Chapter Five
I woke in Vadim Sorin’s bed with my thighs sore, my mouth dry, and late-autumn light cutting pale lines across the black sheets.
For a few seconds, I didn’t move.
The room was too warm to be my apartment.
Too quiet. No radiator banging like an angry old man in the wall.
No television glow from the living room because Petya had fallen asleep with the sound off and guilt sitting beside him.
No neighbor shouting through plaster. No smell of boiled cabbage, burnt coffee, or rain leaking through old window tape.
Just clean sheets. Warm air. City glass. The faint scent of Vadim’s soap on the pillow beside me.
The scent pulled last night back before I was ready.
I turned my face into the pillow and shut my eyes.
That was a mistake.
Memory came in pieces. His mouth between my thighs.
His hands holding mine down because I’d asked him not to let me hide.
The weight of him over me. The rough, controlled sound of his voice when he told me I would come for him again.
The way he’d stopped at every threshold until I crossed it, then took me like restraint had been a locked room and I’d handed him the key.
Heat moved through me, low and traitorous.
I opened my eyes.
The other side of the bed was empty.
A folded robe lay across the footboard, deep blue silk against the black coverlet. Beside it sat a tray with a glass of water, tea in a white pot, toast, berries, and a small dish of honey so gold it looked obscene in the quiet room.
Men like Gennady left bruises and called them terms.
Vadim left breakfast and locked doors.
I wasn’t ready to decide what that meant.
I pushed myself up on one elbow.
Everything ached at once.
My thighs ached. My hips felt loose and tender. Between my legs, a deeper soreness pulled a quiet breath from me before I could stop it. Not pain exactly. Not regret either, which would have been easier to explain to myself.
A dark mark shadowed the inside of my wrist where Vadim’s mouth had been.
I touched it with two fingers.
A bruise would have made sense. A bruise would have belonged to the world I knew. Gennady’s fingers. A wall at my back. A man making a point because he could.
This was different.
The mark was small and dark and chosen.
My face heated before anyone was even in the room to see it.
I reached for the robe and slid out of bed too fast.
I moved too fast. My knees buckled, and I caught the edge of the nightstand with one hand before I cursed under my breath.
The door opened.
Vadim stepped in and stopped just inside the room.
He wore dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. No tie.
No jacket. His black hair was still damp from a shower, combed back but not quite as severe as it had been in the auction room.
Morning light caught the faint mark near his jaw and the reddened split across his knuckles.
His gaze went first to my hand on the nightstand, then to my face.
“Sit down before you fall,” he said.
My spine straightened on principle. “Good morning to you too.”
His mouth changed by a fraction. Not a smile. Something close enough to irritate me.
“Good morning, Nadia. Please sit down before you prove a point to the floor.”
“That’s better.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
I sat anyway because my knees were traitors and because the robe had started to slide off one shoulder.
Vadim crossed the room slowly enough that I had time to tell him to stop if I wanted to. He didn’t come to the bed. He went to the tray instead, poured water into the glass, and carried it to me.
I took it. “Did you sleep?”
“For a few hours.”
“Where?”
“In the chair.”
My gaze moved past him to the wide leather chair near the windows. A folded blanket hung over one arm.
“You slept in a chair in your own bedroom?”
“You were in the bed.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“It does.”
“Vadim.”
His name came out rougher than I meant it to.
His eyes lowered to my mouth, then came back to mine. “I wanted to be near enough if you woke afraid. I also wanted you to wake without me in the bed before you decided whether you were angry.”
“Very considerate for a man who carried me out of an illegal auction.”
His jaw flexed once. “I remember what I did.”
“So do I.”
The air changed.
It tightened, like silk drawn slowly between two hands.
I drank half the water because my mouth was too dry to keep arguing with dignity. Vadim watched me do it, then stepped back instead of touching me.
I set the glass on the tray. “Where is Petya?”
“Safe.”
“That is not an answer either.”
“No,” Vadim said. “It is the first answer. The fuller one is that Lev found him before dawn. Petya is not in Kask custody. He is not hurt beyond what you already knew. He was moved somewhere my men can watch the entrances.”
“Moved where?”
“To a Sorin-controlled apartment in Brooklyn.”
My stomach tightened. “Did he agree?”
“He argued.”
“That sounds like Petya.”
“He stopped arguing when Lev explained that Kask men were asking after him.”
I stood again, slower this time. “I want to talk to him.”
“I expected that.”
“You expected it, or you allow it?”
Vadim’s eyes sharpened. “You’re not a child asking permission.”
“Then give me a phone.”
He looked at the nightstand.
My phone sat there beside the lamp, plugged into a charger, the cracked corner of the case visible against the dark wood.
For a second, I only stared at it.
“You had it?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since last night.”
“And you didn’t give it to me?”
“You were asleep. Before that, you were shaking hard enough that I was deciding between tea and a doctor.”
My face warmed for an entirely different reason. “You could have told me when I woke.”
“You woke thirty seconds before you tried to fight the floor.”
“I didn’t fight the floor.”
“No. You surrendered early. I admire restraint.”
I gave him a look.
His almost-smile flashed again, dark and brief and dangerous on the edges, but not cruel.
I reached for my phone. The screen lit under my thumb. No service. Then one bar. Then three missed calls from a number I didn’t know.
My chest went tight.
Vadim saw my face. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” I tapped the missed call log. “Unknown number. Three times.”
His expression emptied of warmth.
The phone rang in my hand.
Unknown number.
My pulse jumped hard enough to make my wrist hurt.
Vadim held out his hand. “Let me see the number.”
“No.”
“Nadia.”
“You just said I’m not a child asking permission.”
“And I’m not a man who lets a knife swing because the blade has your brother’s voice on it.”
That stopped me.
The phone kept ringing.
“Do you think it’s Petya?” I asked.
“I think Gennady is not finished.”
My fingers tightened around the phone. “Then I should answer.”
“He could be trying to locate you.”
“Can he?”
“Not from one call unless you stay on long enough and he has someone good ready.”
“That wasn’t comforting.”
“It was true.”
The ringing stopped.
I stared at the screen.
Then a text came through.
UNKNOWN:
Tell your brother to answer when I call.
My blood went cold.
Another message followed.
UNKNOWN:
He can still make this right.
I looked up at Vadim.
He was already reaching for his own phone.
“Lev,” he said when the call connected. “Kask reached Nadia’s phone. Check Petya now. Do not let him leave the apartment.”
My phone rang again.
This time the caller ID showed Petya.
I answered before Vadim could say anything.
“Petya?”
“Nadia.” His voice hit my ear raw and too loud. “Tell me where you are.”
My knees weakened. I sat on the edge of the bed. “Are you all right?”
“Tell me where you are.”
“Petya, are you hurt?”
“No. No, I’m not hurt.” He breathed hard into the phone. A door slammed somewhere near him, followed by a male voice I couldn’t make out. “I’m not hurt. I need you to tell me if it’s true.”
The tray sat untouched on the nightstand. Steam curled from the white teapot, thin and useless in the wide, warm room.
Vadim’s gaze held mine from across the black sheets.
“What did Gennady tell you?” I asked.
Petya made a sound like he’d been struck. “Don’t do that.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said you walked into an auction because of me.” His voice cracked on the last word, then hardened fast, as if he hated himself for letting me hear it. “He said he won you. He said some man took you after, and now I owe for the debt and for what he lost.”
I closed my eyes.
“Nadia,” Petya said. “Tell me he lied.”
I couldn’t.
I said nothing, and Petya heard the answer anyway.
Petya swore in Russian. Something crashed. Glass or a cup or his fist against a wall. Another voice barked his name.
“Don’t you dare fight whoever is in that room,” I said.
“Who is he?”
“Petya—”
“Who took you?”
I looked at Vadim.
He stood very still, phone lowered at his side, eyes on my face. Not reaching. Not interrupting. Not trying to take the conversation from me even though every muscle in his body looked ready to move.
“Vadim Sorin,” I said.
Petya went silent.
Then, quieter, “Sorin.”
“Yes.”
“The man from the lounge?”
“You remember him?”
“I remember enough.” Petya’s breath shook. “I’ll kill him.”
“No, you won’t.”
“He bought you?”
“He didn’t buy me.”
“Then he took you?”
“He took me from Gennady.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the answer you need before you put your head through another wall.”
“He touched you?”
The question came out like pain.
My fingers closed around the edge of the sheet. “Petya.”
“I asked if he touched you.”
“That is not your question to ask me like that.”
He went silent again.
Good. Let him hear it. Let him feel the line before he crossed it and made my body one more place men argued over ownership.
When I spoke again, my voice had steadied. “I entered the auction myself. I made that choice. I did it because I thought it was the only way to get enough money before Gennady came for you.”
“I did this,” Petya said.