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“You can resist it all you want, my sweet Kaya, but by the time I’m done with you, you’ll want nothing but to be mine, to live for me.”
As my brain tried to comprehend his words, I felt an overwhelming sensation overtake my body, until blackness filled my vision.
By the time I woke up the next morning, nothing but a lingering scent of Davorin’s cologne remained. I knew I was alone, his presence long gone. I sat up, leaned against the headboard, and pulled the covers tighter around myself.
I felt sick to my stomach.
Part of me wanted to tell Aleksei about Davorin. He would build me my own personal Fort Knox, and no one would be able to get inside, though it would mean I’d be shipped off to Russia and locked away until Davorin was found.
I doubted they’d be able to track him down with ease.
But another part of me didn’t want to ask for help. It was my fault I was in this mess—surely I should be the one to get myself out of it?
I kept trying to figure out how while I got ready. Aleksei had called me and told me he’d sent a car for me. I felt no desire to get out of bed, let alone get dressed up; however, I had an image to maintain. I couldn’t disappoint him.
We met at the same restaurant as the last time we’d seen each other. The same table, same staff, and same guards. Even the food and drinks he’d ordered were the same. It was exhausting really.
“How have you been, Ekaterina?” Aleksei asked, hiding a look of anger behind his wine glass.
Suppressing the desire to roll my eyes, I gave him a fake grin. “You mean since the last time you saw me, which was what, two days ago?”
“You know, I called you to discuss something else, but you keep stirring up trouble wherever you go.”
I remained passive. “Elaborate please.”
He raised an eyebrow, amused. “First two men at the club, and now a man in the restaurant bathroom Are you killing these men?”
My hand trembled for a moment, and Aleksei’s keen eye caught it instantly. “I have no reason to. It’s just a coincidence.”
He turned serious quickly, and I noticed that the restaurant—which had been almost full when I’d arrived—was growing emptier by the minute. “I don’t believe in coincidences. You’re sweating, and you were shaking a moment ago. That doesn’t happen to someone like you, so tell me, what the fuck is going on?”
“There’s nothing going on,” I replied, though given my current state of my mind, I wasn’t even slightly convincing. “Did you find out what happened to Misha and Sasha?”
Misha and Sasha were two guards who’d gone missing recently. They’d been assigned to me as soon as I’d turned eighteen, and although I wasn’t attached to them, they’d been very capable—highly trained and fully dedicated to my safety.
“Yes, I found them in a ditch outside of the city, Ekaterina.” The timbre of Aleksei’s voice had risen, and the tone made me realize that, aside from his two guards, no one else was around. Not people, not staff.
“In a ditch? You should know me better than that, Aleksei. That’s not my style.”
“You understand that I will find out whatever it is you’re hiding from me, right? And it will happen soon. So I suggest you start talking while I’m asking nicely.”
Aleksei was the protector of us all. If a single hair on my head was harmed, people would pay with theirs, but I didn’t need his protection. It was a pure contradiction of everything that had gone through my head earlier in the day, but now that I’d had enough time to think about it, I’d reached a conclusion—Iwouldhandle this on my own.
Another contradiction was Aleksei’s behavior. He’d sworn to protect me, yet he was willing to ship me back to where all of my monsters had been born, where all of my nightmares were rooted—home. He might have had other plans, but that wasn’t a fantasy I was willing to indulge in. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going back.
No, I didn’t need to tell Aleksei. Thus far, Davorin had yet to do anything to harm me, aside from staking his claim on me, but that was never going to happen. And because psychopaths had the tendency to find new obsessions, I was going to make sure he found one that wasn’t me.
My eyes found Aleksei’s angry face, and I realized the silence that had fallen had turned deafening. “Don’t worry about me. You and I both know I can protect myself, and nothing is actually happening.”
He didn’t respond.
“But I do need to ask a favor.”
His eyebrow raised, an encouragement to continue.
“I’m not going to the station to give a damn statement, and neither is Tiana. Fix it, make it disappear, I don’t care.”
“It was done this morning,” he announced, with a roll of his eyes.
