Chapter 7
LIESL
Ican’t process any of this. None of it makes sense.
My father isn’t paying. He isn’t coming to get me. He’s making moves with some other family instead, plotting against Andrei, using me…
I want to clap my hands over my ears, my eyes, block all of this out.
This isn’t my life. It isn’t. I’m just a girl who lives in New York City, who has a nice apartment, who works as a buyer for brands, who has a decently large Instagram following and likes yoga and Pilates and juice dates with friends.
I like happy hour and rom-coms and I hate horror movies.
Sometimes I go running in Central Park. I talk to my dad once a week unless he’s really busy, and I see him at holidays, and he loves me.
He loves me.
Andrei taps his fingers against the edge of his glass impatiently, as if I’m taking too long to come to terms with this. As if I’m not handling my world shattering around me as well as he would like.
It pisses me off.
I’ve always been positive. Optimistic. Hopeful. Maybe naive, but I’d rather that than be jaded. He’s chipping away at that, too, and that makes me angrier. This man shouldn’t get to change anything about me. He shouldn’t get to alter my worldview.
All because of a fucking mistake.
“How do you know any of this?” I spit out. “Just because my father hasn’t called yet? What proof do you have—”
Andrei interrupts, before I can say anything else.
"The man I interrogated tonight," he says quietly. "He was one of Volkov's. He confirmed everything—the meetings, the resources your father has promised to provide, the beginning of Volkov’s plans.”
I can feel myself shaking my head in small, quick movements, like a tic. Like I can shake this all off and refuse to accept it.
“They discussed security. Which of my men might be convinced to switch sides,” Andrei continues.
"Your father was assured that my organization is weak. That I can be brought down, if only Volkov had more money, more guns, more men. All things your father can help him acquire with money. The money he could use to simply ransom you, and be done with this.” Andrei gives a small, humorless laugh. “The greed of man knows no end.”
“You would know,” I spit out. “What is all of this—” I motion to encapsulate the mansion and estate around us, ‘if not greed?”
Andrei’s mouth tightens. “It is generations of hard work. Something you would know nothing about.”
I feel my eyes go wide and round, the insult hitting. “My father works hard!”
Andrei snorts and pours more vodka. “Your father. Sure. I am sure he has worked very hard. You, on the other hand…” He gives me a derisive look. “Printsessa-pevun’ya. Princess songbird.” His lip curls. “Printsessa-kaprizulya. Princess brat.”
Something in his voice makes heat curl in my stomach despite the obvious derision in his words. There’s something dark there, too, something beyond his clear disdain for me and my life. He wants me out of his mansion, but he wants something else, too.
I wrap my arms around myself, licking my dry lips and ignoring the way his gaze flicks to my mouth. "I don't believe you," I whisper.
Andrei tosses back another shot. "Yes you do."
"No, I—"
“You do.” He sets the glass down. “You know that I am not lying.”
I feel a tear well up and try to escape. I swipe angrily at my eye. I refuse to let this man see me cry, to see that he’s broken me. Again, if I count the other day, when he kissed me and I foolishly kissed him back. When he made me forget, for a second, that he’s my captor. A bad, dangerous man.
When I got off imagining what else he might have done to me, and felt so guilty afterward. Even though—especially because—the orgasm was the best I’ve ever had. Even with another person.
"My father wouldn't abandon me," I whisper. But I can hear my voice waver, and I know he does, too.
Andrei’s jaw tightens. "He already has."
"Then why are you telling me this?" I glare at him. “If he’s already abandoned me and he’s working with the enemy, why are we having this conversation?” I jerk my chin upward, trying to fake bravery I don’t feel.
“Just go ahead and kill me. That’s what happens next, right? Just shoot me and get it over with.”
I see him look at me for a long, drawn out moment. “That is what I should do,” he admits.
And then he takes another shot. As if just the thought makes him need a drink.
Against all my better sense, a small flicker of hope warms within me. If he wanted to kill me, he would have done it as soon as he came back, I reason. He wouldn’t have taken so long standing here, talking to me, drinking. He doesn’t want to kill me.
“I don’t think I’m going to do that,” he admits.
I scoff. I can’t help it. Allowing myself to believe him feels too dangerous, like it will make it all the more horrible when I find out that he’s not telling the truth and that I’m going to die.
“Sure.” I sniff, curling my upper lip. “You’re going to let me live.
And what? Stay here? Go home? Your men won’t stand for it, if you keep me or let me leave.
That’s how all this works, right? I’m the enemy now, so I have to die. ”
His lip curls into a sneer. He slams the glass down, so hard it makes me flinch, so hard I think it’s going to break.
And then he comes toward me, his movements so graceful and deadly they make me think of a big cat.
He prowls toward me. It’s the only word I can think of to describe it.
His jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscles twitching.
“You think I’m a monster.” His voice is a low, deadly growl.
I back up, quickly, nearly tripping over the chair in my haste. I see the door to the library, but I’d have to go past him to get to it. And where would I go, from there? The estate is filled with his guards, his men. I would never escape.
I back up further, toward the library shelves, until there’s nowhere left to go. And he keeps coming, until he’s right in front of me, staring down at me.
“You think I’m such a horrible man,” he grits out.
“A murderer. A vile beast. But look at what your father is doing to you.” A slow, vicious smile curves his lips, the first one I’ve ever seen on his face.
The kind of smile I’d hoped to never see.
“That good, upstanding businessman who raised you. He’s abandoned you, Liesl.
Abandoned you to the wolves, while he plots to get richer.
And if you’re still alive when the dust settles and he’s gotten what he wants, well… then that will be a bonus, won’t it?”
“Stop,” I whisper, but he doesn’t.
“Tell me, Liesl, what it means that your horrible jailer hasn’t shot you dead yet, while your father plots and betrays you on the other side of this city?”
I swallow hard, looking up at him. He’s coldly, terrifyingly beautiful. Every inch of him looks like he was sculpted by a god. His jaw, his cheekbones, his full lips. His lean, muscled body, his veined forearms. His hands, long-fingered and brutal, stained in…
My breath catches in my lungs. Bloodstained. There’s blood on his fingers, in the creases, under the nails.
He’s right. I’m not dead yet. He could have killed me after the first forty-eight hours, and he didn’t. He could have killed me before we ever had this conversation, and he didn’t.
I don’t think he wants to, deep down. I think he’s trying to find any way he can to get out of it.
That ember of hope sparks into a flare.
“Maybe you aren’t so horrible,” I whisper. “Deep down. Maybe you’re not as bad as you want to think you are.”
A cold, bitter laugh expels from his lips, matching that snarl of a smile on his face.
He reaches up, the back of his reddened knuckles ghosting over my cheekbone, and I shiver.
“Oh, malen’kaya pevchaya ptichka,” he murmurs, the Russian rolling off of his tongue and sending heat curling through me.
“You have no idea what I am. No idea what I’ve done.
How dangerous I must be to live in this world. ”
My knees feel weak, like they might not hold me up much longer. I’m cold and hot all at once, and I have the urge to lean into his touch, into his hand. I’m a fool, a stupid, horny fool, but this man is undoing me, and I don’t know how to stop it.
There’s nowhere for me to go, and right now, I don’t want to leave.
“I know you’re dangerous,” I whisper. “But maybe you aren’t as evil as you want me to think you are.”
His jaw tightens, and his hand moves in a flash, gripping my chin. His fingers press into my flesh, and I have a sudden hot, ridiculous desire for him to slide his hand lower and grip my throat the way he did before. My thighs squeeze together involuntarily, my breath catching in my throat.
“You think there’s so much good in people, don’t you?
” His mouth is closer to mine now, his breath ghosting over my lips.
“So pretty, so positive, my little songbird. You see the whole world through sunshine.” His thumb swipes against my jaw, and his gaze holds mine.
“You have no idea what the real world is like. The life I live, the world I live in. You are a fool.”
I fight to breathe, my heart beating hard and fast. I’m afraid, but it’s more, too.
It’s what made me kiss him back, what made me slide my hand into my jeans and rub myself to an orgasm imagining what else we might have done.
It’s the way I feel right now, with his hand gripping my jaw and his mouth close to mine, his body hard and taut and nearly touching me.
It’s the desire to reach out and touch a naked flame, even if it means getting burned.
“Maybe,” I whisper. “But I’m still alive. So there’s a good man in you somewhere, Andrei Petrov.”
His eyes narrow, and his gaze darkens. A cruel smile twists his lips. “Would a good man do this, then?” he murmurs, low and rough and dark.
And then his mouth crashes against mine.