Chapter 15 Ransome
RANSOME
Keeping a girl hostage in my penthouse is not exactly legal. Not that that’s ever stopped me before.
Amara isn’t my first prisoner and she won’t be my last. Nor is her imprisonment my first felony. With the way my days have gone recently, I’ll probably be cutting out a guy’s tongue or putting a bullet in someone’s knee by the end of the week. Locking the door on her is the least of my latest sins.
But I have no intention or desire to hurt Amara Parker. If I did, I would have dealt with her last night, in the warehouse, not the comfort of my own home.
As it stands, that little act of mercy is making my life harder. Knowing that she’s in my house right now, alone and afraid, has made focusing on work today very difficult. So when I get a call from Ivan, the security guard I posted outside my front door, I answer on the first ring.
“It’s your hostage, sir,” he begins.
I don’t like the unevenness in his voice. “I told you if there was an emergency—”
“No emergency, sir. I think she’s fine. The penthouse, though, might be another story.”
My mood shifts from concerned to pissed. “What did she do?”
“She’s going apeshit, sir. Sounds expensive.”
I hang up without another word and march out of the office.
When Ivan sees me coming, he practically leaps out of the way. I punch the security code in the door and kick it open.
Like he said it would be, my shit is everywhere. Cushions ripped from the couch, dishes everywhere, clothes everywhere. My bed is a wreck, the curtains hanging lopsided. The only thing I don’t see is Amara.
Then I smell it.
Bathwater.
I stalk over to the bathroom and bash the door open. But Amara, who is acting like my bathroom is some kind of five-star spa, doesn’t even jump. She simply looks up at me with only her eyes as if I am the one inconveniencing her.
“Do you feel good about yourself?” I ask, crossing my arms and leaning against the door jam.
“I feel pretty good right now, thanks for asking.”
The blood in my veins heats up a notch. Then—
“How about you?” she drawls lazily. “How are you feeling keeping your personal assistant hostage in your penthouse? Does it make you feel powerful? In control? I bet you get off on shit like this…”
“Shit like what?” I growl, standing up straight.
Amara shifts in the tub, almost exposing a nipple. She lays her arms across the rim of the tub, water dripping onto the floor, and rests her chin there, smirking up at me. “Holding people in gilded cages. Interrogating them until you get what you want.”
It almost makes me laugh. “You think this is interrogation, sweetheart? You have no idea.”
“You lured me to a sketchy warehouse in the middle of nowhere, you tied me up, threatened me, and then dragged me back here, took my phone, locked me inside, and left me for dead.”
This time, I do laugh, though I am far from amused. “Sweetheart, that’s not interrogation. That’s called precaution when dealing with an unpredictable component. You haven’t seen interrogation yet.”
Something flickers in her eyes. Challenge? Curiosity? Temptation? Whatever it is, it’s enough to push me just far enough over the edge.
“But if you’d like to see interrogation…”
In one fluid motion, I rip her from the tub and pin her against the tiled wall. “Tell me what you know!” I shout in her face.
“What the fuck are you talking about?! I don’t know anything!
” She fights back. Tries to, at least. Her hands are scraping at my wrists and her wet feet are slipping on the floor.
I have her pinned tight enough that she can just barely breathe.
I can’t ‘interrogate’ her, as she cutely calls it, if she’s unconscious.
“Bullshit. Why are you stalking me?”
“I—”
“Are you working for someone?”
“What? Oh my God. No.”
“Ty vrag?”
“What?”
“Ty govorish’ po-russki?”
“I don’t know what you’re saying! Ransome, please, I can’t breathe!”
Her lips are turning colors and I realize I need to let off. With a grimace, my hand eases up and Amara slides to the floor, gasping and coughing.
Then she looks up at me, irritation in her dark eyes.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Ransome. You’re insane. You know that?”
I crouch down to her level. “No, dorogoya, you are insane. For fucking around with someone who could wipe your existence from the city like a bug from a windshield.”
“Fine,” she says, covering herself with a towel.
“Yes, I have been stalking you. Ever since the day you interviewed me, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.
You consumed every thought, every dream, every second of every day.
I couldn’t even have coffee without wondering how you took yours.
So I learned. I learned your coffee order, your lunch order depending on day and time and mood.
I learned what colors you wear depending on who you’re going to see.
White for boring office days, black for stressful office days, red or blue for family dinners.
I know your birthday, what time you get up in the morning, when you go to bed, the kind of soap you prefer in the office bathrooms. Even the soap you use in your shower. Which, by the way, you’re out.”
I grit my teeth and wait.
“So tell me, Mr. Rozanov: What are you going to do to me?”
Considering the fact that this woman just did a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of damage to my penthouse and admitted she’s been sniffing around in the most personal parts of my life for months, she’s got a lot of fucking salt to ask for answers.
And because of that, I make my decision then and there what I’m going to do.
“Get up,” I tell her, rising to my own feet. “And put some fucking clothes on.”
I know full well that Amara doesn’t have anything but her evening gown to dress in, but I’m not about to offer her something more comfortable.
Something about seeing her in a walk of shame dress, her hair stringy and damp, her makeup smudged on her face from the bath…
it gives me a certain amount of satisfaction.
The line between us right now is very thick. I like it that way.
I make her a cup of coffee and pour myself a shot of whiskey. When she shuffles out of the bathroom to join me, she looks at the mug with narrow eyes.
“You think I poisoned it?”
“It wouldn’t be the craziest thing you’ve done in the last twenty-four hours.”
I laugh. “If I wanted to kill you, I’d do it with my own two hands. Now, drink. Before it gets cold.”
Amara sighs audibly before taking a sip. Her expression softens and her shoulders relax. “It’s good,” she says.
“Turns out knowing a coffee order is a two-way street.”
She nods and takes another sip. “So what are you going to do?” she asks again.
I take in a breath and let it out. “You’re too wiry to be working for the Chadovichs. Definitely not the cops.”
“The what?” she asks.
I ignore the question. “But you are smart.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you don’t. That said, I should fire you. Honestly, I should kill you. You were in my office and I know you know too much. Maybe not as much as I originally thought, but still too much. I also know I can’t trust you like I thought I could.”
She pales. “So you’re going to kill me.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You’re a good assistant. You just need more training. In fact, I have a proposition for you.”
Her eyes narrow and she clicks her fingernails on the cup. “What does it involve?”
“Not dying,” I answer and the clicking stops. “And more money. A lot more money.”
There’s a beat of silence before she wraps her hands around the mug and takes another sip. “I’m listening.”
“I am engaged.”
She swallows. Her poker face is fairly impressive, but I can tell a bomb just went off inside her. Her eyes show it all.
“I had no idea you were seeing anyone. Guess I’m not that great of an assistant after all.”
“I’m not. Do you know what Bratva means?”
“Oh. Uh, okay.” Her nose wrinkles in confusion. “It’s like the Russian version of the mafia, right?”
“Something like that.” I’m only giving her an inch at a time because what I am about to tell her, what I am going to disclose, is… a lot to take in.
“Wait.” She narrows her eyes. “You’re not trying to tell me that you actually know these mafia—”
“Bratva.”
“—Bratva men. Or that you’ve dealt with them. Right? Because that would be… crazy.”
“I don’t know them,” I say cautiously.
Her relief is palpable. “Okay, good. I was gonna say, that’s, like—”
“I am them.”
It takes her a second before she stops sipping her coffee and lowers the cup to the table again. I decide it’s best to just keep going. Rip the Band-Aid off all at once.
“Right now, there are two Bratvas in NYC. The Rozanovs—”
“Wait again.” She waves her hands to stop me. “Are you actually trying to get me to believe that you are part of… a gang?”
I let out an exhausted sigh. “It’s not a gang.”
“Oh, I’ve seen the movies. It’s totally a gang. So what are you, like, the ring leader? The Godfather? You’re like Jack Nicholson in The Departed?” She laughs at her own joke, but when she sees my eyes turn to slits, the laughter dies quickly.
“Are you mocking me, Miss Parker?”
Her throat bobs. “No, I’m just— No, of course not. I’m just trying to make sense of what you’re telling me because honestly, it sounds nuts.”
“Am I a joking man?”
“Not usually, no. But–”
“Am I a lying man?” I ask.
“Also not as far as I know but—” She stops. Something in her must click because as she studies me, her face pales. “Holy shit.”
“Now, shut up and listen. New York is run by two Bratvas. The Rozanovs—”
“—and the Chadovichs.” She finishes the sentence and I can actually see the dots starting to connect in her head. Her skin is still pale, her hands trembling. The enormity of what this means—for her, for me, for us—is beginning to sink in.
“So you do pay attention. Yes, the Chadovichs. There’s a lot of bad blood between our two families. A lot of dead bodies. And the current leaders—”