29
Isa
Icouldn’t sleep, and after watching the video of my sister and the realization that I woreherdress, I couldn’t bear to wear it any longer. I went to the antique armoire at the side of the room, pulling open the doors and rifling through the clothes hanging inside.
Pants would have been ideal, a barrier between me and Dima where it mattered most. If only the sexist dick had provided me with any. I snatched a floral dress off one of the hangers, hastily ripping Odina’s over my head with my eyes on the door.
The fabric settled over my curves too snugly, the chiffon dipping lower than I wanted between my breasts, but it was the only even remotely covering option.
I hoped the white base would be stained in blood by the end of the night, and I promised to do everything I could to make sure it happened. I might not have been the strongest fighter, but I’d be damned if I didn’t use everything at my disposal to rid the world of the Kuznetsov scum that insisted on plaguing it.
As soon as I was changed, I paced back and forth in the room, exploring the confines of my pretty cage with only my eyes in case someone watched. It would have been naive to think there wouldn’t be cameras hidden somewhere, eyes on every move I made.
The best weapon at my disposal was being underestimated. I would let Dima and Pavel underestimate me until they found themselves buried six feet underground.
I lost track of how long I paced, certain that I would wear a hole in the area rug if I’d worn shoes. Eventually, the beeps of the control panel on the other side of the door made my feet freeze in place. Dima came into the room, his eyes full of condemnation for my defiance.
“You’re meant to be sleeping,” he sighed.
“How thoughtful of you to creep into my bedroom while I’m asleep,” I said, tilting my head to the side and refusing to look at him. I felt his eyes bore into the side of my face as he closed the door behind him.
“If I didn’t suspect it might be traumatic to your pregnancy, you probably would have woken up with me inside you,” he said, closing the distance between us. He touched the swelling on my cheek, running the backs of his fingers over it gently as if he felt regret. “How long do you think it would have taken for you to realize that I’m nothim?”
“The moment I felt you touch me, I’d have known just how vile it felt,” I said with clarity. My skin crawled when he touched me, my soul protested the contact.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “My father neglected to mention you’d been this defiant with Rafael in Ibiza.”
“I wasn’t,” I said simply. The urge to tell him that Rafe was ten times the dominating man he could ever dream to be sat on my tongue, but I withheld it. As much as I wanted to insult him, forcing him to prove his manhood didn’t seem wise given the proximity to the bed. “Does your wife have a gilded cage too?” I asked, glancing at the amber and gold walls.
“You seem to think that just because I gave her a ring and my name, that makes her my queen. She’s a bargaining chip. An alliance with another family in Russia that keeps the Kuznetsov empire in power. She birthed my legitimate children, and she has done her part as expected of our marriage contract. She’s served her purpose,” he said, shrugging and stepping over to the vanity against the wall. He lifted an expensive glass bottle of perfume, bringing it to his nose and sniffing briefly before turning back to me.
“So why stay married?” I asked. It wasn’t as if Iwantedhim to divorce his wife, but my heart hurt for someone who was trapped in a marriage where she mattered so little. Surely in that case, divorce would be better.
The bandages at my wrist prevented him from spraying it there, so he spritzed it on the crook of my unhurt elbow. The floral scent was mixed with notes of vanilla and some kind of blackberry to temper the intensity. “There is no divorce in my world, ??? ?????,” he explained, tilting his head to the side as he studied me. “If it would please you, she could meet an untimely death. Accidents happen all the time sadly.”
“That’s...no,” I said, taking a step back and staring at him with every bit of the hate I felt for him. “She’s the mother of your children.”
“All boys.” He shrugged. “Boys their age should be peeling away from their mother and learning to be men anyway. As men, they’ll understand the usefulness of women and their place in this world.”
“And how long until you do the same to me? How old will I need to be before you decide I’m no longer interesting enough to be useful?”
Dima pursed his lips at my question, truly seeming to consider the answer. “I do not know,” he said, not bothering to lie and tell me that the attraction would last forever. From what I knew of him from Rafe, I was already older than he preferred. “My interest in you has never been the way I typically feel about a woman. I cannot say that you would follow the same pattern.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed, taking my elbow in his grip and guiding me toward the door. “Or perhaps you merely need to understand the bond we share to appreciate that I may never grow tired of you. Only then can you see just how we’re meant to be.”
I swallowed back my revulsion, letting him guide me down the hallway. At the other end of the second floor, another locked door stood out against the opulence. The panel for an access code stood out starkly against the opulent wallpaper and decor of the hall itself.
“Why do you think the stranger pulled Odina out of the river that day?” he asked, making my body go solid when he stopped in front of the door. “Did you think he had a sudden desire to be heroic?”
“Why does anyone need a reason to pull a drowning girl from a river?” I asked, glaring at the door in front of me.
“Olezka worked for my family. He did what he was told to do while I made sure that you breathed. I gave you life from my lungs. Ibreathedfor you. What canEl Diabloever do to compare to that? He can mark your body however he wants, but the very air in your lungs belongs to me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, wincing with each beep of his finger on the control panel. The door clicked open, and his hand touched the knob. Turning it and pushing it in, he motioned for me to step into the dimly lit room first.
A wheelchair faced the windows overlooking the courtyard outside, and a man’s head lolled to the side as if he were sleeping. “What is this?” I asked, backing away a step.