My pulse is in hyperdrive, yet I can’t make myself move as he stands up and circles around the table, approaching me with the sleek grace of a predator. All I can do is stare at him, seeing the rage simmering in those metallic eyes.
He’s going to kill me now. He’s going to kill me for this. “I wasn’t…” Terror is a toxic burn in my veins. “It wasn’t—”
“No?” Stopping next to me, he reaches into my bag and pulls out the empty vial. I should run, or at least make an attempt at it, but I’m not brave enough to provoke him further. So I remain still, scarcely breathing as he brings the vial to his nose and sniffs it.
“Ah, yes,” he murmurs, lowering his hand. “A little diazepam. I couldn’t smell it in the wine, but it’s clear like this.” He puts the vial on the table in front of me. “You got it at the hospital, I assume?”
“I… Yes.” There’s no point in denying it. The evidence is literally in front of me.
“Hmm.” He props his hip against the table and gazes down at me. “And what were you going to do when you had me knocked out, ptichka? Deliver me to the FBI?”
I nod, the words frozen in my throat as I stare up at him. With his big body looming over me, I feel like the little bird he compared me to: small and terrified in the shadow of a hawk.
His sensuous mouth twists in a parody of a smile. “I see. And you think it would’ve been that easy? Just knock me out and done?”
I blink up at him, uncomprehending.
“You think I don’t have a contingency plan for that?” he clarifies, and I flinch as he lifts his hand. But all he does is pick up a lock of my hair and brush the ends of it against my jaw, the gesture tender yet cruelly mocking at the same time. “For you trying to kill or disable me in some way?”
“You… you do?”
His lids lower, his gaze dropping to my mouth. “Of course.” The lock of hair brushes over my lips, the ends tickling the sensitive flesh, and my stomach contracts into a hard ball as he says softly, “At this very moment, my men are monitoring your house and everything in the ten-block radius, as well as the little screen that displays my vital signs.” His eyes meet mine. “Do you want to guess what they would’ve done had my blood pressure dropped unexpectedly?”
I mutely shake my head. If Peter’s men are anything like him—and they must be, to do his bidding—I’d rather not know the specifics of what I just narrowly avoided.
His smile takes on a dark edge. “Yes, that’s probably wise, ptichka. Ignorance is bliss and all that.”
I gather the scraps of my courage. “What are you going to do to me?”
“What do you think I’m going to do?” He tilts his head, the smile darkening another fraction. “Punish you? Hurt you?”
My heart drums in my throat. “Are you?”
He looks at me for a few long moments, his smile dimming, then shakes his head. “No, Sara.” There is a strangely weary note in his voice. “Not today.”
Pushing away from the table, he begins gathering the dishes, and I sag in my chair, relieved yet drained of all hope.
If he’s not lying about his men—and I have no reason to think he is—I’m even more trapped than I thought.
27
Peter
* * *
It shouldn’t hurt, knowing that she wants to get rid of me. It shouldn’t feel like blades of fire slicing across my chest. Any person in Sara’s situation would fight back; it’s only logical and expected.
It shouldn’t hurt, but it does, and no matter what I tell myself as I lead Sara upstairs, the monster inside me snarls and howls, demanding that I do exactly as she feared and punish her for this transgression.
When we get to the bedroom, I don’t make her take her clothes off in front of me again; I’m too close to the edge to guarantee my self-control. I already tested it too much during dinner, playing along with her innocent, I didn’t just drug your wine routine. I knew what she did right away—the wine spill was too out of character for her—but I wanted to see how good of an actress she is, and so I continued to converse with her, to pretend I was clueless and gullible, an idiot about to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book.
“You can take a shower,” I say, nodding toward the bathroom when she stops next to the bed, her gaze darting nervously from me to the bed and back. “I’ll be here when you return.”
Relief flashes across her face, and she disappears into the bathroom. I use the opportunity to go downstairs and take a quick rinse in one of the other bathrooms.