VII (Seven)

by Lana Sky

  We’re maybe twenty feet off the ground when he finally settles into a crook between two sturdy branches and pulls me up into the space beside him. It’s precariously narrow. I straddle the thicker end of the branch, facing him, while he ties one end of his shirt around a higher branch and then twists the rest around his shoulder, securing himself to the tree.

  “You’ll fall from that end,” he warns, flicking his gaze over my awkwardly splayed limbs. “Come here.”

  I make a show of scanning the ledge for a safer spot—but there’s nowhere else to run. Below, footsteps crash through the forest and more shouts rise up. Something tells me they don’t all belong to Mischa’s men.

  Yet, apart from panting with exertion, he doesn’t seem too alarmed by our predicament.

  “Unless you’ve slept in a tree before, I suggest you listen,” he says as casually as if he were referring to the weather. “Come. Here.”

  Left with no other choice, I brace my hands along the branch for balance and inch my way toward him. I freeze when I’m close enough to sense the heat wafting from him like a furnace.

  “Do you really think you can support yourself all night?” he asks.

  A part of me wants to refuse and take my chances. But there’s a dare lurking behind those dark eyes. One I know better than to ignore. How far will you go for survival, Little Rose?

  “You went there unarmed?” I pose the question as I peel my good hand from the branch and brace it over his waist instead. A shiver runs through me at the contact. Gritting my teeth, I fight to disguise any reaction he could interpret as weakness and shift an inch closer. “Do you enjoy tempting fate?”

  “Maybe I enjoy tempting you,” he counters.

  Up this close, there’s no escape from his scent. It floods my head in dizzying waves: sweat, fresh air, blood. Most maddening of all, his pulse is racing beneath the calm exterior. Without being able to touch him, I might have been fooled. Rather than alarmed by the danger, he’s excited.

  “How?” I rasp, raising my voice as loud as I dare. “By nearly getting me killed—”

  “I took a gamble,” he explains, shifting to fully face me.

  I look away, staring beyond his shoulder. From this angle, I have a direct view of the ground looming below. Fear is what makes my stomach clench—nothing else. Especially not him.

  “Anders was a greedy little prick,” Mischa continues near my ear. “One of the many men who underestimated me. Like your husband, he acted exactly how I predicted he would. And now…when the dust settles, I’ll have his guns and no one will be able to do a damn thing about it.”

  A gamble?

  “You knew he’d attack you,” I deduce. “And yet you went there anyway.”

  “I knew that the benefits vastly outweighed the risks, Little One,” he says. “That’s your first lesson. Never risk what you aren’t willing to lose.”

  Like his life? And mine.

  “What about Sergei?” I ask. Anders mentioned him. Is this why Mischa did something so insane as meeting an arms dealer who wanted him dead? All to keep something from Sergei?

  “Sergei…” Mischa sighs thoughtfully, his chest rising and lowering beneath my chin. “Sergei has his own goals in mind. They tend not to overlap with mine.” His finger strokes my throat and I’m painfully aware of the necklace hanging from it. I can’t stop myself from brushing the lump where the charm lurks beneath my collar. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that. Would you?”

  I grit my teeth. It’s nearly impossible to tell if he’s joking or if he knows.

  And he’s just toying with me.

  “Don’t think too much of yourself, Little Rose,” he scolds, letting his hand fall. “Look at it this way: You are just a little pawn I’m not done playing with. But at least I’m honest in my intentions. In case you forget that, I suggest you remember that Sergei wants you only as a trophy—”

  “Don’t.” I close my eyes as if to fend off the dark direction he seems determined to lead me down. Not again. “You’ve made your point.”

  “Have I?” Mischa wonders. He takes his unsecured hand from the bark of the tree and captures my chin with it, forcing me to meet his eyes directly. “You think I’m a monster,” he says as if reading the word etched into my gaze. “I am. But I have always given you one thing that not even Sergei or your fucking husband ever would.”

  “Oh?” I somehow manage to copy his rasping tone, surprising myself with the ferocity. “And what is that?”

  “A choice,” he says. “Between being locked in a fucking cage or glimpsing what waits beyond it.”

  What a vicious, cruel lie. And he believes it. Though maybe it’s true.

  He gave me a choice between dying as Robert’s wife or living as someone else—which puts him in possession of a dangerous weapon Robert Winthorp never utilized: power.

  “So, what happens now?” I wonder, feeding off my latest dose of his hateful drug.

  “We wait,” he says, shrugging. “Vanya knows what to do. In the morning, my plan should come to fruition. When the dust settles, we return to Pecavi—”

  “Pecavi?” I echo. I’ve heard that name before. “Is that the name of your house?”

  Rather than supply an answer, he deliberately lets my question hang on the air. It seems I’ve found his own Sergei: the house is off-limits.

  I let him draw his boundary and leave it be. But I don’t sleep. I cling to my tormentor and listen to his heart beat as the forest sways around us.

  And I never let my guard down.

  Chapter 5

  Mischa finally guides me from the tree as a sliver of light begins to paint the horizon.

  Disoriented and sore, I don’t question him during the long trek through the woods. Finally, we return to that expanse of dirt road and find a van waiting with keys already in the ignition.

  “Keep alert,” Mischa tells me as he climbs behind the wheel. “Don’t forget you have that knife.”

  After claiming the passenger’s seat, I take his advice and scan our surroundings. Apart from scurrying creatures, I find nothing worth notice. Eventually, the motion of the van and the silence work to lull my brain into a false sense of monotony. The kind of dull idleness where dangerous thoughts take root.

  My husband is dead. I feel a sudden urge to say it out loud, just once.

  “He’s dead.” The words ring hollow, solidifying a thought that hurts to admit. I’d have to see it for myself. To truly know…

  Robert owns me in a way that surpasses any other emotion I’ve lived by. I feel him in my bones. In my head. Death won’t separate him from me so easily.

  “How can I believe you?” I ask Mischa. Something he said keeps circling my skull. “How do you know it was really Robert who died? What about his father—”

  “Tell me,” Mischa says without taking his eyes off the road. “What reason would I have for lying about the only worth you had to me?”

  He has a point.

  “So, why keep me alive?”

  This has to be the third time I’ve asked him as much in so many words. Why. Why. Why?

  He has yet to give me a convincing answer.

  “Should I kill you?” he wonders, turning the wheel to avoid a dip in the road.

  For the first time, the landscape draws my attention. We aren’t on our way back to his manor—unless he’s taking a different route. We don’t pass any of the landmarks I noted on our way here, and the fields grow more mountainous with every mile.

  “Killing me would make sense,” I reply, phrasing my answer carefully.

  “Sense.” He scoffs. “I don’t deal in sense, Little Rose. I deal in what I can taste. Feel. Blood. Killing. Fucking. You can play with sense.”

  “So, fucking.” My brow furrows as I parrot the coarse word. “Is that why?”

  He looks at me sharply, forsaking the road. “Your cunt is nowhere near that good.”

  The vulgar terms set my cheeks on fire. “So, then—”

  “Why?” h
e finishes for me. “How about I tell you how. How you can enjoy this gift of choice, Little One: You shut your goddamn mouth and you enjoy the ride.”

  “But why not let me go?” Testing him is a game I can’t stop myself from playing. A gamble with brutal, unattainable dividends. I’ll bankrupt my soul trying to win, but the few, rare lucky hands I’ve already won sate my nerve to try again.

  “I may not be your husband, as you so kindly reminded me before,” he says, “but make no mistake: I own you. You’ve seen too much. You can try to run if you want, but I will find you.”

  I swallow hard, sensing the threat resonate somewhere deep down in my belly. It’s a promise.

  “Though is dying with me any different from dying in Winthorp Manor?”

  “Is it?” With Robert, I knew my place. I had a role and I performed it the best I knew how.

  Here…

  There are no rules, which upends my comfortable, if tiring, routine. Three days into my marriage with Robert and I had him pegged down to the minute as to how a typical encounter would begin and end. Twice as many days with Mischa and I still can’t predict him from one second to the next.

  As if to feed that narrative, he takes one of his hands off the wheel and swipes it along my cheek. “Since you seem so fond of ultimatums… Mention your husband again and I’ll remember more stories about your mother and Sergei Vasilev.” He presses his thumb over my lip, sealing the promise. “He’s dead. From now on, you say only one man’s name.”

  He doesn’t identify just who that man is, but I have a sinking suspicion regardless.

  “Do you understand, Little Rose?”

  “Fair enough.” I breathe the words against the window glass and watch them burst into puffs of fog. Just as quickly, they fade into nothing.

  “Fair? I don’t do fair. I calculate risk and I weigh my benefits.”

  And the benefits of keeping me alive? He doesn’t reveal them, and maybe I prefer it that way. Few things could entice a man like Mischa. As a matter of fact, he’s already named them: “I deal in what I can taste. Feel. Blood. Killing. Fucking.”

  One item can already be checked off that list, leaving just two…

  Blood and killing.

  Chapter 6

  Despite what feels like hours on the road, the only semblance of civilization we come across is a small gas station consisting of two pumps and a tiny storefront. Faded advertisements obscure the windows, and there are no other patrons—or anyone, in fact—for what seems like miles.

  Just empty, barren land.

  Surprisingly, Mischa pulls into the lot and circles around to the building’s rear end. There, my suspicion is proven false: A lone man is waiting, guarding a battered door. Dangling from his hip, in plain sight, is a gun. Alarmed, I look over at Mischa, but a faint smile shapes his lips and I bite back my warning.

  “Stay here.” He climbs out of the van, taking the keys with him. Together, he and the man enter the building and exit it moments later with something slung between them—a wooden crate.

  In their wake follows a third man, hefting another intimidating weapon. They pack the crate into the van, and then Mischa forces me into the back seat. His two men occupy the front, and the driver takes off without a word of direction.

  Ignored, I endure the silence as the daylight progressively fades. Eventually, the sound of a door opening jostles me back to awareness.

  “We’re here.”

  I blink my eyes open and find Mischa waiting for me outside the van. Behind him looms that impenetrable manor bathed in shadow.

  I follow him silently, keeping as much distance as I dare. Inside, Vanya is standing near the foot of the stairs, his arms crossed.

  “What did I say?” Mischa says to him. “There is always another method.”

  He must be alluding to a past argument, because Vanya sighs in exasperation and nods. “Yes, yes. But sometimes it’s better to use caution—”

  “Caution? Such as letting your brother continue to pull my strings?” When Vanya says nothing in response, Mischa chuckles. “It was a joke, Ivan. Did you handle things on your end?”

  “Of course.” Vanya shifts to reveal something I didn’t notice in his hand: the handle of a gray duffel. He lets it fall to the floor and kicks it open to reveal the contents.

  I can’t stop my eyes from widening at the sight.

  Money. Stacks of it.

  “Good.” Mischa crouches to rifle through the bills. He grabs a rubber-banded stack at random and then shoves the amount toward me. “Your cut,” he explains as I gape at the offering. “Welcome to your new family, Ellen Winthorp.”

  When I don’t reach for the money, he grabs my wrist and presses the bills against my palm until I have no choice but to accept them.

  “We don’t give a shit about blood here. This”—he nods to my hand—“is the only life we value.”

  With that, he snatches up the handle of the duffel and carries it across the hall. This time, I know better than to follow him.

  “Be careful.” Vanya’s watching me, his expression thoughtful. After a tense second, he nods to the stairs behind him. “Go get some sleep.”

  “Goodnight.”

  I slip past him, entering the room beside Mischa’s a few minutes later. It’s still bare, devoid of anything but a mattress. Ignoring the sight, I switch on the light and rip the rubber band off the stack of dollars.

  Sinking to my knees, I count them, peeling the bills apart with my good hand. Slowly. Precisely.

  My price for joining Mischa’s “family” is a hefty one, in the end. More money than I could ever dream of owning. More than Robert ever let me handle at one time. More than any man should ever give a “worthless whore.”

  Unless, of course…

  He placed an even bigger bet on her life.

  I’m still running my fingers through the loose bills when the door opens and Vanya enters. Facing me, he braces his back against the wall and nods to the money.

  “Keep it safe,” he warns. “The men won’t dare steal from Mischa, but you…are not him.”

  “Thank you,” I croak, my voice thick.

  “Don’t.” He shrugs the gratitude off, squaring his jaw. “I’ll get you something to put it in. Keep it on you always—”

  “Why are you so nice to me?” I don’t mean to come off as rude. Perhaps desperate? Mischa, as brutal as he is, speaks a language I can understand. But kindness? That is a foreign commodity in my world, and if Robert taught me one thing, it was that nothing came for free.

  “Why?” Vanya looks beyond me, his mouth twisted thoughtfully. Finally, he sighs. “I would hope that, in her final days, someone would have shown some kindness to my daughter.”

  I cringe at the barely concealed pain in his voice.

  A good woman wouldn’t probe it.

  “I saw her,” I admit. Like a coward, I stare at the floor rather than meet his gaze. “At Winthorp Manor when she was held captive. Did Mischa tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  I lift my head and meet his gaze, but he stares back unflinchingly, hiding nothing.

  “He told me. And in her name, I want you to know that you have nothing to fear from me. However, I do have something I want to ask you, if that is all right.”

  “Anything.” I can’t help how eager I sound. “Please ask.”

  “You grew up there? In that place?”

  I force myself to nod. “Yes.”

  “And your parents?”

  Alarm dances down my spine. “Dead.”

  “And…your mother?”

  My lips part just as Mischa’s words come back to haunt me: “If Vanya asks about her. Lie. Trust me on this.” The concept should be laughable. Trusting Mischa over the only man to show me kindness here.

  But…

  My new tormentor may be many things, but I’m not sure if a liar is one of them.

  “Her name was…Martha,” I lie. “She was a maid on the Winthorp estate.”

  “A maid?�
�� He raises an eyebrow. “It’s just that you remind me of someone.”

  “Oh?” My heart lurches in my chest. “W-who?”

  “Someone,” he repeats, staring past me. His mouth sags into a wry frown, but not even a second later, he shakes his head, banishing the expression. “Get some sleep. I’ll get you something for the money in the morning.”

  He’s gone a heartbeat later, closing the door behind him.

  When heavy footsteps near the room, I assume it’s him, returning for one last word. But no. Another man throws the door open, looming in the doorway.

  “I gave you your payment,” Mischa tells me, his voice rough. He found a new shirt from somewhere, though he wears the same filthy pants. “That is how it will be from now on. A transaction. You prove your worth—”

  “Like by being a mule for whatever illegal things you sell?”

  “Ah.” He raises an eyebrow, his mouth quirked. “I gave you your cut, didn’t I?”

  I eye the money, flexing my fingers. “As if that makes it any better—”

  “Don’t lie.” He advances a step closer. “You fucking like having it—payment. But since I’ve given you yours… I’m here to take mine.”

  I glance at him sharply. “And what is that?”

  “Hmm…” He strokes his thumb along the bottom of his chin.

  My heart races with every second he stalls. Anger is unnerving in him, but so is this: calculated thought.

  “An answer,” he finally says. “Was it really you?” When he glances at my bandaged hand, I know what he means. Was I the one controlling the knife? “Or will you play the victim? Claim you had no choice—”

  “I did it,” I hiss, drawing my bandaged hand to my chest. “Does that make you happy? The fact that I mutilated myself?”

  His eyes narrow. I’ve caught him off guard. “Not mutilated,” he insists softly. “I’m after your honesty, Little Rose. The one thing I fucking know for a fact he didn’t teach you.”