Chapter 71
Daria
I cry for exactly ten minutes.
Ten minutes of breaking down completely. Sobbing into the pillow, shaking, letting the terror and shock crash over me like a wave.
Then I stop.
Because crying won’t save me.
I sit up, wipe my face, force myself to breathe. To think.
I’m a trauma surgeon. I’ve handled gunshot wounds, stabbings, horrific car accidents. I’ve made life-or-death decisions in seconds. I can handle this.
I need to survive, which means I must understand my captor. After all, I wasn’t a child prodigy by thinking like everyone else. By the age of ten, I was doing advanced math, but chemistry and biology fascinated me the most.
I didn't go through med school as the youngest student the department had seen in decades, only to end up as a captive.
I look around the guest room. It’s nicer than my entire apartment. King-sized bed, attached bathroom, expensive furniture. But the windows don’t open, and there’s a camera in the corner watching me.
I flipped it off earlier. Felt good.
Now I’m thinking strategically.
Matvey Zlobin. Bastard son. Bratva enforcer. The man who put a gun to my head and told me I had sixty seconds to save his friend.
The man who’s keeping me prisoner.
I need leverage. Information. Something I can use to negotiate my way out of this nightmare.
The lock on the door is simple. Old-fashioned. I checked it thoroughly after I locked myself in. It’ll keep him out if he doesn’t want to break down the door.
I wait until four in the morning. The penthouse has been silent for hours, meaning the beast is sleeping.
Time to move.
I open the door. The hallway’s dark when I slip out. Cold marble under my bare feet. I left my shoes in the room because it’s quieter this way.
My heart’s hammering so hard I’m sure he can hear it through the walls.
The penthouse is massive. Dark wood and leather furniture. Weapons mounted on the walls like twisted art. Everything screams money and violence.
I move slowly, carefully. Every shadow could be him.
I find his office at the end of the corridor. The door’s unlocked.
Arrogant bastard.
I slip inside, ease the door closed behind me, and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The room is huge, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a view of the city skyline, and a massive desk that probably costs more than my medical school scholarship and debt combined. Filing cabinets line one wall.
This is it. This is where I’ll find my own leverage.
I cross to the desk and start rifling through papers as quietly as possible. Most of it’s in Russian. Cyrillic alphabet I never bothered to learn to read. But there are names. Numbers. Addresses.
I pull out my phone that he never bothered to take, as he knew I wouldn’t risk anyone’s life by calling them for help, and snap photos of anything that looks important. The camera makes a soft click with each shot. Too loud. Every sound feels deafening.
My hands are trembling, but I make myself keep them steady.
In the third drawer down, I find something in English. A ledger. Names, dates, amounts. Money laundering, probably. Or weapons deals.
Evidence.
This could be my ticket out. If I can get this to the police, the FBI, someone.
“Looking for something?”
I freeze.
Every muscle in my body locks up. Ice floods my veins.
The lights flick on, blinding after the darkness.
Matvey’s leaning against the doorframe. He’s shirtless, wearing only gray sweatpants that hang dangerously low on his hips.
His body is a roadmap of violence. Scars everywhere.
Bullet wounds, knife marks, burns. Tattoos covering his chest and arms. Prison tattoos.
Stars on his shoulders, a cathedral on his ribs, skulls and Cyrillic script I can’t read.
He’s massive. Six-four, at least two-twenty of pure muscle and malice.
And he’s looking at me like a predator that just found prey in his den.
“I was...” My voice comes out wrong. Too high. Too scared.
“You were snooping.” He pushes off the doorframe, starts walking toward me. Slow. Deliberate. Each step is measured, controlled. “After I specifically told you to stay in your room.”
“You said I belonged to you. Figured I should know who owns me.”
He stops. Something flickers in those cold gray eyes. Amusement? Appreciation?
“Smart,” he says. “Stupid, but smart.”
I back up. My hip hits the desk.
Fuck, nowhere to go.
He keeps coming.
“You should really upgrade your security if you’re going to keep prisoners.”
“I don’t keep prisoners.” He’s close now. Too close. I can smell him. Leather and gunpowder and something darker underneath. “I keep possessions.”
“I’m not your possession.”
“Then what are you doing in my office at four in the morning, going through my files?”
“Research.”
“Research.” He’s right in front of me now. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to look at him. “What did you find?”
“Nothing I could read. Most of it’s in Russian.”
“But you took pictures.” He holds out his hand. “Phone.”
“No.”
His eyes go dark. Dangerous. “That wasn’t a request.”
“I don’t care.”
We stare at each other. The air between us crackles with tension. Violence. Something else I don’t want to name.
“You’ve got balls, Doc.” His voice drops lower. Rougher. “Breaking into my office. Stealing information. Refusing a direct order.” He leans in, braces one hand on the desk beside me. Caging me in. “Do you have a death wish?”
“Do you have a God complex?”
“Yes.”
The honesty startles me. I blink.
He smiles. No warmth in it. All predator. “I’ve killed men for less than what you’re doing right now. Tortured them for days. Made them beg.”
“Then why haven’t you killed me?”
“Because you’re more interesting alive.”
His other hand comes up, plucks my phone from my fingers before I can react. He’s fast. Too fast for someone his size.
I grab for it. “Give that back!”
He holds it up, out of my reach. Scrolls through the photos I took with his thumb. His expression doesn’t change but I see his jaw tighten.
“This is what you wanted? Evidence?” He looks down at me. “Planning to go to the police? The FBI? Be a hero?”
“Planning to survive.”
“This won’t help you survive. This will get you killed.” He pockets my phone. “By me, if I’m merciful. By my father’s men if I’m not.”
“So what do you suggest I do? Sit in that room and wait for you to decide my fate?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not who I am.”
“Then who are you, Daria?”
The question catches me off guard. The way he says my name. Low. Almost gentle.
“I’m a smart person who doesn’t give up,” I say. “I’m someone who fights. Someone who thinks of ways to solve problems. Especially complex problem.”
“I noticed.” He shifts closer. His body’s almost touching mine now.
I’m pressed back against the desk, trapped between wood and muscle.
“You fought me in the clinic. Fought me in the car. Bit me for no reason. Now you’re in my office, stealing my secrets.
” His hand comes up, fingers gripping my chin.
Forcing me to look at him. “You’re either very brave or very stupid. ”
“Can’t I be both?”
That surprises a laugh out of him. Short. Sharp. “Yeah. You can be both.”
His thumb brushes across my lower lip. The touch sends electricity down my spine. I hate that I feel it. Hate that my body responds to him.
He’s a monster. A killer. The man who kidnapped me.
But he’s also beautiful in a brutal way. All hard edges and lethal grace. Those cold gray eyes that see everything. The scars that tell stories of survival.
I shouldn’t be attracted to him.
I definitely shouldn’t feel heat pooling low in my belly when he touches me.
“What are you going to do to me?” I whisper.
“That depends.” His other hand lands on my waist. Heavy. Possessive. “Are you going to keep pushing me?”
“Probably.”
“Then I’m going to have to push back.”
He moves fast. Spins me around, presses me face-first against the desk. His body covers mine completely. I’m pinned. Helpless.
I should be terrified.
Instead, I feel something else. Something hot and dangerous and wrong.
“Feel that?” His voice is rough against my ear.
His hips press forward, and I feel him. Hard.
Thick. Pressing against me through the thin fabric of my scrubs.
“That’s what you do to me. Walking around my penthouse in those fucking scrubs.
Looking at me with those defiant eyes. Biting me. Fighting me.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. His body is everywhere. Hot and solid and overwhelming.
“I’m not...” My voice shakes. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re doing everything.” His hand slides up my side, over my ribs, stopping just below my breast. “You’re making me want things I shouldn’t want. Making me think about keeping you for reasons that have nothing to do with usefulness.”
“Let me go.”
“No.”
“Matvey.”
“Say my name again.”
I don’t know why I do it. Don’t know what possesses me. But I turn my head, look at him over my shoulder. “Matvey.”
His pupils dilate. His grip tightens on my waist.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, doctor.”
“I’m not playing anything. You’re the one who dragged me here. Who’s keeping me prisoner. Who’s pressing his hard cock against me while threatening to kill me.”
His laugh is dark. Wicked. “You think this is a threat? This is a warning.” He grinds against me once.
I bite back a sound. “I want you. I’ve wanted to fuck you since you told me to get the hell out of your operating room.
Since you stood there covered in Lyosha’s blood and saved his life with a gun to your head. ”
“That’s insane.”
“Welcome to my world.”
He pulls back suddenly. The loss of his body heat makes me shiver.
I turn around slowly. He’s standing there, chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides. Fighting for control.
“Go back to your room,” he says. Voice rough. Strained.
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll bend you over this desk and show you exactly what happens when you push me too far.”
The threat should terrify me. Instead, heat floods my body. My thighs clench together involuntarily.
His eyes track the movement. He sees it. Knows.
“Go,” he growls. “Now. Before I do something we’ll both regret.”
I move. Push past him. My legs are shaking.
I make it to the hallway before he speaks again.
“Daria.”
I stop. Don’t turn around.
“The next time I catch you doing something you shouldn’t,” his voice follows me through the darkness, “I won’t be so gentle.”
I practically run back to the guest room. Lock the door. Lean against it.
My hands are trembling. My whole body is trembling.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He’s a monster. A killer. He threatened to kill me multiple times tonight.
And I wanted him.
When he pressed against me, when I felt how hard he was, part of me wanted him to follow through on that threat. Wanted him to bend me over that desk and take what he wanted.
I slide down to the floor, wrap my arms around my knees.
I’m in serious trouble.
And not the kind I can think my way out of.
Because the most dangerous thing in this penthouse isn’t Matvey’s violence or his power or the Bratva watching from the shadows.
It’s the way my body responds to him.
The way part of me wants to see what happens if I push him again.
I close my eyes, try to slow my racing heart.
Sleep doesn’t come.
When dawn breaks through the windows, I’m still sitting on the floor. Still thinking about the feel of his body against mine.
Still wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t left that office.
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