Chapter 12
Irelynn
The house is grander than any I’ve been in ever before. It’s not only grand in décor, but it’s grand in size. The thing has got to be a mansion, I think, as I make my way down a set of wide, dark wood stairs covered by a rich, plush cream runner.
After Ilya’s spiel the night before, where he said enough to completely frazzle my brain, I’d pulled my blanket tighter around myself before settling into the bed. He’d settled beside me, but did not touch me once in the night, thank goodness. My mental capacity to deal with the turn my life has taken had been totally shot.
I couldn’t have coped with his touch. Not then.
I’ve always rented month-to-month, so I suppose I won’t have to worry a whole bunch about being slapped a financial blow after ducking out on a lease. As I pay my rent two months ahead, I’m covered until the end of January. That means I have around fifty days to convince Ilya to return me to my old life, before Junk Lord Kenneth sells my stuff, and gives away my place.
I might have a fifty-day security with my apartment. The same is not the case with my job. When I don’t show up at all next week, I can kiss my cushy reception job with the free coffee, goodbye.
The idea of losing my job stings. Even though I more than likely faced a loss soon, anyway, considering the fact I’d rejected my boss.
Regardless, I’m determined to show Ilya just how much he doesn’t want me as his wife, or in his life.
Crazy man. I come with more baggage than a commercial plane.
Before leaving me to get dressed, Ilya had given me instructions on how to get to the kitchen. I know that I need to turn right at the base of the stairs, but from where I stand, I can see that left is the main entrance of the house. There’s a console table next to the intricately carved wood double doors that probably has a set of keys or two.
Maybe if I nabbed myself a set, I could steal one of the cars and…
“Bad idea, Little Blue.”
I flinch at the familiar rumble, my head swinging to the right. Ilya leans against a wall where he hadn’t been leaning before. He looks like a devil, and just as tempting. Dark wood wainscoting spans the wall behind him, somehow adding to the ominous feel of the man. His blue eyes are fixed on me, daring me, I think, to run.
“Why?” I manage to push the word past the lump in my throat.
“There are men stationed outside. Men who have yet to meet you. Men with guns who are under orders to shoot first and ask questions later,” he explains simply, as though such insanity is normal.
But none of this horror is normal. None of it.
He adds, “That’s not to mention the dogs.”
I blink. “Dogs? Men with guns.” I shake my head at a loss. “Who are you?”
He pushes off the wall, and even though he’s just walking toward me, as any man might—it feels more dangerous from him. Lethal. That primal instinct flares. The urge to flee that’s been ingrained into me by a lifetime of scurrying around, hiding, and praying a predator bigger and badder than those I’d already encountered wouldn’t develop a taste for little miss me.
I almost snicker. Look what good all that scurrying, hiding, and praying did for me.
The biggest, baddest predator, found me after all. And, boy, did he develop a taste.
Ilya stops in front of me, towering over me as he does. Really, the man is big.
No, he’s not just big. He’s massive. If this were ancient Greece, they’d have carved his likeness into marble and stone and claimed him a god. He’s that beautiful. That darkly captivating.
“The kitchen is this way, Little Blue.”
I dig my heels in when he pushes one big hand into the small of my back. I repeat, “Who are you?”
“My name is Ilya Volkov.”
“You have men with guns—and dogs that—that, what? Do they have guns, too?” I’m being facetious. Of course, I know dogs don’t carry guns.
But he smirks. “Teeth.” He snaps his at me. I think he might be trying to be funny when he adds low, “Great for tearing into flesh.”
“Who are you?” I demand again, although quieter this time. My horror and fear has rendered my voice almost powerless. I rear back only as far as his hand on my back allows, trying not to allow the fear I feel to paint my face as I stutter, “A man—a normal man doesn’t have men with guns and dogs with—flesh tearing teeth.”
He lets that smirk linger on his lips. “You don’t know much about dogs, do you?”
I think he’s teasing me.
My face scrunches. “Are you teasing me?”
“I wouldn’t dare.” The pressure of his hand at my back grows more insistent, until I’m stepping forward in the direction, he clearly wants me to travel.
Still, I continue my interrogation, not that it’s getting me anywhere. “How did I get here?”
“I told you yesterday.”
“Yes, plane. But how?”
He peers down at me, a frown pinching his brow. “Must I really explain the workings of a plane to you?”
I roll my eyes. His sharpen.
My breath snags before I huff, “I don’t have a passport. Clearly, I wasn’t conscious, as I have absolutely no recollection of traveling anywhere with you. I can’t imagine there’s an airline that would allow you to carry an unconscious woman, without a passport no less, onto a plane bound for another country.”
“There isn’t a commercial airline that would allow such a thing.” His eyes linger on my face, specifically my lips as I bite into the corner. “That’s why I fly private.”
I drop my lip as my jaw unhinges. “P-private? You have a private plane?”
“I do.”
My head snaps back on my shoulders as though he’s slapped me. The recoil is a vicious thing that has his eyes narrowing. My mind reels, my eyes wide as I take in the man before me.
I can’t connect this man—the things he’s done and the power he holds—to reality. I just can’t.
I’ve never known a man like him. A man in possession of the kind of power he commands. The power that allows him to steal a human being with no consequence or question.
“Who are you?”
His hand moves from the small of my back to my waist, where he tugs me into his front. My breath snags at the sudden contact of his body pressed into mine. At the heat that floods into me from this simple, unexpected, life-altering collision. My hand slaps up to land on his broad chest—to steady myself. It only makes me feel more unstable. Because under my palm, through the smooth material of his suit, I can feel the chaos of a wild heart beating violently inside his chest.
Dipping his head, his eyes locked on mine, he tells me, “I am yours.”
“You’re crazy.” I’m breathless.
His lips quirk. “For you.”
There he goes with that again.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know more about you than you think, Irelynn Orla Taylor, twenty-one, will be twenty-two in May. You did not graduate high school and were tossed into the foster system after the deaths of your parents.” My lungs seize in my chest. He doesn’t seem to notice. “You have no family left, and apart from Rae, no friends. Aside from working at Low and Bard Construction, you’ve worked one other job, at a bowling alley. Your favorite color is blue, you smell like cookies.” The blade of his nose runs the length of my neck, and I know he’s scenting me for one of the only luxuries I allow myself. My sugar cookie scented cream that reminds me of Christmas with my mom. I allow myself one jar every November and sob my heart out when I use the last drop. He continues, oblivious to the way he’s stripped me bare and flayed me raw. “You adore your cat and feed him better than you feed yourself. You either have a great love of peanut butter, or you eat it because it’s cheap. Shall I go on?”
My throat is raw with emotion when I shake my head. “No.”
“Good.” He releases his hold on me to place his hand against the small of my back again. Again, he guides me with a firm pressure in the direction he wants me to go.
My mind reels with everything I’ve learned. His name is Ilya Volkov. He lives in Russia, but when I met him at the casino, his accent was perfect, crisp American English. He is cool and clearly calculating. He’s a self-proclaimed monster, a killer without remorse. He has not only the wealth needed to command a private plane, but the power to demand unquestioning loyalty from those who serve him—even when that loyalty demands they look the other way during a kidnapping. He has a mansion tucked deep into the Russian woods, armed by men with guns and dogs with teeth that have been trained to maim.
I’ve read enough mafia romances to have my mind traveling down some insane paths.
Giving my head a sharp shake, I decide I’m being ridiculous. He might be a bad guy—but he can’t be that bad. Can he?
I need to convince him to return me to my one-room apartment with the soggy ceiling. Lucy might be comfortable as a king upstairs, curled on top of a bajillion thread count blanket, but I’m realistic enough to know that this story isn’t going to end well. Not for me, at least.
I make the decision then and there to press every button he has, until he decides to wipe his hands clean of me. It’s risky business, being that he’s a self-proclaimed killer and all. But I’ll just have to take the risk. Because staying with him is not an option.