"Just relax," he insists, sitting down next to me and taking my wrist in his lap. He turns it over for a moment with a frown, looking at the bruising and scratches before dabbing a cotton ball with peroxide and dabbing the cuts gently.
I wince at the pain, but my eyes are watching his face incredulously. Is this guy for real?
"I won't try to apologize for scum like those three," he says. "They are the types that take pleasure in tormenting anyone they can get their greasy hands around. Not the kind of men I consider part of my business."
"You all seemed to be on the same page before today," I point out, but he doesn't give a response. He's applying ointment to my wrists now and wrapping bandage around them.
He reaches over and touches my sore spot, but even his painstakingly gentle touch makes me wince. He frowns, a low rumble coming from his chest. "The beasts meant to do a real number on you," he remarks ruefully. "I don't like to think of what might have happened if I hadn't made it any sooner. I didn't see any aspirin in the bathroom," he adds, looking back up to me.
"Kitchen," I say with a gesture in that direction, and he nods.
As he moves that way, his gaze drifts across the boxes scattered about the room, and my heart sinks as I anticipate the inevitable question.
"What's with the packing? Were you planning to move before today?"
"No, nothing like that," I stammer out, but in hindsight, I think that might have been a decent idea. "I was just...selling a few of my things, getting them ready to ship quickly."
Silence in response.
"Look," I start again, finding it easier to speak while he's out of the room just now, "Ivan, I...I don't know what they would have done if you hadn't shown up, you're right. Thank you. You might have saved my life today. Or saved me from something else, I don't want to think about..." I trail off, letting silence hang awkwardly between us again.
I don't have to see his face to know he's already put two and two together to figure out I can't make the $4,000 anymore. I just know he's going to bring his offer up again, so I scramble to say something to divert his attention when something that had been nagging at the back of my mind hits me.
"Ivan, you said you don't kill."
The bustling in the kitchen stops. "Yes."
I bite my lip and look at my carefully arranged bandages before continuing. "The way you moved in there, I've never seen anything like it. You moved like you weren't afraid to face anything they were going to throw at you," I breathe, surprised at my own outpour, but the more I think about it, the more astonishing Ivan's actions were, I realize. "You fought them like you were ready to kill. You knew what you were doing."
Ivan strides back into the room with a stony expression, and I immediately regret broaching the subject. He sets a glass of water and three white aspirin tablets on the table next to me, with a nod for me to take them.
As I do, I notice he's avoiding my gaze, but his expression is no softer.
"I said I do not kill, Katy," he says quietly, and then his eyes look up to meet mine with a chilling coldness. "What I do is business. Only business. What those three devils would have done to you, that would have been 'killing.' You had this whole ordeal dumped into your lap against your will, and you know nothing of it beyond what you are told. You're outside our business, in the grand scheme of things."
My eyes are wide as I watch him rise and move to the window, peering out at the darkening street below.
"I am not a brute, killing whatever comes into my path. But you're right. I'm not called on to handle trivial business. We Russians, we take breaches of professionalism very seriously. Those who act against us from within are no better than rats."
He turns to face me, but I can already read the words in his face. "They call on me to deal with the rats. The kind of scum who were trying to force you into something against your will."
A hit man.
My throat goes cold. I'm standing before a man who's taken the lives of others. A paid assassin.
"The men today, one of them has a powerful relative, so I had to hold back." He looks up at me now, meeting my eyes with a surprisingly gentle gaze. "I'm truly sorry to have to put you through the fear of knowing they still live."
I shake my head as though I'm saying 'no thank-you' to another helping of food — I've never exactly had someone apologize to me for not killing someone.
"Ivan," I start, but I trail off, unable to process this news. Then an even harder realization nearly makes me dizzy: I had a one-night stand with a hit man.
"You don't have to say anything," Ivan says, holding a hand up and stepping closer to me. I recoil, and he pauses, a sad look in his eyes. "I understand this is a lot to take in. Too much for even a woman as brave as yourself." He offers a smile, almost laughing. "Judging by the fact that you were ready to walk into the club and say 'no' to those three with nothing but your bartender backing you up, you've got more courage than the three of them put together."