Chapter 9

“No, I suppose not. You don’t seem like the type to joke about that. Hmm…” Cherriot murmured to himself, then reached for the glass on the table.

Heather studied Yuri’s face as though trying to weigh the truth of his words. Yuri said nothing, giving them time to absorb what he had told them.

Cherriot raised the glass to lips pinker than most Alphas’, but he did not drink. He merely dampened them with the liquor. After a moment’s thought, he gave a dry laugh.

“That’s… startling.”

His voice had lost the constant undercurrent of laughter that usually made it sound so light. He slowly tipped the whiskey into his mouth. The prominence in his pale throat shifted as he swallowed, and in the silence, the sound seemed unnaturally loud. Heather still could not bring herself to speak.

Yuri felt deeply sorry for putting her in this position, but opening his mouth to comfort her would have been absurd. Pretending to be polite, pretending to be kind, pretending to care for others: every such gesture had lost its meaning the moment he revealed what kind of man he was.

“Was it a misdemeanor?” Cherriot asked at last. “Something like drunk driving or… I mean, that’s obviously bad, but was it something like that? Or robbery?”

Perhaps he was trying, in his own way, to understand. As Cherriot asked what kind of crimes he had committed, Yuri quietly searched his memory.

He had never… touched civilians.

His organization had supplied drugs to ordinary people and shackled them with debt, but Yuri had never been assigned to that side of the business. Everything had begun when his mother did something that turned the boss, Igor Volkov, against her, and Yuri had borne the resulting stain ever since. He had never understood why the lowest filth in human society still bothered dividing itself into ranks, but Yuri had ended up at the bottom even among them.

Igor never trusted him with work involving money. Instead, he handed Yuri every brutal task that needed doing. If Yuri had to define his role, he had been a hunting dog, throwing his body into danger for his master and receiving scraps of rotten meat in return. He had not committed crimes for profit, exactly. Someone else had simply held his leash.

Most of the people Yuri confronted belonged to rival criminal organizations that threatened Igor’s interests. At other times, he stood guard during negotiations and illicit deals. When he was not doing either, he managed the boss’s club and dragged out drunken fools who caused trouble.

No one could match him when physical force was required, but unlike the others, Yuri carried a traitor’s blood, and they treated him accordingly. He remained perpetually poor, surviving on the occasional scraps of money Igor tossed him as though dispensing charity.

Even Alexei did not know the full extent of it. They were each other’s closest friends and comrades, but they had never shared every wretched part of themselves. Wounds only festered when rubbed against other wounds.

None of that, however, was anything more than a shabby excuse. The fact that he could arrange his memories into such a defense felt hypocritical and revolting, enough to make him want to laugh. When something disgusted him too deeply for anger, Yuri often laughed hollowly instead. Sometimes, he wore that same laugh while staring into a mirror.

“No.”

He cut off the useless recollection and denied Cherriot’s guesses flatly. Yuri drank only when he had to stand watch for hours in the cold, and even then, alcohol was strictly forbidden on any mission that required him to drive. There had been times when hunger drove him to pick food from other people’s trash, but he had never robbed anyone.

He had done far worse.

“Worse than that?”

Cherriot’s voice sank. The faint suggestion that he was still trying to see Yuri in a favorable light disappeared, and an expression at once unfamiliar and intimately known spread across his face.

Repulsed distance.

Nothing remained of the man who had begged for a pet name and tossed out joke after joke. Cherriot’s brow had hardened into a scowl.

“I have no reason to tell you.”

The answer ended the discussion. Yuri’s tone made it plain that he would offer no confession that might later become evidence, and Cherriot closed his mouth.

The air in the room shifted.

Just as they had when he spoke about the trust, Cherriot’s pheromones grew dense and oppressively heavy. His face revealed nothing, but their razor edge told Yuri that his mood had struck bottom. Heather, being a Beta, seemed unable to sense them, yet the hostility and rejection pouring from Cherriot made Yuri nauseated.

Yes. This was what Alphas usually felt toward one another.

Not clinging with a grin.

Not claiming to like each other.

This.

No one moved. Cherriot set the glass down with a sharp clack, and his pheromones surged after the sound as if physically shoving Yuri away. A wordless accusation rang through the room.

“I see.”

Cherriot drew in his outstretched legs and sat upright. Quietly, he pulled the open front of his shower robe together, resting one hand on the chair’s armrest, and rose. His eye level suddenly increased, causing Yuri to tilt his head slightly. Each of Cherriot’s steps was distinct as he approached. He stopped before Yuri and looked down at him. Shadows accentuated the line of his long nose, and beneath his golden lashes, his green eyes seemed to pierce through Yuri.

Several seconds passed.

“So Yuri was trash.”

The caustic words slipped from lips too lovely to seem capable of cruelty. They were unpleasant to hear, but far milder than Yuri had expected. Even so, his mouth went dry. A small wave of panic rose within him, then subsided.

It was always like this.

Condemnation from people who had never been filthy made Yuri ashamed. That crushing sensation, closing in from every side, tormented him more than fear ever had. He had learned countless ways to master terror, but he had never discovered how not to feel shame.

There was only one thing he could do now: endure Cherriot’s judgment in silence. Yuri did not believe he had personally wronged him, but being condemned for what he was felt natural enough.

“Cherriot!”

Heather stepped between them. She had been watching the confrontation and searching for the right words, but the instant Cherriot insulted him, she rose and caught him by the arm, tugging him back.

“You can’t say something like that out of nowhere. No matter what, Mr. Yuri is…”

Heather faltered and met Yuri’s eyes. The distress in her gaze as she struggled to find words on his behalf made him uneasy. He had spoken first precisely because he did not want someone like Heather placed in an awkward position over someone like him, yet matters had ended that way regardless.

“I’m sorry, Heather. I didn’t mean to shock you.” Cherriot’s face remained blank as he calmly asked for her understanding. “But if Yuri really is a criminal, then from my position, isn’t this pretty fucking awful? I chose the inconvenient route specifically because I didn’t want to deal with this kind of person.”

“I understand that. But Mr. Yuri must have had his reasons too.”

“Who in this world doesn’t?”

A sneer brushed Cherriot’s mouth at Heather’s cautious attempt to defend Yuri. “That’s nothing but an excuse.”

As though daring him to argue, Cherriot fixed his gaze on Yuri. The warm green eyes that had smiled at him only moments earlier were now glacial, their anger sharpening by the second.

Yuri decided that was enough. He had already made up his mind to leave and was about to apologize to Heather and say goodbye when Cherriot spoke again. Apparently, Yuri’s silence only irritated him further. Eyes narrowed, Cherriot strode forward once more, bent his large frame, and thrust his face close to Yuri’s.

“Are you listening?” His voice dropped into a threat. “I’m telling you I don’t give a shit about your reasons, so get out. If you had any sense, you would’ve left already. Why are you still standing here?” Without allowing Yuri time to answer, Cherriot added with a cutting sneer, “Did you expect me to thank you for being honest now?”

That was enough. Before this young, arrogant man made an unnecessary scene, Yuri gave him the answer he wanted.

“Of course not.”

“Then leave. Don’t stay here.”

Yuri turned without protest. He wanted to apologize to Heather in private, but even raising the matter might be rude, so he suppressed the selfish impulse and headed for the door.

“Wait.”

He had no desire to respond, but to avoid further trouble, Yuri forced down his reluctance and stopped. Cherriot stood with his arms folded, then turned and snatched up the suitcase Yuri had left beside the table. It had seemed fairly heavy, but Cherriot lifted it as easily as a paper bag.

“I almost forgot to settle the bill.”

THUD

The suitcase struck the floor with a heavy impact. Heather watched in visible distress, nearly stamping her feet, as Cherriot opened the zipper and removed his wallet. The leather looked expensive at a glance. He flipped it open and pulled out a thick bundle of bills.

“Here. Take it. The hotel fee.”

So that was what he meant: reimbursement for the room Yuri had paid for on Cherriot’s behalf. Yuri slowly examined the money held out to him. The brown polymer hundred-dollar notes, each bearing a transparent security window, clearly numbered more than twenty. Even after deducting the cost of the room, the amount was excessive.

Perhaps sensing his scrutiny, Cherriot flicked the bills with pale fingers, blue veins visible beneath the skin, as though ordering him to hurry up and take them.

Watching the mocking gesture in silence, Yuri finally understood what Heather had meant. She had said Cherriot especially hated rotten people, and now he saw the depth of that hatred. The man had no sense of personal boundaries and usually behaved with irritating frivolity, but until now, he had never been deliberately rude.

The moment Cherriot learned what kind of man Yuri was, he erased every trace of affection he had shown and transformed completely. His disgust felt personal. Then again, the reaction was hardly unusual. Any normal person would naturally hate Yuri.

Nor was trash a new word.

A bastard worse than a dog. Filthy blood that should have been extinguished at birth. A son of a bitch better beheaded and abandoned in the woods for beasts to devour. Demon. A horrible person. A cold, cruel human being without a single tear in him. A thing unworthy of being called human.

Yuri had been called countless names throughout his life. Compared with the rest, trash was almost courteous.

“I’ll take it.”

Having so rarely been treated as human, Yuri was not easily provoked by contempt. Without the slightest fuss, he accepted the money Cherriot offered. He turned his eyes away from the cold green gaze mocking him as though this response proved every suspicion correct, then began counting the bills.

One, two, three… twenty.

Wasn’t this excessive for a man who was merely in a foul mood? The room had cost around seven hundred dollars.

Swish, swish.

Yuri counted the notes once more, then tucked the seven he needed into his coat.

Cherriot narrowed one eye, evidently wondering what Yuri was planning. The reaction was almost amusing. He had not so much as blinked at any of Yuri’s harsh words earlier, yet now he looked suspicious simply because Yuri continued to breathe.

“You may be good at sports, but apparently addition isn’t your strong suit. I’ll leave the change here.”

Had it been anyone else, Yuri might have thrown the bills into his face. For Heather’s sake, he restrained himself. Cherriot looked as though he would refuse the money even if Yuri held it out, so Yuri passed him and set the remainder on the table.

Tap.

With that faint sound, his connection to Cherriot Goodnight ended.

Yuri left the room beneath Cherriot’s glare. Only when he stood alone before the elevator did he finally exhale. Heat seared the inside of his chest, as though a hangnail growing over his heart had been torn free.

What a filthy mood.

The revulsion did not come from Cherriot or Heather. It came entirely from Yuri himself. The humiliation he had escaped for a while by avoiding ordinary people began crawling out again. Like a leech that could never be dislodged, it fastened itself to his conscience whenever moments like this arrived and fed until he could scarcely breathe.

For the first time in a long while, he wanted to go home and drink. Yuri pressed the elevator button with faint urgency. The car had remained on the same floor, and its doors opened at once.

At that exact moment, Cherriot’s room door burst open.

Heather hurried out. “Yuri, let’s go down to the lobby and talk for a minute.”