“What are you going to do with me?” she asked, barely louder than a whisper.
“It’s all right,” I said in an overly sweet tone. “We’re going to be friends.”
Highway lights streaked by, throwing a traveling beam of light over her face. She wasn’t fooled. She must have a smart brain to go along with her smart mouth.
There was a composition notebook among her things, and when I picked it up, she inhaled sharply.
Her reaction announced this item was the most important to her, and I flipped it open, expecting to find pictures of family and friends. What the fuck? I yanked out my phone and turned on the light so I could make out what I was looking at.
Music.
Handwritten, messy sheet music. I paged through the notebook, intrigued. It was a third of the way full of pencil scrawled across the pages of repeating five blue lines. Notes were scribbled in the margins. I didn’t read music, but I recognized the two different clefs. Piano music? This was her prized possession?
I turned back to the first few pages and studied the pattern of notes climbing up and down the lines. Oksana’s expression was like she was standing naked in front of me.
I closed the notebook in my lap. “Where are the pictures of your family?”
“What?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Your parents. You left them behind and didn’t even bring a picture?”
Her expression would have been heartbreaking, if I had a heart. Her tone was flat. “My parents are dead.”
It was clear she wasn’t talking figuratively. Pain lurked in her eyes, and . . . it fucking got to me. Orphan was a word my brother refused to use to describe us, but he was older. Luka was twenty-seven and going on fifty. He’d always been independent. But even at twenty-four, there were plenty of days where I felt parentless and alone. I didn’t blame Luka for leaving, but it was surprising how much I missed him. He was the only family left I could trust.
So, Oksana was an orphan, just like me. Although, I highly doubted her situation was the same, unless her parents had been murdered by her own family, too.
“Put your shit away,” I said.
She gathered her things and jammed them back into the bag, but kept stealing glances at the notebook I was holding on to. She wanted it, but was too scared to ask, and I enjoyed watching her squirm. Anytime I could be in a position of power, I’d take it, even if it was just over a Russian girl who meant absolutely nothing.
“I’m hanging on to this,” I said, holding up the notebook.
I pictured the evil look on my face as I smiled. I was glad to have an extra piece to leverage. If she gave me a hard time tonight, I’d threaten to trash the book. That would motivate her.
She looked resigned and her shoulders sagged. “What will I have to do, Vasilije, to earn it back?”
My name on her tongue was strangely exciting.
She’d most likely picked it up when Alek had used it, but she’d avoided his annoying emphasis and pronounced it properly. Oh, she was smart, all right. With so few words, she understood her role, which was good. If you gave a woman an inch, she’d not only take a mile, she’d slide a knife in your back when she was finished. And probably smile at you while she watched you twist with pain.
There was only one way this was going to work. I’d establish my dominance over Oksana, fuck her until I had my fill, and then send her on to Mira, one of my uncle’s associates who ran the whorehouses.
Her icy gaze didn’t waver from mine. She watched me like a zebra drinking beside a lion at a watering hole. I stroked my fingers over the cover of her notebook, and she twitched as if I’d run my hand between her legs. Did I look scary to her in the darkened back seat, giving her a grin that was full of teeth?
My phone buzzed with a text message from Filip.
Filip: Meeting tomorrow 9am in your office.
It wasn’t a question, but I’d treat it that way.
Me: Okay.
Obviously, we had shit to sort out.
The rest of the drive was silent. The girl stared out the window, looking at nothing because it was dark and rainy outside, and my house wasn’t near anything else except for a golf course. I wouldn’t say she’d relaxed on the drive, but when the SUV turned up the driveway and my home came into view, she tensed.
Did it look like a palace to her? It was illuminated with nightscape lighting, making the eight-bedroom home and attached six-car garage look grand and sprawling. It wasn’t that big when there’d been a Markovic family living there, but now it was just me and felt cavernous.