by Raven Dark
We drive for what must be at least a couple of hours. The headache passes while the medication works its magic. The limousine travels westward into the mountains, the thick snow blanketing everything in white. Cities give way to a rugged landscape that grows increasingly unpopulated, until hardly any houses or landmarks show themselves. The awareness that I’m being taken to an unknown isolated location settles in the pit of my stomach like a stone. Panic begins to rise in my throat, choking me a little more the further into the mountains we go.
Michael says nothing to me for most of the trip. He sits with his computer open on his lap typing away, sometimes talking on a cell, mostly in Russian. When he speaks to anyone who isn’t on the phone, it’s only to Katerina, at which point he puts the partition down.
It’s possible that he’s simply absorbed in his work and too busy for chit-chat with me. Without understanding his words, I get the feeling at least some of his conversations with his assistant are work-related. He gestures to his laptop screen or types and indicates whatever he’s working on while he talks with her. Occasionally, she works on a tablet, obviously looking up things for him. Even so, my father is the master of the cold shoulder, so I know when I’m getting it.
Why it should matter that Michael is ignoring me, I don’t know. I should be glad of it. If he’s not talking to me, I don’t have to put up with his needling or cutting comments. But hearing him chat pleasantly with Katerina stings somehow, and I can’t help feeling excluded, and if I’m honest, a little jealous. It’s obvious that there was a relationship between them, and it seems as though it was a pleasant one. It doesn’t help that they rarely speak English, making it impossible to understand all but a few words.
Michael makes a puzzled face at his computer. He taps Katerina on the shoulder and shows her.
“Dah. Ostavaytes’ na linii.” She types few keys. “Teper’ eto ispravleno.”
He glances at his screen, then grins at her and nods. “Ideal'no ty volshebnik. Spasatel' zhizni.”
She smiles and wiggles her fingers at him in a strange way I don’t understand. He chuckles and goes back to his work.
When Michael catches me looking at him with confusion, he smirks, but doesn’t elaborate. The feeling of being left out intensifies.
I shake my head, putting him and his mind games out of my thoughts. Lack of interaction with my captor leaves me with nothing to do but stare out the window into the endless nothingness, trying not to let my imagination run wild with whatever might lie ahead of me when we reach our destination.
Over the next couple of hours that pass after leaving the airport, I try to keep track of the roads we take, the turns we make, but an hour into the trip, there’s no landmarks to remember, and the tint on the windows reduces the trees and roads to a shadowed blur.
I’m also reasonably sure Adrian has doubled back a few times. There doesn’t seem to be anyone following us, and in fact, we haven’t come across another vehicle in over half an hour after leaving the city, so I assume Michael had him do that to keep me from tracking our route.
Bastard.
One or two huge houses whiz by us, mansions nestled in a thick woods at the ends of gated drives. This is a gorgeous place to live, but I’d never want to live anywhere so far removed from civilization. Internet out here is probably crap, intermittent at best, even for the rich, and I can’t imagine being more than five minutes from the nearest Starbucks for days on end.
Michael can joke all he wants about my being too attached to my phone, but I need my social interaction, even if it’s only looking at posts on Facebook, the smiling face of a barista in the morning, or the banter between me and my coworkers on breaks.
Thoughts about my job make my gut twist. What was it he said? This is not a temporary arrangement. If I can’t get away from him, it’s not like I’ll be on some weeklong holiday from work, returning happy and refreshed. If I can’t get away from him, I’ll never be going to work again.
Which raises an interesting question.
I turn to my captor, waiting until he hangs up from his current call. “Michael, can I ask you something?”
“Pardon?” His raised brow brooks disapproval.
I suppress an irritated sigh. “Sir.”
“Better.”
The command in his tone makes my back stiffen. “People are going to ask questions if I’m gone for more than a day. They probably already have at my work. If I don’t at least check in soon, you’ll have a lot of suspicious people on your hands. How do you plan on handling them?”
“I won’t. You will. Which reminds me. As far as your job…” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the clone of my phone, handing it to me. “Might as well get it over with now.”
I put my head back. “You’re going to force me to quit.”
He shrugs and continues to wait with the phone held out between us.
Anger burns in my blood, desperation making my eyes sting. He’s really doing this. Shit just got real.
I’ve wanted to work with kids for most of my life. I still remember the first time I realized this. The memories tug at my thoughts, but I shove them down. If I think about those, I’ll fall apart, and I refuse to do that in front of him again.
“Sir. Quitting my job won’t be enough. I have friends. People who know who my father is. My suddenly disappearing off the face of the Earth, however convincing an explanation I give, will raise questions. People will come looking for me. Antonio won’t be the only one who’ll be hard to keep quiet.”
At the mention of Antonio’s name, his jaw muscles tick.
“I know.” He sets the phone on his knee. “Those people will be handled. Some already have been.”
“What? How?”
“Not your concern.”
Figures. “And what about Antonio? He won’t back off.”
I’m almost tempted to tell Michael he’s a hitman if for no other reason than to scare him and make it clear how difficult it will be to get a man with his skills at finding people to back off, but doing so would mean exposing him. I don’t like Antonio, but revealing his occupation is against Mafia code, and he hasn’t done anything to justify my doing that to him.
Michael lounges more comfortably in his seat. “I have ways of handling him.”
Handling him? His choice of wording sends my thoughts racing with all the grizzly ways he might deal with a man he clearly still thinks is competition.
“What are you going to do, kill him?” I hate that my voice shakes.
He shuts his laptop and slips it into his bag. “There are more ways to deal with a troublesome individual than violence, kravitsa. I can promise you, if your precious intended becomes too much of a nuisance, I will do what has to be done to keep you, but turning to more final measures is a last resort.”
I swallow. Deep down, there is a part of me—a silly, naïve, childish part—
that half pictures Antonio coming to my rescue. The trouble is, eventually, he’ll learn what happened from my father. His first loyalty is to the Mafia, and he’s dad’s best friend. Once Vincent tells him what happened, he’ll back off. Hell, my father’s probably already told him, which means my chances of receiving a daring rescue are nil. Not that there was a chance anyway. I am nothing to Antonio except a would-be trophy, which he will easily replace. The alternative means betraying both the Mafia, and his friendship with my father. He’d eat one of his own bullets before he did that, not just for me, but for anyone.
When I don’t take the phone and make the call he wants, Michael lifts his shoulders. “I told you before, you will have certain freedoms, Aurora, and you will lose them if you don’t toe the line. As it stands now, I intend to treat you like a princess. If you’d rather be treated like a prisoner, that can be arranged.”
Shit. What was it said last night? If I went against his rules, he’d lock me in a room and never let me out except to get him off.
If I quit my training right now, out of the blue, I’ll have a heck of a
time getting hired anywhere, if I’m even able to finish the training. Everything I’ve worked so hard for will be gone. But if I don’t, Michael will make my life a much worse hell than it might become otherwise. If he locks me up like he talked about yesterday, I won’t ever be able to escape.
Like it or not, I have to play by his rules.
I snatch the phone from him and call my field instructor. It would have been easier doing the call if Michael wasn’t listening to my every word. Not only is he listening, but his eyes sparkle with triumph the whole time.
I fudge my way through the call, coming up with the only excuse I can think of, that the field of work isn’t for me, and I’ve decided to pursue other things. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to say. It’s also as far from the truth as I could have gotten.
It probably sounds cliché, but making a difference in the lives of young kids, especially those whom have been cast aside, is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s typical of Michael to take that away from me. Just like he’s taken so many other things.
For a moment, as I’m talking, I seriously consider telling my supervisor the truth. Blurting out that I’m being held captive. But then I catch Michael’s eye and his brow raises, as if daring me to expose what’s happening.
I say nothing about what’s going on. Somehow, I keep my voice from cracking as I give my resignation. My instructor takes it well, sounding confused, but he accepts it. He has to. I hang up quickly before he can detect that anything is wrong.
Not trusting myself to speak lest I say something I’ll regret, I thrust the phone at Michael, silent.
He takes it slowly. “See? Was that so hard?” His tone drips delight. “Trust me, I’ll keep you so damned busy you won’t have time to think about anything else.”
The triumph in his eyes gets on my last nerve. He just took my livelihood from me and he’s behaving as if he just roped me into playing hooky for the weekend so I can have a good time with him?
“God, I hate you,” I grit out.
“You’re so sexy when you’re angry, Aurora.”
And that’s when my nerves snap. Unable to hold my rage in anymore, I lunge forward and my hand swings up, straight for his face.
Michael catches my wrist before my palm connects with his cheek. He shoves me back into the seat. He isn’t angry. On the contrary, his eyes are alight. Fuck, that only excited him.
He leans forward and seizes my wrists. I flinch, expecting an attack. Instead, he yanks a pair of steel handcuffs from his pocket. He claps them on and locks them, then grabs a fistful of my hair. I wince, my eyes watering. His face is in mine. When he speaks, his voice is frighteningly even.
“Do that again, and I will cuff you to a bed and turn your ass purple. Do you understand me?”
Fear crawls inside me, making a numbing home in my gut. “Ah… Yesss…”
“Yes, what?”
I close my eyes, hatred rolling over me in waves. “Yes, Sir.”
“Now.” He releases me slowly. “Sit there. I don’t want to hear a word out of you for the rest of the drive.”
I throw myself into the seat, somehow fighting the urge to shatter in front of him. This can’t, it just can’t be my life.
Lapsing into silence, feeling like my world is slowly collapsing in on itself, I stare out the window, trying to refocus my thoughts. I can feel him there, watching me, waiting to see what I’ll do next. I swear, I’ll kill him. If I can ever figure out how.
Temptation to shut down, to retreat into myself to a place he can’t reach me takes hold, but I can’t. I can’t break.
Instead, I focus on my surroundings, trying to keep track of where we’re headed. It’s useless; there’s nothing out here now but forest and snow-covered roads.
Eventually, perhaps fifteen minutes later, the car pulls to a stop. I glance out the front window. Despite the tint, I can clearly make out the front of a large timber hunting lodge. My mouth drops.
The structure is gorgeous. It’s a three-story building, and pillars out front hold aloft the upper floors. Rows of evergreens grow to either side, and an elaborate garden stretches out front, with artfully arranged stones that would probably normally rest between rose bushes or snapdragons. There’s a wrought iron gate at the end of the cobblestone drive. Ordinarily, I would love the mix of rustic and stately appeal of the place, but all I can think about is how isolated, how in the middle of nowhere this place is.
I’m so screwed.
Adrian puts his window down and reaches out to a pad standing beside the gate, keying in a code. There’s a buzz, and the automatic gate opens.
Smoke rises from the lodge’s two chimneys, and several of the lights are on, giving the place a warm, cozy feel, despite its size. There must be a small army of staff taking care of this place. There’s nothing about the lodge that suggests a depraved den of debauchery, but I won’t let the elegance fool me. I can’t forget why Michael has brought me here.
Adrian drops us off at the doors and then disappears with the car, presumably to park it in one of the garages I saw when we drove through the gate. Leaving the cuffs on, Michael marches me up the stone steps to the double doors of the lodge, his fingers like steel around my elbow.
I glance around the property. Damn. There’s zero chance of getting away from here on my own. I don’t know the area at all, or what direction to go even if I could somehow steal the limo and drive off. There are no houses or cabins around here that I can see, only forest, and in the distance, mountain peaks. Not to mention, the snow is heavy and thick, probably waist-deep in places, and the path up here wasn’t well-ploughed, suggesting a recent snowfall. I have no survivalist skills, and especially not in an area like this, far from city life. If I tried to flee on foot, I wouldn’t make it far before I got lost or froze to death.
Katerina unlocks the lodge and lets us in. She says something to Michael in Russian, perhaps that she’s going to check that everything is set up to his liking before he nods and she disappears.
Michael takes my elbow and pulls me down a luxuriant, wood-paneled hall.
Trepidation burrows its way into me, dark and deep. Now that we’re up here alone with no way for me to get away, what will he do to me? His grip is unforgiving, much like him.
My mind scrambles for a way out of whatever he’s got planned.
Wait a minute…
I’m not feeling too bad now, but if he thinks I am, would that be enough to stop him? It’s a temporary solution, but it will buy me time. But if I play this up too much, he’ll get suspicious. I have to be careful.
I give my head a shake as if clearing a fog. When he glances at me, his brow furrowed, I throw in a slight sway.
“Dizzy again?”
“Yes.”
He nods and pulls me into a cook’s dream come true of a kitchen, a huge space with two ovens, marble countertops, top of the line appliances, and an island with every pot and pan size known to man hanging above it. Four stools stand on the opposite side of the island to the entrance, reminding me of one of those old-fashioned malt shops. I’ve never been into cooking. It’s one of the few things Isabella and I have in common, but my dad would have been in heaven.
Dad. I need to stop thinking about him that way, as if there’s anything left of the man I once thought cared for me. He had a girl kidnapped as part of whatever deal he had with the Volkovs, then handed me off to be used for reporting it, regardless of the fact that I didn’t know it was him. There’s nothing left of the father I knew, if indeed that man ever existed at all.
Michael lays his laptop case on the counter and heads for the fridge without making any move to take the cuffs off my wrists.
“Hungry?” He opens the fridge, takes out a water bottle for himself and offers one to me. “Food might make you feel better.”
“I don’t have much of an appetite right now,” I mutter. “But I’ll take the water.” I accept a bottle from him.
The lack of appetite is true, but it has
more to do with what he’s got in mind for me than from the altitude.
I indicate the cuffs. “Michael, how am I supposed to do anything with these things on?”
“There seems to be a word still missing from your vocabulary, Aurora.” He cracks open the water and downs half of it. Waiting for my reply.
I heave a sigh. “Sir?”
“Better. As far as the cuffs, you figure it out.” His eyes twinkle as he downs the rest of his water. “How’s your headache?”
Like he cares. He’s probably only asking for his own benefit.
“It’s there.” I take another drink of water. My head isn’t hurting, but I want him to think I’m out of commission.
He glances at his watch. “Hasn’t been four hours since the last dose. You can have some Asprin in forty-five minutes if the headache’s still bothering you.”
I’d almost feel bad for lying to him about being sick, except it’s hard to muster any gratitude considering that he just cost me my job. And I don’t want a repeat of last night.
His mouth twists with amusement as he crosses the room to me. “This gratitude thing is difficult for you, isn’t it?” He swipes his finger over my bottom lip. The hunger in his eyes brings to mind all the twisted things he might do to me while we’re here. Unable to face those possibilities, I turn my head away. He turns my chin up so that I’m looking right into his cool topaz gaze. “You better not be hamming this up, woman.”
My heart stops. I widen my eyes in a look of innocence. “What?”
“You wouldn’t be the first woman who’s used a headache to get out of sex.”
“What do you want me to say, Sir?”
He looks closely at my face. He hums in his throat and squeezes my nape. “You do look a little pale. I guess my plans for you will have to wait.” He drops his hand. “You’re off the hook for today. I’ll leave you alone…for now. I’ll show you to your room so you can lie down, but I’m not letting what you did in the car slide.”
He’s referring to my trying to hit him.
I swallow, dread snaking through me. “What are you going to do to me?”