Page 11 of Sinful Claim


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There’s no point in asking any more questions if I’m only going to make him angry, and I doubt I’ll be getting anymore answers anyway, so I might as well just sit back and figure out a proper escape plan.

It’ll be difficult to come up with a plan when I have no phone and no location name. Not to mention, I don’t even know the layout of the house we’re going to. Does it make sense for me to waste time trying to plan an escape when I’m missing vital pieces of information?

I try to come up with some guidelines to keep myself safe, but I end up falling asleep in the back of the car, anyway.

Sleep comes surprisingly easily, even though the seats are firm leather. I’ve been away from my own bed for the past week, which has cost me sleep throughout the time that I’ve spent in Vegas. The air around me is cold as the air conditioning swirls over my skin, but eventually I drift off into a half-sleep, just like when I was a little kid in the back of my mom’s minivan.

I dream about the recording studio, standing in the middle of the booth with the soundproof foam around me. I always thought it was really eerie to stand inside of it, like the noises inside of my head are amplified by the lack of other sounds.

The only problem is that there’s no door on the inside of the booth this time. The second I realize I’m trapped, I begin to panic. Is this just an extension of how I feel in my waking life, stuck in the back seat of a dangerous stranger’s car with no real promise of escape? Why can’t my brain allow me to forget, even in my dreams?

The half-sleep is disrupted by the sound of the car shutting off about two hours later. Instead of shooting up at attention like I want to, I remain on my side with my eyes closed. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m paralyzed by fear now that I know we’re stopping, or if it’s because I want to see how he’ll try to wake me up. It’ll be easier to gauge his character by the way he chooses to treat me in individual moments rather than the whole of the night we just had.

At least I hope so.

I hear him open the door, climbing out and closing it carefully instead of slamming it like I would have expected. It’s an expensive car. I suppose I wouldn’t slam the door if my car was that expensive.

Still, part of me wants to believe that he’s trying not to startle me.

Now I’ll find out how committed he is to it.

I’m on my side facing the back of the seat, so I can’t even open my eyes a little to try to see him. I hear the front seat slide forward, but he doesn’t say a thing.

I feel his hands on me, and it takes everything in me not to jump. He isn’t trying to grope me at all. His hands slide underneath me, bringing me closer to the door until he’s clasping me to his chest.

Why isn’t he forcing me to walk on my own? I’m effectively his prisoner. He could make me walk without shoes if he wanted to. I figure that a bad man would take pleasure in mistreating someone after a long stressful night, but he’s carrying me to the door like I weigh nothing.

The walk to the house isn’t that far, and eventually I hear the door open and then close behind us. The inside of the house is so quiet compared to the roaring engine of the Ferrari, and my ears are still ringing loudly.

I’m also shocked at how good it smells despite it allegedly belonging to a man. If he had a wife, I doubt he’d be bringing home an errant woman to sleep on his couch from the night before. I have to give him credit so far, but to be fair, I haven’t actually seen the state of his home. It could have a carpet of dirty clothes or nothing but beer in the fridge. I’ve certainly seen worse in my days as a single woman.

Relief washes over me as I feel him carry meupa set of stairs instead of down. Something about going upstairs brings back that same feeling of being carried to my room as a child instead of being thrown into a cage in the basement.

The sound of his footfalls changes as he steps from a hardwood floor onto the soft, thick carpet of the stairs. As he pulls me closer to his chest for better balance, I revel in the spicy warmth of his cologne as it clings to the fibers of his jacket. It’s faint, but I can still smell just enough of it to make me feel like I want a little more of it.

Our ascent up the stairs doesn’t take long before he’s walking me down a dark hallway to a room on the left. The darkness feels cozy, not foreboding and creepy, as I would have expected. I’m a little shocked at how unbothered I am about all of this. I should be crying and begging for my life!

Eventually, I’m placed down into a bed with the softest blankets I’ve ever felt in my life. I sink right into the mattress like I’m floating on top of a perfectly still river under a cluster of stars. I know I should be completely opposed to the idea of sleeping here at all, but this feelssomuch better than my bed at the hotel. I paid so much to stay at that stupid hotel, and the bed was still so bad that I’m grateful to have been kidnapped into a nicer accommodation.

Aleksander doesn’t linger, which sends another wave of relief through me. He could have chosen to stand there and examine me like any other man would have, but he chose to leave immediately instead, without taking advantage. He seems like an asshole, but he’s not a creep. That will make it a lot easier to comply with his demands.

As soon as I hear the door close behind him, I open my eyes to see that the room I’m in is both larger and better decorated than I would have imagined. The lights are off, but the faint light coming in from the streetlights outside shows a clean, meticulously organized space that I would attribute to a lawyer or a doctor before a criminal. I’m honestly impressed, and I haven’t even seen that much.

I’m curious about the rest of the house, but sleep must come first. I drift away within minutes, reveling in the sweet luxury of this strange man’s silk sheets.

7

Aleksander

Despite everything I’ve ever been through, tonight has to have been one of the longest nights of my entire life.

I had absolutely no intention of bringing that girl home with me, even if she still had the briefcase. My plan was to take it back from her, find out what was inside of it, and move forward with whatever information the damn thing could give me. I know it wasn’t empty, but it just wasn’t heavy enough to convince Faye to open it. If only it had been, then maybe she could have been of some use to me.

I’ve done a lot of dumb shit throughout my time in the bratva, but taking a hostage is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had. She’s been pretty docile so far, save for a few snippy remarks, but I still don’t trust her enough to relax at all. Adam has never been in this kind of trouble before, and the one time he needs me, I have to be distracted with a clueless civilian woman locked in my guest bedroom.

The drive back from the city took a couple of hours, so I have no doubts that there will be some form of media coverage about what’s happened. It’s not so muchthatthey’re covering anything, butwhat?Could I have been identified from before I kidnapped Faye? Could someone have seen me and reported me quickly enough for the front desk to locate my car in the parking structure? Could I have gotten lucky enough for Grisha to have been spotted and scapegoated into taking the hit?

Turning on the TV to find out is a test of wills that I haven’t encountered in years. Usually, I’m far more confident about the outcomes of my missions, but this entire disaster was completely unplanned. Any other time, I would have planned out every move down to minute-by-minute increments until I accomplished my goal. This time, it’s like a fucking bomb went off, deafening me and turning me upside down until I was almost caught.

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