Chapter 5 - Commodity II

꧁ Marisella ꧂

The meager accounts my mother had been able to retrieve? We’d spent it all on Alexei’s treatments. Then he’d left. Only to resurface balls deep inside me.

The doors open.

My body stiffens.

I’d nursed a dangerous crush for eight years, longing for his return. And now he’s back.

My neck flushes at the thought of what we’d almost done. Again, I wish we’d gone all the way. It feels like a waste since I know he’ll never touch me again, not even with a ten-foot pole.

Better get this over with.

I start to speak—

“I’ll walk you down. Driver.”

This mountain of a man doesn’t look like he’s just a driver. Bald and severe, his face might have been set in stone. Without waiting for a response, he turns and walks away.

I’m to follow him. Right.

Hurrying after his wide stride, I stew in anger.

So Alexei couldn’t deign to walk me down himself? Cold.

As the elevator ride blurs by, my heart alternates between racing and slowing, depending on the replay of our hot tryst or his reaction afterward.

His ‘driver’ leads me to a shiny black sports car. Everything except the red headlights is black. I’d walk right into it on a dark enough night.

He opens the door for me, and I slide in. Alexei sits on the other end of the backseat.

I keep my gaze forward. From my brief glance of him when I entered, his brows were drawn together, jaw clenched. Darkness cloaked him like dense fog.

He fills the interior with so much tension I can’t press myself against the door enough.

The car purrs beneath me, pulling out of the lot.

But then I pause. Why even bother? He’s the one who’d abandoned his family long enough to forget what I look and sound like.

Granted, the last time he’d seen me, I’d been a lanky fifteen-year-old.

Relaxing into the seat, I dare a glance.

My heart trips when he returns my gaze.

Heat sizzles between us.

Desperate to fill the silence, I cross my arms.

“Where have you been?”

“Away.”

Enlightening.

“We worried. The least you could do was text…”

“Ten thousand dollars, Marisella,” he grits through a locked jaw. “You haven’t explained why the fuck you were in my bed, courtesy of an escort service.”

I match his tone. “You’d know if you’d dropped in once in a while.”

He looks away, but not before I catch the guilt in his eyes. Then they harden once more.

“I can’t even decide if I’m going to report this to her. You’ll break her heart.”

“You left nothing for me to break, Alexei.”

He freezes, doesn’t even breathe. He knows I’m right.

Despite her husband’s betrayal, despite the reminder, my mother loved Alexei and cared for him as her own.

She was never one to punish a son for his father’s crime.

I still remember the morning he’d left. She’d asked if he was sure, her eyes glistening.

She hadn’t understood his abrupt decision to leave. But he’d left, and that same day, when she’d called to confirm he’d arrived safely, his phone number was disabled.

As I look out the window, at the colorful, bustling city, a weight lifts from my shoulders.

If he can afford to send thousands every month for years, and he’d spent almost fifty for a night with an… escort, then he can help with mom’s treatment.

No more waitressing or scraping by.

The rest of the drive goes by in silence, but my body remains keyed up in response to his simmering anger.

He’d made a phone call, all clipped Russian phrases and a curse. I haven’t glanced toward him since. I fear I’ll jump him and steal the kiss I’m owed.

Apart from fondling, he hadn’t touched me anywhere else. Maybe because of the nature of the arrangement.

I bite the inside of my cheek. I will never live this down. How will I survive having him back in our lives?

The car slows to a stop in front of our two-storied house, the only good thing our father had done for my mother.

My eyes widen at the fact that Alexei had remembered the route.

I look at him then, to find him looking at me.

“I am disappointed in you, Marisella,” I focus on the way my name rolls off his tongue instead of the condescension. “Whatever drove you to sell yourself, handle it with the money I’ll send. Goodnight.”

I’m fishing for words, but none seem right.

Don’t go, I’ve just found you.

“W-what? Won’t you come in?”

“Not tonight.”

“But Mom…”

He snaps. “For fuck’s sake, Mari, get out.”

I catch my flinch too late, but he doesn’t even react. Heat blooms under my skin, surging in waves of pain and hatred.

“Va te faire foutre, connard.” ‘Go fuck yourself, asshole.’

I slam the door so hard the car rocks.

The infuriating vehicle and its equally frustrating owner peel forward, disappearing into the night.

The tears fall, near freezing against my cheeks in the chilly night air.

Then my phone chimes. Numb, I take it out.

Deposit received: $50,000

My fingers clench around the phone.