We’re alone in the kitchen.
I’ve been alone with Tamara before when she brings my food to the guest room, but this is different. This feels as though it has been manipulated so that she can cause trouble for me while Leonid isn’t around.
One thing is irrevocably certain: she knows exactly what has been going on. She doesn’t know the details—if she did, I’d be lying on this pristine kitchen floor in a puddle of my own blood—but her feathers have been ruffled, and she wants me out of the picture.
Only, I don’t trust her. Why would she help me when the consequences of getting caught in the act are worthy of the kind of horrific news headlines that make people keep their kids inside after dark and their doors locked.
“Maybe I don’t want to escape.”
She smiles. “I hear you, but the words don’t match the look in your eye, printzessa.”
Tamara unhooks the dog’s leash from the wall and loops it around his neck. Then she offers the other end to me.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s time for his walk. The pakhan trusts you with his dog, unless that was simply a ploy on your part to get into the pakhan’s bed.”
My cheeks grow hot, and I wish that I could erase the feel of him inside me, just while I’m with her, because it feels as though she can see exactly what I’m thinking.
“What do you want from me, Tamara?”
She shrugs. “Isn’t it obvious? I want you out of the pakhan’s life.”
“Why? Because you want to be in his bed?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
The mental image of Tamara lying on Leonid’s bed with his face between her legs makes me feel physically nauseous. She’s lying, I tell myself. She wants a reaction; she’s goading me into trying to escape, and I mustn’t fall for it.
I scan the room, checking out the ceiling and the cornices for cameras, and realizing that Tamara has her back to the ones that I can see. Right now, someone must be watching us on a TV monitor somewhere in these grounds, maybe even zooming in so that they don’t miss anything. Can they hear us? Instinct tells me that Tamara wouldn’t be so reckless if there were microphones tapping into our conversation. But it wouldn’t stop the guards from lip-reading everything that we’re saying.
Everything that I’m saying. Because it’s obvious now that she intentionally positioned herself between me and the cameras.
Is she scared? She should be; Leonid won’t reward her interference with a slapped wrist and her verbal confirmation that it won’t happen again. Which means that she is more afraid of me staying here than of me leaving if she’s prepared to risk all to help me escape.
My head is screaming at me that this is a ruse. Convince me to escape and then have me shot before I even reach the property’s boundary. But now that the suggestion is out there, part of me is already running home, back to where I feel safe.
I take the leash from her and cross the room. Marvel walks alongside me, big brown eyes peering up at me as if this is going to be the best walk of his life, and I can’t help smiling back at him.
Tamara follows me through the house and outside. The guards close in on me when they see me with Marvel, but she must dismiss them with a gesture that I don’t see, because they stand aside and let me pass.
She can’t be trusted. She can’t be trusted. She can’t be trusted.
The words keep playing on repeat inside my head, but still my legs keep carrying me forward, past the decking and the pool, past the maze and the Japanese garden and another walled area that I haven’t noticed before. Marvel doesn’t slow his pace; he’s perfectly comfortable walking with me, stopping often to relieve himself over stones and flowers and anything else that lures him with a scent that only he understands.
Past the tennis courts, and I can see the edge of the woods surrounding Leonid’s land. Tamara still hasn’t spoken. But she hasn’t tried to stop me from walking too far either.
My ears strain for the sound of a loudspeaker voice ordering me to turn around and walk back to the house. Or worse, a gunshot. A tiny part of me is praying for heavy footsteps to come thumping up behind us, and for Sergei to take the decision away from me, yelling, “Stop right there!”
But he doesn’t.
Nothing happens, and we’re so close to the woods now that I can smell dew and tree sap and hear the birds announcing our impending arrival to the animals on the ground.
I’m torn. I feel like a ragdoll wrenched by her arms into two jagged pieces straight down the middle. I don’t want to leave Leonid. After last night, it feels wrong to run away. It’s like I’m treating it as a one-night stand when all I really want is to experience a repeat performance when Leonid comes home.
The thought of never feeling him inside me again or his tongue lapping up my sex or his teeth nibbling my nipples leaves a gaping hole inside me that I don’t fully understand.
But worse than this is wondering how he will react when he finds out that I’m gone. Will he be disappointed? Angry? Relieved? Will he try to find me himself, or will he send Tamara and Ivana to drag me back kicking and screaming?
There will be no more leniencies. No more games inside the maze. No more kisses or nice clothes or walks with Marvel. He’ll probably lock me inside the cold room in his dungeon and throw away the key, and I have to smother this thought to keep me from turning around and sprinting back to the house with Marvel a few paces ahead of me.
Because, despite the way I feel about Leonid and my fears that this is a trap, I’m still walking towards the woods. He might’ve turned my legs to Jello-O with his tongue the night before, but there’s still the little matter of me being his prisoner. He had me abducted because of Xander. He sat behind his fat over-polished desk in his runway-worthy suit and gave the order for me to be drugged and locked up in his basement.
Somehow, I’m struggling to align the ruthless monster with the amber eyes that smiled at me when I could barely move my orgasm-drained limbs. But if I was free to leave, why would he have me followed around by armed guards who are most likely trained to shoot first and clear up the mess after?
“Stop!”
I’m so trapped inside my head with images of Leonid sliding his cock inside me that I do as I’m told without even questioning the reason why it was given. Marvel whimpers and leans against my legs like I’d be able to support him if he decided to give me one good hard shove.
Tamara stands in front of me, arms by her side. From this position, I can’t see the back of the rambling house, but I’m still not convinced that there aren’t cameras hidden inside tree trunks and monitoring our every move.
“You don’t know where you’re going.” Her eyes harden.
“But you do.”
She glances at the trees, her eyes flitting from one to the next as if she is counting them. “On the other side of the woods is a wall. It is patrolled. There is razor wire along the top. But if you follow my instructions, someone will be waiting to help you.”
“Who?”
My heartbeat is thudding, a strange tune that I don’t recall ever hearing before. When Tamara offered to help, I assumed that she would deliver me safely outside the boundaries of Leonid’s property herself, and now that I know she isn’t coming with me, I’m not sure that I can see this through.
“No names. You will have to give your family something, but you will not be foolish enough to give them my name.”
She doesn’t threaten me with her sister; she doesn’t have to. I can already picture Ivana appearing in my bedroom at night, fangs and talons bared and dripping with the blood of previous victims.
“I…” I shake my head. “I don’t think—”
“No turning back, printzessa. The guards saw you walking with me. If you come back with me now, Pakhan will never believe that we were enjoying some bonding time.”
Click. It is like a key turning in a lock inside my head, setting in motion the first part of her trap, and a shudder travels down my spine.
“He will know that you helped me then.”
She smiles and her eyes are almost filled with pity. “I will tell him that you attacked me.”
“I-what?”
“Hit me, printzessa.” She slides a gun from her pocket, flips it around and offers it to me, then taps her cheekbone with a tapered scarlet fingernail.
“You want me to hit you with your gun?” I don’t take it.
“You won’t shoot me. The gunshot would alert everyone on the property to your location, and you would be dead before you reach the first tree.” She pushes the weapon into my hand. “It has to be convincing or Pakhan will never believe that you overpowered me.”
My heart is screaming at me not to do it.
Will Leonid even believe her? What if she’s lying about someone waiting at the wall to help me? I’ll have no choice but to come back and pray that last night meant something to him too. Perhaps, in another world, one in which mafia wars and power struggles don’t exist, we might’ve met under different circumstances and had a chance to get to know one another like regular people. But we don’t. And there is no chance for people like me and Leonid.
I take the gun from her, ignoring the bite of cold metal against the palm of my hand, and jab it into the side of her face before she can prepare herself.
An involuntary groan escapes her lips. She clutches her cheek with her hand, blood oozing between her fingers from the split skin.
I hand the gun back to her and walk towards the dark shadows of the trees lined up like sentinels protecting Leonid’s kingdom.
But she calls me back. “Wait, printzessa.”
I turn to face her, and she gestures to the dog whose leash is still in my hand. I didn’t even realize that I was taking Marvel with me, and I reluctantly hand him over to Tamara.
Crouching beside him, I cup his large face in both hands and talk to him softly. “Go back to the house, Marvel. Good boy. She won’t hurt you.” Then I kiss the top of his head and address Tamara. “If I ever find out that you or your sister have hurt the dog, I will come back and finish what I started.”
I stroke her bleeding cheek and run into the woods.
I’ve no idea if I’m doing the right thing. I want to go home to my family, but something is telling me that I’m not done with Leonid Ivanov. Not yet. Maybe this is for the best though. If I can convince my family and Xander that he didn’t hurt me, perhaps they can reach a truce over this relentless war.
I might even meet him again someday. Who knows, we might find that our attraction is even stronger when one of us isn’t being held against her will.
Blurry eyed with hot stinging tears, I protect my face with my arms from the branches clawing at me, stumbling over exposed roots and boulders, and dodging clumps of thorny nettles.
I’m so focused on my footsteps and the heavy thump-thump-thump of my heartbeat that I don’t even hear the thundering paws behind me until Marvel leaps up, his front paws hitting me square in the middle of my back and sending me sprawling forward. I hit the ground face-first, my arms taking the brunt of the fall, the air leaving my lungs with a whoosh.
Marvel is all over me, licking my face and my arms and covering me with slobber. I try to sit up, but he must think me lying on the mossy ground is part of the game because he straddles my torso and sits on my lower body, preventing me from going anywhere.
“Marvel, stop,” I manage between slobbery kisses and the hysterical giggles threatening to erupt from somewhere deep inside me.
But the game is irresistible, and how do you push a fifty-kilo dog off you when you can’t even draw a breath?
Then I hear voices, and the implications of being discovered in the woods with Leonid Ivanov’s dog hits me like a wrecking ball.
“Marvel, enough.” I manage to inject enough authority into my voice for the dog to back off and sit smartly by my side, panting, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.
But before I can haul myself back onto my feet, the voices come closer, and I hear the low hum of a drone hovering above the dense canopy of trees.
“Marvel, run.”
I don’t need to repeat myself. The dog runs with me, his panting providing the backdrop to my heavy breathing and the blood gushing in my ears. But I’ve lost my bearings, and I don’t know if I’m heading away from the house or towards it. Did Tamara raise the alert to catch me out or were we followed?
Then a bullet whistles past us and blows a hole in a tree trunk up ahead, sending splinters flying in all directions.
Marvel yelps, and my heart almost leaps out of my rib cage as I kneel beside him. “Are you hurt?” Tears streak my face as I check him all over for a bullet wound and blood, sobbing with relief when my fingers come away dry. His tail is between his legs, and he is quivering with fear, but unharmed.
I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my face against his thick silky fur, letting him know that I won’t let anyone hurt him.
We’re still in the same position when heavy footsteps come crashing through the trees. Marvel tries to pull away from me, but I hold on tightly to his leash, murmuring to him, “It’s okay, boy. I’m here. You’re safe with me.”
“Marvel. Come here, boy.”
The voice as cold and hard as granite slices straight through my chest and leaves me trembling more than the Belgian Shepherd wrapped up in my arms. It’s Leonid. And he isn’t happy.
Marvel whimpers but doesn’t move.
“Good boy,” I whisper before standing slowly and turning around to face my captor.
His eyes are dark and stormy, his lips set into a grim line as he watches me draw myself to my full height and wrap Marvel’s leash around my wrist.
This isn’t the man who guided my hand to my pussy and watched me touch myself. This isn’t the same man who lifted my skirt inside the maze and made me come all over his tongue, or the man who carried me, shivering, from the dungeon to his guest room and shared his body heat with me to help me heal.
Nonetheless, the butterflies which, until now, have been dormant all my adult life, wake up and start beating those fragile wings against my ribs.
I can’t tell what Leonid is thinking, but I can sense the anger emanating in red-hot waves from him. So can Marvel who shuffles closer to my side and places a paw protectively on my foot as if warning me to stay where I am and let him do the negotiating.
Before either of us can speak, Tamara appears beside Leonid. Her cheek is swollen and bloody, the purple bruising already leaking into her eye giving her the macabre appearance of a Halloween mask.
“That’s my dog,” Leonid growls.
“I wasn’t going to take him.” My voice sounds pathetic and weak, and I think of Hope and the other women at the refuge, and how they stood up to their abusers. I refuse to let them down. “He followed me.”
I slide my eyes across to Tamara whose expression is neutral. She is looking out for herself, and if that means throwing me under the bus, that’s exactly what she’ll do.
Sure enough, my stomach twists when she says, “She refused to hand over the dog.”
A tic appears on Leonid’s temple, and his hands ball into fists.
I lift my chin and look him squarely in the eye. “Marvel followed me. He was trying to protect me, and I… I thought I could use all the protection I could get.”
He keeps his eyes on me but addresses Tamara. “Tell me what happened.”
“We were out walking the dog. You left no orders to keep her inside so—”
“I want to know what happened,” Leonid cuts her off.
“The dog ran off. We followed him to the edge of the woods. The printzessa started asking questions about what’s on the other side.” She pauses, and I think I see a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. “I told her about the wall. I said that the perimeter is patrolled, and that’s when she stole my gun and hit me.”
“Where is the gun now?” Still, his eyes don’t waver from mine.
“Here.” Tamara slides the weapon from her pocket.
Leonid doesn’t even look at it. “Empty the bullets.”
“Pakhan, I don’t understand.” The uncertainty dancing behind her eyes morphs into something that looks remarkably like fear from where I’m standing. “Why do you—”
“Empty. The. Bullets.”
Tamara does as she is told and tosses the unspent bullets onto the ground at her feet.
“Count them.”
“There are five bullets.”
“How many did you use trying to stop her from escaping?”
Tamara’s eyes flash my way briefly as though daring me to contradict her. “One bullet, Pakhan.” The tic in his temple continues to pulse, and she adds, “You warned us not to harm the printzessa.”
A gush of warmth spreads through my chest. He warned them not to hurt me.
I wish that we could have a moment alone so that I might explain to him why I ran. If I mean anything to him, if our night of passion meant anything to him other than a quick fuck, then surely, he will understand. He is an intelligent man. Ruthless but intelligent.
“Is that what happened?” The question is aimed at me.
I have two options. I can be honest and tell him what really happened in the hope that he will believe me. Or I can go along with Tamara’s version of events and convince him that the attempted escape was my idea.
I force myself not to look at Tamara. I’ve seen what she and her sister are capable of, and I would rather have them on my side than make enemies of them.
So, I look him directly in the eye and say, “That’s what happened.”
