Page 2 of Hostage with Benefits

There was noise outside my door and it was getting closer.

When the door opened, it wasn’t Mikhail standing there but a woman old enough to be my grandmother. She had salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a tight bun and wore a simple black dress with an apron. Her face was a map of deep lines, none of which suggested a life spent smiling.

“Miss Petrova,” she said, her accent even thicker than Mikhail’s. “Dinner is served.”

I blinked at her. “I thought food was being sent up.”

She made a dismissive noise in the back of her throat. “Guests eat at table, not in bedrooms like prisoners.”

“I am a hostage,” I pointed out.

“Mr. Volkov says guest. I prepare dining room for guest.”

Behind her, I could see a younger woman in a maid’s uniform and a man in what looked like security attire hovering in the hallway. The security guy looked uncomfortable; he and I both knew this wasn’t in the kidnapping playbook.

I considered refusing, but honestly, I was starving, and the idea of real food after the day I’d had was too tempting. Plus, there was something almost comical about being force-fed a proper dinner by an elderly Russian housekeeper who seemed to have opinions about hostage protocol.

“Fine,” I said, getting up from the bed. “But I still need that Wi-Fi password. I have work to do.”

The old woman clicked her tongue. “Work, work, work. First, you eat.”

She turned and walked away, clearly expecting me to follow. I did, because what else was I going to do? The security guy fell into step behind me.

The dining room was… a lot. A crystal chandelier, a dark wood table, and paintings on the walls in golden frames. Two places had been set at one end, with candles lit between them. It was like I had been kidnapped into a costume drama set.

“Sit,” the old woman said, pointing to one of the chairs.

I sat.

The younger woman poured water into my glass.

“You speak Russian?” she asked in accented English.

“A little,” I replied in Russian, the words coming out clumsy. “Not very well.”

Their eyes lit up like I’d just performed a miracle.

“She speaks!” the older woman said in Russian, turning to her colleague. “And she’s pretty too, in that American way. Thin, but we can fix that.”

“Good bones,” the younger woman agreed in Russian. “And smart; you can tell from her eyes.”

“Um, I can understand you,” I said in English. “I might be rusty when speaking, but I understand you.”

They exchanged a look like I’d just passed some test I didn’t know I was taking.

“Good,” the older woman said, switching back to English. “I am Galina. This is Irina. That one—” she jerked her head toward the security guy “—is Dmitri. He does not talk much.”

“Nice to meet you all,” I said, because apparently my mother’s insistence on politeness had survived even kidnapping. “ I’m Natalia.”

“We know,” Irina said while smiling, but her eyes were assessing me; I could tell. “Mr. Volkov told us.”

“Did he also tell you why I’m here?” I asked.

Another look between them.

“Yes. You are a guest,” Galina said firmly.

Before I could point out the absurdity of that statement, the door at the far end of the dining room opened, and Mikhail walked in. He stopped short when he saw the setup, his eyes narrowing.

“What is this?” he asked Galina in Russian.

“Dinner,” she replied calmly. “For you and the young lady.”

“I said to send food to her room.”

“It is not proper,” Galina said, unmoved by his glare. “You said she is a guest. Your father would never?—”

“My father is not here,” he cut her off sharply, but his stance softened. “This is my home.”

Galina simply stared at him until, with a barely audible sigh, he moved to the chair opposite mine and sat down.

“Leave us,” he told the staff.

Galina and Irina exchanged another one of those looks before departing, Dmitri following silently behind them. But the door to what I assumed was the kitchen remained conspicuously ajar.

“Your staff seems… interesting ,” I said.

Mikhail’s jaw tightened. “Galina has been with my family since before I was born. She believes this gives her certain… liberties.”

“Like setting up dinners for hostages?”

Something that might have been amusement flickered in his eyes. “She does not approve of my methods.”

“So she’s trying to, what, civilize the situation?”

“She is…” He paused, seeming to search for the right words. “She is old-fashioned.”

Irina appeared with two bowls of soup, setting them down in front of us before disappearing again.

“Borscht,” Irina had said. “Galina makes the best back home in Moscow. Enjoy. ”

I ate a spoonful. It was rich and earthy and better than anything I’d planned to microwave in my apartment.

“So your family brought your staff from Russia?” I asked, because sitting in silence with my kidnapper seemed worse somehow.

“Some of them.” He took a sip of his water. “Galina refused to stay behind.”

“Doesn’t seem like she takes orders well.”

That same almost-amusement. “She believes she knows better than everyone else.”

“And does she?”

“Often, yes.”

We fell into silence as we ate. From the kitchen, I could hear low murmurs in Russian, clearly Galina and Irina discussing us. I caught fragments: “…good Russian girl,” “…speaks English with no accent,” “…might be good for him…”

Mikhail’s expression darkened. He’d heard it too.

“So,” I said, pushing my empty soup bowl aside. “About that Wi-Fi password.”

His eyes met mine. “You are being held hostage, and your concern is still internet access? Are you one of those people who can’t live without their phone?”

“No, but I have a work deadline tomorrow. A client is expecting mockups by noon.”

“And this matters to you? Now ?”

“Bills don’t stop coming because I’ve been kidnapped.”

Irina appeared to take our bowls and set down plates of what looked like beef stroganoff. As she leaned between us, she said quietly in Russian to Mikhail, “She is practical. This is good in a woman.”

Mikhail’s efforts not to roll his eyes were in vain.

After Irina left, he said, “Your father. You two are not close.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “No.”

“Yet he named you Natalia. A Russian name.”

“My mother was half-Russian. Hence the name, hence the rusty language skills. It’s not my father’s doing.”

“And your mother, she is…? ”

“Dead. Car accident when I was fourteen.”

“I am sorry,” he said right away.

I shrugged, an automatic response to that particular brand of empty sympathy I’d perfected over the years. “It was a long time ago.”

“And since then, it has been just you and your father?”

“No,” I said, keeping my voice flat. “Since then it’s been just me.”

He didn’t ask for clarification, which was good because I didn’t want to give it. Instead, he cut his meat and started eating.

“Your work,” he said after a moment. “What is it that cannot wait?”

“I’m a freelance graphic designer. The client is a tech startup with more money than sense and a CEO who changes his mind every six hours. This project will pay my rent and then some.”

“And if you miss this deadline?”

“They find someone else. I don’t get paid. My rent doesn’t get paid. I die on the streets. Circle of life.”

His lips twitched. “This will be resolved soon.”

“Define ‘ soon .’”

“When your father returns what he took.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

Mikhail’s expression closed again. “That is not your concern, I told you.”

“We’ve been over this. It became my concern when you threw me over your shoulder in a parking lot.”

He set down his fork with deliberate care. “You seem remarkably unconcerned about your situation.”

“Panic takes energy I don’t have. And fear doesn’t change circumstances; it just makes them harder to think through.”

“Is that what your therapist taught you?”

I stilled. “Something like that.”

Dessert arrived. It was some kind of honey cake that, under normal circumstances, I would have appreciated. Now my stomach was too knotted to enjoy it.

“The Wi-Fi password,” I said again as Irina cleared our plates. “I need my laptop and the password.”

Mikhail’s eyes narrowed. “Your priorities are concerning.”

“My priorities are practical. Look, either this gets resolved quickly and I need to make my deadline, or it doesn’t and I’m stuck here long enough that I’ll need the money when you let me go. Either way, I need to work.”

“Perhaps you should be more concerned with your safety.”

“Are you planning to hurt me?”

He looked almost offended. “No.”

“Then my most pressing concern is work. Thus, I need that password. And my laptop, preferably.”

Galina came in with tea, setting down delicate cups in front of us.

“See, she works too much,” she said to Mikhail in Russian. “Like you. Maybe that is good. She understands.”

Mikhail stood abruptly. “ Enough .”

I stood too. “The password.”

“You are the most infuriating hostage I have ever encountered.”

“I’m the only hostage you’ve ever encountered who cares about paying her bills .”

He turned and stalked from the room. I followed, ignoring Galina’s knowing look.

“Mikhail,” I called after him in the hallway. “The password. My laptop. Come on .”

He spun around so quickly I nearly ran into him. Before I could step back, he moved forward, backing me up against the wall. His arm came up beside my head, caging me in.

“You think this is a game ?” His eyes peered into mine. “You think this is a situation where you can make demands ?”

He was close enough that I could feel the heat from his body and smell that expensive cologne again. My heart was hammering, but not entirely from fear.

My eyes dropped to his mouth without my brain’s permission. Full lips pressed into a hard line, the bottom one slightly fuller than the top. I had the sudden, insane thought of what they might feel like against mine, against my neck, against?—

He noticed. Of course he noticed. His eyes narrowed, and for a moment, the tension between us shifted into something else entirely.

Then he laughed, a short, bitter sound. “You really are as fucked up in the head as I am, aren’t you? Four years of therapy, you said, yeah? Must have been a scam.”

He pushed away from the wall and walked off, leaving me breathing hard, my skin burning where he’d been close to it.

I made my way back to the hostage room, equal parts furious and uncomfortably aroused. The door locked behind me, and I sank onto the bed.

What was wrong with me? Stockholm syndrome didn’t set in this fast, did it? No, this was just… adrenaline. Basic biology confused by danger signals… right ?

I tried to distract myself by examining the room more carefully, looking for anything I might have missed. But my body was still humming with this unwanted awareness that I was horny , embarrassingly so. All this tension was coiling into a tight spiral…

After twenty minutes of restless pacing around the room, I gave up. I was alone, locked in, and overwhelmed by a day that had contained more bizarre emotional whiplash than the past year combined. If there was ever a time when self-care of this manner was justified, this was it.

I lay back on the bed, sliding a hand beneath the waistband of my jeans. I closed my eyes, trying to conjure up safe, generic fantasies (not blue eyes and full lips and strong hands that could lift me effortlessly and throw me over a shoulder).

I was just finding a rhythm with my fingers when the door opened without warning.

Mikhail stood in the doorway, my laptop bag in one hand (he had really gotten it?!). He took in the scene: me on the bed, hand down my pants, face flushed.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he said, as he stepped inside. He set the laptop down on the desk. “The password is on a sticky note inside. I’ll leave you to… finish your business.”