A smile plays around Natalia’s mouth. “Ready to move on?”
“To where?” I shake my head, trying to clear my head.
She motions for me to follow her as she continues walking past several more nondescript doors. The basement is like a maze. I can imagine getting lost down here. Natalia stops in front of the very last door at the end of the hallway.
“Are you ready to meet your acting coach? He’s very French and very eccentric,” she says with no small amount of sarcasm.
Monsieur Coset is a small-boned French man dressed all in black, with drama oozing out of his pores. He introduces himself to me, shaking my hand with a simple“enchantée,” and then waves off Natalia. She just rolls her eyes and shows herself out.
“No offense, but what’s the deal with these acting lessons?” I ask.
He definitely looks offended. “Acting is key to the success of your mission, my dear. You’ll need to be observant, you’ll need to immerse yourself in a persona, and think quickly in a pinch. I’m here to teach you how to do all of that.”
“Great,” I mumble. I’ll take this over firearms lessons any day.
Monsieur Coset explains he teaches the Stanislavski System for acting, developed by a famous Russian actor and director, Constantin Stanislavski. It’s sort of like method acting, where the actor—me in this case—uses their emotional memory and experience to immerse themselves in a role.
Well, good luck to my French friend here, because no experience in my life has prepared me to seduce an ugly toad like Oleg, extract secret information from him and then drug him before he demands I get naked. The more that I think about it, the crazier this all sounds.
Sitting in the middle of a bare bones room, he asks me to recall the last time I felt powerful and confident, in a new or difficult circumstance.
“How is this relevant?” I ask, drawing a blank.
“You need to access that feeling,” he says in heavily accented English. “Intelligence gathering is all about confidence. Nerves betray ulterior motives.”
Is this man serious? I was always nervous around Oleg Antonov and no amount of training can change that.
Noticing my reluctance, Monsieur Coset places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Close your eyes, Georgia. Get comfortable. We’re going to try a different tack.”
After he leads me through a series of breathing and relaxation exercises, I feel more calm and grounded, so when Monsieur Coset asks me again to conjure the feelings of power and confidence, a vision of Andrei kissing me outside of my room springs to mind, the delicious friction of his hand rubbing my pussy over my dress.
What the… ?
This is not the image I expected, yet, as I hold on to the vision for a moment longer, I’m suffused with the feeling of… rightness. Even though I was not the one in charge, there was a certain power in driving a man like Andrei crazy. Crazy enough to do something he clearly didn’t mean to do.
“Are you picturing the experience?” he asks.
“Yep,” I rasp, heat flooding my face.
“Bravo, Georgia. Now hold on to that feeling while you envisage a few scenarios that you may experience when infiltrating the enemy.”
Infiltrating? Damn, he makes it sound so impressive.
He takes me through a series of exercises—acting out intimidating scenarios I may find myself in when I am back in the Antonov household. Monsieur Coset plays Oleg, and while he’s no physical match for the brute, he does a good job of embodying his general boorishness. None of the scenarios we act out are sexual, but they are intimidating—like being questioned about what I saw during the Kozlov attack on Oleg’s home. Every time my voice shakes, or my breathing speeds up, I conjure up the image of Andrei and me in the hallway. He may have been the one exercising control, but in that moment, I knew he was captive to me. As I replay the scenario, my nerves transform into something that feels like power.
Monsieur Coset must be happy with my efforts because he gives me a little round of applause, and an air kiss on each cheek before he sends me on my way with some exercises to practice on my own. I’ve never had an interest in acting before, but today might have actually inspired something new.
Chapter12
GEORGIA
I wake with a start in the middle of the night. My heart beats wildly, a thin sheen of sweat covering my forehead and body. Images from the nightmare I had are still close at hand. Images of Oleg tying me up, forcing my legs open and demanding entry into my body. Just reliving the dream makes me dry heave, and I run to the bathroom before I am sick all over the floor. Nothing comes up. Just fear, which I attempt to douse with cold water splashed all over my face.
The dream only serves to remind me I need to find a way out of here before I am back in Oleg’s clutches. The Kozlovs might believe their training is enough to save me, but I know the truth. Once I’m in Oleg’s home, there'll be no salvation. He’ll bend me, break me, take what he wants from me and then discard me like yesterday’s trash.
And then there is Andrei.
Andrei may be the most dangerous of all. The way my body reacted to him in the hallway, holding back nothing, wanting him to take more than he did. He’s my captor, not my lover, and the sooner I’m gone, the better.