Day three, morning…

Harsh white light pours through the floor-to-ceiling windows in my office. It’s too warm in this place, too easy. I miss the brutal cold of my homeland. I am not meant for this life of comfort. It would be too easy to get used to it, to grow soft and sloppy before I’ve finished my mission.

Our mission.

Me. Feodyr. Jasha. Maks. Slavik. We are the survivors.

My computer is open, and I should be reviewing reports from the managers of my shipping company, but my mind is elsewhere.

I pace back and forth in my office. I can’t get last night out of my mind.

I touch the braided sinew strap on my wrist, trying to draw strength from it. The strength to drive all images of Willow from my mind. It fails me.

When I saw Willow trembling and sobbing on the bed, I wanted to be inside her so badly that I hurt. That’s all right. Pain is not the enemy.

But need is. I do not let myself need, or want. I thought that had been beaten and burned out of me long ago.

I kick a chair in frustration, knocking it over with a loud clatter.

The door opens and Jasha sticks his head in. Head of my security team. A big, brutal man, his face and hands scarred from a fire that will never stop burning him.

He looks at me, he looks at the chair, he walks back out. He won’t come in again unless I call for him. He knows me too well, knows my black moods.

Why did I make Vilyat give her to me? Why didn’t I take one of his children, and lock them away in a dark room with no windows, and send him recordings of their cries? Or I could have taken his drugged-out whore of a wife. That would have been even more humiliating for him. Anastasia is still beautiful. I could have taken her again and again while she wept, violated every orifice, while Vilyat’s former bodyguards watched and then took their turns.

But I chose Willow instead.

The truth is, I’ve craved Willow since the first time I saw her, hiding and watching me at her uncle’s place, with that mixture of fear and fascination. I’ve dreamed about her rosy lips wrapping around my cock. I’ve dreamed about shoving myself inside her tight little cunt. For the past year, every time I’ve taken another woman, laid the lash across her back, I’ve imagined that her cries of pain and ecstasy were Willow’s.

Even more truth – when I demanded one of Vilyat’s children, I wasn’t just striking a killing blow to his pride. I knew that Willow would never let that happen. She’d take a bullet for those kids – unlike their piece of crap father. I knew that Willow would come to me.

When I let Willow offer herself up as a sacrifice, I told myself it would kill two birds with one stone – it would be the final nail in Vilyat’s coffin, and I would have a month to screw her right out of my system.

So why the hell did I go so easy on her when I punished her last night? And why didn’t I take her, when she was all but begging for it?

Because I wanted it too much. I craved her with an intensity that alarmed me. This desire was a weakness. There was an end-game in sight, and it went beyond the destruction of Vilyat. This was the culmination of my revenge, after years and years of planning. It was too important; I couldn’t let myself get distracted.

An image flashes through my mind.

I hear a crash, and realize I’ve hurled a vase against the wall. A hundred thousand dollars now lies scattered across the floor in thick, curved shards. That happens every now and then – the world goes black, and when I come back, I’ve broken something. Or someone.

I swallow my fury. Willow is one of them. Their filthy money cosseted her and clothed her.

Why should I show her mercy of the kind that her family never showed me and mine? My brother’s suffering paid for her pearls and Hermes bags.

Should I run in there and drag her out of her room by the hair? Strip the blankets from her room so she can’t hide beneath them again tonight...let her know there’s nowhere she can hide from my rage? Take her bed and make her sleep on the cold, hard floor?

I groan and punch the wall.

I know all about her. She’s a victim of the Toporov family just like everyone else – more than she will ever know. There is much they haven’t told her. She is innocent, I know that – she never asked for this. The obscene wealth, the flashy lifestyle…she never wanted any of it.

And I don’t give a fuck.

She wants me. She craves me. I could drown myself in her, I could have her for as long as I want. Forever. She could be my peace, my comfort.

I deserve no comfort. Pyotr died and I lived.

I need to drive her away, hurt her until she hates the sight of me.

I resolve to go harder on her. I will carry out my plan. I haven’t come all this way to let a pair of sad eyes and a stupidly tender heart derail me.

* * *

WILLOW

Galina delivers breakfast to my room, and the buttery smells drifting from the tray make my stomach rumble.

I am finally starting to get my appetite back. In fact, I’m a little light-headed.

She sets the tray down on the table with a loud clang and takes the domed silver cover off the main dish.

I look down at an omelet and feel a stab of anger. There’s a big glob of spit sitting right in the middle of it.

Her eyes are glowing with malice. “You should try the coffee,” she sneers. “It’s really good.”

I meet her gaze without blinking. “I’ll bet.”

She stands there for a long, long moment, staring at me. Finally, she blinks first. I’m sure she hates me for that.

“Are you going to eat your breakfast?”

“Nope.”

Her lips curve up, like she’s just won a skirmish. “I’ll be sure to let the chef know.”

She picks up the tray and flounces out of the room.

I wait until she’s gone, then I go into the bathroom and drink some water.

My stomach is rumbling, and I am light-headed from hunger.

With nothing else to do, I leave my room and take a walk through the house. Sergei is standing there in the enormous foyer, tucking a cell phone into his pocket.

I remind myself that he let me wear the robe last night. And he made me come. And he rubbed ice on my sore skin.

“I was going to go out and walk in the garden, if that’s all right, sir,” I say to him. Saying ‘sir’ to someone I sort-of had sex with feels so strange and wrong. Then again, everything about this situation is strange and wrong.

He gives me a bland, disinterested look. “Do I look like I care what you do with your time? When I want you, I can assure you, I’ll be able to find you.”

“The gardens are beautiful.” I babble when I’m nervous. “Did you design them?”

He gives me a look of utter contempt and disgust. “Trying to establish rapport with your jailer?” he sneers. “Did you read Surviving a Kidnapping for Dummies before you came here?”

All my hurt and frustration boils up inside me. This man touched me with the lightest of touches last night while we had sex, and gave me earth-shattering pleasure. And now he’s back to treating me like something you’d scrape off your shoe.

“No, sir, I was just trying to have a normal, civilized conversation with another human being. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t,” he says coldly, and walks off.

I head for the front door, walk outside, and loop around through the gardens. My heart clenches in my chest.

Being obedient and respectful doesn’t work. Talking back doesn’t work. The frustration wells up inside me. I’m a problem-solver. I’m a helper. I like to make things better for people. And there is literally no solution to this problem – at least, not one that I can see. What haven’t I tried yet? Would it help if I pretended to love his abuse, if I came to him and begged for sex?

No. I’m a terrible actress, and he’d know that I was lying.

My stomach rumbles out loud. I remember I saw some orange trees toward the back of the property, and I head out there, snatch an orange off a tree, and inhale it hungrily. Then I eat a second one. They’re deliciously sweet, and they stave off the hunger pangs, even though I crave something more substantial.

I start searching for somewhere to throw the peels away. I find a garbage container decorated like a giant stone urn. As I’m tossing the peels in, I hear a voice crying out to me.

“Majka!” I turn, and the little boy is running toward me. With a heavy heart, I think that I shouldn’t have come here again. Whatever the poor kid wants from me, I can’t give him.

But since I’m here now, I’m hardly going to reject him. I can spend a few minutes with him at least.

I kneel down next to him.

“Majka!” he insists, and hugs me. I point at him. “What’s your name?” I ask.

He looks at me with a puzzled expression.

“Lukas! Lukas!” I hear someone calling. I pick him up, and walk until I find the older couple.

When they try to take him, he clings to me and snarls. Like an animal. They look at each other and shake their heads in frustration.

Finally, reluctantly, the man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a book.

It’s a picture book in Czech. I sit down on the grass and try to sound out the words. The boy laughs, leaning in to me.

The older woman sits on the grass next to him and strokes his hair, and he chatters happily with her. He’s not afraid of her, or of the older man. Thank God for that.

Suddenly, the answer occurs to me.

This little boy must be Sergei’s son. Why else would he be here, and dressed so beautifully? The older couple look absolutely nothing like Sergei. They’re short and skinny, so I don’t think they could possibly be Sergei’s parents. Assuming he even has parents. The evil bastard is so cold-blooded, I can only imagine he hatched from an egg.

So maybe they’re Lukas’ maternal grandparents?

But my realization raises more questions than answers. Where is the boy’s mother?

Did Sergei do something to her?

Why doesn’t Lukas live with him, in his house?

I glance back at the mansion, at my exquisite prison full of pain and pleasure and sorrow.

“I should go,” I tell the older woman, and I stand up. She nods with relief, but Lukas starts to cry.

My heart is heavy as I walk back to the house.