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Chapter Ten

ERIN

I pace, trying not to look at the door. There’s an old-fashioned lock as well as the keypad. But he used the pad, not the lock, and that means I’m stuck.

Without my phone, I don’t know how long I’ve been in here. It’s still night, so it only feels like forever, but it must be late. Kara must be worried. Even if it’s not hideously late, she knows I’d have called by now. It’s what I do now that I have Sasha. Not that I go out.

A sob escapes, me and I push my hand to my mouth to stop myself from crying. If I lose it, I won’t stop.

I’ve already kicked off my shoes, as sitting is almost impossible and my feet are aching.

Suddenly, there’s a sound at the door, a scraping sound. The door swings open. A woman is there. She’s just as expressive as Demyan, but older, wider, and she looks like she could take me down with the flick of her wrist.

But when she speaks, her voice is melodious. “You must be thirsty and hungry. Please sit.”

She’s polite, but I do as told because it’s not a request. She nods and walks in, setting the tray on the bedside table .

Then she turns and goes, the key scraping once more.

I look at the food. Borscht, by the looks of it, with dill and sour cream and though I’m hungry and it smells good, my stomach turns.

But I make myself take a mouthful of the beet soup.

It’s all I can deal with. It’s ash to me.

I pick up the water and take a sip, a shudder passing through me.

The knots in my belly have knots and though I’m not an anxiety-ridden person, I’m beginning to understand them. My heart is racing and I’m clammy. Everywhere. The room’s small now and getting smaller, and I can’t breathe.

He can’t keep me here forever, can he? Surely, he’ll let me go. And Sasha, he?—

Oh, my baby. All I want to do is hold him and feel his little body against me, kiss his dark head. And I desperately want to fill my lungs with his sweet smell.

“Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.” I hiss the words. The sudden grief at being apart from him for the next, however long, is growing and rolling over me. And if I wasn’t locked in here by a damn keypad, I’d?—

The woman. She might have used the keypad to open the door, but she also used the key. And locked it with the key. Maybe…

My heart beats even faster, harder as I set the glass down, rising on shaking feet.

I cross to the door, but it’s locked. However, the flat part of the keypad that had a discreet light on it earlier is now dull.

Maybe… maybe she just locked it and took the key.

If so, then I could try one of my hairpins.

Tom and I used to do this when we were younger, pretend we were spies and break in and out of the doors inside our home.

I try not to shake as I listen at the lock, but I don’t hear anyone at all.

The longer I stand here, stay here, the further from seeing Sasha I get.

Kara will be worried, and he has never been away from me.

And if she calls the cops, then it might get on the news, especially with the shootout at the wedding.

What if I become a person of interest since I’m missing and they mention Sasha?

Demyan would find out and?—

I’m spiraling and I have to stop. I breathe in deep and pull out a hairpin, straightening it.

It takes me precious minutes to remember how to do it. And it takes minutes more to get it to work. But finally, it clicks and my lungs freeze as I try the door.

It swings open.

With shallow breaths, I rush to the bathroom and turn on the shower, then I shut that door. It’s far-fetched, but I’m desperate to buy even seconds. I rush back to the door and slip out into the hall.

No one’s about. But I’m on the third floor and I need to get down to the first. I start to the stairs, but a voice rises from the floor below.

Whoever he is speaks Russian, and I scurry back into the shadows.

Of course I can’t go that way, and from the other voices that float, the mansion’s far from empty.

Except up here, where I’m trapped. What am I thinking? The grounds are teeming with armed guards, too.

A stair creaks and I dart into a darkened room, knocking into something, and I just catch what feels like a vase before it hits the ground. I close my eyes, willing my pulse to calm and my breathing to still.

Whoever it was must have climbed from the foyer to the second floor. I clench my stockinged toes on the floorboards.

Okay, these old mansions always have some kind of back staircase for servants. I think.

I poke my head out and start to walk the moment the coast is clear, and it’s not until I turn into another room, a pool of silvery moonlight calling to me, that I realize I have the vase.

I carefully set it down in the room and look around.

It’s a beautiful library, a place I’d love to spend time in if I wasn’t a prisoner, but I hurry to the window and look down.

I must be at the back of the mansion because there are gardens and trees and bushes and I can see a partial fence.

If I can get there, maybe I’ll have a chance…

With that thought firmly in my head, I set out again, and I go from room to room, peering in those that are open, and after one that creaked when I opened it, I pass all the closed doors.

I almost miss it, the curve of a wooden banister at the back, past a guest bathroom.

The stairs are steep, uneven, and plain.

I don’t have a choice. I make my way down, pausing and shifting every time one starts to creak, but I find the right way, the edges of the stairs.

At the landing on the second floor, I pause as two men argue just out of view, but I can’t stand here forever.

The longer I’m here, the lower my chances of escape are.

So I dart across the opening to continue down.

I’m almost at the bottom of the stairs where a door closes off the rest of the place. I reach to open it when someone bangs against it. More Russian. Some laughter. And then the voices move off.

Shit. I must be close to the epicenter.

Nerves screaming, my mind in freefall because how the fuck am I going to get out of here in one piece, I slowly open the door.

It’s an annex kitchen, like a casual room to eat, drink, hang out in, probably for staff, and just through the door ahead, I can see three men talking. A fourth is farther along, looking at his phone, frowning. I look in the opposite direction. A larder.

Now or never.

And it’s got to be now .

I move.

Hurrying as fast as I can silently go, first to the larder, where I figure I can hide before I search for the door.

It’s cool in here, and I look to the other side. The door is open, the smell of cigarette smoke strong.

Shit. Is someone there?

My insides try to crawl inside themselves, but I make myself stay where I am and breathe. The smoke’s still strong, but it’s not coming in waves. The smoker isn’t smoking; maybe they’re back in here or moved on.

Like my feet aren’t mine, they move to the door, and I slip through, pressing against the wall, a light pooling down over me. A cricket sings, and I can’t move. I’m exposed, I know it, but moving is…

“Do it,” I mutter under my breath.

For Sasha.

With that firmly in my brain and heart, I run to the nearest trees in the dark, and then I drop behind a bush.

Just as footsteps round a corner.

The guard doesn’t wait. I think he’s doing rounds, so I stay where I am, as small as I can, and wait until he passes.

This must mean I have a few minutes, so I just get up and run, stumbling, rocks biting into my feet as I race through the foliage and across in the cool dark of the garden’s growth.

The back wall isn’t watched, I don’t think, and it’s low, so I try and climb it, skinning my hands and knees as I go. But I’m not strong enough.

The tears push at me, and I fight back a sob. No, I’m not going down so close. I look around. The tree nearest the wall is low, so I climb that, edging along the lower limb until I can get to the wall. Then I fling myself over, narrowly missing an old bike and hitting a bush instead.

I again look around. The house is dark, and I realize with horror this must be part of the property.

Perhaps for guards or staff. But I don’t stop.

I get up and run, stumbling, sticking to the shadows until I hit another wall.

It’s not that high, and I go for it, right before I see the wire. And hear the buzz. Shit.

Electric.

“No.” I hurry along the edge until I reach the side. There’s a normal gate and it’s not powered. Clearly, there are usually guards here, too. And… I gulp.

There’s one right now, but he’s on the phone, and he’s at the front facing the street and the opposite direction, so I take a chance and run low, not stopping until I hit the side street. Then I dart in a zigzag, passing big properties, trying to avoid the lights.

I stop about three streets away.

Fuck, I don’t know where I am.

Voices rise up from somewhere behind me and I’m terrified I’ve been discovered. I sink low, but no one comes closer. Staying low, I keep moving until I round another corner.

Panic blooms as a roar fills my ears.

Wait, I know the sound. The freeway. I run toward it. And the area becomes dirtier, barer until I’m near the freeway and bright, garish lights beckon.

A gas station.

I scurry up to it, right as a car pulls out and I flag it down, not wanting to go into the station and risk being on camera.

The driver stops and rolls down her window. “Honey, what happened?”

“Please, help.”

The man with her throws open the back door. “Sit,” he says, “we’ll call the police. I’m George and this is Gwen, my wife.”

I hover, knowing I need to get in, but too scared. Scared of them taking me to the cops. Scared of something happening to them because of me. Scared of Demyan’s soldiers turning up and dragging me off. Just scared.