The cold admission leaves me breathless. They’re keeping me alive so I can do a job. That’s all.
“We’re not complete monsters. Most of us, anyway.” The big man doesn’t smile when he says it.
Silence settles over the spotless kitchen, and Dmitri stays quiet for a minute as though he’s letting me take everything in.
“Anything else?” he finally asks.
“Could I—” The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I nearly swallow them before forcing them out. “Can I have a phone? To call my fa?—”
“No.”
Dmitri’s sharp denial cuts me off with a finality I feel in my bones.
“You will have no contact with the outside world. Like Evgeny told you, you try to escape, you try to tell anyone where you are while you’re working, and all this is over. We’ll know about it, and we won’t forgive another transgression.”
Just like that, Dmitri is back to the mafia bear of ice and steel. I’ve met the boundaries of my captivity, and it’s a stark reminder I have no friends here, only enemies.
“Okay.”
The word sounds meek to my ears, which makes me angry because I hate feeling this way. But the feeling dies to embers just as quickly, because the realization fully sinks in that this is my reality for now and the foreseeable future.
“Good. Tell Alona if you need anything. Oh and,” he gestures at the northern wing of the house I can just see through the kitchen windows, “don’t go into the northern wing of the house. It’s completely off-limits to you. This is your only warning.”
Dmitri turns and leaves without another word, and I step out into the outdoor living room. The bracing, salt-laced breeze whips my hair. I shiver, but it’s not because I’m cold.
From where I stand, I can hear the waves crashing at the bottom of the cliff, a steady, booming rhythm that tells me just how far down I’d fall if I decided to try to escape. An escape would, as Evgeny Kucherov himself promised me, end in my death.
Beyond the cliff is only the ocean, stretching to the endless horizon. Tall hedges on either side of the enormous property block the view of any other neighboring mansions. I’d seen as much as we drove through the Palos Verdes hills and through the massive, heavily guarded gates to the palace-like structure on a cliff. At first, sitting terrified in the back of the black SUV between two armed Russians, I’d had a bizarre thought we were heading to one of those vacation resorts.
We might be in an LA suburb surrounded by wealth, golf courses, and mansions on either side, but for all intents and purposes, I am alone.
The cognitive dissonance is fierce, and a sudden lump in my throat chokes off my air again, my stomach roiling with it. I’m in a Palos Verdes mansion, a part of the greater Los Angeles area I have never been to and never expected to be. Apparently, I have all but the north wing at my disposal, a view of the ocean, a pool, and a vista worth all the millions the mafia boss paid for it.
And yet, I can’t leave the premises or I’ll be shot dead. I’m under constant surveillance. I can’t run to the corner store, take a drive, or get coffee with Dad. We can’t talk to each other while he flips silently through a book. I can’t even call my family to let them know I’m alive.
Tears fill my eyes, the view going wobbly until the blues, greens, and browns mix into one quivering blob of color.
I am never getting out of here alive.
6
EVA
It’s the first time I’ve been outside since I arrived at Evgeny’s estate. My gaze goes to the far-off horizon, where sea and sky blur into one. I cross the lawn and, when no one stops me, keep going to the edge of the grass. All that stands between the cliff’s edge and me is a path of crushed stone and a low hedge.
And then nothing but open air and the thin, rocky beach below.
The air smells like sun-warmed grass, bougainvillea, and sea salt. From where I’m standing, I can see the coastline unfurling, the hills dotted with homes, the beaches serene from this distance. A lone sailboat tacks against the breeze, its white sails full, the crests of the waves glittering in the sunlight.
“Nice view, isn’t it?”
I jump at the accented voice and look back to find a stranger. The man could be a model. He’s tall and lanky, with piercing blue eyes set in an angular face topped by an unruly mop of dark hair. A twinkle brightens those eyes under dark, heavy brows and tugs at the corners of his mouth.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
With the chuckle in his voice and the look on his face, I’m pretty sure he isn’t all that sorry.
He has no gun, unlike the armed guards in and around the house. He’s also wearing a faded blue T-shirt and relaxed jeans. Between the messy hair falling over his forehead, the hole in the knee of his jeans, and his round-shouldered posture with hands stuffed into his pockets, I can’t tell how old he is.
