“You’re an idiot if you think I’ll believe anything you say, D’yavol.” A hint of vulnerability touched his voice, and I realized, with a sense of disgust, the man had feelings for her. I wondered if she shared them. The idea seemed more repulsive than watching the Hallmark channel for twenty-four hours straight.
&nb
sp; “I prefer to talk about my prowess in bed over tea, but I’ll make an exception today. I assure you, Mila has no complaints.” Had, I corrected in my head.
“Remember, when you have your revenge, Mila will come back to me. We’ll see who has better prowess then.”
I gritted my teeth, and a murderous buzz flared to life beneath my skin. “Run, Ivan,” I warned with a deadly calm. “Run fast. Because if I catch you, I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands.”
I ended the call.
The bastard was in my city, but he knew how to play the game. Not as good as me though.
I would find him.
And when I did, there was a space on my mantel with his name on it.
abience
(n.) the strong urge to avoid someone
The sun rose to fill the space with rays, bound wrists, and retribution.
Yulia entered the room adorned in black, exuding irritation when she noticed the broken chair on the floor. Unperturbed by the sight of me, she took her time tidying things up while humming a creepy tune. I wondered where Ronan found his employees. The insane asylum?
Dried blood marched like ants down my body, itching and chafing. Worse than the crawling sensation was the guilt I fought from rising to the surface. I shouldn’t feel remorse for defending myself, but a tightness still invaded my chest. I wondered if the blood on my skin was an eternal stain I could never wash off. I wondered if that man had family, children. The idea made me sick to my stomach, so, for the hundredth time, I forced the thought away and decided I needed to escape this place before it swallowed me whole.
My gaze found Yulia who was dusting the room with single-minded purpose. Every woman had to have a little maternal instinct inside of them. Maybe I could play on her sympathies to help me. I jumped when she smacked the dresser with a loud thwack. Then, she flicked a quarter-size spider to the floor with a disturbing amount of satisfaction. Obviously, the motherly side in this one was smaller than most, but it wasn’t like I had many other options.
“Do you have children?” I asked her.
“Ikh slishkom mnogo.” Too many of them.
Not exactly the best start, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. “What would you do if one of them was in my situation?”
“I would tell them not to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
I blinked slowly. “I must be unfamiliar with Russian gifts. In America, being kidnapped isn’t equivalent to unwrapping a tin of butter cookies and that hideous scarf your grandma knitted for you on Christmas morning.”
With a roll of her eyes, she moved to right the rug. “There are worse things than being fed three times a day.”
“Like being tied to a bed covered in blood all night?”
“You got yourself into that mess, devushka.” She must room next door or have secret passages in the walls she peeked through. I was growing annoyed she was painting me in the wrong here, and even more irritated a part of me felt she was right.
“And I imagine you’d just lie here and take it,” I said in disbelief.
“You are dramatic. Master is not bad man.”
A constant beat ached in my head whenever someone spoke to me in this home that defied all rationality. The only thing Ronan needed in order to become the classic villain straight from the pages of a vampire novel was fangs. The fact Yulia couldn’t see that, given she just referred to him as “Master,” conjured the mental image of him brainwashing her with a supernatural power.
“I’m not sure how men courted in your day and age, but in the twenty-first century, this”—I tugged at the ropes on my wrists—“isn’t exactly the best third date.”
“Americans. Greedy, the lot of you.”
I dropped my head back onto the pillow. Clearly, I wouldn’t receive any help from Yulia.
“I have to pee,” I deadpanned.