by Winter Fox
Once they were back in Ilya’s bedroom, he shut the door and pointed to his desk.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” She sat down on the bed, and stared at the floor.
He scanned the room, and when his eyes settled on the chair at his desk, he grabbed it and pulled it across the floor to sit in front of her. She cringed away from him, and he huffed in frustration.
“I. Will. Not. Hurt. You.” He accentuated every word.
“You. Already. Did,” she mimicked him.
He shook his head, fighting to speak calmly. “And I am sorrier about that than you could ever know, Liss.”
She flinched as though he had slapped her. “What did you call me?” She whispered.
He gave her a rueful smile. “Your brother called you Liss. I wondered if you preferred it to Liselle.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and her amber eyes swam with a liquid fire. “I do. But only when people I care about use it.”
He looked at the floor. “So not me then?”
“No. Not you.” Her voice was flat.
It was time to get to the point. “I planned to get you out the day after tomorrow.”
She began to stand. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He laid his hands gently on her knees, making her sink back down onto the bed. But she refused to meet his gaze.
“Dante Garcia arrives tomorrow. He wants you, and Mariusz will give you to him—he can’t refuse him. If you stay, then he will hurt you in unimaginable ways.”
Her eyes grew wide and afraid. “I can’t do it again.”
The sorrow in her voice made his heart feel as though it was breaking into pieces. Which came as somewhat of a fucking shock, because he had been truly convinced that he didn’t have one.
It was his fault that she was broken. Somehow, she’d bounced back from Mariusz’s attack. But Ilya’s betrayal had taken something from her that he wasn’t sure she would ever get back.
“You don’t have to do it again. I’m taking you out of here—tomorrow. As soon as I hear that my family are safe.”
She wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself protectively. “Where are you taking me?”
“To meet your brother. It’s all arranged, milaya. We just have to go a little bit earlier than I’d planned.”
She suddenly looked more alive than she had since Ilya had hurt her. “Tomorrow? I’ll be back with Alessio by tomorrow?”
He smiled warmly. Glad that she had responded to the news of her impending escape, and sad that she was now twenty-four hours away from walking out of his life forever. “You will, milaya.”
She suddenly frowned at him. “You will give me to him, won’t you, Ilya?”
Her eyes spoke their message, loud and clear. I don’t trust you anymore?
He laughed wryly. “Your brother just made it very clear that he would ‘unload his fucking gun into me’ if I don’t give you back.”
She gave a watery smile then. “That sounds like my brother.”
Ilya ran his hands through his hair, he needed a shower. So, did she. His cock twitched as he remembered back to their last shower together, and he silently reprimanded himself. Disgusted that he could even think of her like that after what he’d done.
He gestured toward the desk. “You need to eat. I need you strong for tomorrow. I’m going to take a shower.”
She didn’t reply, but she did wander over to the desk, and start picking at the food—which was probably freezing by now. Ilya took the opportunity to try and call Alessio, to let him know the revised meeting time. But when the call went through to Alessio’s voicemail, he hung up.
Sending a quick text, and hoping that Liselle’s brother would respond soon, Ilya headed to the bathroom to get cleaned up.
31
Liss
I had woken up feeling numb on the morning after Ilya’s attack. The hardest part was knowing that I had given up my trust to a man who had the capacity to hurt me so badly. But I was also struggling to wipe the images of him torturing Carlos Ruiz from my mind.
Ilya had gone to a dark place, and the thing that was the most frightening was the fact that it was a place which suited him so well. The darkness had embraced him equally as passionately as the Lieutenant had embraced it.
Ilya was broken. And I now realized that I had been falling into his darkness with every minute I spent in his company.
I had feelings for him. That was something I couldn’t deny, and that was why his betrayal had hurt so much. He knew what state I was in after Mariusz had used me—Ilya had been the one who had helped me back to some semblance of normality afterward. Yet last night, he had done the exact same thing to me himself.
Even when I had told him that I would give myself to him willingly, he had still taken my body in the cruelest way possible.
But the last few weeks no longer seemed to matter, as I focused on my escape tomorrow. In less than twenty-four hours I would be free of Mariusz, the Five, and Ilya. I could go back to my brothers, and concentrate on remembering what it felt like to be happy.
Are you certain that you can be happy without Ilya? My mind whispered.
I wasn’t certain—not really. I was only young, and I’d never been “in love” but I was aware that saying goodbye to him was going to hurt, and that had to mean that I definitely felt something for him.
After his shower, Ilya had left to go and help the others prepare for Dante’s visit. He had tried to talk to me before he left, but I didn’t know what to say to him. Not when every single fiber of my body was screaming at me to kick the shit out of him.
So, I had ignored him, and he’d left.
The day passed slowly for me, alone in Ilya’s bedroom. As the night drew in and he still didn’t come back—only sending dinner up with the housekeeper—I sat and read an entire book in one sitting. Although if anyone had asked me what the book was about, I wouldn’t have been able to tell them a thing.
My mind had been elsewhere.
When the clock on the wall told me that it was three in the morning, I gave up on waiting, and went to bed. Sleep came surprisingly quickly to claim me, and I knew nothing until I woke up to daylight streaming through the window.
I got up, and got showered, wanting to be ready for our departure. Ilya hadn’t told me what time we were planning on leaving. But I knew that Dante was scheduled to arrive at four, which meant that we’d be long gone by then.
I chose a pair of dark fitted jeans, a cream top, and cream ankle boots as my outfit. The boots had no heel, and grippy soles—in case we had to run. And then I sat at Ilya’s desk to wait. There was nothing else to do.
At exactly twelve the door opened, and I was relieved to see it was him rather than the housekeeper. He was carrying a plate of lunch in one hand, and a bottle of water in the other.
Crossing quickly to the desk he laid my lunch down, then folded his impressive arms across his broad chest—leaning his shoulder against the wall as he watched me.
“How are you feeling?”
There was no sense in causing an argument. He was about to help send me back to my family. I tried to speak calmly.
“I’m okay. Looking forward to getting away from here.”
His jaw twitched. “Looking forward to getting away from me?”
I studied him intently, my amber eyes roving his face. Taking in every single one of the perfectly chiseled features which made him so irresistible to me.
“Yes, and no,” I answered honestly.
He quirked a brow at my strange answer, but didn’t question me any further. “Your brother text back.”
I was unscrewing the cap on the water bottle, and my eyes lit up. “What did he say? Will he be ready?”
Ilya shook his head. “Alessio is in Vienna.” He lowered his voice as he spoke the name of my intended destination—he was so paranoid. “He wanted to make sure that Matteo got there safely. He can’t get a flight back until tomorrow.”
&nb
sp; Panic flooded my body. “We can’t delay, Ilya. I can’t go to Dante Garcia. I won’t.”
He raised a hand to tell me that I needed to lower my voice. I hadn’t realized that I’d been on the verge of shouting.
“You won’t go to Dante. We’re still leaving today. We have no choice because my family are about to be pulled from Yakutsk at any minute now.”
My worries didn’t fade. “Where will I go tonight?”
“We will go to the same motel that I had planned on. We’ll spend the night there until your brother can meet you tomorrow.”
I gnawed anxiously at my lip. “Oh. But don’t you want to go and meet your family?”
“I won’t leave you alone, Liss,” he growled. “I’m staying with you until I hand you over to Alessio. I owe it to you to keep you safe.”
I was shocked to find that I loved the sound of my nickname on his lips, and I was overwhelmed with a rush of gratitude. “Thank you, Ilya.”
His eyes darkened for fleeting instant. “It’s the least I can do, after what I did to you.”
I was suddenly desperate to try and understand who this man really was. Standing up, I reached out to try and touch his face. “You weren’t yourself, Ilya.”
Pushing away from the wall—and me—he groaned as though in pain. “That isn’t it at all, milaya.”
He reached for the door handle, and I called out to him. “Then tell me. Help me understand why you like to hurt people.”
“I was myself, Liss. What you saw was me. I like to hurt people. I was raised to hurt people, and I can’t ever change.”
I shook my head in denial. “I think you can change if you want to. And I think that you do want to, Ilya.”
“You don’t know shit,” he growled. “Be ready to leave in two hours.” Then he slammed the door closed behind him.
I stared at the door for a moment, before picking at the plate of lasagna he had brought me for lunch. I wasn’t particularly hungry, I had little to no appetite these days. But I knew I needed to eat something if I was going to be doing a lot of running today.
Once I had eaten, I looked around Ilya’s room. Somehow all of my things had found their way here, and not into Mariusz’s room. It was strange how things had turned out.
There was no point in packing my belongings though—none of it would be going with me. Except for the small overnight bag of essentials which I had packed up and hidden in the bottom of Ilya’s closet. Just in case Mariusz paid me a visit here.
Deciding that I had nothing left to do other than kill time until Ilya came back for me, I curled up on the bed with a new book. The covers smelled of him, and I found myself almost smothered by an overwhelming sense of loss as I considered the prospect of our separation.
Even after everything that he’d done to me, there was some part of him that called out to me. Something that I couldn’t ignore. And if I was totally honest with myself, I didn’t want to ignore it.
I should hate him for what he’d done to me, but I didn’t. I wanted to help him to be better. I wanted to help him to be happy—because I knew that right now Ilya Volkov was not a happy man. And I wanted to try and help him to fix what was broken.
It was unlikely we would ever get that chance though.
The door clicked open, snapping me out of my daydream, and I looked up—expecting Ilya to walk in. When the tall, slender frame of Dante Garcia stepped into the room I almost screamed in terror.
“You’re early.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could rein them in. They sounded like an accusation.
Dante closed the door behind him, and smiled darkly at me. “Mariusz thought it would be better to give the Lieutenant a slightly later ETA for me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that he didn’t trust his most loyal dog.”
I scrambled up and off the bed; my eyes frantically flicking around the room. Looking for a way to escape Dante. Although I’d only met this man once, his reputation was well known by everyone in the criminal underworld. He went through women like he went through cocaine—quickly.
The women never survived him. He liked to kill them even more than he liked to kill men, if the stories were to be believed.
He wouldn’t kill me, I was certain of that. Mariusz still wanted to marry me. But he was going to hurt me. I looked at the clock on the wall. It read one forty-seven. Ilya had told me that I needed to be ready in two hours, and that had been at twelve. I only needed to survive thirteen minutes with Dante.
I could do thirteen minutes, right?
“Stand in front of the bed, Liselle.” It was a command.
I narrowed my eyes at the dark-haired, tanned man who stood in a relaxed manner in the center of the floor. I was terrified of him.
“What are you going to do to me?” I whispered.
He reached into his back pocket—a wicked grin playing around his thin lips—slowly drawing out a short, leather whip, which had a forked end.
My eyes widened in fear, and I took a step backward. “No. You can’t.”
He pointed to the piece of floor at the end of the bed. “I can, and I will. Now, go and place your palms on the bed. I want you bent over with your ass up.”
I shook my head back and forth, and my eyes darted to the clock—one forty-nine. Eleven minutes. “I won’t fucking do it.”
Dante lunged forward and lashed out with the whip. It bit into my left thigh, and I howled in pain.
“Ow, ow, ow. You motherfucker.”
Dante stepped back, and once again pointed at the end of the bed. “If you don’t do as you’re told this time, the next one will be on your pretty face. It will tear you open, so think hard before you react, Liselle.”
I bit my lower lip, and glanced at the clock again. Only nine minutes to go until Ilya arrived.
There was no way I was going to let him whip my face, so I tentatively walked to the end of the bed, and turned my back to Dante. Laying my palms against the soft cover, I arched my back and waited.
I heard soft footfalls as Dante crossed the room to me. His fingers reached around my waist, and unzipped my jeans; before tugging them down my legs. Leaving my ass only covered by the thin material of my cream panties.
Dante leaned forward, and whispered in my ear. “I’ve wanted to do this since I first laid eyes on you. If you scream as good as I hope you will, I might just have to take you from Mariusz, and make you mine.”
I whimpered fearfully, and as the whip bit into my tender flesh, I screamed in agony. I dropped my head down and panted heavily, certain he wasn’t going to stop at one. I looked at the clock, and saw that I only had to make it through seven more minutes.
Seven minutes. I could do this.
I squeezed my eyes closed, and waited for the next bite of the whip. But I was confused when I only heard a muted groan, followed by a soft thud. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Ilya holding his knife, and standing over the body of Dante Garcia. The Brazilians throat was a gaping, red gash.
“Ilya,” I cried.
“Shh.” He cupped my face with his hands, as I tugged my jeans up to cover my burning ass cheek. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, blinking up at him. “Thanks to you, yes. But you just killed Dante Garcia. We’re fucked.”
He laughed softly at my expression of shock. “He shouldn’t have laid a hand on you. But you’re right, we’re in deep shit if we don’t get out of here right now. Come on.”
He grabbed my hand, and tugged me toward the bedroom door. I followed him without hesitation, and didn’t even bother to look back at the body of my newest tormentor.
32
Ilya
She allowed him to pull her along the upstairs hallway, and he was silently grateful that she had gotten over her aversion to his touch enough to let him do it.
Neither of them spoke, knowing that if they were caught they would die. He was thankful that everything was ready to go—Dante had nearly fucked everything up with his early arrival, but not quite.
One
of the cars in the underground garage was packed with all of the things that he and Liss would need after they escaped. He just had to get her into that car, and off the property. Then they would be home free.
Once they reached the downstairs hallway, Ilya pulled Liss through the door which led to the garage. Not expecting the stairs, she stumbled on the top step, and he caught her by the waist. Because he was a few steps further down than she was, their lips were only a few inches apart, and he was hit by the overwhelming urge to kiss her.
Her incredible amber eyes met his, and he was sure that he could see desire burning in their liquid gold. Her full, pink lips parted slightly, and she gasped a short breath in. Ilya licked his lips, and moved his head forward. The need to cover her mouth with his own too strong to resist.
He was going to kiss her, and she wasn’t going to stop him.
When the first shout reached their ears, they pulled back from each other as though they’d both been burned. The desire in her eyes melted away—replaced by fear.
“They’ve found him,” she murmured.
He nodded, wrapping his fingers through hers once more. “Let’s go.”
They bolted down the stairs, and across the concrete floor of the garage. Ilya fumbled with the key fob from his pocket, finally clicking the button to open the doors of the SUV just as they arrived at the vehicle.
Liselle tore the passenger door open and leaped into the car, Ilya dove into the driver seat, and the engine roared into life. Flooring the gas pedal, Ilya drove toward the double door at the end of the garage. Liselle snapped her seatbelt on, just as he clicked the other key fob to open the shutters, and daylight started to appear up ahead.
Ilya snapped his own seatbelt on, then turned to look at the beautiful woman beside him. He’d had the call from Boris minutes before he went to collect her. His family were out—they were safely on the way to a new house which Ilya had set up for them in France.