Chapter 12

Emma

By the time dawn broke, we were walking out of the sound stage into the rain. Nick was yawning and rubbing his eyes, but there was an energy in his step that had been missing for many hours. It was like watching a plant perk up after finally getting sun and rain. His hand clutched mine tightly as we walked.

Viktor held his big, black golf umbrella for us, keeping the fat droplets from splattering our heads and shoulders as we walked toward a familiar-looking black coupe. He had a grim expression most of the time, but it softened some when he looked at us. He was dialing back his ferocity in our presence—or at least, in Nick’s.

“So we’re going to Uncle Charles’s?” Nick sounded hopeful. “Can I play my games, or will you be mad?”

“Of course I won’t be mad,” the big, smooth-voiced Russian told him warmly. “That wasn’t an easy time for you, staying in that room. You need to relax and have some fun. And you were good, so you get to.”

“Still gotta do your reading practice, though,” I clarified, and he pouted a little. But just a little.

Life wasn’t going back to normal—not for me. My new job was to help find my uncle so that I could get back to real normalcy. My home, my practice, my patients. Quiet mornings. The book I’d left half-unread. The friends I hadn’t called.

But for Nick, despite his having to stay home from school, life could go back to being a lot more normal. I didn’t want to deny him that. But normal also meant doing the boring stuff too.

Viktor drove like he’d done it for a living, always calm, never speeding by much, not too aggressive. With the rain still falling, and everyone acting like they’d forgotten how to drive on wet roads, that was an asset. Broken glass and shattered taillight lenses glittered on the road in many places, breaking up the mirrored smoothness of the wet asphalt.

By the time we got to the towering hotel that had been my home until my twenties, I was starting to feel my exhaustion and hunger. Broken sleep for two days, an emotional roller-coaster, and waking up well before dawn were all taking their toll. But I knew I had to keep alert. I had no idea what we would find once we got up to the penthouse.

The doorman smiled as he recognized me and Nick, and held the door for us, sparing only a brief curious glance at Viktor. I did my best to act natural. I didn’t know what the cost would be for alerting others to Nick and I being captives, but I didn’t want to find out.

“Hi, Joe, have you seen my uncle the last day or two?” I asked conversationally as he let us in.

“Nope, he’s been using the helipad for everything. Hasn’t even ordered up groceries in a few days.”

I could feel Viktor watching me. “Okay. I was hoping I’d catch him, but he may have already left on his trip. Guess I’ll see. By the way, this is my friend, and he’ll be staying with us for a few days, just in case you see him around.”

Joe smiled brightly, and Viktor nodded.

He let us into the private penthouse elevator and we rode up, my stomach jumping around the closer we got to the top. What if Uncle Charles had changed the code on his way out, to keep me out?

The tiny box of a lobby outside the penthouse door was just as I remembered it, with the exception of a few packages and newspapers piled up at the door. I scooped them up unconsciously to bring them in before stepping up to the scanner and swiping my card. At the click of the locks opening, I breathed out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

I walked into the stillness beyond, every light was off, the air conditioner was also off, leaving the atmosphere stuffy and laden with a faint smell of spilled alcohol. Frowning, I set the packages aside on the mail table and started turning on some lights.

The place was a disaster, at least by my uncle’s standards. Papers strewn across the living room coffee table, an entire bottle of forty-year-old scotch left shattered on the kitchen floor. Nobody had been in to clean up in his absence. I didn’t even know when the housekeeper was due in next.

My head throbbed as I cleaned up the broken glass. The empty penthouse, so hastily abandoned, drove it all home. Uncle Charles had run for it. He had left us to rot and he had bolted to save himself from paying a damn ransom.

Nick, oblivious to the real nature of our captor, was now roping him into hooking up the game console that my uncle still kept tucked in a drawer beside the entertainment center. Viktor was taking it in his stride. Nick was already acting more like himself. But me?

I started shaking as I gingerly transferred the swept-up glass to the trash can. Mopping up the rest of the spilled Scotch, I felt my eyes water and sting, and my lips tremble. I gave myself a stern talking to. We’d made it this far. Viktor had kept his word so far, and with Uncle Charles bailing on us, Viktor’s story was starting to look a lot more credible than I was comfortable with.

This was no time for guilt or grief. My uncle’s betrayal would have to be dealt with later, when I didn’t have to worry about crying in front of the man keeping me captive.

Viktor walked in finally, seeing me cleaning up the mess, and frowned. “What happened?”

“He was drinking, and in a hurry from what I can tell. Dropped a mostly full bottle and just left it.” I heard the theme music to one of Nick’s games starting up in the other room. “I don’t get why he’d freak out like that, over having to pay a ransom.” I paused, realizing I hadn’t asked how much Nick, and I were worth. “How much did you ask for?”

“Five million,” Viktor answered.

I gasped but pulled myself together. “For my uncle that would have been easy enough to get... Why wouldn’t he pay?”

He glanced away from me, his intense gaze becoming avoidant suddenly. “A guilty conscience makes a man irrationally afraid at times.”

“He must have thought you meant him a lot more harm than just taking his money.” A realization hit as I looked up at him. “Did he have reasons to fear that?”

He stopped dead, staying silent for just a few moments too long.

I closed my eyes, trying to process this. “I should have guessed,” I said finally. “The ransom was just to draw him out, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t confirm or deny that, just said in a low voice, “My younger brother died in my arms because of him. And I doubt you and the boy are the first people he’s abandoned and betrayed. In fact, I suspect I’ll be able to prove that before all this is over.”

I hugged myself, trying to still my shivering. “He was running for his life.”

“And he was willing to sacrifice you and the boy to ensure his escape,” he reminded me in an almost apologetic voice.

“Jekyll and Hyde,” I mumbled, trying to make sense of it.

He tilted his head slightly. “I’m sorry?”

“I looked up to Uncle Charles my whole life,” I said quietly. “He was the one who took us in when my parents died. Who put me through med school. The man had me watched. He did everything he could think of to keep me safe. And now this. It’s like he turned into a different person.”

“Wicked men often lead double lives,” he said quietly. “There are even serial killers who were family men, whose wives and children never knew what they were, until after they were caught. You are not the first to experience such a thing.”

“He and Nick are the only family I have left,” I said breathlessly. How was I ever going to break it to Nick that I was helping our kidnappers find Uncle Charles so they could kill him?

My tears were threatening to spill over again. I turned partway away from Viktor, furious with my uncle and myself.

“This cannot be easy for you,” he said almost gently. I nodded mutely, keeping my eyes down. I didn’t want empathy from my kidnapper, from a criminal. I didn’t want him to understand.

I didn’t realize how heavily I was leaning on the counter until he caught my arm. His grip was gentle but firm, he held me until my eyes were open and I had caught my balance again.

“Come on,” he said firmly. “You need to go lie down. I will ensure the boy has something to eat if he gets hungry.”

I stared at him, torn between relief and gratitude and a sense of unreality that I was here playing house with a Russian mobster. But then I sighed and nodded, turning to shuffle toward the room I knew Uncle Charles had kept for me ever since I had left. I didn’t have the energy left to argue.

But once I got into my pajama bottoms and a tank top, I couldn’t sleep. I lay there listening to the rain and the faint sounds from Nick’s game, the sense of unreality, of being at constant risk, leaving me hyperalert even as exhaustion tried to claim me.

Would anything ever be normal again, now that I knew what I did?

***

Someone was in bed with me. Not Nick. Bigger than me, solid, a warm bulk that I nestled against trustingly. I couldn’t see anything in the dark. Not who the person was. Only his sleek, hard body pressing against mine.

Disoriented, I pulled away a little, wondering what was happening. The big man in my bed moved closer, insistently, the heat from his body seeping into mine.

I touched him, trying to figure out who he was, only to feel bare skin and realize the body pressed against mine was naked.

Warm hands started caressing my skin, teasing me awake, making my whole body tingle. Warm lips moved against mine, stealing my breath. I whimpered, confused and dreamy, feeling heat gather between my thighs.

He rolled us over, pressed his weight down on me, his cock into me, the sensation vague pressure and vague heat and growing pleasure and need out of nowhere. We moved together, pain and doubt banished, lost in raw and growing bliss.

As I got closer and closer to cumming my brains out, I saw the darkness lift and his face blur into focus.

It was Viktor.

The shock shook me awake. I opened my eyes to my bedroom in the penthouse, and the sound of Viktor and my little boy chatting as Nick played his game. No danger beyond the usual. No new horror. Nothing had changed.

Certainly, there wasn’t a giant Bratva-leader and kidnapper cuddled up with me between the sheets. That was a relief…

And also a touch disappointing.

There had been something so satisfying about that image of him, and that had shocked me as much as the sight of his face. The man had kidnapped us. He might even be right about my uncle—as horrible as that was to contemplate—but he had still dropped a giant bomb into the middle of our lives, just as much as Uncle Charles had.

I should hate him. I should fear him. Look at what he did. But somehow…

Oh crap,I thought. I knew what it meant when I started having dirty dreams about a guy. Something in me didn’t fear him, wasn’t wary of him. Something in me looked back at the dream and got tingly… and hopeful. Very hopeful. Would he want me as well? Would he be wary of a trick? Would he turn out to be cruel—crueler than my uncle?

That was absolutely the last thing I needed right now. I couldn’t afford to have a crush on my fucking kidnapper. Stockholm syndrome normally takes more than a couple of days to develop, so I put this all down to my traitorous hormones.

I lay there listening to the household sounds, voices, the tap of rain, the hum of fans. It’ll be all right, I told myself. But I didn’t believe it.

I still dropped off again soon enough. I was simply that exhausted, and that starved for the comfort of familiar surroundings. But this time, I didn’t dream.

***

I woke again a few hours later to the smell of takeout Mexican and the sound of more chatting. I lay there listening, hungry but not too eager to get up just yet. After my dream, that would have been too awkward. At least my body had calmed down.

I must be really, really hard up for a good lover if I was having dirty dreams about some mobster whose only interest in me was as collateral against my uncle. I struggled to pull myself together as I dressed. I couldn’t let Viktor find out that I felt this way.No, that would be not only risky, but way too embarrassing. The man was a criminal, a killer. He would only take advantage.

He must never know.