Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Alex
The room they put me in is the one off the east corridor, a small storage space full of files, excess furniture, and anything else Nikita wanted out of sight.
I know it by the smell of the hallway, the creak of the floorboard two steps from the door.
I spent nine years learning every corner of this house, and my body hasn’t forgotten any of it.
It smells like cigarettes and old wood. Cold, with no ventilation, a single chair has been placed in the center, and I refuse to sit in it. Standing is the last form of control available to me, and I’m not ready to give it up.
My head is still ringing from the accident. There’s a cut above my left eyebrow that is drying, and my ribs on the right side ache. I do a full inventory of my body, aches, pains, but shockingly, nothing feels broken.
Evie isn’t here. They separated us in the hallway outside, her hand pulled from mine with inconsiderate force. She hadn’t cried, and I was proud of her for that. But the fear in her eyes as she looked over her shoulder at me with those dark eyes haunted me.
I’ll burn this house down before I leave without her.
The door opens, and Nikita Koshkin appears in the doorway. Sixty-one years old, and he looks exactly the way I remember him — well-dressed, and cold inside. His eyes assess me, calculating the value of an asset, nothing more.
He takes a seat in the chair I refused to occupy, and I’m thankful there’s a small table between us.
“Yarina,” he says as a greeting. Like the last three years have been nothing more than a minor interruption in a conversation.
I say nothing.
“You look well,” he says. “Better than I expected, in fact. I thought three years of running would have worn you down more.” He tilts his head slightly. “It seems I underestimated you. More than once in fact. An error I have since made adjustments for.”
“Where is Evie?” I ask.
“Safe,” he says. “She is my daughter, and will be treated accordingly.” A displeased expression casts across his face as he continues, “You left without my permission. Made the decision to take my daughter with you, who was not yours to make. You were a resident of my house, under my protection, and you repaid me by taking what belonged to me.”
“She is a child,” I say with distaste. “Not your property.”
“She is my child. My blood,” he hisses. “Which in our world amounts to the same thing as property.” He folds his hands on the table, leaning toward me.
“I let you, you know? Get away.” He smiles that cruel smile that had haunted my dreams for the last three years.
“Initially at least. You weren’t worth much to me at the time and Evie was – complicated.
Her presence in this house was a liability at the time if I’m honest. So your removing her resolved two problems that I hadn’t found solutions for yet. ”
He pauses, tipping his head. “But things change.”
“Your deal is dead,” I say. “Whatever he offered you, whatever you agreed to, it’s over. Victor knows the truth.”
Nikita looks at me for a long moment, and I see the internal debate going on behind his eyes. Then he smiles, which makes my heart clench harder than anything else has since he walked through the door.
“Victor Rozovsky,” he says with amusement.
“My, my, you have been busy, Yarina. Smart girl, making new, and powerful friends. I’ll give you that.
” He leans back in the chair. “But it doesn't matter. Pavel’s proposal was the mechanism, not the end game.
The fact is that you are here, and Evie is here.
You're both back where you belong, in Koshkin territory, regardless of any other arrangements that have or have not been made elsewhere.”
“I am not your property,” I say harshly. “I have never been your property.”
“You, my dear, are whatever I say you are,” he says, pleasantly.
“That is how the world works. That is how it has always worked and you are well aware of that. Which is why you spent eleven months planning your escape rather than simply walking out the front door.” He stands.
“You will marry Pavel Breshnev and give me the alliance I need to further my reach in their organization. You will do your job, which is to be useful, which is the only job you have ever had in this house or anywhere else.”
“No.”
He moves faster than I can react, knocking the table over as he reaches across it and slaps me.
Not hard enough to knock me down, but hard enough to make the room tilt, hard enough to break the cut above my eye open again, and I taste blood at the corner of my mouth. The ringing in my head doubles.
I glare at him.
“You have forgotten your place,” he growls. “I can see that three years of playing house has given you the idea that the choices were always yours.” he straightens his jacket. “That will be corrected.”
“Victor is coming,” I say, my voice steady. “And when he gets here, you are going to wish you had never come looking for us in the first place.”
He considers me a moment, then turns to his men at the door. “Keep them separated. No visitors for this one.”
The door closes behind him, and only then do I sit. But not in the chair, instead I slide down to the cold floor. He will come for us. I know it. We just have to hold on long enough for him to get here.