Chapter Seven #2
For what feels like hours, my eyes have been locked on the view outside.
Through the expansive windows, Central Park sprawls beneath a velvety star-dusted sky.
The city lights twinkle like diamonds, lighting the park’s dark expanse, but even the evening view does little to distract me from my thoughts.
No, the silence only seems to grate on my nerves and make the thoughts louder.
I consider turning on the TV for a distraction, but the thought of doing anything that could interrupt Roarke’s sleep has me pushing the idea out of my head.
I’m safe—everything in me knows that I am safest in my bodyguard’s arms. In his bed.
All of which was guaranteed when I took his last name.
But what happens when Yuri is no longer a threat?
My relationship with my parents is no doubt going to suffer.
It wasn’t great to begin with, but no daughter wants to have a complete fall out with her parents.
What if they try to create a rift between my sisters and me as a result?
I sit up in bed, brushing a hand through my hair. For a second, I consider waking Roarke so I’m not alone with these thoughts, but one glance at the sleeping man, and I realize I don’t have the heart for it.
I need air.
Christ, I need a distraction from these thoughts now that whatever hopes I had of sleeping are gone.
Careful not to disturb Roarke, I push off the covers and slowly climb out of bed.
I tiptoe to our clothes and grab my dress, sliding it on.
I grab Roarke’s jacket and bury my nose in it, inhaling deeply before putting it on.
I grab my shoes and tiptoe to the door, set on going to the small gift shop I saw in the hotel lobby earlier.
Maybe I’ll find a book to read or something to keep me occupied for a little while.
I turn the doorknob quietly and sneak out of the room, ever so quietly. I remember I didn’t grab the hotel keycard after I’m already in the elevator. “Damn it,” I mutter just as the elevator doors open on the first floor. “I’ll just ask the front desk for the key.”
I step into a short hallway, my shoes clicking softly against the polished floor as I take a step. Then, it happens.
A hand clamps over my mouth, stifling my scream before it can even form.
Another arm wraps around my waist, a steel band, and I’m yanked backward, my feet leaving the ground.
Before I can make sense of what’s happening, I’m being dragged, stumbling toward a door to my left, with a stark, “Staff Only” sign.
I struggle, kicking out, but the grip is too strong.
Panic floods me, and my vision blurs as tears form. My heart hammers hard against my ribs as I’m shoved through the door, dragged down a few steps before finding myself shoved into yet another room, darker this time, with the scent of stale air clinging to the walls.
“Saved me the trip of having to go up there to get you, whoring bitch!”
The lights come on, and I gasp when I turn to see the last man I want to be locked alone with. Yuri Balshov.
He is every bit as terrifying as he is rumored to be and every bit as ruthless. He’s tall and big with a bald head and a thick beard with eyes that look like they’ve never had a shred of warmth in them. Ever.
And I’m locked in some kind of storage room with the man. This is not the kind of distraction I needed tonight.
“Oh my God!”
“He’s not going to save you now,” Yuri mocks, shoving me into a dusty chair in the corner. I attempt to get up, but he pins me with one dangerous look. “Get off that chair, bitch, if you want me to break all of your teeth.”
He’s not bluffing. Something about those cold, dead eyes tells me he actually would do what he threatens, so I sit down and watch him search through the room before coming back with ropes. He ties them around my wrists and legs before dropping to a crouch in front of me.
“H-how did you find me?”
“You didn’t think you could get away from me that easily, did you?
” he asks, running his hand over my jaw.
I have to resist the urge to jerk away from his hand in case it infuriates him enough to hurt me.
“I have people on my payroll everywhere, and they were quick to tip me off when you showed up with your bodyguard to get married. Had someone follow you to the hotel and bribed the front desk clerk into giving me your room number.”
“Roarke will kill you.”
I cry out as pain shoots across my cheek, the backhanded slap echoing through the small room.
It wasn’t unexpected, though. I know better than to taunt the man.
Then, I feel a trickle of blood down my cheek.
Yuri still has his hand raised, and I notice the large garnet ring on his finger, the likely source of the cut on my face.
“Your father and I had a deal,” he hisses, those dark eyes turning venomous.
“I helped him acquire a business he’s been eyeing in exchange for you.
I saw you with your parents at a gala years ago and knew then I had to have you.
I had to bide my time and…make sure I was available, but it was worth the wait. ”
I freeze. “You bought me.”
I realize now that Bella and Gia were never an option, and it offers me a little relief that they are safe. Christ, how could my father agree to this? What business was more important than his daughter?
“I don’t give a fuck that you’ve already whored yourself out to that man.
Though you now belong to me. You’ll pay for that, of course,” he growls, grabbing my chin painfully and forcing my eyes to meet his dark ones.
“I would have come up for you if you hadn’t come down.
I was ready to kill that bastard for touching what belongs to me.
I still might, but maybe another time. Tonight, I will teach you a fucking lesson for thinking you could cross me. ”
A shiver rolls through my body, and I experience fear unlike anything I have ever felt.
My mind wanders back to the man sleeping upstairs, and my chest clenches painfully at the thought of never seeing him again.
I should have stayed in bed with him. But then, his life would have been in danger if I hadn’t left.
Whatever happens next, at least I saved him from that fate.