Chapter 14 – Freya
One Month Later
Time spent without him had turned from hours to days, days to weeks, and weeks to a month.
I wasn’t counting; I didn’t even have a calendar to do the math, so I blamed Anna. She was always timely with her daily updates when she called up to my room, on the boss’s instruction, and I counted how many times she came up to say, “The boss asked me to do this,” or “The boss told me to do that.”
And I blamed Anatoly, too. He was more frequent in the house these days. The number of times I met him mounting guard in the living room, smoking on some weed or sniffing coke, he wore different colors or shades of the same shirt, with a jacket that somehow fit perfectly on every outfit. I counted those, too.
The house was quiet without its owner— very quiet—and it strangely made me uncomfortable. I tried to convince myself that I didn’t miss his presence. I didn’t miss the sound of his voice or watching his tall frame silently pass through the hallway as he left for work—or possibly to kill someone else.
Neither the housekeeper nor bodyguard were ever interested enough to strike up meaningful conversations, and regardless of Egor’s permission to move about the house, the daily routine had become a bore.
Like today, the hours seemed longer. I’d done everything twice, from taking a shower and a run around the compound to getting busy in the kitchen and reading an old book from the small in-house library.
Now, I lay back on the bed with my hands clasped behind my head, reliving the moment from the last time I’d seen him. The pictures were vivid: me in his arms, me in his bed, his lips on mine, his face between my legs, and the length of him filling me up.
My cheeks heated at the memory, and a pulse throbbed between my legs.
In my opinion, I’d said a bunch of nonsense and stupidly lost control that night. I wanted to scream and pull my hair— I lost my V-card to a murderer and kidnapper.
Who would have ever thought?
Such a twist of fate.
It sounded like a storyline from a fictional novel, except this was no fiction. It was real life. My life. I’d lost my senses. Got lost in the euphoria of being in the arms of one of the most infuriating and gorgeous men I’d ever laid eyes on.
What was I thinking?
Or maybe that was the problem. I wasn’t thinking at all. There was no way I had my thinking faculties straight while we did the deed. But nothing was enough to convince me that I’d made a mistake that night.
The more thoughts I had about it, the hotter my skin sizzled. He was like an illegal addiction, the very type people were warned to stay away from. Egor Yezhov was not good for me, and knowing that should have been enough to deter me.
But it wasn’t.
Nothing. Freaking. Is.
The image of his hard body pressed into me, his chest muscles flexing as he held me close, made me tingle with pleasure. Our heartbeats synchronized, and the feeling was like flying over the moon.
He'd gripped my chin and kissed me like I was the oxygen he needed to breathe. Pried my mouth with his tongue like he searched for a lost treasure and dropped his hands to my neck like he grasped onto something precious.
I’d never been kissed like that. Ever .
Growing up, at seventeen, I’d envisioned what my life would be like with my first boyfriend, who would turn out to be my forever sweetheart.
I’d imagined him to be blond like Malibu Ken—six feet tall, with a perfect smile and a good heart.
He was going to be my first kiss and my first time, and we would have a sweet, nice home with successful careers. We would have lived a good life with as much caution as possible because the world had evil men lurking .
Nowhere had I planned a script where I encountered one of those evil men in the most unpredictable way and gave myself to him with no reserve.
He'd kissed my palm, grazed my neck, and wound his fist in my hair as he claimed me. I hadn’t wanted him to let go. I hadn’t wanted him to stop, and with shivers, I’d told him exactly those words.
Lying there and fantasizing about a cold-blooded killer was crazy. This was wrong. Everything was, and the voice of guilt nagged at the back of my mind. I’d let myself go too far. It didn’t matter that a part of me longed to stay locked up in that unrealistic bubble with him, where great sex meant everything.
Reality knocked, and I had to wake up and smell the coffee. A life with him was bound to ruin me.
I kicked my feet off the bed, grabbed a T-shirt, wore it over my bra, and slid on a pair of black shorts.
As I tied my hair in a bun, I padded my way to the living room. I wasn’t surprised to find Anatoly already present and lying on the gray sectional sofa. Today, he wore a brown shirt and had a black leather jacket hanging on the arm of the sofa.
He was busy with his phone when I walked in.
“Good morning.”
I tried to sound chirpy, but the man’s presence always set me on edge, reminding me that I was held hostage in a penthouse somewhere in Moscow.
His role was very simple: to keep an eye on me while the big boss was away.
“Morning.”
Ugh.
“Do you have to be so gruff?”
Anatoly dragged his eyes away from his phone and gave me a deadpan look that should have meant scram . But I stayed put.
“What do you want?” he grunted. “A smile and a breakfast offer?”
“Maybe? You’re human, after all. Doesn’t matter how much of that I-am-impenetrable attitude you keep up. At the end of the day, you have a beating heart.”
He scoffed and returned his attention to his mobile device.
“My beating heart died the day my mother and sister got raped in front of me and had their throats slit. As for breakfast offers, that’s Anna’s job. I’m here to keep you in line.”
My jaw dropped.
The way he’d summarized his experience like it wasn’t the most horrific thing anyone could possibly bear made me feel…sorry for him?
“I am…so sorry to hear that. You didn’t deserve—”
“Keep the speech for the brat with the trust fund who thinks the world is unfair because he was denied a lollipop. I, on the other hand, won’t think twice about fucking shooting you in the legs if you try anything stupid.”
My sympathy was short-lived.
Although I pitied him for his traumatic backstory, I wanted to shove his superiority complex down his throat.
He sounded a lot like the kingpin himself—rash and aggressive. But I knew better. The harder they projected themselves, the softer they were on the inside.
Sometimes .
Idly, I dawdled for a while and thought of asking him a bothering question that plagued my mind the past week.
“Anatoly?”
He shut his eyes and exhaled like I was nothing more than a nuisance, a thorn in his side.
“What?”
“Why doesn’t he talk to me directly? I don’t think I like the notes and memos from you or Anna all the time.”
His laughter was mocking. “He doesn’t owe you anything, Detective. Enjoy the privileges you have.”
I should have expected that: the strong reminder to stay in my place and remember that the only reason I was here was for information—to know how many more people knew of his crime. That I was disposable. But I hadn’t expected it, and hearing the truth actually stung a lot more than it should have.
I turned around and walked away, wishing I could give him the middle finger without feeling bad afterward.
Back in the room, after making sure the door was locked, I paced the floor, suddenly agitated. I needed to get out of here before I allowed the thought of him to consume me.
I went from the closet to the dresser and repeated the movement a couple more times before rummaging through the drawers. I’d kept it hidden somewhere.
After a few more tugs on a few empty drawers, I found what I was looking for: a sleek smartphone. I’d nabbed it from a lady’s purse back in the bathroom at the fundraiser.
Stealing was not anything I’d done before, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
My heart started to race in my chest quicker than time itself as I snuck it out away from the CCTV camera spot and positioned myself in the tight corner to dial the first number I recalled.
It had a low battery and several missed calls, but with the help of some tech skills I’d picked up back at the office, I’d been able to mess with the system to stop them from tracking the device.
The low battery would have to do.
I pressed the phone to my ear, hoping John picked up.
On the third ring, he didn’t disappoint.
“John Candler on the line. How may I help you?”
I exhaled. Never had I been more relieved to hear the smooth sound of his voice.
“John,” I sighed, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve missed you.”
He paused, and there was a brief shuffle in the background before his shock came through in a harsh whisper. “ Freya ? Good God, is that really you? Fuck . Mila and I…we received your email about wanting to work someplace else, but none of it made any sense, and we got even more worried when our calls weren’t connecting. What is going on?”
On a regular day, I wasn’t a crybaby, but somehow, the emotions racking through me were all too much to bear. Tears worked their way up and filled my eyes. I missed home. I suddenly missed the smell of macchiato in the morning when I walked into the office. Even if I’d always desired a better life, I missed the paperwork, Sergeant Keith… all of it.
“I don’t know what you heard, but Paris…none of that was true. I was kidnapped….”
I began telling him everything that happened, from the beginning—from the first time I’d met Egor Yezhov to the kidnapping and finally to being held against my will in Moscow, Russia. All except the part where I had unbelievable, mind-blowing, consensual sex with my captor.
How disgusting and disappointing would that have been? And if my father saw me now, what would he have said? Surely, he didn’t make so many investments and raise me to be... this type of woman.
I burned with shame and regret, and by the time I was done, John could barely speak.
The phone buzzed in my hand, and I saw the red low battery alert warning on the screen.
“John, the phone is about to go off.”
He started speaking in a rush. “Send me your current location now.”
“On it.” I shared my location and pressed the phone back to my ear.
He was still speaking. “I know someone who can help me connect a few officials in the country to get you out of there.”
“Please, don’t forget my mother, Ruby, and Zeya. They need protection, too. Egor Yezhov is crazy, John. He can hurt them. Please protect them.”
“I will, I promise. Hold on, help’s coming, okay? I’m so glad you called me. That was brave and smart. Everything will be okay. I won’t let him hurt you.”
I was on the verge of tears when the screen flashed, and the phone went off. The battery had died.
Sniffling, I wiped my eyes and smuggled the phone back into the drawer where I’d hidden it. Then, my head started to ache, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I thought it was the burden of being so distressed, but lately, during the past week, my body had been acting strangely, and I realized I’d missed a period. It was unusual because I’d never missed a period. Not since I understood the meaning of puberty.
Panic started to set in. I couldn’t shake off the feeling of dread that built up inside me, and at the same time, a knock came on the door.
I opened it to find Anna standing in the hallway with a curious expression. “I came to ask if you want to eat different lunch today.”
Before she could continue, I blurted out my own request. “Can you do me a favor?”
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Korol has forbid me to—"
“I need you to get me a pregnancy strip test. I think it’s urgent.”
Her eyes widened, and she nodded solemnly, mirroring the worry on my face. Without a word, she turned and disappeared down the hallway, leaving me to pace anxiously, with my heart racing in fear.