The Hacker by Renee Rose

13

Dima

I go down the stairs and turn on the oven, then lean my ass against the counter and stare at the wall. What am I doing?

What in the hell am I doing?

I can’t do this with Natasha.

And yet… I had no choice. Hanging her out to dry would’ve been unconscionable. I’ve already been crueler to her than I can face.

Seeing her broken and knowing I was the one who broke her? That gutted me.

I’ll have to live with that shit until the day I die.

So yeah, I don’t see any other way around this. I need to put her back together. Try to heal the wounds I’ve inflicted before I set her free.

The guilt over the way I’ve treated Natasha mingles with the guilt I feel over breaking my vow to Alyona.

I’m still yours, I promise her. I’ll always be yours.

Strange how, despite my gnawing guilt, the bond with Alyona feels stronger than usual. Maybe it’s because my memories of her have come so near the surface. Being intimate with someone again brings it all back. What it was like the first time. How we learned each other’s bodies. How I would’ve died if it meant she could’ve lived out her youth.

I don’t compare Natasha—they are totally different people. I’m a totally different person with her than I was with Alyona.

I don’t want them to blur together for me. Not at all. It’s important to me that I preserve every memory of Alyona.

The oven beeps, and I realize I haven’t moved since I turned it on.

I pull the frozen pizza from the freezer, unbox it and throw it on the rack, set my phone timer for 16 minutes, and then I take our dirty clothes to the washing machine and throw them in on the shortest cycle possible. Having the two of us running around here naked is not going to work for me.

When I pop my head into the master bedroom, I find Nikolai awake.

“I’m hungry,” he says.

“Good. I’ll heat up some soup.”

He groans. “I smell pizza.”

I wince. “Sorry, the doctor said only soups or soft foods for now.” We had a telecall with Taylor this morning to check in. “You want a laptop in here, so you can watch movies or something?”

“Da.”

I go and get him the laptop, and as I set it up, he says, “You should keep her.”

My fingers stall over the keys. Alyona’s ring catches the light, winking at me. “I can’t.”

“You can. It’s allowed, Dima. Whatever rule you made for yourself at seventeen can be changed. Just like Ravil changes bratva rules. The ones that used to mean death if we broke them.”

“Don’t,” I say firmly, something shuddering and cracking inside me. “Leave it alone.” I don’t look at him like I have to keep my pain in, keep it to myself.

“It’s allowed,” Nikolai repeats, but his voice carries no fight.

I leave him with the laptop and walk away, my body suddenly feeling a million years old.

Natasha comes downstairs, her fresh-faced beauty even more excruciating because she’s dressed in a towel.

She steps into the kitchen, fidgeting with the ends of the terrycloth above her left breast. “May I help with anything?”

“Nyet, amerikanka. See if you can find a movie on the television.” I speak gently, but I desperately need some distance between us.

She curls up on the L-shaped leather sofa and pulls a plush blanket around her, which alleviates some of my tension. I slide the pizza out and cut a small piece for Nikolai, bringing it to him first. Then I pile the rest on one plate for Natasha and I to share. I bring a roll of paper towels into the living room and sit down beside her to share.

“What are you in the mood for?” She spins through Netflix as fast as I would, sliding over the shows.

“You pick,” I tell her. At the penthouse, I might throw down with Sasha, making a big fuss over not watching chick-flicks, but that’s all for play. Right now, I just want Natasha to be soothed. So whatever she wants to watch is fine with me.

She turns those big green eyes on me for a moment, then scrolls even faster. “Um… I can’t.” She bites her lip, looking adorable. “I don’t know what you like.”

“Don’t pick for me, pick for you.” I gesture at her with a slice of pizza. It tastes as cardboardy as the box it was in.

She’s obviously still troubled by my answer because a crease appears between her brows as she scrolls down. She picks comedies, then slides through them. “Easy A?”

“Never seen it.”

She hits play, and we eat and watch in silence.

Of course, it’s a movie about sex. With an adorable redhead as the heroine.

And I’m sitting beside Natasha, who is naked under that blanket.

But at least I’m not suffering from that blinding need to claim her like I was before. I’m not gnashing my teeth, ready to lash out because I can barely control myself. Something about taking her out there in the mud—the honesty behind it, maybe—loosened that noose. I admitted I wanted her, and I took her.

It was wrong, but it was also right.

And now I need to clean up the mess I made.

When the movie ends, I hit pause on the credits. “Natasha…”

She turns, her lovely face open and inquisitive. She has no makeup here, but she looks no different—her beauty is a natural one that doesn’t require much enhancement.

She’s close enough that I can smell the scent of her shampoo, feel the heat of her body beside mine.

I twitch the blanket farther up her bare shoulder. “You’re okay?”

She studies me. “I’m okay. Are you?”

I shake my head. “Not really, no.” I pick up her hand and hold it, staring down at her slender, pale fingers. The short, clean nails which had been polished in pale ballet pink, but are now half-chipped off. “I won’t call it a mistake. Only making you cry—that was unforgivable.” I close my eyes and shake my head.

Her fingers close around mine. I readjust, untangling our fingers and holding her hand in both mine, stroking down each of her digits and giving it a little twist on the end, like she does when she’s massaging me.

One corner of her mouth tips up as she must recognize her own move. “That feels good,” she says softly.

I keep working. “These hands are so small for how much pressure you put through them. I can’t believe how hard you can dig with them.”

The smile appears at both corners now. “Sometimes I use my elbow.”

I raise my brows, surprised. “Ah? I didn’t know. Huh.” I pick up her other hand and give it the same treatment. “I care about you,” I admit. “And I’m obviously very attracted to you. But…”

“You can’t have a relationship,” she finishes for me. I see a flicker of hurt before she hides it, and it makes me want to do everything in my power to fix it.

Except I can’t.

“Right. I don’t want to hurt you—I mean, I know I already have—but I don’t want to hurt you more.”

“It’s okay,” she says softly. Her eyes tear up, but she blinks it back. “Can we, um, can we be friends?”

I wrap her hand up in both of mine and squeeze. “We are friends,” I promise. “I know I haven’t been a good one, but I’ve always considered you a friend.”

Her nod is earnest. There’s a tremble in her lips, but she hides it by tugging the blanket up over her chin.

“So no more sex. I’m going to be the girl and say it’s too confusing for me.”

She gives a watery laugh. “No more sex.” She slumps back against the couch, her head dropping to the fluffy cushion. “This sucks.”

Understatement. And all my fault.

“I agree. I’m sorry.” I reach out and stroke my hand over the back of her head.

“Is a cuddle out of bounds?”

“A… cuddle?” A rusty laugh comes from my throat as my chest squeezes. “You need a little sugar?”

She nods, leaning into me as I lift my arm to loop around her. She rests her head against my shoulder and molds to my side, sweetness and summer and angel wings wrapped into one.

I find another movie and turn it on, propping my feet on the coffee table. Her legs tangle over the top of mine, and her breath evens.

When I’m sure she’s asleep, I stroke her face and kiss the top of her head. And then I don’t move a muscle, even when I remember the laundry in the washer. Not when I decide I have to pee and should really check on Nikolai.

I don’t move because Natasha needed this cuddle, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to wake her up and take it away.

Natasha

I jerk awake with a gasp.

No, that wasn’t my gasp. I lift my head in the dim light to peer at Dima. We’re still on the sofa, our bodies intertwined. I must’ve fallen asleep during the last movie, which is obviously over now because the television is off.

“Izvinyayus',” Dima mutters an apology, and I realize it was a sharp movement from him that woke me.

“Did you have a bad dream?”

“Da.” He hasn’t switched to English yet. I understand Russian perfectly. I can speak it perfectly, too, once I’m in the mode, but I prefer English. After Pamela’s in-school rejection, I made a choice. Dima was right, I Americanized myself completely.

I press my hand over his heart, not surprised when I find it racing. “What was it?”

“You and Nikolai and A—” He breaks off, shaking his head. “Just… people I care about dying. Because of me.”

“What happened to Nikolai wasn’t your fault,” I tell him, pulling away to sit up straighter.

His gaze drops to my left breast, which has come out from the blanket. A muscle jumps in his jaw, and he scoots away from me.

“No, it was Alex’s fault, and I will make him pay.”

He’s back to being grumpy-Dima, and it all becomes perfectly clear now. His anger toward me was a redirection of his own guilt. He’s suffering over this—he told me that outside in that puddle.

It’s not the first time he’s nearly died because of me.

“What if it all just… was? What if it’s nobody’s fault—just a series of events?”

Dima scoffs.

“I mean, we assign meaning to things. Death is bad. Birth is good. But is that really true? If no one ever died, the planet wouldn’t survive. Leaving Russia was bad, trying to integrate into school was bad, but was it really? I don’t regret who I am today. What if there was no right or wrong. No good or bad. No one to blame.”

Dima scrubs his hand over his face.

“I’m sorry Nikolai’s suffering, but… I’m not sorry I had this time here with you—even the bad parts.” I shrug. “It is what it is.”

Dima meets my gaze and holds it. “You’re wise for your age.”

“I just want you to be free,” I whisper hoarsely, and we both know I’m talking about more than his guilt over Nikolai.

Before he can shut me down, I stand, pulling the blanket up to my armpits. The towel I was originally wearing tangles around my legs and falls. “Spokoynoy nochi.” I say good night as I walk away.

“Spokoynoy nochi.” His answer is soft and full of regret.