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“Of course I escaped. I earned his trust. I spent every single minute of my seven hundred and eleven days with him, learning every single thing about him. I learned exactly what made him tick. His likes. His dislikes. The things that made him get that faraway, glazed look in his eyes. The quickest way to make him lose control.”
Shane says nothing, but his eyes remain fixed on mine.
“He never trusted me enough to allow any weapons in the house. He even refused me cutlery. I was only allowed plastic spoons to eat with. But I had a hairbrush with a wooden handle. I was mostly locked in my room, or his room, and that was much worse.” I shudder at the memories. “But I was permitted outside in the gardens for one hour every night. Just like in a real prison. Every single night I would sharpen the hairbrush on the edge of a stone step. Do you know how long it takes to sharpen a wooden stake to a perfect point using only a smooth rock?”
Shane shakes his head. “No.”
“Seven hundred and eleven days,” I say with a snort. “One night, he’d summoned me to his bed, and while he was sleeping, I stabbed him in the throat. I’d figured out his security system. Once he was gone, it was easy enough to get out.”
“But you didn’t kill him?” Shane raises an eyebrow at me. “Because there’s a rumor that he’s still out there somewhere?”
My blood starts to thunder around my body. “No. Somehow he survived. The day after I escaped, I panicked. I went back to burn down the house and destroy the evidence that I’d been there, but he was gone.”
“And he’s been in hiding ever since,” Shane adds.
“Yes. But one day, I’ll finish what I started.”
Shane narrows his eyes at me. “So, Nikolai Semenov didn’t find you by chance?”
“No. I set up the whole thing. He was high up in the Russian Mafia. I thought maybe he’d have some information on whoever ordered the hit on my family. Or on the Wolf himself. I never knew why my parents left Russia. Whenever I asked, they would change the subject. What I did know was that we were always running from something. My father was the best at what he did. There was no code, no computer, no system that he couldn’t crack. Maybe they killed him because he knew something he shouldn’t? Or maybe because he refused to work for them? Whatever it was, eventually, he paid the ultimate price. The Wolf made both of us watch while he slit my brothers’ throats and raped my mother before he did the same to her. Then he told my father that he wouldn’t kill me, but he would take me as a payment instead, and I would live the rest of my life in pain and suffering. But, from the bits of information he gave away to me while I was his prisoner, I guess he was supposed to kill me too because his employers were furious that he took me as a hostage instead. He said that no-one could ever find me. Everyone had to believe that I was dead. That’s why he kept me locked away, and it’s probably the only thing still keeping me alive.”
“Because everyone believes you’re already dead?” Shane says, almost to himself.
I look up at Shane and his face is impassive. He runs his hand across his jaw and frowns at me. “So, where do my brothers and I fit into your plan, Hacker?”
“You don’t. I had no idea who you were. I mean, I’d heard of you, obviously, but I had no business in your world. However, when you killed my only link to the Wolf, I needed time to regroup. And you were about to kill me, remember? I figured I could work for you for a few months while I figured out my next move.”
He narrows his eyes at me and the heat of his intense gaze penetrates every part of my body. “How do I know that this wasn’t all a part of your plan? You could be working for the Wolf right now. Or the Russians. How the hell can I trust anything that comes out of your mouth?”
“I know that I’ve done nothing to earn your trust, Shane. I get that you don’t think you can trust me now. But, I give you my word -”
“Your word means nothing to me. Once you’ve lied to me, everything you tell me is tainted by that. Even if you spoke the truth now, how would I know it?”
“You must understand why I lied, Shane?” Desperation creeps into my voice, and it annoys me.
“I do,” he sighs. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t trust you. You have lured my brothers into your bed, and you have just admitted to me that you escaped the Wolf by doing the same thing. You used your body as a weapon.”
I draw in a breath as my blood starts to thunder around my body and I clench my fists by my sides. “I did not lure the Wolf into my bed! He forced me into his. And yes, I used my body to get what I needed from him. But, as a sixteen-year-old girl held captive by a monster, I had little else at my disposal,” I snarl at him.
His face softens. “I know that. And I’m not judging you, Hacker. Simply stating a fact.”
“So, what now? You go back to your original plan and kill me?” I narrow my eyes at him, readying myself to launch across the desk if he says yes.
“No.” He frowns at me. “I wouldn’t hear the end of it if I take away my brothers’ new toy.”
The sting of his words is like a slap to my face and I blink back the tears. Because that is all a woman like me is to men like him. “Then let me go, Shane, and I can be out of here in five minutes and you never need to see me again. It will be like I was never here.”
He glares at me. “Let you go?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
“And where would you go, Hacker?”
“I’ll figure it out. I’ve been surviving on my own for ten years. My father taught me everything he knew. I’ll get by.”
“Do you want to leave?”
I swallow as I try to figure out how to answer to that question. “No,” I finally admit.
