“Tracking sensor,” I manage to whisper around the tight grip on my throat. “On your pants.”
He lets go of me, and I suck in a huge breath as he walks over to the basket and starts to inspect his pants. He says something in Russian when he peels off the small black dot that I’d left on him.
“You spilled the water on purpose,” he says, more to himself than to me.
When he turns his dark eyes back on me, I take a step back at the anger I see in them. “So you tracked me that night and saw everywhere I went before eventually coming here?”
“Yes.”
He scrubs a hand through his dark hair and levels me with a hard stare. “That was very stupid, Charlie. You've just gotten your ass into a world of trouble.”
Before I can respond, he grabs onto my wrist and hauls me out of his closet. I stumble and almost trip, but he doesn’t let up, just drags me to his door and then to the bedroom right across the hall. Hauling me in, he pushes me toward the bed where I make a very unladylike landing on it with a grunt.
“What the fuck?” I growl at him, but he ignores it.
“Phone,” he says, holding out his hand.
“I didn’t bring it with me.”
“I will search every inch of your damn body, sweetheart. Your choice.”
Heat rises all over my skin at the thought of his hands running over every inch of me, but I ignore it and dig my phone out from the pocket in my hoodie and hand it to him.
“And anything else you have in there,” he says, keeping his hand held out and his dark eyes locked on mine.
I reach in and grab my lock picking tools, handing them over with a pained sigh.
“Who all has access to your tracking information?”
“No one. Just me.”
He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “So you design and make those yourself, do you?”
When I don’t say anything, he says, “Where did you get them, and who has access to it?”
“It’s just on my computer. That’s it.”
“I’ll give you some time to think about how much your life means to you.”
The cold way he utters that sentence has a shiver of fear running down my spine as he turns around and leaves, shutting the door behind him and locking it with an audible click.
“No!” I yell, springing to my feet and running to the thick door that’s locking me in. I bang on it, feeling the strength of the wood and knowing this isn’t some flimsy particle board door like in my apartment that I can just kick a hole through.
“Mikhail!” I scream. “You can’t just fucking lock me in here!”
“I can do whatever the fuck I want, little thief,” I hear him say, his words growing distant as he walks off and leaves me alone and trapped in this room.
“Jackass!” I scream, hoping like hell he can hear me.
I spin around and inspect the room. There’s a king-size bed, a sturdy, antique-looking dresser, a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall across from the bed, and two comfy leather chairs over by the window. When I open the other doors, I see a walk-in closet that’s much smaller than Mikhail’s and a bathroom that’s just as beautiful as the bedroom with a large shower and tub.
Stomping over to the large window by the chairs, I look out onto the sloping backyard that butts up against the lake. The view is breathtaking, but it’s also depressing as hell, because even if I could shimmy out the damn window, I’d just be falling to my death. I’m on the second floor, and there’s nothing but wood decking beneath me.
“Fuck,” I groan, sinking into the chair closest to me and resting my head in my hands, trying not to have a full-blown panic attack.
I allow myself a few minutes, and then I search the room from top to bottom, looking for anything that can help me. There isn’t anything, not a goddamn thing. The only thing I find is an unopened toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste in the bathroom along with some jasmine scented shampoo. I quickly decide that squirting it in his face in an attempt to blind him would most likely just end with him being more pissed and me being in more trouble. There’s nothing in the bedroom to help me either, not even a heavy lamp I could use to hit him with.
By the time he comes back, the sky is lighter like it’s almost dawn, and I’ve worked myself into a state of exhaustion. When he opens the door, he finds me sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I’m grumpy, hungry, and scared, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him see that. I keep my eyes glued to the ceiling.