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But as soon as my eyes close, his face appears.
The one milky eye stares blankly at me, the other blue one condemning me for my father’s sins. Have you enjoyed your cushy life spending Daddy’s blood money while innocent men suffer and die at his hands?
My heart breaks into a sprint, the hairs on the back of my neck rising as his rasping voice returns to me with ringing clarity. Stomach knotting painfully, I open my eyes and swallow hard.
I should think of something—anything—but that. I’m not ready to process the fear and trauma of knowing I was going to die. Of coming so close to experiencing terrible pain. My mind jumps tracks to the men tied in the basement. My father’s man said the guys who took me were somehow connected. In an instant, it becomes a very real realization that my father likely hurt them. Did he do to them what my captor threatened to do to me?
I find it almost impossible to think that the man who held me so gently today could do something so violent, so horrible. But isn’t that why Mishka came seeking revenge in the first place? And that man, Kryuger, someone called him, he clearly holds my father responsible for his scars.
It brings tears to my eyes to think my father could be capable of that cruelty. But he didn’t earn his reputation in Boston as a legitimate businessman. I have always been aware of that darker side of the family business—even if my father shields me from it.
My heavy eyelids sink closed again, and that scarred face reappears, the lipless leer promising me that I will suffer terrible pain.
Gasping, I open my eyes and sit up in bed. Boris releases a soft whine and comes to check on me. Wrapping my arms around his soft neck, I bury my face in his fur.
“You’ll stay up with me tonight, right, boy? I think it might be the only way I’ll keep the demons at bay.”
He gives a half-groaning whine in response and scoots closer, his tail thumping audibly against the mattress, and despite the knot of tension in my gut, it makes me smile. I’m lucky to have such a special friend.
Together, we sit up, and I talk to him about anything I can think of—the conversation I had with Katie over the phone, assuring her that I was back home and safe, how I’ll still go to school this week because I refuse to put my life on hold over the jerks who took me. Then my thoughts turn to Mishka.
It would appear he’s moved on pretty fast after our confrontation if he had sex with a prostitute last night. Maybe he decided the safest way to protect his secret was to put distance between him and me. But that doesn’t line up with his words to me.
That he loves me enough that he couldn’t kill my family.
I thought that’s what I saw in his eyes today, when he found me.
The way he approached me so carefully.
Like I might panic and run away if he breathed too loudly.
He was so gentle, so tender. And yet, that same man went out and slept with a hooker rather than coming to talk to me last night. He was busy fucking another girl while I was so tied in knots over what I saw that I snuck out of my house to talk to a friend and ended up getting kidnapped.
A cold sense of betrayal washes through me, making me shiver.
“What am I going to do, Boris?” I ask, scratching behind my dog’s ears.
He gives me that signature amber-eyed look of innocence, like I have all the answers. But I don’t. Not by a long shot. I still love Mishka. I still ache to have him near me, to feel the comforting warmth of his strong arms. And yet, in a shockingly brief time, he’s managed to prove untrustworthy in so many ways. I shouldn’t want him—even if he’s the father to my child.
Sighing, I lean my head back against the headboard, my weary eyes sliding closed. And the ghost of a hand wraps around my throat. That haunting face comes within an inch of mine. You don’t think I’m already living that kind of hell, Princess? Look at me!
I jerk back awake—or out of my near comatose state of exhaustion—my heart sprinting, and I look around instinctually, terrified that I’m back in the condemned crack house once more.
This is agony—being so tired after twenty-four hours without sleep and now unable to close my eyes because of the monster that waits for me there. I need to calm myself down, but I don’t know how. Not when peaceful rest eludes me.
Goosebumps rise along the back of my neck as Boris suddenly starts to growl. And though my heart was already beating quickly from my waking dream, it kicks into overdrive as his attention turns to my balcony door.
The glass pane is covered by a sheer shade that allows light in without granting the neighbors a view into my bedroom, and when I look at the door, my heart shudders to an abrupt stop.
The shadow of a figure stands there, looming in the dark.
Pulling Boris closer to me, I open my mouth to scream, terrified that the man in my nightmares has come back for me. But before I can utter a sound, the person knocks softly. A pattern I recognize in an instant.
A kidnapper wouldn’t knock, would they? They definitely wouldn’t know that knock.
My brows furrow in confusion, and the cry dies on my lips.
“Alina? It’s Mishka. Will you let me in?”
