20. Vadim
VADIM
I’m in the study, and the scream reaches me from the lower floor while Anton is still speaking. I stop listening before he finishes the sentence.
For one second, nobody in the room moves, because the sound is so out of place inside this house that it takes a moment to understand what we heard, and then I’m already walking toward the door.
By the time I reach the staircase, I hear voices below. A woman crying. Another voice trying to calm her. A man speaking too quickly.
I take the stairs two at a time.
The scene at the bottom explains almost nothing.
My older sister, Nadia, is standing beside the long console table near the entrance hall with one arm wrapped tightly around our younger sister, Mila, who is crying hard enough that her shoulders shake.
Mila is nineteen now, old enough that I have not seen her frightened like this in years, and the sight of tears running down her face brings something immediate and ugly to the surface.
I stop a few feet away. “What happened?”
Nadia looks up and glares at Daniel before answering. “He came around the corner while she was walking out of the library.”
Daniel spreads his hands. “I was looking for Anton.”
Nadia’s expression doesn’t improve. “I didn’t know you had guests.”
“I didn’t know you were here,” I say, frowning at her.
“We came back early.”
She says it as though I’m the one who should have known, all while keeping Mila tucked against her side.
Daniel looks increasingly uncomfortable. “I apologized.”
“You nearly gave her a heart attack,” Nadia says.
Mila presses closer to Nadia.
That’s enough for me.
I step toward Daniel.
He notices. “Vadim, I swear to you, nothing happened.”
“Then why is she shaking?”
“I startled her,” he says, looking guilty.
Nadia and Mila were supposed to remain at our family property outside Orhei until tomorrow. I hadn’t expected either of them home.
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
Mila shakes her head. “No.”
“Did he touch you?”
Daniel exhales sharply. “Vadim.”
I ignore him.
Mila shakes her head again. “He just scared me.”
Nadia looks unconvinced.
Before I can question either of them further, footsteps approach from the terrace, and Sloane enters with Anya beside her. Anya is holding the stuffed rabbit against her chest and looks more confused than frightened, while Sloane’s gaze moves immediately from Daniel to Mila, then to me.
Nadia sees them together, and her expression changes, her brows coming together. “Anya.” My niece stops. “Come here.”
Anya looks at Sloane first.
That makes Nadia even less pleased. “Now.”
Anya goes to her mother without argument.
Nadia takes her hand, still keeping her other arm around Mila. She looks at me. “We’ll talk later.”
Then her gaze moves briefly to Sloane. There is enough dislike in that single look to make Sloane straighten.
I know that look too. Questions are coming. Many of them.
Fortunately, Nadia chooses not to ask them here. She takes Anya and Mila and leaves through the west corridor without another word.
Sloane watches them go. Then she looks at me. “What was that?”
I turn away. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
She’s standing just inside the room with her arms folded, chin lifted, and that infuriatingly composed expression she wears when she has decided she’s angry enough to become fearless. “That clearly was not nothing.”
I keep walking.
She follows. “Who was the woman?”
“My sister.”
“And the other one?”
“Also my sister.”
“You have two sisters?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“And the little girl is your niece,” she says.
“You already established that.”
“She did, actually.”
I continue toward the study.
Sloane keeps pace beside me. “Why did your sister look at me like I had broken into the house?”
“She does that.”
“To everyone?”
“No.”
“Excellent.”
I open the study door.
She comes in behind me.
I stop and look at her. “You do realize following me into rooms does not require an invitation in your mind.”
“You do realize taking people to secret compounds doesn’t exactly encourage normal boundaries,” she shoots back.
“This is my home.”
“There are armed men walking past rose bushes.”
“That doesn’t make it a prison.”
“No, the part where you keep telling me I’m not allowed to leave does.”
I turn back toward the desk and open the file Anton left there earlier, partly because there are actual things I need to deal with and partly because looking at Sloane when she is like this tends to make me forget them.
That proves ineffective.
“What happens now?” she asks.
“I work.”
“I mean with us.”
I glance up. “With you?”
“With me, Camille, Daniel, everyone who apparently became a suspect the second we stepped off that plane.”
“You are not all suspects.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
I close the file again. “Sloane.”
“No, seriously, how long do you intend to keep us here?”
“Until I know what happened.”
“That could mean anything.”
“It means exactly what I said.”
She comes further into the room. “And when you know?”
“If you had nothing to do with it, you leave.”
Her eyes narrow. “If?”
I immediately regret the wording, although not enough to correct it.
She catches it anyway. “So you still think there is a chance I planted that tracker.”
“I think there’s a chance someone on that flight knew more than they admitted.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s the answer you’re getting.”
She exhales through her nose and begins pacing slowly in front of the desk. “What about my flight tomorrow?”
“You won’t be on it.”
She stops. “What?”
“I cancelled it.”
For a second, she only stares at me. Then her expression changes completely. “You cancelled my flight.”
“Yes.”
“Without asking me.”
“Yes.”
“You had no right to do that.”
“I had every practical reason.”
“I didn’t ask whether you had reasons. I asked whether you thought you had the right.”
I lean back against the desk. “You are alive because I’m being cautious.”
“And that apparently means I stop having a say in my own life?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s exactly what you’re doing.”
She starts again before I can respond, the questions coming faster now, one running into the next because she has clearly been holding them in for hours.
“How long am I supposed to stay here? Where is my bag? When do I get it back? Is someone still going through my things? Are you checking Camille too? What are you doing with Daniel? Does my family know where I am? If I decide I want to leave this afternoon, are your guards going to physically stop me?”
“Sloane.”
She ignores me. “And what exactly happens if you decide you still don’t trust me tomorrow, or next week, or whenever this investigation ends? Do I just stay here indefinitely because Vadim Chernovar has decided that is safer?”
“Sloane.”
“What?”
“Stop.”
She doesn’t. Instead, she comes closer. “No. You don’t get to tell me to stop when you are making decisions about my life without telling me anything.
You cancel my flight, you search my phone, you bring me to another country, and then when I ask what happens next, you act as though I’m inconveniencing you. ”
“You are inconveniencing me.”
Her mouth drops open.
I almost smile. “That was a joke.”
“You are terrible at jokes.”
“I’m beginning to notice.”
She’s close now. Too close.
I should explain that the situation is still unstable, that Petrov knows enough to be dangerous, that I’m not willing to send her back into the world while somebody may be watching her.
Instead, she says, “So what happens if I just walk out the front door?”
I look at her. “You won’t.”
Her eyebrows lift. “That sounded very confident.”
“It was.”
“And if I prove you wrong?”
I push away from the desk.
She doesn’t step back. That’s her mistake.
I close the distance and take hold of her waist before she can decide whether she wants to keep challenging me from somewhere safer.
Her breath catches. “What are you doing?”
I lift her.
The surprise on her face lasts just long enough to satisfy me before instinct takes over and her hands grab my shoulders.
I turn and press her back against the wall. Her legs wrap around my waist automatically. The heat of her settles directly against me, and my body reacts before I can pretend otherwise.
She feels it almost immediately. Her eyes drop between us, then return to mine. Slowly. The expression on her face changes from surprise to something far more dangerous.
“You can’t possibly think this is going to make me forget what I was asking.”
“No.” My hands tighten around her thighs. “I’m hoping it will make you quiet long enough for me to answer.”
Her breathing is already faster. I can feel it where her chest presses against mine.
“You could have tried using words.”
“I did.”
“You used orders.”
“They usually work.”
“Not on me.” She shifts slightly.
My cock hardens fully between us.
Her lips part. The movement is small, but I see it.
She sees that I see it, and neither of us says anything for a moment.
I lean closer until my mouth is near her ear. “Will you be quiet for one minute?”
She turns her head just enough that her lips almost brush mine. “No.”
My thumb moves slowly along the inside of her thigh. Her breathing catches again.
“Sloane.”
“What?”
“You are making this difficult.”
A smile touches her mouth. Not sweet. Taunting. “Then put me down.”
I look at her. She knows I don’t want to. That’s what makes her smile widen.
“Exactly,” she whispers.
I tighten my grip. Her hips move once against me, so slight that she could deny doing it if she wanted. She probably would. The friction is enough to make my jaw lock.
“You enjoy provoking me,” I say.
“Yes.”
“At some point, that’s going to become a problem.”
“For you?”
“For both of us.”
She tilts her head. “Then maybe you should stop touching me.”
I slide one hand higher along her thigh. Her eyes darken.
“Would you like me to?”
She pauses.
There it is. Not uncertainty. The opposite. She knows exactly what she wants and hates that I know too.
I lean closer, my mouth hovering just above hers without touching. “Answer me.”
Her fingers tighten slightly against my shoulders. “You first.”
“What?”
“Are you going to keep me here?”
“Yes.”
Her gaze doesn’t leave mine. “Then I guess I’m going to keep making your life difficult.”
I almost kiss her.
She knows it.
I know she knows it.
Then she breathes, very softly, right against my mouth.
“Make me be quiet.”