Chapter 14
ANNA
The phone screen blurred, then sharpened. Then blurred again.
I blinked, dragging my thumb across the glass for the hundredth time, pulling down to refresh.
Nothing.
No missed calls.
No voicemails.
The notification bar remained a taunting stretch of emptiness.
My leg bounced against the couch cushion, a frantic rhythm I couldn't control. The apartment was too quiet. Too still. The silence pressed against my eardrums until I could hear my own pulse, feel it throbbing in my temples, in my wrists, in the heavy weight of metal circling my throat.
I stood. Sat back down.
The quilt Edith had sewn, soft, worn flannel in shades of cream and rose, tangled around my ankles. I kicked it off, then immediately pulled it back, needing something to hold onto.
An hour. I'd been staring at this screen for an entire hour, waiting for something that wasn't coming.
My mother's name sat at the top of my recent calls, mocking me with its silence. She should have called. By now, she should have mobilized half the FBI, had Darius surrounded, sent someone—anyone—to check on me.
Unless she couldn't. Unless there was a reason, a plan already in motion. Spec ops teams didn't exactly call ahead.
The thought offered a brief flicker of hope before reality crushed it.
I pushed off the couch again, pacing to the window.
The street below looked normal.
Too normal.
No black SUVs.
No men in tactical gear.
Just a pair of women pushing strollers, a utility truck idling at the corner, a dog walker tangled in the leashes of his overexcited charges. The ordinary flow of life continuing as if mine hadn't just shattered into pieces.
My fingers found the necklace, traced the cold edges of diamonds that caught the afternoon light.
Beautiful. Deadly. My stomach twisted at the contradiction.
I turned from the window and surveyed my apartment. Evidence of Darius’s men’s search remained everywhere—drawers pulled open, closet doors ajar, the careful disordered chaos I maintained disrupted by unfamiliar hands.
Restoring things to where they belonged gave me something to focus on.
I started with the dresser, shoving clothes back into their proper places.
My hands trembled as I worked, refolding shirts that didn't need folding, reorganizing socks that were already paired. The motions were automatic, mindless, something to keep my body busy while my mind spiraled. A bra caught on a drawer’s edge.
I yanked it free, heard fabric tear, didn't care.
The phone, lying in my peripheral vision, remained silent.
I grabbed it, selected my mother's contact.
The ringing filled my ear—one ring, two, three.
I counted them, holding my breath, waiting.
Voicemail.
My heart plummeted.
I sank onto the couch, pulling my feet underneath the quilt, needing its weight and warmth even as sweat prickled along my spine.
She was probably coordinating with authorities.
That was it.
They'd told her not to answer on the first ring, needed time for traces, for whatever technology they used in these situations. Every cop show I'd ever seen played through my mind, offering rational explanations my heart refused to believe.
I tried again.
And again.
Each time, the ringing stretched longer, the silence afterward more deafening.
My phone dinged and I lunged for it, fumbling it between my hands before securing my grip.
Edith: Hey, sugar, just a friendly reminder. I do not want to see you in the store today. It is your day off. Go live your life. Be young. Come back tomorrow with scandalous stories that I can live vicariously through.
A smile tugged at my lips despite everything.
Sweet Edith, who had no idea what kind of scandalous story I was living through. I could run to the store, tell her everything, feel her arms around me while she promised it would be okay.
But it would only put her in danger. She'd try to help, try to protect me, and Darius wouldn't hesitate to—
I cut off that thought and dialed my mother again.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
The pattern became a ritual.
Call.
Wait.
Voicemail.
Repeat.
Finally, on the seventh try, someone answered.
"Senator Collins’s phone." Chad's voice held that particular brand of annoyed professionalism unique to overworked assistants.
"It’s Anna, I need to speak with her." I kept my voice light, controlled, even as my free hand fisted in the quilt.
"The senator is quite busy, but if you let me know what this is regarding, I'm sure I can schedule an appointment. It looks like she might have some available time for a fifteen-minute call two weeks from now."
Two weeks.
The necklace was suddenly heavier, tighter.
"I am not making an appointment to speak to my own mother. Put her on the phone." I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the tension coil up my neck, settle into my shoulders like a physical weight.
"I know that she's your mother, but you have to understand she's swamped."
"Give her the phone," I repeated.
"I can give her a message, but she's in the middle of a meeting with some very important—"
"Okay, let's try this a different way," I said, adopting a fake sugary-sweet tone, making sure each of my words dripped with condescension.
"If you do not put her on the phone right now, I am going to call the New York Times and tell them about how I disagree with my mother's stance on gun control and her paydays from special interests.
Then I will tell any reporter I can find about how I support members and candidates opposing her positions and will start an Only Fans account to raise money for them. "
The line went silent for a moment.
"Give me a minute, let me see if I can get her," he finally said.
"Thank you," I said in the same sugary-sweet tone. I hated pulling that card. I felt like a spoiled bitch, but there was no other way for me to get in contact with her.
I hated how I had to threaten my way into having access to my mother.
It took another fifteen minutes before she picked up the phone.
Fifteen minutes that crawled by.
I counted them on the microwave clock. My leg resumed its bouncing. I stood, paced to the window, back to the couch, then to the kitchen where I filled a glass of water I didn't drink.
Finally, the line connected.
"Eleanor," she scolded when she got on the phone, making me feel like I was still five years old and reaching for a second cookie. "How dare you interrupt my day. I was in a critical meeting, you know that—"
"How dare I? How dare I?" I couldn't believe her audacity. "There is a bomb strapped around my throat because of you. You pissed off the wrong people, and now they're going to kill me because of you, and you couldn't even be bothered to pick up the phone and check on me?"
Hot tears of frustration and anger spilled down my cheeks as I yelled around the lump forming in my throat. They tracked through what remained of yesterday's makeup, leaving dark streaks I could feel but couldn't see.
"Oh, stop being so dramatic. You're just like your father. All emotion and no common sense. You're fine."
"I am not fine, Mother," I shrieked. "I was abducted from my job by a Russian mob boss, and now he has a bomb around my throat."
"Calm down," she sighed, and I could hear her roll her eyes through the phone at me. "He won't kill you, not while he needs me. You're the only leverage he has. Stop making this all about you."
"I'm not leverage, I'm your daughter."
"And right now you're a distraction. I raised you better than this. The situation is handled. Don't do anything, you're just going to make it worse. Do not call the police and do not call me again. I will call and let you know when it's taken care of."
Then the line disconnected.
I stared at my phone, and the words “call ended” flashed in front of me.
She had hung up on me.
My mother had put my life in danger, and not only did she not check on me, I had to chase her down myself and even then, she didn't console me. She called me dramatic and emotional and hung up on me.
For a second I wondered if she was right.
Was I overreacting?
I leaned forward to pull the quilt over me, the heavy necklace shifting on my neck, reminding me of the danger I was in.
With a scream of frustration, I threw my phone across the room, and I didn't even care when I heard the glass screen crack.
The sound felt good. Felt right.
I ran into the bathroom and stared into the mirror, looking at the deadly necklace. It was beautiful. It wasn't too gaudy; the diamonds captured the light and glittered, just big enough to be eye-catching but understated.
It was classy, more Audrey Hepburn and Jackie O than Elizabeth Taylor.
I caressed the diamonds, feeling the cold, smooth ridges, and then the underside of the large stones.
Where its true purpose became undeniable. Something was different under those stones. Still cold, but metallic, mechanical, rather than the glass-like texture of the diamonds themselves.
Then I remembered what it felt like to have his hands on me, the way his fingers gripped my throat under the necklace. The contrast of the cold metal versus the hot flesh of his hand was still fresh in my mind.
My eyes closed at the memory of his hands around my throat, of the way they moved down to my breasts. He touched me in a way no one else ever had. With a confidence and prowess that only came from men with confidence and true power, not arrogance.
Darius stirred my body to react in ways I didn't know it could.
He made me want to—
I cut off those thoughts immediately.
What he did to me was not okay. I didn't ask for it. I didn't say no, but I didn't have the chance or the ability to tell him no.
He wasn't the kind of man someone said no to.
Tears spilled down my face as I relived every moment, shame building in me at how much I liked the way he touched me, the filthy things he whispered in my ear, and the way he kissed me.
Even thinking about it, heat built in my core as shame grew in my heart and my stomach turned.
All of it—shame, guilt, confusion—spiraled inside of me. I let him touch me. No, I didn't just let him use me, I responded. My body and my resistance melted at his touch, and I begged for it. I begged him to touch me, and I begged for his cock.
In one night, he had turned me from a good girl, one who was doing her best to earn her mother's approval, into nothing more than a slut. And I liked it.
My knees weakened, and I gripped the edge of my bathroom sink. It would have been so easy to drop to my knees and let all of this overwhelm me. I could cry and scream until my throat was raw.
The urge to fall apart was so strong, but I couldn't. There wasn't time.
There would be time later. I needed to deal with this, work through my emotions and come out on the other side. Now was not the time to go to pieces.
Now was the time to fight for my survival. That was the only thing that mattered.
The first step was to get this necklace off. Then I'd reclaim my life. I slowly spun the necklace, looking in the mirror, trying to find the latch.
There was nothing. It was one sleek eternity band. I couldn't find a dent or hinge. There wasn't a single seam in the metal.
How did he even get this around my neck?
The blinking red light was gone too.
Had he disarmed it? Or did it only blink when he activated it?
I ran out of the bathroom into my bedroom, tearing through the room, throwing my clean clothes all over the place as I hunted for my guitar repair kit and the pink-handled needle-nose pliers that came with it.
Once I had my fingers around them, I ran back into the bathroom and wedged the small, angled tip between two diamonds, clamping down on the platinum prongs.
Maybe if I removed the diamonds, I'd see the explosive and figure out a way to disarm it. There had to be a YouTube video or something. There was a YouTube video for everything—why not one for defusing a mini bomb?
My heart raced as I went through all the potential outcomes.
Everything from freedom to death.
I was so focused I didn't even realize I wasn't alone anymore.
Not until a voice behind me, dark and deadly, whispered, "I wouldn't do that if I were you, maya soloveylka."