Chapter 6 #2
I know the model because I've loved typewriters since I was a little girl.
While other kids wanted dolls and tea parties and pretty dresses, I wanted books and paper and the clack of metal keys.
My father thought it was cute. He indulged me with vintage machines and leather journals and all the notebooks I could fill.
By the time he realized my love of words would one day turn on him, I already had my degrees and a burning need to expose every rotten secret our family had buried.
My uncle understood the threat I posed to the family's criminal tendencies long before my father did. Tonight is proof he was right to be afraid.
I scan the room. Another typewriter sits near the kitchen with a third on a shelf by the hallway. A fourth is mounted on the wall like art.
Five. Six. I count six typewriters positioned throughout the space, each one illuminated like a holy relic.
Okay, I did not see this coming.
My heart stutters, then squeezes, a strange ache blooming in the space between my ribs that has no business being there.
This is not what I expected in the lair of a beast. This is the home of a man who reads and cooks and collects vintage typewriters like they're sacred objects.
Monsters should live in monster places. This feels like a trap. A really confusing, book-filled, surprisingly cozy trap.
"Your room is this way."
Kon's voice snaps me back to reality. I follow him down a hallway, my bare feet silent on the cool concrete, his jacket swaying around my thighs with each step.
The fabric brushes against my skin, soft and warm, still carrying his scent, and I catch myself breathing it in again before I can stop myself.
Damn it, Onyx. Seriously?
His head turns slightly. Those black eyes drop to where I'm clutching the lapel near my nose, and heat floods my cheeks fast enough to make me dizzy.
His dark hair has started to fall loose from where he had it tied back, strands framing the sharp line of his jaw, and the look he gives me is pure predator. Hungry. Possessive. The beast beneath the skin surfacing for just a moment before he banks it and looks away.
My pulse stutters. My mouth goes dry.
Note to self: Stop. Smelling. The jacket.
He stops in front of a door and pushes it open, stepping aside to let me enter.
The room is nice. More than nice, actually.
A queen bed dominates the back wall, draped in charcoal linens that look thick and soft and impossibly inviting after days of concrete floors and metal cages.
Through a half-open door I can see a private bathroom, all white tile and gleaming fixtures that probably cost more than my first apartment.
And then there's the closet, doors standing open to reveal clothes hanging in neat rows like they've been waiting for me.
I move toward the closet on autopilot, journalist brain cataloging the contents. Jeans. Soft sweaters. T-shirts. Leggings. Underwear still in packages, the tags showing sizes that look almost right. Everything in dark colors, practical fabrics, nothing flashy or revealing.
Someone put thought into this. Someone who was paying attention to details that most men wouldn't notice.
"Who picked these out?" I ask without turning around.
There’s a long pause that makes me look over my shoulder to see if he’s still there.
Kon stands in the doorway, his massive frame filling the space, his expression unreadable.
"I did."
He picked out my clothes? Which means he anticipated buying me. I file that away to think on once I’m alone.
I turn back to the closet and pretend to examine a sweater, using the moment to school my expression into something that doesn't betray the confusion churning through my chest.
I glance around the room, taking stock. "No restraints.
No locks. No armed guard outside the door.
" I keep my voice flat, casual, even though my heart is trying to beat its way out of my ribcage.
"So what's the catch?" I raise my wrist and rub at the marking left from the last set of cuffs put on me by the bastards back at the auction. “Not that I miss them, mind you.”
Kon’s gaze drops to my hands and I swear I see anger flicker across his handsome expression before his eyes turn blank again.
"The building is secured. You can't leave without my authorization. But inside these walls, you're free to move around as you please."
I let out a humorless laugh. "So it's a big cage instead of a small one."
Behind me, I hear his jaw tighten. Not a sound exactly, but a shift in the air. A change in pressure that raises the hair on the back of my neck.
There it is. A nerve. Good to know where the soft spots are.
"Get some sleep. Tomorrow we talk about your family."
He turns to leave. Every rational brain cell I have is screaming at me to let him go, to use this moment alone to regroup, to plan, to figure out my next move like someone with actual survival instincts.
Instead, my brain has other ideas and my mouth follows. "Don't I get a tour? Or do you just put all your purchases in storage and forget about them?"
He stops. Turns. Those black eyes fix on me, and I feel the weight of his attention like a physical thing pressing against my skin.
"You want a tour?"
"I want to know the dimensions of my cage, yeah." I lift my chin and meet his stare head-on. "Call it professional curiosity."
"Professional?"
"I'm a journalist." I hold my ground even though every instinct screams at me to look away.
"I investigate the powerful and corrupt and morally bankrupt.
You hit the trifecta the moment you raised that paddle.
" I see no reason to hide who I am and what I intend to do the second I have access to paper and a pen.
“I’ve mentally already started my piece. My opening line: The man they call the Beast has surprisingly good taste in literature, questionable taste in home décor, and absolutely no qualms about buying human beings on a Saturday night.”
His expression flickers. Amusement? Irritation? Both? I can't tell, and that bothers me more than I want to admit.
He stalks forward until I’m bowing over the edge of the bed, his nose touching mine.
My chin nearly hits my chest. I hold my ground and fold my arms tight. Hard black meets furious blue.
He drags that dark gaze of his over the outline of my face and then lingers his attention on my lips. "I usually only go to auctions on Fridays." With that, he turns and walks back down the hallway. "Keep up."
I blink at the empty space in front of me a couple of times before my feet start moving.
I keep up. Barely. His legs are approximately nine miles long, and my bare feet protest every step on the cold concrete, but I refuse to ask him to slow down or show weakness.
Rule number one of surviving captivity: Never let them see you sweat.
He shows me the kitchen first. Professional-grade range, six burners, double oven. A rack of copper pots hanging from a ceiling mount. A knife block with blades that gleam under the lights.
Mental note: Knives. Potential weapons. File that away.
"You cook," I say. It's not a question.
"Da."
Yes.
"What's your specialty?"
He glances at me, and I catch a flash of surprise before he shutters it away. "Pelmeni. Russian dumplings. My grandmother's recipe."
His grandmother. A family recipe. Another piece that doesn't fit the monster puzzle I'm trying to assemble.
I file it away and follow him to the bookshelves.
"Russian literature," I observe, scanning the spines. "Philosophy. Military history." My gaze lands on a lower shelf and I pause, a grin tugging at my lips. "Romance novels?"
His jaw tightens again. "Those belong to someone else."
"Sure they do." I drag my finger along one of the spines, watching his reaction from the corner of my eye. I don’t mean to sound sassy or exasperate either of us, but I’ve been in the equivalent of a jail cell for nearly a week.
The interaction and taunting is the only way I know to keep my mind off the fact I was just trafficked.
The second I close my eyes tonight the horrors of what I witness in that hellhole will come flooding back.
The beatings women took. The “training” others suffered.
I was lucky to be mainly left alone. Others didn’t get the same treatment.
My hair falls over the side of my face and I slip a look his way to find a muscle ticking beneath his cheekbone. "They do."
"Mhmm." I pull one off the shelf and flip it over to read the back cover, biting back a grin when his nostrils flare. "Let me guess. Your housekeeper? Your accountant? A very literate ghost who haunts the fourth floor?"
I hold my hands up when he looks like he wants to argue his point. "Whatever you say, Beast." I let the teasing drip from every syllable because annoying him is the most fun I've had in days. “I’ll keep your secrets, big guy.”
His eyes snap to mine, dark and sharp. For a moment I think I've pushed too far. Then his lips curve into something that's almost a smile, and the tension in my chest loosens by a fraction.
Okay. So he has a sense of humor buried somewhere under all that muscle and menace. Interesting.
"The typewriters," I say, nodding toward the nearest one. The gorgeous Underwood, positioned on its shelf like a crowned jewel. "What's the story?"
He doesn't answer immediately. His gaze moves to the typewriter, and I watch his expression soften by degrees, the hard lines of his face easing into something almost tender.
Holy shit. He actually loves these things.
His eyes narrow on me for a second and then his expression softens as if he’s decided to tell me a secret. "I collect them."
"Yeah, I noticed. Why?"
He pushes his dark hair back from his face with one hand, then casually unbuttons his cufflinks and pockets them before rolling his sleeves up massive forearms covered in ink.
I don’t get a good look at the designs before he pushes his hands into his pockets and starts speaking.