“Fuck you, Charlie!” He shakes his fist in my face. “I’m not going to let a whore like you judge me. Transfer the fucking money!” He reaches over for the phone and slams it into my chest.
I’m stuck on his words, though.
Reluctantly, I take the phone from his grip. He’s not moving though.
“I can’t.” I know he hates me for it. But I have to protect him. I have to protect myself. “Let me help a different way.”
His lips tremble with rage and for a moment I’m sure he’s going to punch me.
“You can’t fuck your way out of this for me this time,” he mutters and takes a step back.
“What?”
“You think I don’t know how you took care of the Romanov problem? You fucking sold yourself.” He shakes his head. “You whored yourself out.”
Pain radiates through my chest.
“You should have just given me the money then.”
“I didn’t have it,” I whisper, as the hurt of his statement chokes me. “You didn’t show up that day, Oliver. You left me to deal with it. I was trying to save you. They would have hurt you, or worse for that kind of money.”
“So, you jumped into bed with the man who would have killed me?” he yells. “Nice, Charlie. You got in bed with a fucking animal.”
Tears build in my eyes. Everything I did was to save him. At least at first.
“Don’t talk about him like that,” I say, strength starting to come back to me.
“What, the fucking Russian fucker? He’s a fucking sewer rat and you were fucking him.”
“You need to leave.” I swallow back the bile rising in my throat. “I’m not transferring the money. You’ll have to wait.”
“I fucking can’t!” he yells again and reaches into the back of his jeans, pulling out a gun and pointing it at me. “I was really hoping not to have to do this.”
“I’m not doing it.” I stand straighter. “You need to get help. We’ll figure out how to make things better.”
“There is no better! For fuck’s sake, Charlie! I didn’t go through all of this to not get that insurance money.”
“Go through what?”
He tilts his head and gives me a look that says he thinks I’m a moron. “C’mon, Charlie, you’re not dumb.”
Dots connect.
“You did it? You started the fire?” I take a step toward him. He still has the gun pointed at me, but he takes a step back, toward the back door.
“Of course I did! You were too busy with your legs wrapped around the fucking Russian to be any help.”
“Any help?” Anger rises in me. “Help? Everything I’ve done for you is to help.”
“Right,” he huffs. “You’ve been a good little slut in order to help me.”
“Say that again and I’ll rip out your fucking tongue,” a dark voice booms from behind me. It’s Nikolai. He’s here.
Oliver’s face pales.
“Oliver, please, just put that down,” I try to reason with him, but now he’s scared on top of angry.
“Put it down, unless you’d like me to take mine out.” Nikolai sounds downright bored.