Seventeen
Roxanne
My steps out of the bathroom are reduced to half their natural stride when I spot an outfit splayed across the mattress I’ve shared with Dimitri the past four nights even with us not sharing a word between us. I’ve climaxed on that bed, laughed on it, and shed tears on it more times than I can count, but this is the first time I’ve ever had an outfit laid out on it.
It’s not a fancy dress like the many in the walk-in closet, nor is it an innocent outfit. It’s modest yet sexy if that’s possible. The cut of the full-length leather pants assures me they’ll hug my butt in all the right places. The shimmery beige material of the strapless crop top adds glitz to the ensemble while the denim jacket promises to keep me warm even if my bosoms spill over the skimpy material that’s meant to cover my midsection.
With my gut twisted in confusion, I seek answers from the last person likely to give them to me. “Smith…” He has been as silent as Dimitri and Rocco the past four days, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t watching me. Other than my thirty-second lapse of judgment days ago, the red light in the corner of the room has continuously blinked.
My eyes snap to the other side of the room when a rough, gravelly tone says, “Smith is no longer in charge of the surveillance for this room.” Dimitri doesn’t need to say who’s helming the watch. His eyes are very telling.
Even with my body showing signs it’s missed his voice the past few days, I act as if he isn’t in the room with me. I dart for the walk-in closet, eager to switch out my dressing gown with something a little cooler. The heat bouncing between Dimitri and me is too much. It’s as fiery as it has always been, but since it is also fueled by anger, it is unbearable.
It is the fight of my life to hold in my scream when my race for the closet reveals it’s as empty as my chest feels. All the clothes have been removed—even Dimitri’s. I want to say he knows I’m a stubborn ass, so he put steps in place to force me to submit to him, but I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“I need you to get dressed and come with me.”
I’m torn. With a sudden knowledge that I hate enclosed spaces, I’d donate a kidney to leave these four walls, but if I give in like I did my hunger strike, how bad will my next test be? Perhaps it will be a kidney? I’ve faced every other injustice in my short twenty years, so why not throw organ trafficking into the mix.
Proof he’s as bossy and domineering as ever is showcased in the worst light when Dimitri barks out, “What’s our agreement, Roxanne?”
Over him and his stupid mind games, I march to the mattress, snatch up the leather pants as if I’ll skip chaffing from wearing them sans underwear, carefully pry open my dressing gown, then stuff my feet into the opening of my pants.
Once I have them over my butt, which I’m embarrassed to say took longer than two minutes, I snap up the skimpy strapless top Dimitri picked for me to wear before I spin around to face him.
When I nudge my head to the door, requesting privacy, he has the audacity to do his infamous half-smirk. I don’t know why. The slightest peek he got of the back of my knees when I tugged the rigid leather up my legs is theonlypiece of my skin he’ll ever see.Again.I can’t do anything about our previous exchanges.
“Fine.” He throws his hand into the air to display his annoyance before he pivots to face the door.
Wanting to ensure there’s no chance he’ll get a sneaky peek later, I face the bathroom door before removing my dressing gown. I could get dressed in the bathroom, but considering my room now has multiple cameras, it wouldn’t do me any good.
After ensuring my nipples aren’t showing, I slip my feet into the boots at the end of the bed, then join Dimitri by the door. Sensing my approach, he spins around to face me. I won’t lie, even pissed, I relish the way he can’t help but glide his eyes down my body.
His gaze is so white-hot when he suggests for me to grab my jacket, I shake my head.
A brick lodges in my throat when he says, “It’s cold where you’re going. I don’t want your lips turning a shade of blue.” However, he doesn’t see my panicked response since he gathers up my jacket on my behalf.
The last time he spoke those words to me, my world was upended.
Although petrified I’m about to meet with my maker, I won’t beg. I’m the one who suggested for Dimitri to give me to his enemies, so how can I act shocked by him doing exactly that?
An eerie feeling bombards me when Dimitri guides me down the staircase at the end of the hallway our room is located in. His home isn’t silenced by unusual quiet. Energy is bristling in the air, and I’m reasonably sure only some of it is compliments to Dimitri’s hand hovering above the unconcealed skin on the lower half of my back.
When we enter a room two spots down from Dimitri’s downstairs office, the reason for the hum of chatter is exposed. There are three to four dozen men filling the space. Half are seated around a large oval-size boardroom table, and the rest are standing toward the back.
“Take a good look at this face,” Dimitri says when his suffocating aura deprives the room of oxygen as effectively as his next set of words steal the air from my lungs. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors that this face is worth seven point six million dollars.” He strays his eyes across the men eyeing him with as much interest as me. “I’m here to tell you this face won’t earn you millions if you attempt to cash in the bounty on her head. She will cost you everything. Your life. Your wife. Not even your children will be spared. I’ll destroy you and anyone associated with you. If you don’t believe me, I’m more than happy to display how foolish you are.”
My eyes bounce between Dimitri’s narrowed gaze and his ear when the faintest trickle of a unique accent sounds in my ears. Smith is guiding Dimitri’s eyes around the room as he did mine weeks ago, honing him in on his targets—which is reduced by one when Dimitri lines up his gun with a man at the back of the room and fires one shot.
The man slumps to the floor in an instant, the bullet wound between his eyes as unforgiving as Dimitri’s anger when the cell phone that clatters out of his hand reveals my image on the screen. My outfit proves it was just taken, although it remains unsent in the man’s outbox.
“I understand the bounty is impressive, and that you believe it’s worth the risk, but is it more valuable than your family?”
My eyes don’t know which direction to look when a large screen at the side of the room commences broadcasting a raid in progress. The balaclava-clad faces conducting the raid aren’t members of the FBI or local law enforcement office. Their eyes are familiar. I’ve seen them multiple times the past few weeks, most notably the murky green pair that executes three men kneeling in front of a large brute with a clover tattoo on his cheek.
When Clover lifts one of the deceased man’s heads to face the camera, a collective hiss rolls around the room. The victims’ matching bullet wounds aren’t their only familiarities. If you wiped three decades off the age of the first victim’s face, it would be almost identical to the one Clover is holding up.
“I have men at the front of all your houses.” There’s too much honesty in Dimitri’s tone to discount. “Is anyone else willing to test the authenticity of my threat?”
