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But that love had been built on a lie, the sorrow of writing the letter she’d left Lyon misplaced.
She turned her head back to the door as a beep sounded from the other side. She’d been surprised to realize that Lyon had locked her in so securely, but she shouldn’t have been. Lyon wasn’t a man who left things to chance. Locking up his wife with an ordinary lock and key was beneath him.
The door swung open and Kira watched as Alek entered the room. As usual, he carried a tray of food laden with a covered dish, a set of flatware, a napkin, and two bottles of water.
In the moment before he kicked the door closed behind him Kira caught sight of the hall. Not that it did her any good. She’d tried repeatedly to analyze the glimpse for clues as to her whereabouts, but all she saw was wood floor, yellowing plaster, deep crown molding where the walls met the high ceilings.
“Morning,” Alek said. He set the tray next to her on the bed and crossed to the dinner tray on the bureau.
She watched his back as he lifted the silver dome that covered the plate. When he turned back to her, he was scowling.
“This isn’t going to help,” he said.
“I demand to speak to Lyon,” she said.
He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He looked tired, his blue eyes bloodshot, blond hair tousled. “You don’t understand. Your demands are no good here, Kira. Not anymore.”
She rose to her feet and walked toward him. “What is the point of keeping me in this room, Alek? If he’s going to kill me, I’d rather just get it over with.”
“Lyon works in his own way, in his own time,” Alek said. “You know that. In the meantime, you should eat. You need to keep up your strength.”
She stared defiantly at him. “Eating isn’t what makes me strong.”
“You’re only making him angry,” Alek said.
“I don’t care,” Kira said. She wanted to make Lyon angry. Maybe then he’d have a taste of what she’d been feeling locked in the bedroom.
He shook his head. “You should. You really should.” He started for the door, then turned around with his hand on the knob. “He’s pakhan now, Kira. He controls the bratva. All of it.”
He punched the code into the keypad, his body blocking her view as always, then stepped through the door.
She watched as it closed behind him.
He controls the bratva. All of it.
She dropped back onto the bed and stared at the camera in the corner of the room. The Spies had made Lyon boss after all. The ruler of the bratva was her captor.
Her husband.
She tried to figure out what it meant for her, what Lyon had planned for her, but nothing came. There was only the wind through the trees outside, the silence of the room that was her prison.
6
The sun had just broken free of the horizon when Lyon returned to the penthouse. He’d been up long before dawn and had run through the silent city, still shrouded in darkness, trying to scour thoughts of Kira from his mind.
Trying to keep himself from going to her.
He’d been there too often in the three days she’d been imprisoned in the house in Lake Forest. Had taken to spending long minutes watching the video feed of her bedroom, even when she was reading or sleeping.
It was a distraction he couldn’t afford. He was pakhan now, and his plans for the bratva required single-minded focus.
To say nothing of the threat of Musa.
Still, he couldn’t stay away from the house he’d bought for Kira as a belated wedding present.
He couldn’t stay away from her.
The video feed was a way to keep himself under control. He’d known he wouldn’t be able to stay away once she was back in Chicago, had hoped the video feed would prevent him from going to her in person.
