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It’s not even a plan, but I check the windows anyway and my heart turns to stone.

The windows are fitted with steel bars.

There’s no way out.

There’s no phone.

Nothing.

Defeat is bitter in my mouth I sit on the bed. Emotions rock me and tears start to spill. For my friend. For Sasha and Alina, too. And finally, self-pity.

After a few minutes, I wipe the tears away and nod.

Right now, there’s no way out, but I’m going to find one.

And when I do, I’m getting the hell out of here and back to my son.

After that?

I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Sasha away from this monster.

Chapter Nine

DEMYAN

I pace my office.The voices from my trusted men come from the second dining room, or what should be a dining room. I don’t use it for parties. In fact, I don’t use it for anything apart from meetings.

But right now, I’m teetering, and I don’t need the distractions. What I need is to think and not give into some cockeyed plan to go scorched earth until we find Alina.

I have to play this fucking smart.

The woman I’ve locked up for her own good doesn’t help matters. She keeps stealing pieces of me that brood over her. I want to touch her again, taste her. I want to fuck her so hard she begs for mercy, use her to release some of the tension.

I want to use her to feel something other than this darkness that’s building inside.

Who the fuck blew up the wedding? Killed the groom and took the bride?

I’m pretty fucking sure Max died saving my sister. He probably got in the way or jumped someone.

They weren’t looking to shoot her, or she’d already be dead.

That sends a better message than taking her if her demise was the end goal.

No, this is something different.

I clutch the bottle in my hand, the one I’m thinking about drinking from. I don’t.

When I first met my pretty prisoner/rescue, she captivated me with that mix of innocence and openness. She had fire, too, that I unleashed.

Could she have been some long game plant? To what end, though? My sister would have been easy to take at her birthday celebration. And this… Sure, I have the inherited enemies of my father, not to mention new ones.

Fuck. I laugh and eye the seat that’s mine in an office he never used and yet I can see him there, behind the desk, fingers templed, distaste and disappointment aimed at me.

And I can hear his words.

‘Ty pozvolil moyey miloy devochke uyti. Ty trus. Neumelyy durak.’

‘You let my sweet girl get taken. You coward. You inept fool.’