Page 14

“Y ou’ll never get that door open.” A soft voice scares me into dropping the hairpin I have shoved into the lock of Alexander’s office door.

Spinning around, I find a woman, a little younger than me, leaning against the wall with her arms folded and her glossy pink lips pulled into a knowing grin. She gives a pointed look at the hairpin lying on the carpet at my feet.

“Do you really think a man like Alexander Volkov is going to have a lock that can be picked with a bobby pin?” She bends down and scoops it up, pocketing it in the front pocket of her jeans.

I blink a few times, then look down the hall, half expecting him to come storming toward us.

“He’s not home if that’s what you’re worried about,” she says.

“I didn’t think anyone was home,” I say.

“Just the staff and me.” She tilts her head a little to the left. “But I’m not supposed to be here, so we’ll say I’m not.” She winks.

I blink a few more times. Maybe she’s a conjuring of my imagination. I’d been thinking, since Alexander left this morning—after giving me another warning about trying to leave—that this house is too big to be all alone in it.

“Do you live here?” I ask, suddenly very aware that a man like Alexander probably isn’t single. Mortification heats my skin.

“No. Not really.” Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows pull together. “Oh God, oh no!” She bursts out laughing. “Alexander is my brother! I’m not his… Oh, I can see what you’re thinking.”

She falls forward a step and holds on to my arm, still laughing.

“His sister?” Of course.

“You should have seen your face.” She sobers up a little and smiles.

“I’m sorry. You just surprised me, is all. I didn’t realize Alexander had a sister.”

“I’m not talked about much.” Her smile fades a little at the edges. “The bastard daughter.” She rolls her eyes. “We share a father, but not a mother.”

Oh.

“And you? Why are you trying to break into his office?” She lifts her chin in the direction of the door that refuses to open.

“I think my cell phone is inside,” I say plainly. I’ve searched my bag, my purse, and both bedrooms I’ve been in, and the phone is gone. If my math is right, Mira is due to send me a message. She hasn’t in the last month and a half, but I need to check my phone to be sure.

“And why would he lock your phone inside his office?” She looks like she’s thoroughly enjoying my discomfort.

I sigh.

“Because your brother can be a real asshole,” I state matter-of-factly. “He’s keeping me here against my will and all I want to do is call a friend and my boss. Definitely my boss.” Maybe if I come up with a good enough story as to why I just haven’t shown up the past few days, he’ll let me keep my job.

She stares at me for a beat, her face going stoic.

I’ve just insulted her brother.

“He can be an asshole.” She nods. “A huge one, in fact.”

Relief floods me.

“Will you help me?” Hope balloons inside me.

“Sorry.” She grimaces. “If I did, he’d have my ass.”

“Damn right, I would.” Alexander comes around the corner, his expression tense. “Elana, what are you doing here?”

“See?” She scrunches her face, then turns to him. “Not exactly the words of a loving brother.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “You know what I mean. It’s late and you have classes in the morning.”

“I know it’s hard for your old brain to understand, but there’s internet almost everywhere now, so I don’t have to stay tethered to my apartment in order to keep up with my classes.” She rolls her eyes. “Why are you keeping this girl locked up here?”

He sighs.

“Because,” he answers in a flat tone, which I’ve come to realize means he’s not going to say another word about it.

“Well, she’d like her phone back.” She jerks her thumb at me, and my face instantly reddening with a blush.

“Would she?” He glances over his sister’s shoulder at me, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Is that why you’re standing at my office door?”

“I was just seeing if you were inside,” I quickly say before Elana can rat me out.

“She was knocking really loud; that’s how I heard her over here,” she says in an attempt to help me.

“Really?” His left eyebrow arches higher. “So the scratches on the handle aren’t from someone trying to pick the lock?”

“Did you have dinner yet?” sshe counters his question. “I think we should have a late dinner. Maybe Cornelia left something in the kitchen we can warm up.”

Alexander puts his hand up to stop her.

“We ate. Go find yourself some food. I need to deal with something.”

“It’s me. I’m the something.” I lift my hand a little and Elana grins.

Alexander makes a low sound in his chest that gets Elana’s attention.

“I’m going.” She rolls her eyes at him, then points two fingers at me. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Maybe.” Alexander takes a step between us, blocking her from my view. “We’ll see how the next hour goes.”

I’m not sure what comes over me, but I pinch his back after he makes that statement.

His body locks up the moment I do it, and I jerk back. What the hell did I do?

“Good night, Elana,” he says with such finality, my throat dries. She doesn’t say another word. I can only hear her soft steps as she heads away from us.

There’s no possibility of being saved now.

He’s going to kill me.

As he turns around to face me, his icy stare hits me, and I retreat a step.

“Did you just pinch me?” He tilts his head a little, which only exasperates the severity of his frown.

“I did.” Showing him fear will only work against me.

He frowns for a moment and shakes his head.

“My sister’s already being a bad influence on you.” He pulls a set of keys from his pants pocket and unlocks the door, pushing it open. “After you.”

I step inside, trying to put as much space between us as possible, as if he’s going to snatch me up any second. Which is ridiculous because he’s already holding me prisoner in his enormous home.

The door shuts behind me and he walks around me to his desk.

Like every other room in this place, his office is immaculate and perfectly designed to suit him. All the woodworking is dark mahogany with dark-blue hues in the rugs and drapery coverings. The dark leather couches face each other with a glass-topped table between them.

A silver-plated skull sits in the center of the table. It’s been fitted onto a platform and transformed into a vase. Bloodred roses spring from the scalp.

What an odd item to have as a centerpiece.

“Is that… real?” I point to the makeshift vase.

He follows my finger. “Yes.”

My stomach falls an inch with his answer.

“It’s a real skull? It belonged to someone and now you use it to hold flowers?”

“It belonged to a man who betrayed my father,” he says casually. That bombshell just hangs between us.

“Are you serious?” I need to double my efforts to get away from this man.

Maybe he’s just messing with me, to make sure I understand how serious he is. He wants me to fear crossing him. That’s all.

“I am.” He walks to the flowers and gently runs his hands over the tops. “My father brought this with him when he immigrated here from Russia. He had it preserved and designed it into a vase.”

I nod as if I understand, but the only thing to understand is his father was crazy. And from what I’ve experienced with Alexander so far, I’m not sure the apple ever left the tree.

“You wanted your phone.” He shifts his stance so he’s blocking the skull from my view. “Why?”

It takes a second for me to catch up to the change in topic. This man keeps an enemy’s skull in his office; what sort of chance do I have of ever getting away from him?

“I need to call work. If I still have a job, I need to tell them something. I can’t just not show up,” I say once my brain is fully functional again.

“I’ve already taken care of your job.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“What does that mean, you took care of it?”

“It means, I took care of it. You don’t have to worry about a job.”

I take a small step forward.

“I don’t have to worry about a job? Meaning, you what…? Did you tell them I wasn’t coming back?” I need that job. It’s not the best paying but it’s good experience. I’ll be able to get a better paid position in a year or two.

“You’re not going back,” he says so matter-of-factly, it almost sounds normal.

“Are you crazy?” I yell. “You can’t just quit my job for me! I need my job! It’s MY job!” I’m still yelling because he’s finally made me snap.

“Megan, lower your voice,” he orders softly. “I let you get away with the pinch, but I won’t allow you yelling like a spoiled brat.”

“Spoiled brat?” I suddenly wish I had the skull in my hands so I could throw it at his head. “How can I be a spoiled brat when you’ve kidnapped me, locked me up, beaten me, and now you took away the only source of income I had?” My voice isn’t coming down on its own; my blood is too hot.

His eyes narrow slightly and he remains silent.

It’s worse when he’s quiet. I can tell he’s thinking about what he wants to do to me.

“I didn’t beat you,” he finally says.

“That’s what you got out of what I just said?”

“I didn’t beat you. I punished you, and I’ll do it again when it’s needed. And if you don’t stop yelling, it will be.”

I take a deep breath as I take a small step back. “I needed that job, Alexander.” I force my voice to lower.

“Not now, you don’t.”

It’s like throwing a tennis ball at a wall; everything I say just bounces right off him and comes barreling back at me.

“But why? Why don’t I need the job?” Even if the debt to Marco magically gets wiped away, rent is still a thing.

“Because.”

My muscles tighten with his answer. Anger curls my toes in my shoes.

“Because why?”

He tilts his head a little and a ghost of a smile haunts his mouth. “Because I said.”

This man is going to give me a stroke with the speed in which he pisses me off.

“You can’t just say that. I want to know why.”

“All you need to know is that for the foreseeable future, I’m taking care of you.”

My eyelid twitches. This conversation isn’t going anywhere and since I’m not physically able to get out of this mansion-prison, I suppose fighting about a job can wait.

“Fine. I need to call Billy to see if those men came back.” After I check for Mira’s message, I should ask Billy to check my mail. Maybe she mailed me something from wherever she’s hiding.

“They haven’t. I have men at your building in case they do, so you don’t need to call Billy.”

“I still want to talk to him.” Need. This is a definite need.

“Why?”

“Because.” There. Two can play the game of simply making a statement and letting it lie there. See how he likes having it played on him.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It seems to be when you say it,” I mutter.

Great. Now he’s making me sound like a brat.

I thrust my hand forward. “I just want my phone. And it’s mine, so give it to me.”

He stares at it for a moment, then lifts his eyes to mine.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

This man wants me to lose my mind, that’s what his game is. If I go crazy, then he can easily kill me without any sort of remorse.

Not that he would have an iota of remorse anyway. The man has a skull on his table!

“I don’t trust you.” He pulls out his own phone and swipes across the screen until he finds what he wants, then turns it to me.

My heart skids to a halt.

“You lied to me, Megan. Again, you lied.”