Page 35

It shouldn’t have been possible that I was face to face with Arkadi. He was supposed to be on his way to Mexico, not hanging around the restaurant. Nik was on his way to get him right now.

Except he was very real, and watching me with an intensity that sent a cold chill up my spine. Why was he here, and why did it seem like he was waiting for me?

“I had a feeling you’d come back,” he said smoothly.

Oh, okay, so he was waiting for me. My mind went blank with fear as I looked around the deserted lot. There were only a few other cars, which meant at least some people were still inside, but could I jet past him fast enough to scream for help? He swayed slightly to whatever side my eyes went, looking for an opening.

He nodded to his car. “Let’s talk.”

“Hell no,” I said, sprinting toward the left side of him.

At the last second, I feinted to the right, like Nik had shown me, but apparently Arkadi had the same skill set. He was in front of me again in the blink of an eye, and this time much closer. Skidding to a halt, I ducked under his outstretched arms, just about able to scramble beyond his reach until I felt a hand grip the back of my jacket collar.

The stiff fabric bunched up around my neck as I jolted backwards, momentarily choking me. With his hands on my shoulders, Arkadi pulled me toward his car and opened the door.

“Get in if you ever want to see your sister-in-law again,” he said, low and menacing.

“What?” I yelped.

“I’m positive you heard me. I have Mila, and as of now, she’s perfectly safe. If you want her to stay that way, you’ll get in the car and come with me.”

With a sinking stomach, I remembered that Mila had been in the restaurant when Arkadi pulled his little stunt during dinner service. She had been thoroughly pissed off that he’d witnessed her dropping a tray full of drinks due to the shock of seeing him there.

But how did he manage to grab her? She had been born into the Bratva, and underneath her sweet exterior, I had to believe she was a fierce warrior like her brothers. They wouldn’t have allowed her to grow up without developing laser-sharp wits and the ability to fight.

Still, what if she’d been under the same impression that Arkadi was heading to Mexico and was no longer a threat to anyone. She had never been his target, so maybe he got the drop on her as she left. Just like he’d gotten the drop on me.

I stared at him for a long moment, trying to shrug off his tight grip on my shoulders. Did I believe him? I had to. There was no way I could live with myself if I let something happen to Mila.

Holding back a string of swear words, I let him march me around to the passenger side. He shoved me in and slammed the door just as I had my foot inside. Not exactly a gentleman, but why was I surprised? Nik’s words came back to me from when his enemy had first offered me a job. He didn’t want me as a chef, and by now I was as convinced as Nik that he only meant to do harm. In that moment, I felt so utterly foolish for not understanding, and so full of hatred for Arkadi that the tears wouldn’t have fallen if it meant saving my life.

As he rounded the back and was just about to reach for the passenger side door, I heard him chuckle. The sinister sound was the last straw. He didn’t have Mila, and if he did, I could help her more by alerting Nik as soon as possible that the asshole he was after wasn’t heading south at all.

I wrenched the door handle and kicked it open as hard as I could, adrenaline pumping. The door swung back on me as I jolted out to attempt another mad dash toward the restaurant. It clipped me in the hip, and pain rocketed down my side, and at the same moment, Arkadi jumped in on his side and threw the car into reverse, knocking me flat on my back.

The back of my head crashed into the pavement, and before I could get my bearings, rough hands dragged me back into the car. Uttering a bunch of words in Russian that I couldn’t understand, but probably weren’t well wishes, Arkadi slid into his seat from where he’d lunged across the center console to grab me.

When I desperately tried the handle again, the door was locked. Seconds later, we were out on the road and around the corner. By the time I turned around to look out the rear window, the restaurant was no longer in sight. No one had wandered outside during the scuffle, and if they opened the door because of the sound of squealing tires, it was already too late.

“Fine,” I said, wearily, reaching to rub the back of my head. “I give up. Just let Mila go if you have her.”

He only chuckled again, and it made my stomach twist. I wasn’t certain he was lying, after all. The man was a loose cannon. We drove for a while in silence, since there wasn’t much more I could do unless I was prepared to jump out of a moving car.

My only option was to hope he wasn’t too pissed at me and did as he promised.

“You wanted to talk to me,” I said. “So, talk. I’ll listen if it means you don’t hurt Mila.”

He remained eerily silent, causing my fear level to tip into terror. After a while, he turned off the highway to enter a deserted rest area. Another car waited in the shadows next to the public restrooms and I breathed a sigh of relief that this might be who had Mila.

A man waited beside the dark sedan, and I expected Arkadi to have him pop the trunk so Nik’s sister could be freed, but that never happened. They only started what looked like a serious conversation. Was she tied up in the backseat?

None of it seemed right. Why would he let her go out here in the middle of nowhere? Pretty soon, I realized my original instinct had been correct. Arkadi Mikhailov was a filthy liar among all the other awful things he got up to. I tried the door handle again as he spoke to the man by the other car, but it was still locked. Reaching across the driver’s seat, I began smashing every button on that door, trying to spring the locks.

I stared over at him, wreathed in shadows and looking like the ghost that Nik sometimes called him. He towered over the other man, who seemed to be listening intently to instructions. When I couldn’t get either door open, I turned my attention to the small backseat of the fancy sports car to look for something I could either break a window with, or use to club Arkadi over the head.

Nothing. The man was a neat freak on top of everything else, which just enraged me more. Not so much as a golf club or even an extra necktie, I could whip around his throat and strangle him with.

I really hated this guy and wished I had taken Nik, Mila, and his whole family more seriously. I was from a small town where the most prevalent crimes were shoplifting and drunk driving. How could I have believed there were such people in the world? Not even being married to a crime boss who sometimes came home with blood on his hands had shaken me out of my naivety. No more.

I was starting to panic until I remembered that the restaurant had security cameras. No one watched them all the time, but someone would see me getting nearly run over and dragged into Arkadi’s car. Eventually. The panic beat at that weak door of hope I constructed, but I clung to it. Someone would see me, and easily track Arkadi’s car.

His door swung open, and the lock on my side thunked. “Get out,” he said, waving a gun at me. “And don’t try anything dumb.”

“You won’t kill me,” I said brazenly.

“There’s a hundred places on your body I could shoot you that won’t kill you,” he said mildly. “It’ll still hurt like hell and incapacitate you.”

My arms and legs began to shake, but I made it out of the car, glancing wildly all around me. Why were we stopped here, of all places? The highway seemed a million miles away, and there was nothing but the dingy little restroom here. If he hadn’t somewhat admitted he wasn’t going to kill me, I would have been in a puddle from fear.

The guy he’d been speaking with came toward us, and I tensed, ready to take my chances and bolt. Arkadi tossed him his keys and, in turn, caught the other set. Oh no. We were changing cars. That weak little barricade of hope I’d been nurturing came crashing down as panic filled me.

A different car. Even if Nik managed to see the security footage from Khoroshiy and track us here, it was most likely a dead end. The other guy took off as I moved as slowly as possible toward the replacement car. Pretending to be complacent as my mind spun into overdrive for a way out of this, I slid into the passenger seat and demurely tucked my legs in.

As soon as Arkadi sat down on his side, I went off, channeling all my fear and rage into my fists as I pummeled him repeatedly in the side of the head. Surprise attacks were an important tool in any arsenal, but especially someone who was small, like me. I hit with every ounce of strength I had, screaming in frustration, but barely feeling the sting as my knuckles impacted his skull and the side of his face.

The sudden attack threw him off long enough for me to jump out of the car, which was already rolling forward. Quickly regaining my balance, I ignored the dizziness from the earlier bump to my head. I ran like I’d never run before, expecting to hit the clumps of trees on the far side of the rest area before Arkadi knew what had hit him and could even stop the car.

Wrong. So wrong. With a curse, he slammed the car into gear and was after me so fast it really made my injured head spin. One hand grabbed a chunk of my hair, and the other clamped down on my shoulder, hauling me back to slam me into the side of the car.

“You’re a lot of trouble.”

Blood trailed down the side of his head where my ring must have broken the skin from at least one of my punches. Other than that, he looked perfectly fine. Anger boiled quietly under the surface as a muscle in his jaw worked, and he clenched his fist like he was barely holding back from retaliating. The look in his eyes was full of promise, though, making me wonder what horrors he had in store for me.

Whacking some handcuffs on me, he tossed me into the backseat, where I landed with a hard thud, sprawled on my side. My shoulder wrenched painfully from my arms being behind my back, and the cuffs cut deep into my left wrist. I would have eaten roadkill fresh from the highway before I asked him to loosen it. I closed my eyes and pretended none of it was real.

The car began to move, and as soon as I heard the crunch of gravel turn into smooth pavement, I heaved myself up and began screaming, banging my head against the window. I only needed one passing car to see me in such distress, and hopefully call the cops.

“Get the fuck down,” Arkadi bellowed.

Nope. I screamed louder, throwing my entire body at the window. Jumping out of the car while it was moving seemed crazy a little while ago. Now, I was ready to fling myself out without the use of my arms to break the fall. I couldn’t let Arkadi take me to his final destination, because I had a bad feeling it would be the last place I ever saw.

With a curse, he pulled over to the side of the road and jerked the door open. “There’s no one,” he shouted.

I flung myself onto the grassy shoulder and managed to kick him on my way down. He was right, damn it. There wasn’t a single other car on the road. No one to help me. And that was how I found myself stuffed into the very trunk I had thought they might have put Mila.

Suddenly, I was in total darkness, with scratchy carpet over hard metal digging into my cheek. Something that felt like a screwdriver was wedged under my hip, and my head bounced against the tire. Arkadi continued on his way.

I was handcuffed in the freaking trunk of a car. If there was ever a good time to panic, this was it, but frankly, I was exhausted. The adrenaline that had allowed me to unleash my sneak attack and then make such a ruckus in the back seat was subsiding. My stomach churned, and my head throbbed, but my mind was shockingly clear.

While my left cuff was slowly cutting off the circulation to that hand, the other side was loose, and with a bit of wiggling, I slipped out of it. Breathing as big of a sigh of relief as I could in the cramped space, I pulled my arms around to the front, sending waves of relief to my aching shoulders. Now I just had to bide my time.

We weren’t on the highway for too long. I could tell when we turned onto the surface streets because of all the stopping and starting. It crossed my mind to try kicking and shouting in order to catch someone’s attention, but after recalling Arkadi’s barely contained ire, I just rested and waited.

As soon as the engine turned off, I let my body go limp and breathed as evenly as I could. When the trunk popped open, I launched myself at him, ignoring the stiffness from being crouched up in a ball, or the pain of my injuries. Now, it was time to fight. I used every move Nik taught me, even managing to get the chain of the handcuffs around his neck for a brief, glorious moment. But he was too big and strong, and it wasn’t a surprise when he had me in a death grip, hauling me up the front stairs of a mansion that rivaled the size and beauty of Nik’s compound.

It wasn’t a surprise but a hell of a disappointment, and the crushing blow kept me quiet as he carried me through the oddly glamorous front doors. The entrance hall was all gleaming white and gold with a giant crystal chandelier, looking more fit for a movie star than a mob boss’s hideout. Not that I was overly concerned with the decor, and once we were past the long hall, I got a second wind and started thrashing, going so far as to bite him on the shoulder.

He dropped me in a heap, dragging me up again to shake me roughly. I was gasping, but he was barely winded and seemed more annoyed than anything. I kicked his shin, and he gave me one more shake, rattling my teeth.

“Damn it,” he hissed. “I’m not trying to hurt you. You’re just a pawn, after all. So stop being such a pain in the ass, and you’ll make it out of this.”

“If I don’t?”

He shrugged. “Then you won’t.”

His utter lack of concern either way shook me to my core, and I settled down. Smoothing his shirt front, he took a deep breath, an eyebrow raised in question as he waited to see if I was just gathering my strength for yet another attack.

“I’m done,” I said, scowling. For now, anyway.

“Smart.”

He prodded me along a hallway that was painted a glossy turquoise with gold crown molding and oil paintings in elaborately carved frames.

“Are you related to old French royalty, or do you just wish you were?” I asked. The house was admittedly gorgeous, but out of character to this mean tough guy. It almost made me more scared than I already was.

“Someone I cared about decorated it,” he grunted. “If you’d feel more comfortable out in one of the sheds…”

“No, this is fine,” I said hurriedly.

At the end of the hall, he pushed open a door and waited for me to walk in instead of giving me another poke in between my shoulder blades. I was sick of being herded along like a sheep and went in of my own accord. This room was powder pink and seemed somewhat subdued compared to the opulent hallways until I glanced up. A mural of the sky with cherubs playing various golden instruments and bluebirds holding sprigs of flowers in their beaks was splashed across the ceiling.

I pretended I didn’t see it as Arkadi took my wrist and pulled me over to the bed. He undid the tight cuff and rolled his eyes at the bright red welt that had bitten into my skin. Locking it so it wasn’t so painful, but nowhere near possible to slip out of again, he clasped the other side around the old-fashioned wrought iron headboard. For good measure, he rattled the antique filigree to show me how sturdy it was despite its delicate appearance. I wasn’t going anywhere until he said so.

And he wasn’t saying anything at all, just staring at me in silence with such a look of disgust on his face that I couldn’t handle it anymore.

“Nik was on the way to get you,” I said. Even through my fear, curiosity bubbled up. “You were spotted heading to the border.”

He laughed, the look of revulsion turning to one of delight. “LA is full of actors, body doubles, and makeup artists that could make even you look like me. I’ve been having a blast these last few weeks fooling your so-called husband.”

“Nik is my real husband,” I said, spitting mad at Arkadi despite the fact I had never quite accepted our relationship as real yet, either. “We eloped, and we’re planning a big wedding for family and friends in just a couple weeks.”

“I guess my invitation got lost in the mail,” he mocked, leaving me on my own.

When the door clicked closed, I tried to find a weak spot in the headboard, but the old thing was built like a tank, and all the pulling only hurt my hand. He had me raging, leaving me like this to wait in terror, refusing to believe Nik was my husband, at least legally, and actually hiding in plain sight all this time by using body doubles and masterful disguises. He wasn’t a ghost at all, just devious.

I ended up finding a way to lay down that didn’t twist my arm in an uncomfortable position and it was when I calmed down that I remembered he called me a pawn. What did he mean by that? Did he have something in store for Nik and his family? Worst of all, did I walk right into his plan and make myself the bait?

As my fear threatened to make me start shouting for him to come back, either to give me answers, or at least to keep an eye on his whereabouts, he slammed back into the room. Crossing to the bed in a couple big strides, he unlocked the cuffs from the bedframe.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re going somewhere.” In a moment, he had my other hand locked in the cuffs.

There was no chance to fight him again. It would be futile to try. There was no choice but to follow him and hope it wasn’t to my doom. Or Nik’s.