Sloane wasn’t the first person I’d kidnapped.
She was the first woman I’d ever brought home and allowed in my bed.
But this wasn’t my first go at interrogating a captive. Most of them ended up in the basement for Damon to question. He was more intrigued with that process than I was. I was more direct. I just wanted answers, but I knew as I closed her into my bedroom and locked the door that retreating would get me further than pushing her.
She was too resistant, still hyped up from the fear of being taken. If I wanted to analyze the situation deeper, I’d wager a guess that she was too frightened from witnessing Lenny’s death, too.
I’ll give her some time.
Space and a breather from the intensity of facing off with me.
It had to help.
Besides, I hadn’t missed the growls from her stomach. Dark bags showed under her eyes, and it bothered me that she might have been so weak to pass out like she had because she was malnourished.
In the kitchen, I ordered the cook to prepare a tray of food for her. It didn’t matter that it was the middle of the night. Someone was always on duty there. While he readied some simple comfort food and a drink for her, I tasked one of the men to go into one of the guest rooms in Saul’s apartment and retrieve clothes that he sometimes kept for his lovers. He never committed either, but he would take a lover for a week or so now and then, and he’d have things for them.
Before I returned to my floor and brought Sloane the food, water, and clothes, I detoured to check on my father. Like every other time I got paranoid and wanted to make sure he was alive, I stepped quietly and carefully, holding my breath and dreading that he could actually be dead this time.
We wouldn’t be surprised like that. Sensors and monitors were hooked up to him. His vitals were tracked every minute of the day and night now. Round-the-clock care was supervising his recovery, but still, the fear remained.
Sloane wasn’t lying when she admitted her biggest fear was being owned and controlled. I believed her. I saw the depth of stark fear and sincerity in her eyes.
She had her fear. It was one among a million more things I would learn about her. I wanted to know everything about her and planned to acquire that knowledge. That was how severely she was messing with my head already.
But my fear was this.
Finding my father dead. Realizing that I would now be the boss.
I dreaded those events, not only because I loved and honored my father and wanted him to be with me but also because I wasn’t keen on taking over yet. Not for good. I still wanted to live my life, not rule all the others’.
He was alive, though, sleeping away and hopefully recovering in this coma-like state that the doctors believed would benefit him most right now.
As I looked him over, reassured that he hadn’t completely left me in this world yet, I sighed and debated whether taking Sloane was the right thing to do now. I didn’t need her as a distraction. I had to focus on finding out who poisoned him.
But if I don’t keep her close, I’ll be obsessed with wanting her near.
I left my father’s floor and returned to the kitchen, convinced that there was no way I could ask Sloane to stay and be here when I wanted her as my mistress. She was too combative and defensive. I had to take this approach with her to get what I wanted, and I always did in the end.
You’re not going anywhere, Sloane.
I paused at my bedroom door with the tray of food in my hands and the clothes draped over my forearm.
You’re not going anywhere until I say so.
Yet, I smiled at the weird thrill of not knowing how she’d react to me now. Envisioning her standing near the door to break out and run shouldn’t have excited me, but I relished the chance of her fighting back.
I unlocked the door and waited for the sound of her footsteps.
Nothing came.
I opened the door and let it swing in a bit.
Still nothing. Not a sound. No movement at all.
Alert and excited to see if she’d be waiting to attack and escape, I entered the room and found the bed empty. She wasn’t hiding near the door, though. The sound of running water in the bathroom notified me that she was showering.
I narrowed my eyes, hearing a slight swish of fabric to my left.
Or not showering.
Before she could spring up behind me and dart out the door—which wouldn’t get her far with the men on the premises—I set the tray of food down and dropped the clothes. Whirling to snatch her by her waist, I effortlessly picked her up kicking and flailing until I could deposit her on the bed.
“I told you,” I warned, turned on by the fire in her glower as she fell back on the mattress, “you’re not going anywhere.”
“Fuck you.” She tugged her hair from her face where it had fallen over. “Fuck you, Maxim.”
I smiled as she scooted back on the bed.
“Later,” I teased. “If you calm down and accept your fate—”
“Never,” she snapped.
“Accept your fate,” I continued calmly as I went back to retrieve the tray, “and I’ll let you have my dick again later.”
“I don’t want it,” she shot back. Her stomach growled again loudly.
I pointed at the bathroom. “Shut the water off and come here to eat.”
“No. I’m not a dog to order around.”
“Now,” I repeated. I sat, refusing to overplay my hand here. I wouldn’t tame her in one night, and I didn’t want to, anyway. The challenge she gave me made this all the more exciting.
With a furious glower, she got up and shut the water off, then sat on the edge of the bed. She watched me closely as I placed the tray over her lap.
“Good girl,” I said as I took my seat again.
“Fuck you.”
I smiled, looking forward to taming her. She wasn’t docile at all. She was nothing like what I was used to. “Eat.”
She picked up the spoon and didn’t lose her glower once as she began to taste the soup.
“Tell me more about the dancers who’ve gone missing,” I instructed. I knew better than to expect her to want to talk to me about herself. This seemed like the most neutral topic I could rely on for her to engage with me. Not about her, but about what she mentioned before.
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” she muttered.
“Humor me,” I said, deadpan.
“Some dancers go missing. There is a high turnover anyway, and I thought that the dancers came and went because they did other things or hated stripping.” She shrugged one slender shoulder, looking at the soup and bread instead of at me.
Fuck. When’s the last time you’ve eaten? She was inhaling it all like it’d been days since she had a meal. I hated that she’d gone without, but as soon as that thought hit me, I hated that I cared even more.
“One night, Lenny tried to force me into the van with the others. Some Mafia men were trying to take them.”
“A van?”
She nodded, glancing at me. “They looked like you, yet not. Suits. Hardcore Mafia guys. But they weren’t part of your…”
I raised my brows.
“Your company. Family? Organization?”
I chuckled slightly. “Any or all of the above would do.”
She smirked. “They weren’t Russian. I’ve seen the Russians at the club. But these guys sounded European. Different.”
“Speaking Spanish?” I guessed, wondering if the Cartels were stealing strippers.
“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t really tell now. I was scared. Another dancer was telling me about how the Mafia men and gangsters target strippers to work for them. They drug them up and keep them hooked on it so they won’t be able to leave the trafficking ring.”
I was, of course, familiar with that line of business. The Ivanov Syndicate had more lucrative means of revenue, though, and we never focused on selling women. We’d never had to.
As she described more about her incident, including how she’d forced herself to throw up so Lenny couldn’t force her into the van, more things clicked into place. With her continued report, I became more convinced that the Romanos and Kozlovs were involved in the dancers’ going missing. Even though she seemed convinced that the men hadn’t been speaking in Russian, I knew that they diversified with their soldiers.
Trafficking was an expected business venture within criminal networks, so it didn’t surprise me to hear her talk about it. While this news wasn’t that new and it wouldn’t benefit me in terms of my temporary leadership of the Ivanov family, it was information and intel that I would keep in the back of my mind.
There wasn’t any point to trying to butt in and compete if this was a Romano or Kozlov operation, but should I ever need to identify a way to strike at them or foil their plans, this was handy intel to have and hold on to.
Any nugget of information that I could use against our enemies mattered, and I was glad that she wasn’t clamming up about this topic.
When I asked for more details about what she knew of the Mafia men and other criminal players who came to the specific club she danced at, she didn’t hold out on me.
“After that night I, um, met you,” she said after she finished the food, “I asked around about you.”
I hid a smile at her curiosity, not wanting to give away how much her interest in me thrilled me. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Because. I don’t ever sleep with men at the club.”
From how tight she was and how quickly she’d come, I had a hunch she hadn’t been sleeping with anyone for a while, at the club or not.
“I don’t look for extras like that.” She didn’t cower, maintaining a level stare on me that bordered near antagonism.
“After I did that time, with you…” She cleared her throat, making me wonder if she was trying to cover up something else. She was open to report about the men she saw at the club and what she knew of the trafficking, but I wasn’t going to believe for one second that she wouldn’t try to keep other things from me. Her defensive nature was still there. Guarded and wary, that was how she acted even after I’d fed her and given her water.
“I asked around about who you were and the other dancers said you were with the Ivanov family.”
I nodded. “I am.” That was all I’d offer about myself. I wanted to know more about her.
“How did you know my name?” she asked.
“I had one of my men look into you.” Glad that she’d given me an opening into asking about her, I added, “but that was all he had for me.”
She pursed her lips, taking a sterner stance with me. It seemed that she was a fellow believer in the concept of knowledge being power, and she wanted to reclaim hers and go quiet and prevent me from having the power of knowing anything else about her.
“Where are you from, Sloane?” Fuck, I loved saying her name. It made this more intimate, more personal, when she was trying so hard to maintain distance from me.
She didn’t say anything.
“You don’t want to tell me about yourself?” I pressed.
She turned, not even looking at me.
“Nothing?” I laughed once, darkly, almost counting on her to play hardball like this.
Too bad for her, she had no chance of winning.
“You will answer me, Sloane.” I stood, ready to leave. “Not now, not today, but make no mistake, you will answer me.”
She licked her lips, facing me with such an enraged scowl that I wanted to fuck that anger right out of her. Seeing her so alive, so hotheaded and sassy, only made me lust for her more.
“I will never roll over and obey you,” she declared.
I smiled, raking my gaze over her. She would. And I couldn’t wait to prove it.
“I won’t be an obedient thing for you, Maxim.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets just to further prevent myself from reaching out to her and challenging her to rethink her stance.
“I don’t care if you’re a Mafia boss or a killer or a…” She furrowed her brow, seeming to run out of steam. “It doesn’t matter who you are. You won’t get me to obey and do as you say.”
We shall see about that.
I turned, letting my actions speak louder than my words. It’d serve no good to tell her how wrong she was. I’d show her.
“Rest, Sloane,” I told her before leaving and locking the door.
Rest now, because you won’t have time to later, when you bow to me.
