Chapter 32
CHAPTER 32
VIKTORIA
I needed to find a weakness, just one thing I could use or exploit.
That was all I needed, and I could be free of that controlling, arrogant bastard.
Direct confrontation didn't work.
Not that I really thought it would, but every time I stood up for myself, I ended up getting fucked within an inch of my life. Then it took hours for the hormones and the pheromones and the dopamine and the warm fuzzy feelings to dissipate enough for me to think clearly.
I had heard of this happening but until Artem, I never knew what they meant when they said sex was like a narcotic.
Amy called it being "dickmatized." When the dick was so good, common sense just left the room, and you were suddenly willing—at least in the moment—to put up with far more than you should.
She insisted it was the female version of pussy-whipped.
After the sex Artem and I had after every fight, I got it.
But dick magic or not, I was not his pet, nor his property, and I deserved to have my life back. I was taking it back. The dick magic would wear off in time, and I would replace him with a good vibrator.
All the orgasms, none of the drama.
I just needed a way out.
Artem had left to go handle some business, whatever that meant, a few hours ago and now I was left to my own devices in this lakeside mansion.
It really was a beautiful place. Bold colors, tastefully done. Practical and well-made furniture and top-of-the-line surveillance equipment. These cameras weren't bodega security specials with blinking red lights. They were small and inconspicuous; if I weren’t looking for them, I would never have seen them.
I flipped off each camera as I saw it and began searching for...something. I started in the office and quickly left when I realized he had never used that desk. There were no papers, no computer, nothing to show someone actually worked there. Just a blank memo pad and a few fancy-looking fountain pens.
There had to be something. I knew Artem didn't actually live here, not even part-time. The house was beautifully decorated in a way that whispered of wealth and taste. Artem's style screamed power.
I was guessing it was some kind of safe house, and someone else who had similar sensibilities and taste had decorated it. Or he hired someone who had some idea of what he was like, the final design their interpretation of Artem's style.
It felt like him, but it wasn't him.
Still, there was something here. There had to be. I moved from room to beautifully decorated room, admiring as I searched. This would be the kind of place where I would love to be, if it were a choice I made rather than one that was made for me.
Since this wasn't Artem's home, he probably put the security system together quickly. Maybe there was a place that the cameras wouldn't see. Somewhere he missed in his haste.
Even if I was wrong, what else did I have to do? After scouring the second floor and finding nothing—no literal skeletons in closets, no diaries telling me all of Artem's deep, dark secrets, no map titled "paths to escape your brutish captor"—I checked out the downstairs rooms.
There was one hallway that led to a west wing. I hadn't been there yet. I'd explored the main area near the office where I confronted Artem, and the east wing, which contained the room where he took me...but not the west wing...yet.
The hallway was darker, the wallpaper still beautiful, but faded. There were several doors off the hallway, but the white door at the end of it, the only one with chipped, faded paint, seemed to call my name, pulling me closer to it.
I reached out my hand to grab the brass doorknob but before I could turn it, two hands landed on my shoulders to pull me away.
A scream caught in my throat when I heard the cracked voice of an older woman. Her English was broken, her Russian accent thick.
"No, no, kukolka . This area is not for you. It is not ready yet. It hasn't been cleaned. Come, come, I make you lunch."
I was so confused.
The older woman was shorter than me, round, her hair pulled to the top of her head in a severe bun and an apron tied around her waist. I would swear she looked the very picture of a Russian grandmother. She strongly reminded me of my babushka, at least what I could remember of her from my childhood. Right down to calling me kukolka . Little doll.
If it wasn't for the way her sharp eyes seemed to take in everything as she guided me to the kitchen and sat me at the table like a child, I may have fallen for it.
She fussed around the kitchen, preparing something that smelled divine. Onions, carrots, potatoes, and warming spices came together in a scent that was relaxing. Or it would have been if the old woman weren’t watching me so closely as she talked.
She was the housekeeper Artem had sent to see to me. She was to cook anything I desired, get me anything I needed. The way she spoke, she sounded like she wanted me to believe she was there as a motherly figure, or a caretaker. In reality, she was my babysitter and my guard.
Her job was to get me to let my guard down so I stayed where I was told, did as I was told, and she could report my moves back to Artem.
Because that wasn't heavy-handed or creepy at all.
Her job wasn't to tend to me, it was to watch me. She was Artem's little spy, and I couldn't forget it.
She made small talk, which I responded to with one- or two-word answers. It was rude of me, but I didn't care. I needed to remember who she was.
After lunch I sat in the office and pretended to work on my studies, though since I wasn’t enrolled anymore, I supposed there was no point.
I tried getting back to that hall three separate times, and each time I was redirected by the housekeeper.
After the fourth time I was put back in the office, I heard a very feminine voice calling my name.
Following the sound to the front sitting room, I found four women, all absolutely beautiful, standing next to each other with matching smiles on their faces.
"Hey, Artem suggested we come and introduce ourselves and see how you're doing," a girl with dark brown curls and vivid green eyes said, stepping forward. "I'm Samara, Gregor's wife. These are my sisters-in-law Nadia and Yelena. And this is Kostya's wife, Marina."
I stared at them, blinking for a moment.
"Kostya," the girl named Marina said. "Artem's older brother."
"Okay, and?" I asked.
"Girl, you need a drink. Though anyone who is with a Leo deserves a drink," Yelena said, rolling her eyes.
"Hey, I'm a Leo," Nadia said, her eyes wide.
"And Mikhail has our condolences." Yelena gave a nod.
The four girls all started laughing and I couldn't help the smile that pulled at my lips.
I'd rather have continued my search, but I couldn't exactly do that with an audience. If I found something, they could rat me out before I ever had time to use it. It wasn't like I was getting anywhere, anyway, with the housekeeper watching me.
"Well, I smashed the decanter that was in the office, but I'm sure there's at least four more around here somewhere."
"Girl, all these men drink is vodka or whiskey. Since all of us are under house arrest until the menfolk deal with whatever it is they have to deal with, I say we have a little fun." Yelena smiled as she pulled a bottle of tequila from her bag. The other three cheered, and we all headed to the kitchen.
Nadia shooed the housekeeper out of the room, saying something in Russian. Then she found some limes and a sweet and sour mix. She was taking down a blender when Yelena yelled, "Shots!"
I had no idea how it happened, but I found myself on my third shot, my teeth sinking into a bitter lime wedge as I was bonding with these four women who were so close yet didn't hesitate to pull me into their circle. It was...unfamiliar, but nice.
"You have no idea how focused they can be," Samara said, swaying in her chair a little. "Did you know my father made a deal for me to marry Gregor and I was so terrified, Yelena and I ran away?"
"Let me guess, you got two states over and he found you and dragged you back?" I asked, my words slurring only a little.
I wasn't drunk. I was…The room spun when I tried to stand. Okay, maybe I was a little drunk. If I was going to be stuck around this family, I needed to build up my alcohol tolerance.
"Nope," Yelena said, popping the p. "We had them chasing us down for three years."
"Three whole years," Samara repeated with pride.
"Then I got sloppy," Yelena said sadly.
"Then you got sloppy." Nadia nodded. "For what it's worth, I'm really glad you did." She rested her head on Yelena's shoulder.
Three years. They escaped these men and stayed ahead of them for three years. I couldn't even make it a single stop on Amtrak before Artem had me back in his hands. My cheeks burned, and I hoped the girls blamed the tequila and not my embarrassment.
"Yeah," she sighed. "Me too."
"Wait, you all ran from them and now you are married?" I asked. Something wasn't clicking. "Why are you still with them? Give me a code word if I need to call someone for you."
The girls all laughed again like I had said the funniest thing they ever heard.
"We're with them because we love them, and they love us," Marina said. "Though they all needed a little help learning how to show it."
"That is not love, it's kidnapping and wrongful imprisonment," I scoffed.
"You might think he's a monster, but monsters like Artem don't waste time on people they don't care about. If he didn't feel something deep, and real, you wouldn't be here," Nadia said with a shrug.
"Care? Locking me up isn't caring; it's control." I got to my feet, needing to move, then the room spun again and I had to hold onto the counter. "He doesn't care for me. He wants to own me."
"Sometimes, control and care are the same. For men like Artem, they don't know how else to love." Samara put a hand on my shoulder to help steady me. "Give him a chance. He wants to keep you safe. To make you happy."
The conversation moved on to something else, but her words struck me harder than they should have.
Did Artem care for me?
Did he just need me to show him how to lo?—
No more tequila for me.
I pushed the bottle away and tried to focus back on the conversation at hand as the housekeeper came in and dropped a platter of meats, cheeses, caviar, and massive hunks of bread in the middle of the table. Something to soak up all the booze. Each of us went straight for the crusty bread, apparently all having the same idea.
Soon after, the girls left, thankfully taking the tequila with them.
I went for a nap in one of the guest rooms on the second floor.
The housekeeper tried to get me to use the bed Artem and I had slept in, but I refused.
There was no way I was going to sleep in the same bed Artem tied me to.
When I woke up several hours later, it was dark out, but Artem still wasn't here.
I went back to exploring, and every time I got close to that back corner of the house, she was there to usher me away.
I didn't know what was in the room, but I was sure the answer I was looking for was behind that door at the end of the hall.
So I waited. Artem wasn't letting me go anytime soon, so I had plenty of time. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long. The housekeeper began vacuuming upstairs while I pretended to nap on the sofa in the office, a book opened on my chest.
As soon as the whine of the vacuum started, I crept through the main level, convinced she was going to pop up out of nowhere.
She didn't. I got all the way to that dim hallway and the door at the end without being interrupted.
The room was small, and almost dingy compared to the rest of the house. But it was also cluttered. I had heard of some homes having a junk drawer where random knickknacks wound up. It looked like this house had a junk room.
There were extra chairs stacked up against one wall, a rolltop desk that looked like it had been here as long as the house had existed, and a few end tables, all under a thick layer of dust.
I started with the desk. At the very least, no one had been in here in a while, so the room probably didn't have a camera recording me.
Along with random odds and ends, there were stacks and stacks of papers inside the drawers, in different handwriting and different languages.
"Oh, you shouldn't be in here," the housekeeper said as she brought a dusting cloth in. "This area hasn't been prepared yet. It's best you go back to the rooms that have been properly?—"
"No, that's okay." I gave her a smile, daring her to say something more. "I'm just admiring this antique desk. It's so lovely. I have always been so fascinated by such craftsmanship."
"Really you should?—"
"I'm good, thank you." I was being a bitch, but I didn't care. It was putting this poor woman in an awkward situation, but if she had a problem with it, she could tell Artem and he could deal with me directly.
The housekeeper looked at me for a second, disappointment and irritation radiating from her eyes before her lips pressed into a thin line and she picked up her dusting cloth and headed out of the room. She muttered something under her breath in Russian as she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.
If she was going to tattle, that meant I only had a few more minutes.
I closed the drawers and went to lift the rolltop. Thankfully, it wasn't locked and after a little pulling it slid open. Inside were several rolled papers. Maps of the entire estate and blueprints.
Then I saw one with faint lines that was different from the others. It was old, but not the oldest in the bunch. It looked like someone had dug Prohibition tunnels throughout the estate.
It showed passages that could take me from the house, if I was reading it correctly and these paths still existed. One looked like it would not only take me out of the house underground but would resurface pretty far from the estate.
If I could get out this way, I could go undetected until I hit the highway.
My heart raced as I traced my fingers over the faint lines on the map.
"This is it," I whispered, the sound swallowed by the shadows in the room. "This is how I get my freedom."