Chapter 19: You only have to be strong
So I went to work. And it wasn’t long before I was rising to the top, getting my dad not only the best medical treatment, but my parents a new house in Newton and a summer place in Florida.
I lay there staring up at the ceiling with a post-sex glow, holding a tissue over my pussy to catch Ludwika’s enormous load that was slowly dripping out of me. My body was still tingling from the insane sex we’d just had, but there was something greater going on inside me…
…a feeling I couldn’t deny but was having a hard time accepting. I loved him.
It felt crazy to think and would have felt even crazier to voice out loud but it was the truth.
Ludwika had stepped into my life when I least expected it, when I was daydreaming about what my life could have been if things had gone differently, and showed me things I hadn’t even thought possible.
He’d saved me from Juan, from crippling debt, and a dark, terrible future, and God only knows where that would have ended up taking me.
I may have been smart like Ludwika said, but I wasn’t strong—not in the way he was. He was the missing puzzle piece in my life, the yin to my yang, the masculine energy on the other end of the spectrum. I’d never felt luckier in my life.
But there was this tiny, lingering thought in the back of my mind that Ludwika was a bad guy…
After all, he was a crime boss. But if that was true, why did he rescue me from Juan? Why did he look so uncomfortable, disgusted by the strip club? Weren’t guys like him in love with places like that?
No, there was more to Ludwika than what I’d heard. There was more to the man than his legend.
I looked around the bedroom. Ludwika had gone downstairs to finish up some business and promised to bring us up some food when he returned. I
was a sweaty, cum-filled mess, so I got to my feet and tip-toed to the bathroom, trying not to drip on his carpet.
His attached bedroom was equally spectacular as the one I’d been in earlier, and I threw the tissue aside and stepped into the shower that was the size of an average person’s bedroom.
I switched the water on and used Ludwika’s body wash to clean off, then grabbed two towels, one for my body and one for my hair, and made my way back into the bedroom.
It was impressive, but not at all what you’d expect from a kingpin.
There was no massive dark-colored desk or a throne chair behind it, no mahogany paneling or scary paintings or displays of wealth. It was modern but comfortable, something you’d expect from a business man.
A simple desk sat by the window, and maybe it was a bit presumptuous of me, but I went over and sat down at it and pictured what it would be like to wake up in this room every morning beside the most incredible man I’d ever met.
There was a single date book that I didn’t touch, a tablet that I also left alone, and a little figure of a cartoon mouse holding a machine gun.
I wondered what it felt like to be a big scary man sitting behind a desk and threw my feet up and tossed my arms over my head, pretending that I was Mrs. Ludwika Williams, mob wife, handling business for her husband who was preoccupied with other things.
“No, those terms are not acceptable,” I said to my imaginary audience. “As we said before, we will accept nothing less than—”
My foot was still wet and slipped off the edge of the desk, causing the chair to rock forward and spill me onto the floor. I yelped and grabbed the desk to steady myself, but felt something click beneath my fingers.
I looked up to see a button hidden beneath the desk drawer that I’d accidentally pushed. Across the room, a picture of the Boston harbor slid out slightly from the wall. I’d seen enough movies to understand.
A hidden compartment…
“Oh no,” I said as I got to my feet and quickly raced across the room as the picture swung forward to reveal a hidden compartment within.
I was just going to close it. I really was. I wasn’t going to look inside. That would have been a complete invasion of trust. But as I reached out to swing the secret door shut again, something caught my eye that made it impossible for me to turn away.
A photo of my parents sat on a stack of papers.
They were smiling at each other on the street, somewhere downtown it looked like. I recognized the jacket my mother was wearing—a red pea coat she’d bought two days before she was killed…
And that meant that this picture, sitting in a hidden compartment in Ludwika’s bedroom, was taken of them only two days before they were shot down and murdered.
My heart shattered and my world turned upside down.
I stepped back in horror like the picture might leap up and bite me and clutched my chest as I felt an anxiety attack coming on.
“Want some tea, babe?” Ludwika called, sounding like he was at the bottom of the stairs.
“I—okay!” I stammered back as my legs gave out from under me. “I’ll make some,” he replied.
Good, that will give me time to process…
But what was there to process? What possible reason was there that Ludwikawould have a photo of my parents, two days before their deaths, in a hidden compartment in his bedroom?
I took care of my community, funded the food banks, and donated to children’s organizations. I spread the wealth the best I could without getting those I helped in trouble for associating with me, and made sure that the rest of the criminals knew to keep in line.
No robbing innocent people, no selling drugs to kids, no sex trafficking— anything that hurt our community I quickly stomped out. The public saw me only as a tyrant, but that was only half the story.
“Why…why are you doing this?” Hope asked.
I could see by her expression that she knew the answer; she just wanted to hear the words. We both knew what was going on here. There was no denying the magic that had seized both of us.
“Because you deserve it,” I told her. “I—I don’t even know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything, Angel. You’re perfect just the way you are.”Had I been mistaken about him? Had he charmed me into believing he was someone he wasn’t? Had paying off Juan at the strip club just been part of his ruse to get me back here? Juan had said that Ludwika wanted a “fresh one.” Maybe this was his plan all along and “rescuing” me had just been a way of getting me to trust him.
A chill began at my toes and slid up my spine and I felt a cold sweat break out across my body. Suddenly the house felt hostile, like a prison, worse than the strip club, and I wanted out.
I ran to the window and opened it, only to find myself looking at a long drop to a stone patio below, and it was the same with the bathroom. I raced back to the bedroom, tore open Ludwika’s closet, found a pair of sweatpants, and slid into them. They were far too long but I rolled them up and grabbed a t-shirt too.
I have to get out of here…
There was no time.
I sprinted out of the room, down the hall, and took the stairs as fast as I could. I hit the ground floor running, slid on the slick tile, and hit the floor hard. A blunt pain roared from my knee, and as I scrambled to pick myself up, Ludwika came out of the kitchen. When he saw me, his face changed.
“Hope? What the hell are you doing?”
“Stay away from me!” I shouted as I ran for the door. My heart was about to burst from my chest as I grabbed the handle and pulled.
“Hope!” Ludwika called after me, but I was already outside and running like the last girl in a horror movie.
“Get back!” I shouted as I ran, the image from the photo imprinted in my mind. My knee was killing me but my adrenaline was flowing as I sprinted down the driveway. I had no plan; I just knew I had to escape.
Ludwika killed your parents…
The realization was like poison in my veins. Heartbreak engulfed me like a swallowing darkness and I suddenly felt sick that I’d given myself to a man who’d been able to so fully and completely deceive me.
I’d given him my body, and the whole time he’d been taking it, he must have been laughing to himself.
Dumb girl, he must have thought. Little does she know!
I felt like throwing up. Ludwika’s voice rang out behind me. “Hope! Come back!”
I glanced back over my shoulder to see him coming down the steps. I ran harder.