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I can feel the bucket slipping through my fingers, but I do my best to silently readjust my hold. Standing in the middle of the stairs, it’s not like there’s anywhere to hide. But I want to hear as much of this conversation as I can before I’m spotted.
What happened on the third floor this morning?
“It makes sense to me,” a third voice says. “If someone locked me up in a room, I’d go batshit.”
Locked up?My heart clenches.
Who does Kirill have locked up? I knew it was a possibility. I imagined bars and chains earlier, but even still, some deeper part of me thought I was blowing things out of proportion. But how many other ways can this all be interpreted? Maybe, if anything, I was underestimating just how grim the third floor’s secrets might be.
“You’re already batshit.”
The whole group laughs and then the third voice continues. “I’d rip the walls down to get out of there. I wasn’t born to be caged.”
“From the sounds of it, that’s what happened,” the first man says. “I saw wallpaper coming off the walls and a door hanging off its hinges. Shit was torn the fuck up.”
“And we’ll be the ones to clean it since the staff can’t go up there. Hip-fuckin’-hooray.”
“Kirill is worried one of the girls will get scared and run to the papers, probably,” the Russian man suggests. “He doesn’t want the bad press.”
Just before the men appear at the top of the stairs, I drop my bucket loudly and make a big show of rearranging the cleaning products. When I look up again, the men are looking down at me, heavy brows drawn.
“You lost? The elevator is down the hall,” the man with the Russian accent says.
I jolt and press a hand to my heart, pretending to be startled. “I’m sorry. You scared me. I didn’t hear you coming.”
It’s a thin lie. Press on it hard enough, it will shatter. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how far sound carries in this marble mausoleum. I would have heard them coming if I was still in the kitchen. But I’m hoping the men won’t investigate too deeply.
They’re young. Two of them have scruffy beards, but the third is completely clean-shaven with a top bun bouncing on top of his head. All three of them are jacked, rippling with muscles I didn’t even know existed. Clearly, they’re using one of the three gyms on the property on a regular basis. Maybe they play for the invisible football team.
“The elevator is down the hall,” the man repeats. “It would be easier than taking the stairs.”
No duh, dipshit.I smile. “Thanks. I just thought I’d try to get in some extra cardio by taking the stairs. I didn’t consider that I might break my neck carrying all of this stuff up there.”
“We can’t have you breaking your neck,” the man with the topknot says. I recognize his voice. He’s the one with special clearance to be on the third floor. “It would be a waste of all that cardio.”
His eyes peruse me from tip to toe. There’s far too much appreciation there, considering I’m in the same maid uniform everyone else is wearing. They’re rather shapeless and sexless, as far as those things go.
Still, I allow it. If he’s admiring me, he won’t be worrying about whether I know too much and should get strung up alongside whichever prisoner they have locked up in Kirill’s third floor dungeon.
“I’ll try to make it up in one piece,” I laugh, smiling at them as I continue up.
He comes down the stairs and takes the bucket from me. “Allow me.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I protest. “I’m sure you’re all very busy.”
“I always have time to help a beautiful woman.” His hand curves over mine for a second. “What’s your name?”
“Rayne. What’s—”
I might as well have set off a bomb. The man yanks his hand back immediately and all three men back away like I might be infectious or radioactive or both.
“I’ll see you around,” Top Knot says quickly.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what changed. Kirill is the only reason those men would sprint in the opposite direction like I’m the boogeyman.
He’sthe reason Sonya gave me special instructions.
He’sthe reason the men are afraid to look at me.
