Page 11

The sandwich is turkey and Swiss on sourdough bread, and it tastes better than anything has a right to in a situation like this. The soup is tomato basil and seems homemade, while the water is cold and clean. I eat mechanically, my body demanding fuel even as my mind races through possible escape scenarios.
Looking up, I suddenly notice a small, dark circle in the corner of the room. It’s positioned high up near the ceiling and camouflaged among the decorative molding, but once I spot it, I can’t look away.
A camera.
They’re watching me right now. They’re probably recording everything I do to analyze every expression on my face and dissect every word I speak. The realization hits me like ice water,and I drop the spoon I was using for the soup. It clatters against the coffee table, sounding unnaturally loud in the silent room.
Panic floods my system, sharp and cold and overwhelming. I bolt toward the door and start pounding on it with both fists. “Let me out!” I scream, hammering against the solid wood until my hands ache. “Let me out of here right now!”
There’s no response to indicate that anyone can hear me or cares I’m falling apart. I keep pounding anyway, because the alternative is to collapse on the floor and give up, and I’m not ready to do that yet. “I’m not who you think I am,” I shout at the camera, turning away from the door to face the lens directly. “My name is Sabrina Clyde, and I’ve never heard of Irina Volkov before tonight. This is kidnapping. This is insane!”
My voice cracks on the last word, stress and exhaustion finally overwhelming the anger that’s been keeping me upright. I slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor, my back pressed against the wood, my knees drawn up to my chest.
I don’t know how long I sit there. It’s long enough for the remaining food to get cold and for the shadows outside the windows to shift. I remain there long enough e to cycle through anger to fear to desperation and back to anger again.
When the door finally opens, I scramble to my feet and back away, putting the coffee table between myself and whoever is entering.
It’s him. My captor. The man with winter-storm eyes and the kind of stillness that suggests he has no problem using violence.
He steps into the room and closes the door behind him, then leans against it with his arms crossed. He’s changed clothes since I last saw him, trading the expensive suit for dark jeansand a black sweater that makes him look less like a businessman and more like a predator. “Irina.” He says the name like it means something, like it carries weight and history and pain.
The sound of it makes something cold settle in my stomach. “That’s not my name.”
“No?” He tilts his head slightly, studying my face with the intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle. “Then why are you so upset?”
I gesture wildly toward the camera. “Because you’re holding me prisoner. Because you drugged me and brought me to God knows where, and you’re watching me like I’m some kind of lab rat.”
He doesn’t react to my outburst. He doesn’t flinch or step back or show any sign that my words have affected him at all. He just watches me with that same unnerving stillness, like he’s waiting for something specific.
“You kidnapped me,” I continue, my voice rising with each word. “You drugged me unconscious and brought me to this place and locked me in a room, and now you’re asking me why I’m upset? What kind of man does that? What kind of monster are you?”
Still nothing. No reaction, no explanation, and no sign he feels even a flicker of remorse for what he’s done to me. There’s something deeply wrong with this man.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware I’m still wearing the black dress from the club. It feels like a costume now, a reminder of the life I had before this nightmare began. “I want to go home.”
“Where is home, Irina?”
The way he keeps using that name makes my skin crawl. “My name isSabrina. Sabrina Clyde. I live in an apartment on Maple Street with my roommate, Jessica. I work at Haus Modesto serving drinks to people like you who think their money makes them untouchable.”
“People like me?”
I sneer. “Rich. Entitled. Used to getting whatever you want no matter who gets hurt in the process.”
That gets a reaction, finally. Not anger or defensiveness, but something that might be amusement flickering in those handsome gray eyes. “Is that what you think I am?”
“You kidnapped me because I look like a photo. That’s insane.”
He pushes away from the door and moves closer, and I instinctively back toward the windows. He stops when he reaches the coffee table, close enough that I can see the small scar that cuts through his left eyebrow and smell the expensive cologne he wears. “Tell me about your mother,” he says quietly.
I stare at him in disbelief. “Are you serious? You want to ask me the same questions again?”
“I’ll ask them as many times as it takes to be satisfied they’re true.”
“Or until you’ve convinced yourself I’m Irina,” I counter, crossing my arms. “No matter what I say, you’re going to keep pushing until you hear what you want to hear. Honestly, you’re obsessed with that woman.”
“I am,” he replies flatly.
I groan. “Well, I hope you don’t have a girlfriend or wife or anything because she’d be terribly jealous of how much you talk about Irina.”