Chapter 9 –

When Camille woke up the next morning, several things came to her attention. First, she was sweating buckets. Vladimir had the air conditioning on in his apartment but he was also doing his best impersonation of an octopus right now. His long limbs were sprawled all over the bed and Camille happened to be underneath two of them. They were heavy and that felt good, but they were warm. Far too warm. The man was a walking furnace.

They had fallen asleep each on one side of the bed, none of them being able to really find sleep entangled as they had been in the beginning of the night. She wasn't really into the "let's sleep in each other's arms" thing. A good pillow was a real pillow, not a muscle-bound arm that kept twitching every now and then. She suspected that Vladimir wasn't a cuddler either as he slept. He had tossed and turned for a while before finally falling into a somewhat calmer sleep.

She slowly tried to get onto instead of under his left leg and let his arm slid from her breasts to her waist. When she finally got comfortable enough, she stretched herself out. That was when the second thing came to her attention. As good a lover as the Russian was, a gentle lover he definitely was not. She felt sore everywhere. Her core, of course, was the first place of soreness, her hip a close second. However, it was a delicious kind of sore, the kind that made her yearn for more.

Before him, she'd had men who were gentle, so gentle that with time and experience, it became boring. She'd also had men who were thinking they were the right kind of feral. They were not. It hurt and it wasn't sexy. Vladimir had made sure she had enjoyed everything, but once he had granted her release, once he had made certain she was ready for it, he had taken his. It had felt good, so very good her toes were tingling with the memory of it. But God knew it had taken its toll on her. She wasn't going to be able to sit without wincing for a few days.

The third thing she realized was that her date was sleeping with a Kalashnikov and a bulletproof jacket by his bedside.

Of course.

She was pretty sure his nightstand drawer was full of ammunitions. And condoms. She knew now that was where he kept them.

The last, but not least, thing she noticed was the time. They had gone to bed, to actually sleep, by five in the morning. Now, it was two p.m.

Holy shit.

Beside her, Vladimir, lying on his belly, was still snoring lightly. His head was half-drowned in his pillow as his shoulder blades went up and down in rhythm with his breaths. In the half darkness of the room – the shutters only allowing a bit of light to pass around it – she allowed herself a minute to watch his unguarded face. Sleeping like that, he almost had a baby face. Well, except for the scar across his eye. She was tempted to touch it but thought better of it. The man might be sleeping with a knife under his pillow after all.

As silently as Camille could, she made her way to the bathroom to take a shower. She was sticky in places she didn't want to think about. She had hesitated to stay in bed and wait for him to wake up but she had a job to go to tonight, things to do at her place, and who knew how long he would stay asleep?

She slowly closed the door, taking a minute to situate herself. On her right was a shower with glasses doors big enough to fit four people in. Through it, she could see Vladimir's shower gel, a simple brand you could find anywhere, but its black bottle advertised it must smell something male. She held back a laugh when she realized he put a little more money on his shampoo, buying a famous luxury brand who promised to reduce hair loss. Even mobster kings weren't above the vanity of not wanting to end up bald it seemed. That being said, it explained why his hair were so soft.

Right by the shower's side, there was a bath. It seemed shiny new and she guessed he didn't use it much as there was no product around it.

On her right was a grey double sink. The sink's surface was littered with his paraphernalia. She saw basic things first: trimmer, razors, skin cream. Then, in a box in a corner, came the tools of his profession she'd say: hooked needles and medical thread she guessed he used to suture his wounds, disinfectant, bandages, straps, pliers... A bottle of Zyr sat beside the box. For when painkillers weren't enough?

If she had to take a guess, she'd say Vladimir hired someone to clean the place as often as possible because she had noted he liked cleanliness. However, left to its own devices, he probably tended to be messy.

She rummaged a little in the cupboard underneath the sink to find a towel big enough for her to use. Once she got it, she put it on top of his wicker laundry basket and started to fiddle with the shower buttons. It had quite a few. After a few minutes, the water was how she liked it and she jumped happily under the spray. As she grabbed Vladimir's shower gel, a small smile graced her lips. Alexei would notice she smelled like a male today. Will he dare tell her?

She hesitated to wash her hair, staring at the shampoo bottle with indecision. The thing wasn't cheap and she had quite the long hair. Plus, he didn't have conditioner. But her skull felt greasy…

She jumped when a hand appeared in her field of vision, grabbing the shower gel. She turned around and ended up head to shoulder with the tattooed menace. She looked up. He was smirking down at her.

"I didn't hear you coming." She explained, a little awkward. Fucking someone at night with dimmed lights on was one thing, having a shower with him in the bright white lights of a bathroom was another. He didn't seem fazed. Figures...

"I saw that." He had that damned smirk still in place, getting wider by the minute. "You were fascinated by shampoo." She hit him lightly on the chest, still mesmerized by the softness of his skin and the hardness of his muscle underneath. Her hand, on its own accord, stayed there, softly rubbing against his abs. "You can use it."

"Huh?" She had lost the line of conversation. She really wasn't a morning person to begin with, they had drunk more than what she was used to, and there was a naked man with her in the shower!

"My shampoo. You can use it."

She thanked him and started to get her hair under the shower spray. He didn't seem to mind just standing there, naked but not under the water. She closed her eyes and tried very hard not to take a deep breath – that would end up with water in her nose – when she felt a hand on the curve of her hips and lips on her neck. She let herself get pressed against the shower's wall, her back chilled against the cold tiles, her front warm against Vladimir's body, as he kept kissing her neck. The water cascaded on him, sticking his hair to his skull and forehead. She pushed him out just a little.

"Let me look at you." He stood straighter, water rolling on his skin, defined muscle made even more clear on his chest, shoulders and arms. She looked him up and down. He did the same.

Then, she grabbed him by the nape of his neck and kissed him again.

In the end, she was almost late for work. Vladimir had driven her back home around four but usually her free days were laundry days, groceries shopping days, among other things. She just had time to go buy a few things before she went to work.

She smelled like cedarwood. As Vladimir had put some cologne, once out of the shower, some had landed on her when she was drying her hair. And sure enough, despite the smells of sweat and alcohol typical in a bar, Jessica didn't take long to notice.

"You smell of a man's perfume." She commented, judgement clear in her voice, as the girl arrived by the counter.

Camille could have gotten mad. She could have said that it was none of her business, that they were in the 21th century where women were free to do whatever they wanted to with their body. But Jessica's heart was in the right place and her colleague was in far too good a mood to take offence anyway. She turned toward her, a big smile on her face.

"Yeah?" she just said. She had planned to tease her a little but her horrified expression stopped her short. "What is it?" Did she have something gross on her face.

"Cami," whispered Jessica, "find some scarf to wear around your neck."

The young girl arched an eyebrow. She was pretty sure she didn't have any hickey. She would have felt it and besides, they were just too old for it. She took a quick look on the mirror placed behind the bottles' shelves. Her reflection looked back at her between bottles, frozen.

Hickeys, she did not have. However, Vladimir's stubble had left thousands of little pointy bruises on her neck. She knew it would pass in a day but for now, she looked like she had hugged the scratchy side of a sponge. Or that she had played doctor with a kinky Russian all night long…

"I'll be right back."

She ran back to her apartment, grabbed the lightest scarf she could find and got back to work.

On her next day off, she got a text from Vladimir. They were supposed to spend the night at his place. His explained that he had some business who might take longer than planned and that he might not be free for the usual 7pm meeting.

At first, she thought he would cancel but she had to tame her happiness when he just sent her his address, telling her to meet him there. He would try to be back as soon as he could. It made her giddy. From what she could guess, the man had quite the planning every day. The fact that he would always manage to free some of his time for her on her day off had to mean something.

And that was the issue, wasn't it?

She had started this … relationship? Whatever it was, she had started it with the idea of seeing him a couple of times, having a few good times and then, after a while, they should have gone their separate ways. Except they weren't going down that road now.

No, she was young, sure, but she had lived it with Thomas. This was, for all intent and purpose, the bases for a long-term relationship. Worst thing was, she was okay with it. Well, no, it was inaccurate. Her brain told her that he was a bad man, that there were some things she needed to know about him first. Her heart however, was already starting to get hooked. If she were to lose Vladimir today… She didn't want to imagine it.

It wasn't love. It couldn't be. Yet.

It would never be the same kind of love she had with Thomas, but it could be something anyway.

Despite everything in her telling her it was a bad idea, a stupid one at that, that she didn't learn from her past, that she was acting like a stupid girl in a stupid romance novel, she couldn't help it. Even the simple thought of being back beside him tonight, of trying to pock into that brain of his, of feeling his warmth, smelling his scent, was making her toes tingle.

She wanted to be by his side. She missed him when she wasn't. She was fucked.

By 7pm, she grabbed her bag, stuffed some underwear in it, a pack of cigarette and her wallet before getting downstairs to hail a cab. Fate was decidedly a big fan of irony. A Veles Taxi's cab pulled over. She hesitated. They had agreed to be discreet and having one his boys dropped her at his place wasn't discreet. The driver's window went down and she recognized Piotr. She laughed and said hi, tempted to share with him her surprise that he did, in fact, drive an actual cab. But she held her tongue.

She lived on the 40th not far from the pier and the 11th.

"I need to go at the corner of the 53rd and 10th." Piotr cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Need to go to the garage?" Veles Taxi's base of operation, he meant. He was suspicious, she could tell.

"Nah, on the other side of the street." That got her an astounded look, question clear in his eyes. What the fuck did she want with Vladimir? She was tempted to say that she had a friend, not this friend, living there but she was afraid it wouldn't be believable. What if only Veles Taxi's mobsters lived there? Instead, she tried another kind of lie. "I'm running an errand for Alexei. I owe him a favor."

It seemed she had guessed right and Alex wasn't just a gruffy bar owner. Piotr face went from suspicious to understanding.

"Oh, OK then. Hop in."

She did. The drive was pleasant enough. Piotr told her he was on cab duty because he had cracked his ribs falling down the stairs and had to stay seated as much as he could. Falling down the stairs… right. It was uncanny how many men of her clientele fell down the stairs on a regular basis… Once more, she had to play dumb, telling him it was bad luck and that she was sorry for him. The boy was in heaven.

She held back a sight. Was she some kind of Russian mobsters' magnet?

"Here we are," Piotr said as he parked in front of Vladimir's. She got her wallet out but he waved her off. "Veles taxis are free for those who use it to come here."

She guessed it made sense. Vladimir, if he knew she had paid for one of his cabs, would insist on paying her back. She just said thanks and waved the boy goodbye, telling him that he was always welcome at the Red Star's counter.

Now, Camille was alone. She wasted no time to enter the building. Afterall, not all Russian mobsters were among her circle of acquaintance, and few of them weren't bloody brute when faced with a woman alone.

Once in the lobby, she met the building's concierge and stared. The guy was obviously some kind of mercenary. He was tall, bald, with tattoos on the side of his skulls and muscle straining against his black shirt. He looked deadly. And he had some kind of assault rifle slung around his shoulders.

Crazy Russians…

Vladimir was lucky he was that hot or she wouldn't bother with all this shit.

"Hello?" She tried, coming closer with slow, measured steps.

"Hi." Was her only answer. No "How can I help you?" or even a "What are you doing here?". Nothing.

"I'm supposed to get to Mr. Ranskahov's apartment. He told me he left a key with the concierge?"

The man nodded, grabbed something behind his counter and let it fall on top of it.

"Here you go." He simply said.

She nodded, grabbed the keys, and fled, as fast as she could without running. Once she got inside his place, she let a big relieved sight out. What kind of concierge was that?

Anyway, now she was alone in the man's apartment. She knew he probably didn't have anything work related here but still, she was surprised by the amount of trust he put in her. She wasn't sure she would have let him alone in her place. However, growing up, she had noticed that she liked to keep her private spaces more private than most people. Not even her best friend knew what kind of music was on her phone, for example. It was private. So maybe to him, it wasn't that big of a deal.

Still, she was a girl. A girl who might get to be in more than she meant to with a mysterious man with a lot of secrets. Of course she snooped around!

She put off her sandals by the entrance, besides his shoes, noting that if most were from expensive brands, the others looked like military material. She put down her bag too, fishing out her phone to put in the back pocket of her jeans shorts, in case he called.

Then, she let a childish smile out. Let the treasure hunt begin!

She started with his bedroom, of course, glimpsing through his wardrobe. It was neatly ordered. Shirts almost all black on hangers. Underneath, his pants were neatly folded on a shelf. Again, most of them were dark jeans and black pants. In between, a tablet was made specially to store jewelry and watches. She could see a few watches and one neckless. The rest was filled with full ammunitions crates and clips. She shook her head in disbelief. She knew who and what he was. But did he really need to have enough ammo in his place to start a small war from his bedroom?

On both side of the shirts, he had several shelves with t-shirts, mostly white or black or grey, and sweaters in the same colors. Under the pants, directly on the ground, were several black boxes which, from the look of it, might be guns' cases.

She slid back the doors closed and went on. Her eyes barely stopping by the bed. The sheets were still rumpled and a pair of socks had been left by his bedside. The bulletproof jacket and the Kalashnikov were gone thought. She felt like a kid, snooping around like that, but she thought he wouldn't mind. She didn't exactly go through his things, just took a quick look.

The rest of the apartment was pretty classic. The kitchen had almost only normal thing: tableware, towels and the like. Except for another gun hidden in a drawer. His fridge only had beer and vodka in it.

He had a room with a desk, papers littering the surface and wooden cupboards locked. She didn't set a foot in it, just opening the door, taking a quick look and closing it just as fast. This, she thought, was off limit.

Content with her little bout of mischief, she went back to the living room and switched the TV on. Nothing interesting was on. She turned it off and went to open the window. Sure enough, the ashtray was still there. She smoked a cigarette by the window, scrolling Facebook and Twitter pages on her phone before deciding to take a look at his bookshelves.

She took the liberty of putting some music on, finding the way to connect her phone to his hi-fi system. Eminem's tracks echoed against the walls. She sang along – off key and half-blabbering words she wasn't sure were right– while her eyes were still inventorying books, amazed at the sheer number of Russian ones. She was still at it, trying uselessly to decipher the words, when she heard the front door open and slam shut right after.

The place's owner grunted as he dropped a heavy object on the floor. It fell with a metallic clang. Curious, she went to him.

The sight that welcomed her left her speechless. The dropped object turned out to be his Kalashnikov. Vladimir also wore his bulletproof jacket on him but what shocked her speechless was the sight of his face. He was covered in blood. She didn't know what was worse: his neck, red and black from dried blood that didn't seem to be his own, his right cheek, where a nasty gash on his cheekbone kept oozing a steady flow of red, or the fact that he apparently held their dinner – Chinese – in his left hand.

It was such an antithesis – him, battered and bloody but bringing dinner home like a normal New-Yorker – that she stayed frozen, her wide eyes fixed on him like she had just seen an alien.

He casted a quick glance at himself in the entrance's mirror, turning his head slightly to inspect his cheekbone, before he let out a string of curse in Russian. She didn't know the words but she recognized the tone. His free hand ran through his hair to unstuck the bloody strands from his scalp.

"Vladimir?" She called, uncertain about the right way to react to this. What had he been doing back there?

"Hello Camille." He gave her the Chinese food and she took it, too flabbergasted to react, while he kissed her forehead as if nothing was amiss. She stared as he removed his jacket and dropped it unceremoniously by his gun. "Why don't you go reheat the food while I shower and stich that up?" He pointed to his cheekbone.

She nodded, shocked stupid for the time being and watched as he made his way to his bathroom, his shirt already halfway up his back. Another gun was there, held by his belt. As he rounded the corner, she finally managed to shake herself up.

"Ugh, Vladimir! Wait up for a sec!" She called, dropping the food on the closest surface she could find, before she ran after him in the bathroom. He was already down to his underwear, bent to start the shower up. The right side of his neck was caked with dry blood that had also glided down his upper chest. He cocked an eyebrow at her. She watched him, dumbfounded, before she ran a disbelieving hand in her hair. "What the fuck is going on?"

A small smirk grew on his face but, in front of her glare, he went back to being serious and nodded.

"First, I shower. Then, we talk. And eat. I'm hungry."

She bet pledging war on Hell's Kitchen would make anyone hungry! However, she relented.

Let the man shower, Cami, she thought. He looked like he was coming straight out of a battlefield. He smelled like it too. She nodded, went back for the Chinese food and headed for the kitchen.

When the Russian finally came back, dressed in a black fitted tee and black sweatpants, everything was set on the kitchen counter. Camille was already sitting on one of the stools, waiting. Her first look was at his cheekbone. The wound was sewn shut. She supposed he was used to do it himself. A normal day in Vladimir Ranskahov's life. A bruise was starting to form on his jaw. That would hurt for a while.

He sat in front of her, like he had last time, and winced, letting out another string of Russian curses. She waited, eyes fixed on him, silent. He winced again when looked up. This time, it had nothing to do with physical pain. He had the same expression every man in the world had when faced with a livid woman. It meant: "Well, I'm fucked." And he was.

"Vladimir," she began in an even voice. She could see his mood was precarious, to put it nicely. She didn't want to start a fight over this. However, he couldn't possibly expect her to act as if nothing had happened. "What the fuck was that about?" She asked again, her disbelief clear in her tone.

"You feel you're entitled to know because we fuck?"

Okay, now he was begging for trouble. She could see his pupils were blown and his irises black with adrenaline that had yet to go down. She wouldn't give him the pleasure of making a scene. Plus, she didn't feel entitled to anything, ever.

"No." she answered calmly. "I'm not. But if, whatever this is that we started, you wish to continue, I need some explanations. Don't you think?" He was about to say something but she cut him off, her voice gaining a sharp edge that, before, had been reserved only for Thomas when he had been acting like an ass. "If you don't, I might as well go out that door now and never come back."

Their eyes locked, his itching for a fight still, hers resolute not to give him one. She could be cold as ice when given a reason too. Thomas, with his fiery temper, had respected her for it. Her former coworkers had feared her for it. When she was like this, backing down was never on the table, even if it meant losing it all. She would never force him to do anything. It was his call. She hoped he would make the right one though.

"We had a delivery tonight." He eventually muttered reluctantly.

"Of what?" she asked. She was tired of half-truths. She didn't mind the game with the bar's patrons. She couldn't afford to play it with him.

"Of guns." He replied, his voice even, his eyes fixed on her. Good, they were on the same page. Now was not the time for flirting and joking. They were almost business like.

"Okay." She nodded, waiting for him to continue. That alone wasn't enough. Far from it. Tonight, he would be grilled. He knew it. She could see.

"The guns were planned to arrive last night by boat but it got delayed by the cops. They searched the boat but found nothing. The Irish had been a pain in our asses for a few months. Anatoly and I thought we had gotten rid of them before but they're like cockroaches. We suspected it was them who informed the cops. We got the word around that we'd get the guns out tonight, personally, Anatoly and I. As we thought, the Irish were there, thinking they had been clever and laid a trap."

He swore again. She would be fluent in Russian curses by now if she could decipher the sounds…

"But you were the ones who had been laying the trap, right?"

"Yes, a bunch of our men were hiding there since morning. When the Irish came, they were ready. We shot them down. It took longer because there were more than what we thought."

"And you're hurt." It wasn't a question but he answered anyway with an unaffected shrug.

"It's just a scratch, I will live."

"What about the blood on your neck?"

At this, the look in his eyes hardened, letting her glimpse the face his enemies saw when they faced him. It wasn't a lovely sight.

"I needed to make an example with someone."

Camille swallowed. Hard. She wanted to know the truth about him. But this particular bit of intel, she'd do without.

"The Irish are dealt with then?"

"No." He frowned. This bothered him. "Cockroaches, I told you. There is more of them, hidden everywhere in the Kitchen. Laying low. We have to deal with them but they are hard to find. Remember the four-eyed fuck in the private space?"

Despite the grave tone of the discussion, she had to repress a snort. What a way to speak about someone!

"Yeah." She didn't like him either.

"His boss offered us a collaboration. We do things for him. He gets rid of the Irish and someone else that is a problem, someone we can't handle ourself because he has relations."

"What kind of things would you do?" She felt like this piece of information he had given without prompting was important. He wanted her to know this, for some reasons.

"What we usually do. Drug trafficking. Gun trafficking. And some things we don't. Woman trafficking."

Camille tried to stay focused, not to judge, until she had the full picture.

"You don't do human trafficking?" she asked, just to be sure. This was important to her. Guns and drugs were only objects, sold only to those who wanted to buy it. Humans were a different matter. Honestly, she wasn't sure she could digest it.

"Normally, no. It's disgusting and we are not wankers. If you want to open a brothel, you don't have to steal girls from the middle east or from Mexico to do it. But he is insistent about it. One of his partners need the girls for something, something fucked up probably. Anatoly and I fight about this. If we don't do the partnership, fucker's boss will go help our enemies. Anatoly thinks we should take the deal. The women will be shipped. If not by us, then by someone else. And then, we will be fucked."

Factually, she supposed Anatoly had a point. Morally however…

"What do you think about this?"

"I think we should tell four-eyes to go fuck himself. Nobody gives us order. 'specially not some fancy-ass fuck with a suit and his mystery employer who doesn't have the balls to face us himself. We can handle the Irish."

"But not the man with the relations."

Everything was starting to make sense. Why Anatoly and Vladimir had been tensed when they came at the bar that one time. Why she had felt her patrons' agitation lately… Something big was stirring in Hell's Kitchen…

"Not yet, no." His expression darkened. Vladimir didn't seem like the type to like restrains of any kind. "He has a Russian Taxi company too. And connections with the KGB. If we go and kill him, we're back to Utkin prison, legal extradition be damned."

He had told her about Utkin, about how Anatoly almost died there. It left an impression on the both of them it seemed. A long silence followed as Vladimir seemed to have decided he had told his piece and Camille tried to process it all. It was a lot. And what came next threw her off tracks.

"What do you think about it?" He asked in turn.

It was a test. She knew it. And yet, she was ready to take it. She was the first one surprised by it. She took some time to decide on her answer. She had been given a lot to think about. Eventually, she gave it a go.

"I think you're right. You're independent right now. And I won't lie to you, personally, I don't much care for human trafficking. However, if this mystery employer is really powerful enough to help the Irish or the other one to overthrow you, maybe you should follow Anatoly on this. Bide your time. Learn to know your enemy, because I agree, I think this mystery man is bound to become an enemy." She couldn't imagine any organized crime's association ending any other way. "And when the time is right, destroy him."

Some could say she shouldn't follow him on this, that she shouldn't step even a toe on Mafia business. Some would frown upon the easiness with which she talked about it. She was advising a killer on how to do his next kill, for God's sake! She would end up rotting in Hell for this. Some other would just say she was talking about things she knew nothing about. They would be right. But he'd asked. She wasn't bound to be an expert on this. It was just her opinion.

She had passed the test. Vladimir's devilish smirk said that much.

"That was what I was thinking about doing."

He went back to eating. She tried to eat something too. She had been famished before he'd arrived.

"Don't you mind?" he eventually asked. There were so many things she minded she wasn't sure which one he was referring to.

"Mind what?"

"If I start distributing women?"

Their eyes locked again. She hesitated. Yes, she minded. She minded a lot, not matter how many times she told herself that those women would have the same fate no matter what, but…

"Does it change anything if do?"

"Maybe it does."

She was fucked. As she looked into his blue eyes, at his scarred faced, and realized the only thing she wanted to do right now was to sit on his lap and let him have her, she knew she was. Not because she still lusted after him despite his revelations. No. More so because he had agreed to tell her in the first place. And also because, even in the light of all this crap, she still wanted to know him better.

She was so fucked. Fucked and fucked up.

She was the most fucked up person in the history of fucked up people. Because her decision was made. Better to have remorse about doing something wrong than regrets about doing nothing at all.

She was going to burn in hell, but at least she would go balls out.

She held out her hand to the Russian man in front of her.

"Take me to bed, Vladimir."

He didn't need to be told twice.