155

Kat
“You bastard!”
Adrianif that’s really his namepockets his phone. “Are you going to keep your mouth shut, or do I need to put the gag back on?”
I try to kick my legs, which only succeeds in making the zip ties dig into the skin around my ankles. I’m scaredmore scared than I’ve ever been in my lifebut I’m also pissed.
This guy is a psychopath. He lured me into his place and then trapped me.
No, that doesn’t fit. He did lure me to his place and trap me, but there’s something rational and non-psychopathic about him. But it wasn’t him calling this business because what kind of non-psychopathic person kidnaps women and zip ties them to beds for work?
“Go fuck yourself, fuck-face.” Yep. I’m very mature right now.
He seems to take the fact that I haven’t screamed again as evidence of my cooperation because he goes into the kitchen. I watch as he scrambles four eggs and makes four slices of buttered toast.
“I have a history test today,” I remember. I also had studio time booked to work on my pottery.
“You’re going to miss it.” He piles them all on a plate and returns to the bed, standing over me.
“I will be missed,” I say, even though I’m not positive it’s true. I don’t have any good friends. The ones I had in prep school were circumstantial. They’ve gone off to uni now. No one stayed in Liverpool. There’s no one in my classes who would miss me.
The art teacher won’t think anything of me missing my timeslot on the wheel. I can be flaky.
The food smells good, despite the fact that my stomach is upset.
“I’ll cut your ankles free if you promise to be good.”
“I’ll be good,” I lie.
I probably should’ve tried to scream for help again while he was in the kitchen. I’m not sure what stopped mewhether it was his threat to choke me, or the fact that I don’t quite believe his threat. I mean, I do. He did stop my breath in the bathroom for a few terrifying seconds. My neck still hurts from where he held me. He’s definitely capable of murder.
But his violence seems measured. He didn’t hit me back when I headbutted him. Nor did he retaliate much in the bathroom.
He sets the plate of eggs and toast on the bedside table and cuts one of the zip ties with a pocket knife then picks up my panties. “Kick me, and I’ll take a belt to your ass,” he warns.
It makes me want to kick him. So hard. Especially because it makes me feel squirmy inside. Like, under different circumstances, I might want him to carry through on a threat like that. If it was my choice. Not when I’m tied up against my will.
But the food smells good, and I don’t want him to hurt me, so I lie still and watch as he slips my free foot through the hole of my panties before he cuts the other ankle free and feeds it through.
It’s not sexy. I mean, it shouldn’t be. But I get all fluttery and weird as he drags the panties up my thighs. I want him to be the guy I thought he was last night.
Was I just completely out of my mind on ecstasy? Or was he really amazing? I know at the time I felt like I’d hit the jackpot.
Needing to somehow recapture that dynamic, needing to push this out of the terror realm and into something else, I push through my feet to lift my hips for him to pull my panties over my ass, and when he’s over me, I roll my hips.
It works. He stalls for a brief second, and his brows dip as he yanks my panties the rest of the way up. He pushes my hips down. “You are crazy girl.” His accent is thick this morning.
“That’s funny. I was thinking you were the psychopath here.”
“No. Not psychopath.” He sits beside me on the bed and picks up the plate. He scoops a forkful of eggs, and I open my mouth. “You are not what I expected.”
I close my mouth and turn my head to the side to refuse the food. “Wait…what?”
He eats the bite of eggs himself. “It’s not poisoned. I won’t hurt you if you cooperate.” He catches my eye and holds my gaze like he really wants me to believe him.
“Is this…personal?” I ask, my voice quavering. “Do you know me?”
“I know your father.” He holds another bite out of me. I want the food, but the information is more important. Again, I turn away.
“Hang on. Do you work for my father?”
Now it’s his turn to be flabbergasted. He stares at me with his mouth open. “Work for him? You think one of your father’s men would do this to the boss’s daughter” he breaks off and shakes his head. “Yes, they probably would. They are the worst scum on the Earth.”
My heart pounds with this new knowledge.
“You’re holding me hostage.” I’m catching up.
“Da.”
“He will kill you.” I say it not as a threat but with total sincerity. My father is a ruthless businessman. He thinks I don’t know he’s a crime lord, but I’m not stupid. I know everyone around him lives in fear. I have long believed my mother abandoned me to save her own life. Or maybe that’s just what a girl of six tells herself when her mother disappears one day.
A story that ends in a happy ending at a later date. My mother returning to me when she can. Reclaiming her beloved daughter.
But, of course, she never came.
Maybe she’s dead.
Maybe he killed her.
“He will want me dead,” Adrian agrees like he’s content with this knowledge.
A cold chill runs across my skin. “Are you asking for ransom?”
Adrian hesitates. “Yes.”
More cold prickles shoot down my spine. There’s something more to this. “What is the ransom?” My words come out as barely more than a whisper.
He stares at me like he’s not sure about his choice. “Five million.”
“Five million?” I sound shrill. “Is that all? You know he has at least a hundred million, right?” I know because I heard him bragging to a woman about it once.
“He has to bring the money himself.” There’s something terribly sinister about the way Adrian says the words, and I suddenly realize what this is: a trap.
And I’m the bait.
I glance at the plate of food and lift my chin at him. He takes the hint and feeds me a bite. I’m instantly starving. I chew quickly, swallow and gesture with my eyes again. He feeds me one bite after the next until I’ve finished half the eggs and two pieces of toast. I eye a third piece. “Is that yours?”
“You can have it. You’re not going to puke again, are you?”
“No. I feel better.” I eat half of the third piece of toast and then quit, turning my face away from him. He cleans the plate of what’s left.
I’ve had time to digest the information while I ate. “Are you in law enforcement?”
He scoffs.
“Didn’t think so. So… this is personal?”
He gives a single nod. “It’s personal.”
“He killed someone you love.”
“Nyet.”
“No?” I’m surprised. I thought for sure that would be it. Why else would someone have a personal vendetta against a man?
“No.”
“What did he do?”
“You don’t want to know.” Adrian gets up.
My body reacts to his loss with panic. “Wait. Come back.”
He stops and turns but doesn’t sit down again. “What is it?”
“You want to hurt my dad? I’m in.”
He goes still, his face an inscrutable mask. “That’s good,” he says after a beat, but I get the feeling he doesn’t believe me. Of course, he doesn’t. It could easily be a ploy. I mean, maybe it is a ploy on my part. I just want to get out of these horrible zip ties. I want to have a hot shower and change my clothes. But I’m not exactly loyal to my dad. I hate him in that angry, unloved teenager way. The one where part of me still desperately wants his love and approval, and the rest of me hates him because I know I’ll never get it.
I stare at Adrian’s strong muscled back when he walks away, taking the empty plate to the kitchen. He washes it and puts it in the drying rack.
“Is Adrian your real name?” I call to his back.
“Da. Adrian Turgenev,” he tells me, like it’s important. It also implies that he’s not afraid of anyone finding out his identitynot my father. Not the authorities.
So, either he thinks it won’t matter, or he doesn’t care. Maybe because he doesn’t plan on letting me live.
“Are you going to kill me?” I blurt.
“No.” He’s doing grumpy bear again. “I told you. I”
“–won’t hurt me if I do what I’m told.”
“Precisely this.” He nods.
This time I believe him. Things are coming into focus. Some of my worst fears have been allayed. He’s not a psychopath who plans to torture me and keep me in a cage as his personal slave. God! Why does that thought sort of turn me on? Maybe Delaney’s right. There is something sick in me that requires healing. He’s not going to sell me at a slave auction. He doesn’t plan to kill me for his revenge on my father.
Adrian’s phone rings, and he pulls it out of his pocket. “Nadia.” He turns his back to me, speaking in Russian. His voice is soft. Coaxing.
I go cold.
For some reason, this unpleasant shock rivals waking up with a gag in my mouth.
Adrian has a woman.