it.” She faces forward again, ramrod straight in the seat. “You beat him to a pulp and then…carved that awful message in his chest.” The last part sounds forced out from between her lips, as if she can barely bring herself to say it. “Holy shit, Ivan.”
Fuck. I let out a slow breath, trying to think of what I can possibly say to her. I was right about one thing—she doesn’t belong in this world. What I did to Nate was child’s play compared to what I’ve done to other men, and not nearly as bad as what I thought he deserved, and yet, Charlotte is clearly horrified. And I can’t blame her. That kind of violence isn’t normal for her—and I don’t want it to be. I never did.
“He threatened you,” I say quietly, staring straight ahead at the highway in front of us. I check my GPS and take the next exit off, and Charlotte tenses immediately.
“Where are we going?”
“Surface roads. Make it harder for us to be tracked. What, do you think I’m going to hurt you? That I’m going to take you somewhere and…what? Leave you in a ditch?” I try to hide the hurt in my voice, but I can’t. I’m willing to do anything to make sure this woman is safe, and it’s pretty fucking clear that she’s afraid of me now, too.
On one hand, I can’t exactly blame her, after what she’s just seen. But on the other—surely she’s also seen what I’m willing to do to keep her safe.
“Maybe.” Her jaw is clenched now, too. “Clearly, I don’t know you at all, Ivan.”
That dagger she shoved in me when she told me to take her home and leave her alone twists, and before I can stop myself, I slam my foot against the brake, wrenching the car over to the side of the road and skidding to a stop in the grass. We’re out in the middle of fucking nowhere, Illinois, and there’s no one to be seen for miles. Charlotte seems to realize this, but for all the wrong reasons, because her already bloodless face seems to go even paler.
“You know some things,” I say quietly, my voice hard and sharp. “You know I’d rather eat a burger out at a pub than drop five hundred dollars on a Michelin-starred meal. You know I’ll go apple picking with you on a fall afternoon, when all your other boyfriends would rather stay in and watch the game. You know I’m shit at baking, but I can at least peel an apple, so you make up for the rest of it. You know I make you laugh.” I reach out, my finger tracing down the line of her jaw, because I can’t stop myself from touching her. Even like this, angry and frightened, she’s beautiful. Even like this, I can’t make myself stop wanting her.
“You know what it feels like when I kiss you. You know the way I look at you when you’re all spread out for me naked, sweet as that apple pie we baked. And you know how hard I can make you come.” My fingers close around her chin, and I turn her face to look at me, but she jerks it away just as quickly.
“And how much of that was real?” She looks out of the window, twisting as far away from me as she can get. “How much of that was just you trying to get me to fall for you, so you could have what you wanted from me?”
All of it was real. But I can see that she’s not going to believe that. Not right now. Maybe not ever, with the way things are going.
“Fuck, Charlotte.” I shake my head, putting the car back into gear and pulling back out onto the road. We don’t have time to sit here and argue, not with what we have on our tail. “We can finish this conversation later,” I mutter, gritting my teeth as I start to drive again.
“Let’s finish the one where I found out that you beat the shit out of Nate,” she spits. “And—”
“Put a reminder on him, since he’s too stupid, or too much of an asshole to know when to quit?” I look over her, feeling a jolt of anger that she won’t let this go. “I didn’t think you gave a shit about him. He cheated on you, remember? Made you feel like shit, even though you didn’t deserve it. Wasted five years of your life. Why the fuck do you care what I did to him?”
“I—” Charlotte stammers, looking down at her hands. “I don’t know if anyone deserves anything like—that. Even if they—”
“Plenty of people do.” I feel my jaw clench as I twist my hands on the steering wheel. “And some people don’t. I’ve hurt both, Charlotte, doing what I do for my father. And that’s what’s really bothering you, isn’t it? Not that Nate got the shit beat out of him, but that it was me that did it. Me, who you’ve eaten dinner with and baked pie with and watched movies side by side with, like a normal girl with a normal boy. Me, who you’ve let inside you, who you’ve let—”
“Stop!” Charlotte shouts the word, throwing up her hands. “I get it! I let you fuck me, but I didn’t know, and—”
“You knew this morning.” The hurt is in my voice again, icing over every word, and I can’t hide it. I know I’ve done more wrong in this than I can probably ever make up for, but Charlotte seems intent on pretending that she has no hand in it. That she was fooled in every little thing, and while I’ve lied to her about plenty that she doesn’t even know about yet, there are some things she did know. And this morning is one of those things I’ll hold on to, even though I know I didn’t deserve that, either.
Her mouth sets in a thin line. “You stalked me.” She swallows hard, the delicate line of her throat moving, and the sight of it makes me twitch in my jeans, aroused despite the argument. Hell, maybe partially because of it. Sweet, innocent Charlotte is beautiful and desirable in every way, but angry Charlotte is a spitfire, and it makes me want to pin her down and fuck her while she spits those angry words at me, until I find out if I can turn those curses into moans.
“You tracked me,” she continues, and the anger is back in her voice. “Spied on me. I heard what Bradley said. That’s how you knew what Nate was saying to me. I never told you about it. That’s how you knew where I ate lunch. You finding me at Cafe L’Rose wasn’t an accident—” she trails off, and I feel myself tensing, knowing how close she is to putting together the rest. To figuring it all out, and then god knows she’ll never forgive me.
I should just tell her. I shouldn’t keep dragging it out. But once I do, any chance of there being anything more between us will be gone. And I’m not ready to let her go just yet.
“You’re right,” I tell her quietly. “And I shouldn’t have. All of that was wrong, but—”
“What do we do now?” She cuts me off, clearly uninterested in my apologies. Which is probably for the best, because I still don’t know how to tell her that I’m sorry in a way that feels sincere. In the end, what I want is still what I shouldn’t have—a way to keep her. “Your plan with Bradley clearly isn’t going to work out. He wants to throw you into the deepest pit available. And I’m almost inclined to agree with him,” she adds acidly, bitterness coating every word. “I just trust you slightly more than I trust him.”
“I suppose I should be glad for that,” I mutter, and she looks over at me, her face still bloodless and mouth set in a hard line.
“He’s a snake,” she says flatly. “He felt—wrong. And he betrayed you, so clearly, he’s not someone to be trusted.”
“I’m a criminal, and he’s a fed.” I chuckle darkly. “Isn’t that just what he’s supposed to do?”
Charlotte seems to consider this for a moment. “Not if you had an agreement,” she says finally, folding her hands together in her lap. “He should have kept his word.”
It’s a naive view of the world, but I don’t tell her that. “He’s going to be after us, too,” I tell her quietly. “We’ll have the FBI and the Bratva on our asses now. We’re going to have to be careful, and you’re going to have to listen to me, Charlotte.”
“Then maybe you should tell me what we need to do.” Her voice is icy, and it hurts to hear her like that. I want to hear her soft again, breathy, her voice pleading for more. I want to hear her laugh. I want her happy, and the hardest thing to accept by far is that it’s almost certainly never going to be me that gives that to her.
All I can do now is focus on getting her safe.
“I’ll tell you when we stop for the night,” I say finally, unwilling to have this argument right now, in the car. “We can talk about it then.”
We drive in silence on the surface roads for a long time, until the sun starts to set. I see Charlotte lean against the door, looking out at the bright oranges and yellows streaking across the sky, and the expression on her face makes my chest ache. Her face has softened, her eyes almost dreamy as she watches it, and it’s as if she’s managed to forget for a moment what’s happening. As if she’s her old self, just for these few seconds as the sun sinks beyond the horizon.
I can’t help but wonder if that’s what she wants to be—her old self. When Charlotte and I went out on our first date, she told me that she thought she was boring. That she’d lived a predictable, unexciting life. It seemed as if she wanted to break free from it. That’s what she was doing, after all, playing in the dark corners of the internet with Venom. That’s what she was doing that night at Masquerade. But now that reality has hit her, I can’t help but think that she likely wants to retreat back into the safety of that boring, ordinary life.
