Chapter 24 - Anatoli
Damn it. What a fucking mess. I was fully aware of Masha’s ruse to befriend my unfaithful guard and had been waiting to see how far he would go.
Something arose that had me out of the house for a day, and I returned to find he had gone too far.
The second I learned from the head of the kitchen staff that no meals had gone to Masha for over a day, I feared the worst, that she was already gone.
But Diego, whom I’d been suspecting for a while, was still around, so she hadn’t taken his offer to attempt an escape.
Fucking hell, the bastard had starved her, then attacked her.
Now he was dead, so I could only be pissed off at myself for thinking that setting up the security in one of my office buildings ahead of the meeting with the Collective was important enough to leave the desert estate.
That was the problem with having a place so far out from civilization, not to mention a staff full of weasels who were only out for themselves.
It was time to thoroughly clean the house.
But first, Masha.
I hauled her to my own room and whipped out the handcuffs from where I’d left them in the bedside table drawer after the last time I used them on her.
Ah, better memories. Her eyes widened at the sight of them, but she barely struggled as I snapped them around one wrist and attached the other end to the bedpost. There were angry red marks on her pale throat, and a bump was rising on her forehead. I reached out and touched it.
“I see you used your signature move,” I said, then rubbed my own recently healed nose that had been a victim of one of her headbutts.
“I stabbed him with a pencil, too,” she said, voice scratchy and weak. She scowled, clearly wishing she hadn’t admitted that, because yes, that meant no more writing implements for my sweet wife.
“You’re not leaving my sight from now on,” I said, making my voice and face hard and cold.
Did she shrink away? Of course not. “I could have handled him on my own.”
Raising a brow, I rose and turned away. “You’re welcome.”
She huffed and puffed as I silently began to work at my desk, my back to her, once again trying to ignore her.
Before going upstairs to find the scene that made me shoot Diego rather than make him actually sorry for what he tried, I ordered a meal to be brought up to her.
It arrived, and she fell on it with her free hand like a street cur.
“I guess you weren’t trying to starve me after all,” she said between bites.
I flinched, but continued to ignore her.
Did she really think I’d do that? It might have been something I threatened, but she’d been eating like a queen since she fell into my care.
Another reason a bullet was too easy for Diego.
Pushing all thoughts of Masha aside, though it was difficult to say the least, with her handcuffed to my bed, I got to work on my program.
Some new intel had been scraped from the bowels of the internet about the Collective.
It seemed my little brainchild had found its way into a private group chat with some lower-level members.
There wasn’t too much information that could be used against them, but it was only a matter of time before I got a lock on someone higher up.
“You really are amazing,” I murmured to my screen.
“What?” Masha piped up behind me. “I didn’t hear you.”
“That’s because I wasn’t speaking to you and didn’t mean for you to hear,” I told her, then went back to pretending she wasn’t there. She gave me about half an hour of silence before heaving a gusty sigh.
“If you’re not going to kill me, you may as well talk to me,” she said plaintively, almost like a real woman and not a cold-hearted machine. “Did it ever occur to you that I got friendly with that guard because I was lonely and bored?”
Nice try. I turned, fixing her with a stony gaze.
“You’re good, Masha. But I’m better. I know exactly why you tried to twist that guard around your little finger.
And it didn’t work. It wouldn’t have worked even if it didn’t backfire on you and put you in danger.
” My anger was rising. If I had been only a minute later, what would have happened to her? “You’re not going anywhere.”
I swung back around, trying to fix my attention back on my work, but I was too fired up. Damn the woman for having this effect on me.
“I’d almost rather be tortured,” she muttered, thinking I wouldn’t hear.
I got up so fast I almost knocked the chair over backwards. Storming to the bedside, I loomed over her, very much wanting to lay my hands on her. “Really?” I asked. “We can begin at any time.”
Showing absolutely no fear, she told me she’d rather I do my worst than continue to keep her prisoner for any longer. “My family must be dying of worry,” she finished.
“That’s merely a bonus,” I told her. Against my better judgment, I was once again enjoying our little game.
Until her leg jutted out at a remarkable angle and landed dangerously close to causing me a great deal of pain.
She smiled in triumph until I reminded her of the bombs.
“One click of a button,” I said. “And everyone goes boom.”
She settled down then, and I eventually uncuffed her and let her move around the room. “Go ahead and try something,” I said. “I’m in the mood.”
That kept her in line, and she stopped staring daggers at me when a late-night pizza arrived in my room. Her lip twitched, but she finally accepted a slice. I had gone without meals in my life before, and knew from experience it would take a while for her to really feel full again.
“What, no movie?” she asked sarcastically.
I motioned toward my computer. “Just tell me what you want to watch.”
Her eyes flew wide, and it seemed like she warred with herself between relaxing and watching a movie while she enjoyed her greasy pepperoni pizza, or continuing to glare at me. She chose the movie, shocking the hell out of me.
“How about Beauty and the Beast,” she said.
I slapped shut the laptop, done with offering olive branches. “You wouldn’t like it. I hear it has a happy ending.”
After her shower, which I didn’t insist on watching, or even taking part in, though the thought of her naked, soapy body had me tense and on edge all over again, she dawdled too long in the bathroom, and I opened the door to find her rummaging around in the cabinets.
“Looking for a razor?” I asked.
She scowled and shrugged, not bothering to dispute that she was searching for a weapon. Her hair hung down her back in dark, damp waves, and she looked adorable in one of my t-shirts that hung halfway down her smooth thighs. She tugged at the edges.
“You think I’ll strangle you with my pajama pants drawstring?” she asked. “I don’t understand why I have to wear this.”
“I hadn’t considered the drawstring,” I admitted. “The shirt was the first thing I grabbed.”
“You could have someone bring me my clothes,” she argued. God, she loved to argue.
I smiled. “I could,” I agreed. “But I didn’t. And now I won’t.”
Her shoulders slumped as she realized just how helpless she was. A surge of compassion rose up in me that I just as quickly tamped down, instead leading her into the bedroom and rattling the handcuffs that were still attached to the post. Where was her compassion when she was in charge?
“Time for bed,” I said.
“You can’t be serious,” she said. “I have to sleep in here?”
“Where else would my wife sleep?” I asked. She hissed like an angry cat, rooting her feet into the carpet and refusing to take another step.
“You can’t handcuff me,” she said, almost pleading.
“Why not?”
Rocking from one foot to the other, her cheeks blazed red. “What if I have to… You know… use the bathroom.”
That obnoxious stab of compassion hit me again, seeing her fight not to show her humiliation. Wasn’t this what she deserved after trying to escape again? Or had she been punished enough after the ordeal with Diego?
Damn it. How was I considering not cuffing her?
I would be dead the moment I closed my eyes.
I hauled her over my shoulder, feeling her hot skin against my arm as the shirt rose over her taut little ass.
Dumping her on the bed, I gripped her flailing arm before she socked me in the face and had her wrist snapped in place before she could say more than six swear words at me.
She kept swearing as I backed away. “If you need to get up during the night, just call out. I’ll have a guard stationed at the door. One I trust with my life.”
Her stream of insults stopped as I continued out of the room. “Wait,” she called. “You’re not sleeping here tonight?”
I stiffened. My cock twitched with anticipation and need. My hands curled into fists at my sides. Did she sound disappointed that I wouldn’t be joining her in my bed?
I stormed out without answering. Another second in the room with her, cuffed to the bed and wearing only my t-shirt, with that look on her face that could only be disappointment, and I would have been on her, losing control all over again.
I only returned to my room hours later when she was fast asleep, and lay on the far side of the bed, barely drifting off before dawn to the sounds of her gentle breathing.
The next day was my scheduled meeting with one of the Los Angeles leaders of the Collective, and there was nothing I could do but take her along.
I’d sworn she wouldn’t leave my sight, and while I did trust most of my guards, I still needed to cull the herd before leaving her alone with any of them in the house again.
I escorted her back to her room, where she got dressed in an outfit I chose. I had most of the clothes that Aunt Daria picked out for her in Russia brought back, so she ended up in a demure gray skirt suit instead of the ridiculously childish outfits I originally bought to demoralize her.
“Why are we heading back to LA?” she asked on the way into the meeting at my office building in town. I didn’t answer. She only sighed and gave up any more attempts at conversation on the long drive.
Despite looking as dignified as possible as someone cuffed to a chair, she couldn’t have been more demoralized during the many meetings I held.
There was no way that at least some of the people didn’t know who she was, but no one asked any questions about why she was there, and I didn’t offer any reason.
Just cuffed her to the chair in a corner of the room where she couldn’t overhear us, but I could keep a watchful eye on her.
A bonus was having someone tied up during the meeting seemed to throw some of them off, suddenly not sure how far I would go.
She was also a distraction, and my eyes kept cutting to look at her, head down so low it nearly touched her chin, an emptiness in her eyes I had never seen before. It looked like she really did consider her current situation worse than any electric shock or knives biting into her skin.
I almost, not quite, felt truly sorry for her.