Was he right?
She put her hand against her hot forehead. She’d spent ten years protecting her sister with all her heart, but from the moment she’d seen Vladimir, her every instinct was wrong. Every choice she made seemed to end in disaster. Maybe Josie was better off without her. “Your men will take her straight to the airport? Do you promise?”
“I promise nothing. Believe me or don’t.”
Bree’s body still shook as they drove out of downtown, eventually leaving the city behind, heading north into the green-shadowed mountains at the center of the island. As they drove through the darkly green hills of Oahu, moonlight illuminated the low-slung clouds kissing the earth. She finally looked at him.
“Josie doesn’t have any money for a plane ticket,” she said in a small voice.
“My men will escort her onto one of my private jets, and she’ll be taken back to the Mainland. A bodyguard already procured her last paycheck from the hotel. And yours, since you no longer need money.”
Bree’s mouth fell open. “I don’t need money? Are you crazy?”
“You are my possession now. I will provide you with everything I feel you require.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. She bit her lip. “So you mean you’ll feed me and house me? Like…like your pet?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “A pet would imply affection. You are more like…a serf.”
“A serf?” she gasped.
“Just as my ancestors once had in Russia.” He looked at her. “For the rest of your life, you will work for me, Bree. For free. You will never be paid, or allowed to leave. Your only reason for living will be to serve me and give me pleasure.”
Bree swallowed.
“Oh,” she whispered. Good to know where she stood. Setting her jaw, she looked out at the spectacular vista of sharp hills on either side of the Pali Highway, then closed her eyes. At least Josie was free, Bree thought. At least she’d done one thing right before she disappeared forever….
Her eyes flew open. No. She sat up straight in her seat. She wasn’t going to give up so easily. She’d find a way to escape her fate. She would!
She folded her arms, glaring at him. “Where do you intend to hide me, Vladimir? Because I hardly think your shareholders would approve of slavery. Or kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping!” Vladimir spoke a low, guttural word in Russian that was almost certainly a curse. “After so many years of lies, do you even know how to tell the truth?”
“What else would you call it when you—”
“You had the money to pay your sister’s debt. You were free to leave. But you chose to gamble out of pure greed. And now you’re too much of a coward to admit you lost.” He turned to her, his blue eyes like ice in the moonlight. “I let your sister go because you’re the one I want to punish, Bree. Only you.” He gave a slow, cold smile. “And I will.”
CHAPTER THREE
VLADIMIR watched a tumult of emotions cross Bree’s beautiful face. Rage. Fury. Grief. And most of all helplessness.
It was like Christmas and his birthday all at once.
Still smiling, he turned back to the deserted, moonlit road and pushed down on the gas of the Lamborghini, causing it to give a low purr as it sped through the lush mountains of Oahu’s interior.
When he’d first seen young Josie Dalton at the poker game, getting lured in over her head by the hotel manager, he hadn’t recognized her. How could he? He’d never met the kid before. He’d just thought some idiot girl was letting herself get played.
He hadn’t liked it, so he’d tried to get her out of the game. An unusually charitable deed for a man who now prided himself on having a cold, flinty diamond instead of a heart.
Once, he’d tried to protect his younger brother. Once, he’d believed in the woman he loved. Now he despised weakness, especially in himself. But three months ago, after nearly dying in a fiery crash on the Honolulu International Raceway, he’d taken his doctor’s advice and bought a beach house on a secluded stretch of the Windward Coast, to recuperate.
He’d had no clue Bree was in Hawaii. If he’d known, he’d have gotten up from his hospital bed and walked to the airport, broken bones and all. What man in his right mind would seek out Bree Dalton? That would be like yearning for a plague or other infectious disease.
She was poison, pure and simple. A poison that tasted sweet as sugar and spicy as cinnamon, but once ingested, would destroy a man’s body from within, like acid. And that’s just what she’d done ten years ago. Her scheming, callous heart had burned Vladimir so badly that she’d sucked all the mercy from his soul.
She’d done him a favor, really. He was better off without a working heart. Being free of sympathy or emotion had helped him build a worldwide business. Helped him get rid of a business partner he no longer wanted.
Bree had betrayed him. But so had his younger brother, in revealing that deception to a newspaper reporter while their first major deal was on the line. Burned, Vladimir had ruthlessly cut his brother out of their company, buying him out for pennies. Then he’d announced his acquisition of mining rights in a newly discovered gold field in northern Siberia. A year later, at twenty-six, Vladimir was worth five hundred million dollars, while his twenty-four-year-old brother was still broke and living in the Moroccan desert.