Chapter 10
Aurora
I wake with a jolt, heart hammering before my eyes even open. The memory hits as consciousness returns.
The alley, the gun, the blood. Benny’s dead eyes boring into mine. Being gagged. Bound. Kidnapped. Questioned. Conjuring up a fictional guy from the bar named Harry just to buy myself some time.
For one blessed second, I cling to the hope that I’ve spent the last fifteen plus hours trapped in some long, hyper-realistic fever dream. Then I blink away the blurriness and notice the twenty-foot-high industrial ceiling overhead.
Ice sinks into my bones.
Not a nightmare. My new reality.
My body aches as I push myself up on the couch. The buttery-soft fabric beneath me doesn’t belong in the same universe as zip ties and executions. I’m still wearing that ridiculous maid costume, which is now dirty and wrinkled beyond salvation.
The next time someone abducts me, I hope I’m in jeans.
Sunlight streams through enormous windows that stretch from the floor to the ceiling along one wall of the loft.
Dust motes dance in the beams, glittering like tiny stars in the otherwise sterile space.
After last night’s darkness, the brightness is almost offensive.
The light illuminates everything I couldn’t discern before.
The cold precision of this place, the emptiness.
Beautiful and barren, like an abandoned set created for a magazine spread.
The loft stretches forever in all directions, a concrete and steel cage disguised as luxury.
Polished concrete floors reflect the morning glow.
The furniture sits in lonely islands across the vast expanse.
Everything is expensive. Everything is soulless.
Even the air, temperature-controlled to perfection, feels curated.
“You’re awake.”
I flinch at the flat, emotionless voice, my head whipping toward the source.
He lounges in the same chair he had last night, watching me from across the coffee table. Alexei. The murderer. My kidnapper. My savior? Captor? I don’t know what to call him anymore.
The morning light unveils details I missed last night. The shadows under his eyes and the tension in his jaw. And far, far too many muscles. They ripple in his forearm as the coin dances in his hand.
The actions show off a plethora of scars.
Most are straight, white, and flat. Likely from a knife.
Our bartenders have the same kind of scars.
Though I suspect that Alexei didn’t get his from slicing citrus fruits.
A similar mark resides just under his jaw.
Other lumpier ones span his knuckles. From punching, I bet.
So many signs of violence embedded in his flesh.
He doesn’t move or approach. Just assesses me with those cool, intense bright blue eyes that notice everything. The silence between us stretches, taut as a wire.
I clear my throat, which feels desiccated. How the hell did I manage to sleep with a predator nearby?
With the steaming mug in his hand, he gestures toward the door I used last night. “You know where the bathroom is. Feel free to shower.”
A brittle laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “A shower? Seriously?”
His expression remains unchanged. “You’ve got blood in your hair.”
My hand flies to my head. I touch the stiff, crusty patches where Benny’s blood dried overnight. My stomach lurches.
“I’ll pass.” Though I’m desperate to scrub off the remaining evidence of last night, hanging out naked in this man’s bathroom seems like a bad idea.
“Suit yourself.” He rises and crosses to the kitchen area, returning with a plate that he sets on the coffee table between us. Cheese cubes. Grapes. Crackers. Like we’re at a wine tasting instead of a kidnapping. I wonder if he has a charcuterie board. “Eat.”
Not a request. Never a request with him. Not wanting to goad him into drawing his gun again, I eye the spread. My treacherous stomach growls. Though I grazed on some of the food he’d given me late last night, I was too exhausted and traumatized to eat very much.
He observes me as I weigh my options, then sighs. “It’s not poisoned.” He pops a piece of cheese into his mouth. “See? Did you want coffee?”
The offer throws me. I find this bizarre attempt at normalcy—the food I don’t have to answer questions for, the opportunity to shower, the shift in his demeanor—more alarming than the outright threats.
What game is he playing?
I reach out, my hand hovering over a cube of some sort of white cheddar. My stomach growls again, louder this time.
Just as my fingers close around the cheese, a harsh mechanical buzz shatters the silence. I jerk back, the cheese tumbling from my grasp as fresh fear stabs through me.
Alexei crosses to a panel near the elevator and presses a button. “Da?”
A voice too muffled to understand crackles through the intercom. After Alexei responds, the massive industrial elevator doors slide open with a heavy groan.
A man with sandy blond hair emerges.
Instinct insists he isn’t one of the guys from last night. Mostly because he doesn’t strike me as a killer.
He’s not quite as tall or as muscular as Alexei but still fit. His easy smile falters when he spots me on the couch. He’s dressed in casual clothing—jeans, sneakers, and a blue t-shirt—but the sharpness in his eyes doesn’t match his relaxed posture.
That same sharpness lurks in Alexei’s eyes.
“Trevor.” Alexei holds out his hand by way of greeting.
Trevor’s eyes flit from Alexei to me, widening when my outfit registers. “Am I interrupting?”
Alexei’s short laugh contains no actual humor. “Something like that. We had quite a night.”
A night? I narrow my eyes, fury eclipsing my fear. Does he think this is funny? Does Trevor actually believe I’m here willingly? Could I plead with him to help me escape?
But Trevor’s expression is already sobering. He approaches Alexei while studying his face. “You look like shit, Lex.” He drops the pretense of pleasantries. “This thing with MJ…it’s eating you alive. You know Roman told you to drop it. Why don’t you?”
When Trevor addresses Alexei with obvious familiarity, all my hope flies out the window.
The name MJ again. Who is this person? Family? A friend? A girlfriend?
For some reason, my mind shies away from that last thought.
“He can drop it.” Alexei’s eyes ice over. “You can drop it. But I can’t. And I never will.”
The mood in the room tilts.
I bend over the plate, faking a keen interest in selecting a grape while straining to catch what they’re saying. Why is this MJ person so important to Alexei? That catch in his voice, that raw edge quickly smoothed over, may be the first real emotion I’ve heard him express.
The first crack in that frigid control.
Trevor shakes his head and reaches out to clap a hand on Alexei’s shoulder. “Let’s talk in the kitchen.”
In other words, talk away from me. At least they’re worried about me hearing and knowing things. If they planned to kill me, that wouldn’t be a concern.
Right?
As the two men shuffle away, their voices drop down to murmurs. I watch them from my peripheral vision as I eat grapes. The men tilt their heads together. Sometimes Trevor gestures, but Alexei remains rigid and unmoving. They’re clearly discussing a serious topic.
After a small eternity, they head toward the elevator. Trevor nods at me, concern or maybe apology flashing across his handsome face before he steps inside.
Dammit.
Alexei addresses me without glancing over. “The elevator needs my thumbprint to operate. The windows are reinforced. Don’t try anything stupid. I’ll be back. If anything is destroyed when I return, you won’t enjoy what happens.”
Just a statement of fact to inform me that he holds the key to my roomy cage. He’ll return when he wants to. And I can’t do a thing about it.
Though I’m tempted to hurl a lamp at his head as a free parting gift.
The elevator doors close with a heavy clank that reverberates through the massive space, emphasizing just how alone I am.
How trapped.
I sit, food forgotten as the reality of my situation seeps in. I’m alone in a killer’s home.
A killer who will eventually return to start round two of my interrogation.
Unless I discover a way out first.