Now, though, even hours later, when I’d finally made it to my home, I hadn’t shaken her.
Perhaps it was her bravery? She’d been afraid, very, but she had stayed strong. Perhaps it was a combination of things. I didn’t know, and to my surprise, I wasn’t disturbed by it. Curious, yes, but though my reaction to her was one I didn’t understand, it was also one I liked.
My mind was always preoccupied with business, my feelings nonexistent. But this reaction to Milan, strange and unexplained as it was, was welcome, if only because of how different it was.
I approached my house slowly and entered.
The place hadn’t been touched and was as tidy and empty as I had left it. Had it really only been a day, less than twenty-four hours since I’d last been here, bemused at the prospect of attending a wedding, superior in my belief that Vasile had been deluding himself?
It had been, but it may as well have been another life.
The man who’d left this place was not the one who’d come back, and I knew there was only one reason.
Milan.
I could have pretended it was nothing, gone through the motions of pretending that I hadn’t been changed, probably irrevocably. But I wasn’t in the habit of deluding myself. Self-awareness kept me breathing, and even now, when it would be easier to ignore the truth, I couldn’t.
Milan made me feel. I couldn’t say why, had no idea what it meant, but that didn’t change the truth of it.
I undressed quickly and went to my bathroom and turned on the water. As it warmed, I hung my wrinkled suit on a hanger and added it to the others that needed laundering.
Who knew if I’d ever have occasion to take it in or wear it again, but whatever might happen in the future, there was no excuse for untidiness.
I didn’t linger in the shower, both because time was short, and because doing so would give me an opportunity to think about Milan. Even the few moments I’d been naked had been long enough for my dick to harden to steel. A distraction I couldn’t afford, but one that I couldn’t completely ignore.
Any longer, and I knew I would be closing my fist around my hard shaft, stroking myself while fantasizing it was Milan. And I had no time for that.
So I got out, dried off, and began to dress. Again I linked my shirtsleeves closed with cuff links, tied a fresh tie without looking in the mirror. As I slipped the final button on my jacket closed, I heard my front door splinter.
A quick glance at my watch told me it had taken twenty-five minutes for my visitors to arrive. I’d anticipated at least a half hour, but I was ready.
I walked through my bedroom and out to the living room, my walk loose, slow, my hands out at my sides.
“You’re here.”
I recognized the man who spoke as Ioan, one of Vasile’s younger but promising soldiers. I’d always thought him a favorite, but that must have been a mistake. Vasile couldn’t have valued the soldier too much if he’d sent him here, risked him to whatever I might do to him.
Then I looked at Ioan, such determination in his eyes. He had something to prove. I could see that clearly. Maybe he’d volunteered to retrieve me in an attempt to prove himself to his leader.
Whatever the case, I wouldn’t shed his blood today.
“I’m here,” I said, walking toward him.
He was wary, but not afraid, something I couldn’t say for sure about the three that accompanied him. He gestured toward the battered door that barely hung on its hinges with the weapon he held.
I didn’t bother to speak and instead walked toward it, careful to keep my steps slow, as nonthreatening as I could make them. Ioan, to his credit, didn’t flinch when I passed him and made my way outside.
A dark car idled in my driveway, looking ominous on this bright, cheery afternoon, a striking contrast to my calm, relatively well-to-do neighborhood.
“Get in,” Ioan said.
Though I had expected this, my instincts told me not to, the lingering sense of self-preservation warning me not to step into the mouth of danger, but there was no other choice.
Vasile would hunt me until he found his answers, so it was best to clear up this misunderstanding now. There was a possibility, a remote one, but still a slight possibility, I might find an ally in him.
So I reached for the door, and it opened before I touched it. I glanced back at Ioan who stared at me stone-faced and then I got in.
Milan
“I’ll finish up and have you out of here in a few minutes, Ms. Meadows.”
At the sound of a voice, I peeled my eyes open and turned toward the door. The detective who’d been questioning me smiled almost sheepishly, which told me my disbelief was all over my face.
“Sorry,” he said as he pulled out the chair across from me and again sat. After he shuffled the papers in front of him, he looked at me and smiled again, this time apologetically.