“Has anyone ever told you how fucking reckless you are?” Andriani asks me, slowly trailing the cold metal of the gun along my jaw.
I’m calculating my odds of getting the gun from him without getting shot.
Not good.
The barrel stops under my ear, cold and unrelenting, just like his eyes.
“Stop doing stupid shit,” he growls. “Now give me your fucking wrists. Slowly.”
“You’re going to cuff me again?” I hate the idea. My fingers are still tingling. “Please don’t. I promise I won’t throw anything at you.”
“Like I’d take the word of a Sidorov after everything your family has pulled.” His lip curls. “Wrists. Now. And if you want to stay alive, you’ll move slowly and avoid trying anything.”
I could knee him in the groin. He’s close enough that I might be able to inflict damage. Of course, there’s also the possibility that his finger will jump on the trigger and my brains wind up splattered on the cloudy mirror behind me.
So I concede defeat for now, offering him my wrists like he demanded.
He single-handedly claps the cuffs back on and steps away, leaving me leaning against the vanity and feeling strangely bereft. Some part of me liked the way it felt to have his hard body pressed against mine.
Maybe when the blood rushed back into my hands, it abandoned my brain.
“Come with me,” he orders gruffly, keeping his frigid gaze trained on me along with his pistol as he backs out of the bathroom.
“Are we going for a scenic walk?” I crack.
“Yeah, the kind you’re not going to come back from if you keep it up.”
He’s doing his best to scare me, but I also know that killing me would start a war that would be infinitely bigger and bloodier than Misha blowing up a restaurant and ordering a naked Andriani girlfriend to be cuffed to a bed. I don’t fool myself into believing Misha loves me—like any true sociopath, he’s not capable of that. But I am useful to him, and that counts for a hell of a lot more than love in our world.
I precede Andriani into the main living area, and for the first time, I take in the rugged decor. It’s like Bob Ross and ahunting outfitter vomited all over the walls, a comical mixture of landscape paintings and wildlife taxidermy.
“Nice,” I comment, taking in a deer that’s staring at me with lifeless eyes, as if to sayrun. “Planning to keep my head and mount it with the rest?”
“Maybe,” he says casually, like we’re talking about whether he wants cereal for breakfast instead of murder and severed heads.
“Did you kill all of these poor creatures?” I ask, feeling bad for the pheasant that is mounted on a branch, wings poised to take a flight that will never happen.
“They came with the cabin. A gift from the former owner.” He moves beside me and gestures to one of the vintage barstools pulled up to a mint-green, laminate-topped island. “Sit.”
I’m tempted to ask him if his mamma didn’t teach him any manners, but then I recall that his mother disappeared when he was a kid. I know what it’s like to have a mother who’s a sore subject, so I pull out the stool as best as I can with cuffed hands and perch myself on it.
“Happy?”
“I’d be happier if you dialed back the attitude,” he retorts, stalking to the fridge.
I take quick stock of the room and countertop. No potential weapons to be found. The drawer where I found the steak knife is on his side of the kitchen and out of reach.
“My attitude is a direct reflection of being kidnapped and held at gunpoint by a Mafia goon,” I tell him cheerfully. “Look, I have a solution to all this. You can just…wait for it…let me go.”
He gives me a look. “Not happening. Hands on the counter where I can see them.”
I sigh and do as he tells me, because today isn’t the day I want a nine millimeter between my eyes. The counter is cool andsmooth, and an involuntary shiver passes through me. It’s chilly in this hovel.
“Cold?” he asks.
I’m shocked that he notices or cares.
“A little,” I admit.
