Chapter 4
DARIUS
The endearment shocked me.
I'd never done something so romantically frivolous as to give a woman a pet name. Such eccentricities came naturally from an evolving intimacy with a partner, something I'd never craved.
So why now? Why her?
I dismissed the momentary lapse in judgment and focused on the task at hand. It had to be because I was tired. That was the only reason I would be wasting time playing cat and mouse with this little girl.
My hand tightened around her wrist—the bones delicate beneath my fingers, her pulse hammering against my palm like a trapped bird.
Her lip trembled as she tried in vain to pull away, and the sight of it sent an unwelcome jolt of heat through my chest.
"Let me go," she cried out, her voice cracking on the last word.
She was stronger than I would've guessed. Wiry muscle flexed beneath that pale skin as she twisted against my grip, her breath coming in sharp gasps that made her chest rise and fall in a way I shouldn't be noticing.
There was something about this girl. Maya soloveyka fit her far better than Eleanor ever would.
Eleanor was too proper and prim for a woman with purple hair the color of bruised lilacs who played the guitar like she was pouring her soul out into the ether.
Who smelled like vanilla and something darker—jasmine, maybe, or the ghost of cigarette smoke from a club's stage.
Chert voz'mi. Dammit. There I went again with all this poetic bullshit.
Obviously, I'd been pushing myself too hard as of late. My cousins' recent distractions meant I had to pick up the slack all the way from the other side of the Atlantic. Another issue I needed to address while I was here.
I had always preferred the cold logic of numbers. Even my taste in music was all about the cadence, the rhythm, and the instruments' logic. The swell and ebb of force and structure.
Not sweet, haunting melodies sung by a girl caught in her mother's political moves.
If I wanted to deal with family politics, emotional clutter, and women who were in way over their heads, I would willingly spend more time with my cousins.
I needed to stop wasting time and get her mother back in line, then get back on a plane and return to the calming, dreary weather of London.
When I tightened my hand around her wrist, I expected her to submit.
With her soft lilac hair and glossy pink lips that were currently twisted in a snarl, she looked like a woman who'd submit so prettily. Who'd melt under the right kind of pressure.
Instead, her fingers curled into claws, short nails painted lilac, sharp enough to draw blood.
As she pulled her wrist out of my grip with a vicious yank, her other hand slashed out at my face.
She was fast, faster than I would have expected. But not fast enough.
I dodged her attack, the breeze of her swing kissing my cheek.
Then she wrapped those delicate little fingers tipped with claws around a stapler—red plastic, absurdly bright—and swung it at my face. The weight of it caused her to stumble slightly, throwing her off balance, and I almost laughed.
She lashed out over and over, the stapler cutting through the air with whistling snaps, and I dodged each time, giving her a taunting smile, letting her try to land a hit.
Letting her wear herself out while I drank in the sight of her—flushed cheeks with that pretty mouth open, panting with exertion.
"Come on, maya soloveyka," I murmured, my voice low and goading. "I thought you wanted to hurt me."
Her eyes became wild and unfocused, giving me a glimpse of the fierce woman underneath, of all the rage and fear and something else. Something hungry that heated my blood.
Sweat gleamed at her temple, and a strand of purple hair stuck to her neck.
"I will hurt you," she spat, her voice raw. "I'll—"
When she got a little too close for comfort, when the edge of the stapler actually grazed my jaw with a sting that surprised me, I grabbed her wrist, squeezing until the stapler fell from her fingers to the floor with a hollow clatter.
The sound echoed in the sudden silence.
She was breathing hard now, her chest heaving against me. We were closer than I'd realized, close enough that the heat radiated off her body onto mine and her vanilla-jasmine scent, mixed with the sharp tang of her sweat and fear, filled my lungs.
Her pupils were wide, nearly eclipsing the gray of her irises.
"Done fighting?" I asked, my thumb stroking over the racing pulse in her wrist. Once. Twice. She shuddered beneath the touch.
"Never," she whispered, but her body betrayed her—swaying toward me even as she bared her teeth. "You're a monster."
I leaned in, close enough that my lips nearly brushed her ear, her whole body going rigid. "I know, maya soloveyka. But you're going to sing for me anyway."
Her breath hitched, a tiny, involuntary sound that went straight to my cock.
This was going to be more complicated than I'd thought.
Just then, my men entered the store and flanked the counter.
I stopped them with one glaring look.
"I've got this. Guard the door. No one gets in…or out.”
My men nodded and went back to their posts, the bell above the door jingling mockingly as they stepped outside.
I put both of her wrists in one of my hands, then wrapped my arm around her waist and propelled her into the storage room.
She gasped, the sound breathy and startled.
The curve of her hip pressed into my palm, the give of soft flesh over lean muscle.
I kicked the door closed behind me, the slam echoing like a gunshot.
She pulled out of my grasp again, stumbling back, and this time I let her go.
She was trapped. There was no getting away from me.
The back storage room was small. Claustrophobic, really.
Just a narrow little table and a few sets of metal shelves filled with odds and ends—record sleeves, tangled cables—with a lot of dust floating in the dim overhead light. The air was stale, thick with the smell of old paper and something chemical, maybe cleaning supplies.
She moved to the other end of the small space and swung to face me, putting only a few feet between us.
It wasn't enough.
She wasn't going anywhere. There was nowhere to go, and although there was a phone not too far from her on a cluttered shelf, she didn't reach for it.
Smart girl. Not that she would succeed if she did.
But was she smart enough to submit? Or did she have more fight in her?
I couldn't wait to find out.
With as much distance between us as possible, she shifted back and forth on her toes, a restless, prey-animal movement. Preparing to run from me. Or around me.
My pulse kicked up despite myself.
Unfortunately for her she had maybe four feet of space to work with in that tiny storage room. Four feet of air that was already heating with our combined body heat, growing thick and electric.
"Look, I don't know what you want, but we don't have a lot of money.
" Her words tumbled out fast, desperate.
"Take it, take it all, take whatever you want.
We have some vintage records…I'm sure you could sell them for a few hundred on eBay.
No one will call the police. I'll give you the combination of the safe. I swear, take whatever you want."
I almost smiled.
She thought this was a robbery. Adorable.
"Maya soloveyka, my net worth is in the eight figures." I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the door, blocking the only exit, making sure she knew she was well and truly trapped. "The pocket change in your safe does not interest me. And your police do not concern me."
I paused to let that sink in. "Try again."
"What?" she asked, her face paling, those storm-gray eyes going almost silver with fear and then darting around as she tried to come up with some plan. Some way out of this little predicament she was in.
There wasn't one.
"Try again." I pushed off the door. Took one slow step toward her, watched her flinch. "Try offering me something else that would convince me to let you go."
"I—" Her voice shook, and her eyes filled with tears, but they didn't spill over. Not yet. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, nails biting into her palms.
She was scared, but defiant.
I liked that. Liked it too much.
"What do you want?" The question came out raw, almost a whisper.
"I'm not just going to give you the answer," I said, enjoying the way her hands trembled until she gripped the edge of the metal table behind her, knuckles going white.
Enjoying the way her eyes still flitted around the room like a wild animal searching for escape. The subtle rise and fall of her chest from the shallow breaths she was taking, her breasts pressing against the thin fabric of her bodice with each inhale.
Stop noticing that.
"If you don't want money, what else could you possibly want?" Her eyes went wide for a second as if the what else finally occurred to her.
Her lips parted on a sharp inhale.
I considered telling her that wasn't what I wanted but decided against it.
It was far too tempting to see what she would do.
To watch that fear bloom darker, richer.
Then all at once, I saw it.
The moment she realized why I was here.
Her shoulders dropped, and she pushed them back—spine straight, chin lifted. The shaking in her hands stopped, and her eyes went from nervously bouncing around the room to studying me as she stared me down.
Reading me, looking for a rhythm, a pattern, like I was one of her songs.
Maya soloveyka had some fight in her, but it was waning. Or maybe it was just acceptance of the inevitable.
"This is because of my mother, isn't it?"
She really was smart. Too smart.
I could have told maya soloveyka that it was about her mother, and that there was nothing she could do to stop it. Hell, I could have told her she was going to be fine as long as she behaved.
I didn't.