Chapter 3
KATYA
One thought haunts me when I wake up the next morning.
I shouldn’t have turned off that fucking light.
Damn it. It was a split-second decision.
The light had been on when I’d slipped inside the generator shack after hearing the crunch of footfalls on the gravel driveway.
When he’d gone into the cabin, I’d been ready to make a break for it, but I’d been worried about the stupid chain still attached to my ankle, afraid he’d hear it clinking in the silence and come running.
But with the light on, I knew I’d be a sitting duck if he looked inside. So I switched it off at the last moment—fuck my life—just as Andriani had been stepping back out the door. He’d gone still immediately as I watched him through the tiny crack I’d left open. And then he’d started coming for me.
I should have known I wouldn’t be able to escape him so easily.
I’d heard him go out the front door earlier, and I’d sprung into action, catching the duct tape on a sharp part of the bed’s metal frame I’d found earlier.
Sheer adrenaline had taken over, and I’d thrown my entire body weight into the bed frame.
I’d managed to break the welding on one of the decorative posts, and then I’d slipped the chain off.
But he hadn’t been gone long enough.
I failed.
And to make matters worse, I’m now in a different bed, my arms handcuffed to the headboard. I spent the night here, staring into the darkness, reliving my almost-escape until I finally passed out from exhaustion.
I shift on the mattress and open and close my fists as my fingers tingle with pins and needles. My bladder is full, and Andriani is nowhere in sight. Not that I expected him or even want him to be. The less I see of him, the better.
But I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to last.
My pride is pitching a fit. I’d rather die than beg Andriani to let me use the bathroom attached to the latest bedroom where I’m being held captive.
Which, from my cursory examination of the place last night during my thwarted escape attempt, is the only other bedroom in this shithole.
Two beds, two baths, a kitchen and living room combo.
It’s a far cry from the place he originally took me and not at all what I’d expect of a Mafia kingpin’s secret lair.
Sunlight is leaking around the curtains and making shadows on the ceiling. If this is the bedroom Andriani usually uses, where did he sleep last night? For some reason, the thought of spending the night in his bed floods me with heat instead of anger and disgust.
My wrists hurt, and my hands feel like they’re about to fall off. We won’t even talk about the state of my bladder. I huff out a frustrated sigh and listen for the telltale sound of footsteps from another room, but I hear nothing but silence.
There’s no hope for it. I’m going to have to choke down my pride and get his attention.
“Andriani,” I call out.
No answer.
“Andriani, you psycho fuck,” I try a second time, louder.
I shouldn’t goad him. But if he wanted to shoot me, he could have last night. I’m worth more to him alive than dead right now, which means he’s using me as a bargaining chip to get something he wants from Misha. Just what that is, I couldn’t say.
Territory? Some kind of deal for property or protection or drugs?
Misha has been furious lately, after some of his best guys got caught up in a Fed sting operation. But I don’t know anything more than that. I don’t doubt that Dmitri does, but I do my best to keep my nose out of all things Bratva. If I had my way, I’d have nothing to do with that world.
I call for Andriani a third time. There’s still no sound beyond the closed, locked door. My paranoia kicks in. What if he left me here? What if he has no intention of coming back for me?
I escaped once. I can do it a second time, can’t I?
I tug at my cuffs again, but they’re solid. And so is this damn bed. It’s made of wood, and nothing is loose. I got lucky with the last bed frame.
At some point, he’ll have to remember I’m here and come back for me. Won’t he?
Calm down, Katya, I tell myself. He’s here somewhere. Maybe he’s just gone down the driveway again like he did last night. Taking the air. Smoking a cigarette. Doing whatever it is that soulless Mafia men do in their spare time when they have a hostage cuffed to the bed in another room.
I try calling out again, and I finally hear the by-now-familiar slam of the front door. He’s still here. Relief washes over me. Thank God. I never thought I’d be this happy to see a six-foot-plus wall of Mafia muscle, but that was before one took me hostage.
The door to my prison flies open, and he’s standing there, glaring at me, looking as unfairly hot this morning as he did the night before, Glock pointed at me and all. Stockholm syndrome, is that you?
He’s wearing a suit and tie without the jacket, and he looks completely out of place in this decrepit cabin.
“What’s wrong?” he demands coolly.
Like I’m the one annoying him.
“I’m handcuffed to this bed, zasranets.”
He repeats the word I used, frowning as he mispronounces it. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a Russian term of endearment,” I lie, running out of patience and the ability to keep holding on. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to pee.”
He mutters something to himself that sounds a lot like more trouble than you’re worth before disappearing. I’m about to holler his name again when he returns, Glock in one hand and a key in the other.
I glare at him. “You’re not accompanying me to the bathroom.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not. There’s this thing called privacy. Maybe you’ve never heard of it.”
“There’s this thing called I’m the one with the fucking gun, and you do what I say,” he retorts, reaching my side.
The scent of his cologne hits me, and I have no idea what the notes are, but all I know is that it makes me want to inhale nothing but him for days. Even if he is an asshole.
I bite my tongue to keep from insulting him again because I really, really need to use the bathroom, and at the same time, I also really, really don’t want to embarrass myself.
“Should have worried about your privacy before you tried to run away last night,” he adds. “If you try anything, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
His voice is hard and cold. I know he’s not lying. It’s actually a miracle he didn’t shoot me last night when he had the chance, and I’m pretty sure it’s only the value I have in being returned to Misha unharmed that saved me. Whatever leverage Scorpion needs, it must be big.
“Fine,” I agree, holding my breath as he leans in and unlocks my cuffs.
I don’t want to become hypnotized by whatever sex pheromone it is that’s clearly a part of his cologne. That’s the only explanation for the way he makes me feel, all hot and achy, like I need to be touched. Like I’ll die if I don’t have his tattooed hands traveling over my bare skin.
Which is also complete insanity.
When he clicks open the cuffs and blood rushes back into my hands, pain shoots through me. I bite down on my lip to keep from crying out. It feels so good and so bad at the same time. I move my arms into their normal position, my shoulders aching.
“Out of the bed,” he says harshly, gesturing with the barrel of his gun.
He’s moved out of reach now, but I didn’t notice, caught up as I was in the regaining of blood to my extremities. I glare at him, flexing my fingers and rubbing my wrists.
“I’m coming.”
“I mean it,” he warns, his expression impenetrable, his voice made of ice. “One foot out of place, and you’re going back to brother dearest with an extra hole in you.”
“You sure do know how to make a girl feel safe and secure, Andriani,” I grit, scooting my ass off the bed.
Walking again is a little wobbly. But I take the handful of steps to the bathroom door and then step inside.
A green toilet from the seventies has never looked so appealing.
It’s sitting in the outdated bathroom, beckoning to me from the hodgepodge of random mismatched shower, tile, and vanity that’ve been arranged within.
But when I try to close the door at my back, something stops me.
I turn around to find his foot lodged there. He’s wearing expensive Italian loafers that definitely don’t belong in this hovel.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
A big, tatted hand flattens on the paneled door, opening it all the way to reveal my tormentor. “I told you that you can’t be in here alone. The door stays open.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Is this a kink of yours? I don’t kink shame, but if it is, count me out.”
I’m still goading him, because I can’t help myself. Even as the pee is about to explode and trickle down my leg in humiliating style. Infamous Sidorov pride. We can’t allow anyone to have the last word or the upper hand.
“Very funny.” His ice-blue glare is enough to cause frostbite. “Make it quick. I have shit to do.”
I wonder what he could possibly have to do here in the middle of nothing. He blindfolded me for the drive here, but I could easily see last night that there’s nothing but dense, forested hills all around. No lights anywhere.
“Right,” I say agreeably, “more heinous kidnappings to plot.”
And then I finally surrender to the need before something terrible happens and I humiliate myself in front of the sexy bastard who is holding me hostage.
I move to the hideous toilet, prepared to pee in front of him since I apparently have no alternative.
But my fingers are still half numb as I struggle with the button on my jeans.
I can’t get it pulled through, so I start doing a little dance.
“Madonna.”
I have no time to prepare myself before Andriani is towering over me in the tiny bathroom, shoving my hands out of the way to open my jeans.
Kill me now.
I’m not sure which is worse, the fact that he’s helping me unbutton my pants so I can relieve myself in front of him, or that his fingers graze my bare stomach and send a white-hot bolt of something dangerous and unpredictable straight through me.
If he felt it too, he gives no indication.