Chapter 12 Episode 12
1579 Words
As annoying as his opulence is, it’s working in my favor.Because, just as I suspected, the car has more screens in it thanan Apple store. I tap the center console and a menu pops up. Iscroll down to the GPS and then fumble through varioussettings until I find what I’m looking for: the location history.
Instantly, a list of addresses and named businesses appears. Isnap a picture of the screen with my phone. I’ll drive to everysingle address on the list if I have to. Whatever it takes to findmy sister.
I reach for the key to turn off the car, and then stop. A smallsmile spreads across my face.
“It’s only fair, right?” I mutter with a shrug. “He tooksomething of mine, I take something of his.”
I reach for the joystick, but just as I move to shift the car intoreverse, the engine dies.
Then the driver side door opens.
I scream just as Nikolai reaches into the car and yanks me out.He pins me back against the car with his hips.
Inside, even while he was threatening me, Nikolai looked likea businessman. Some part of me felt like I was safe. Abusinessman wouldn’t kill me in his office, right? Abusinessman wouldn’t get blood on his button-down, right?
But out here in the dark, cool air, Nikolai looks wild. He’spure shadow and muscle tone.
I don’t stand a chance.
He holds up a second set of keys. “I wanted to know exactlyhow far you planned to take this. All the way, apparently.”
His knee drives between my legs. I gasp involuntarily at thefriction.
He clicks his tongue. “Not just yet, little lamb.”
His hand slides between us, and I stiffen. Heat trails behind histouch, warming me from the inside out.
I should be fighting harder than this. Somewhere in the backof my brain, the rational part of me is screaming for me towake up.
Punch him in the d**k, you sexed-up floozy! Fight! Scream!Run!
But there’s moisture pooling between my thighs, and up closelike this, Nikolai smells even better than the inside of his car.
Then he darts into my pocket and pulls out my phone. Hegrabs my wrist and plants my thumb on the fingerprintscanner, unlocking it before I can really even register what isgoing on.
He shakes his head as he looks down at the screen, which isstill displaying the picture I just took of his location history.“What was your plan, Belle? Were you going to charge in andrescue your sister by yourself?”
“You say that like it’s a bad plan.”
He chuckles. “It’s an idiotic plan. You wouldn’t stand achance.”
“Okay.” He taps around on my phone for a second. When helooks up, he’s smiling. “Then prove me wrong. Tell me youmemorized even one of the addresses in my GPS history.”
Shit. That would have been smart. He can delete a picture, buthe can’t delete my mind.
Actually, considering the resources at his disposal, I wouldn’tbe all that surprised if he had those kinds of capabilities.
“I didn’t have enough time,” I snap.
“Because instead of driving my car out of the parking garageand then looking at the GPS, you decided to do it right here inlot. Steps away from my office. If anything, Ithe overestimated you, Belle.”
Embarrassment washes over me. “Sorry I’m not a professionalthief like you!”
“Is that what you think I am? A thief?” He snorts.
“Seeing as how you took my sister, I’d say you’re a peoplethief at the very least. And seeing as how you really want meto comply with your fraudulent, bullshit audit, I’d say you’re aregular old run-of-the-mill money thief, too.”
Nikolai stares at me for a moment. I can tell there’s somethinghe wants to say. Something that’s waiting just behind his sinfullips, itching to come out and ruin my world forever.
But he doesn’t say it. Instead, he leans forward, his nosebrushing the tip of mine, and whispers, “Leave now, and nevertouch what belongs to me again.”
All at once, he backs away. The loss of him makes me stumbleforward, but he doesn’t hesitate. Nikolai walks past me andclimbs into the driver’s seat of his car. Before I can sayanything, he slams the door shut.
The growl of the engine drowns out my shouts.
I can barely see Nikolai through the tinted windows, but Idon’t have to see him to know what’s coming next. He’s goingto reverse and leave, and when he does, I don’t have any wayto find my sister.
Without him, I have nothing.
I hurl myself at the door, pounding on the window with bothfists. “Hey! Wait!”
The window cracks open. I can see his eyes peeking out at me.“Yes?”
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. Buteven once I have a second to consider them, I can’t regret whatI’ve said.
The window shifts down another couple inches. “Do what,exactly? Say it.”
His eyes drag up and down my body. I shiver.
“The audit. I’ll do the audit for you. I’ll do… whatever youwant,” I gulp. “But you have to take me to my sister.”
The window slips all the way down, revealing Nikolai behindthe frame, effortlessly cool, completely in his element.
Then his chin dips just a bit and everything about him shifts.It’s like he’s removed his public mask, revealing the darknessbeneath. I recoil a half step back on pure instinct.
“If you’re lying to me to get to your sister, I’ll destroy you,”he warns. His voice is eerily flat.
I meet his eyes. “I’m not a liar.”
He watches me for another second and then jerks his head tothe adjacent seat. “Get in.”
Before I can start to wonder just how badly I’ve screwedmyself, I hurry around to the passenger side door and climbinside.
As we drive, I stare out the window, expecting the city to fallaway. Maybe Nikolai will drive me to a cement bunker buriedout in the woods. I imagine armed guards and barbed wire andbarking, snarling dogs.
He pulls out of the parking garage and turns right. And fortwenty-five minutes, we cruise, with the Hudson River on ourleft and a wall of glassy skyscrapers looming up on our right.
Finally, he stops in front of a tall, luxury hotel. The manbehind the valet stand rushes towards the car as if his lifedepends on it.
“What are we doing here?” I ask. I unconsciously cling to myseatbelt like I’m drowning and it’s my life preserver.
Nikolai ignores me and opens the door. He nods at the terrifiedvalet and tosses his keys over the roof of the car. It’s disarminghow casual he can look when he wants to. I’m not sure I everwould have passed by Nikolai on the street without noticinghim, but I would have thought he was a typical man, at least.
He looks back through the driver’s side window. “Are youcoming or are you going to stay here?”
The valet is waiting on the curb to take the car, so I climb outreluctantly and follow Nikolai towards the front doors. “Yousaid you’d take me to my sister. Where are we?”
“The Zinc?” I read, frowning up at the gold-plated sign abovethe revolving doors.
“Zhukova Inc,” Nikolai explains impatiently. “Zinc. Do themath.”
I groan. “You own this place, too? Maybe you are God in thiscity.”
“And maybe you can be taught after all,” he chuckles. Hegestures for me to go first through the door.
I want to fire back with a barb of my own, but then I step intothe building and lose the ability to speak.
The lobby is a mid-century modern s***h Japandi dreamscape.The ceilings are cathedral-esque high, but the entire spacefeatures horizontal lines that make it feel earthy and cozy.There are low bamboo benches built into matching bambooaccent walls and forests of actual bamboo. The front desk iswide and sunken into the floor a few steps. A delicate paperscreen separates the guest-facing front from a more secludedback office. And there’s a small pond in the middle of theroom with a smoothed marble walkway around it, fat koi fishswishing around just below the surface.
“Holy s**t,” I breathe. “This place is gorgeous.”
Nikolai smiles. I feel myself softening towards him. It’s myweak human desire to relate, to form some kind of connectionto the being next to me.
But I have to resist it.
A man like him will take that connection and wrap it aroundmy throat like a noose.
“What are we doing here?” I say, shifting tones.
He opens the elevator and steps in, but I stand on the otherside, stubbornly refusing to move.
“I’m not going anywhere with you until I know where you’retaking me.”
“Worried I’ll bind you up in my secret s*x dungeon?”
Immediately, I’m on fire. The thought alone is enough to sendeven a strong woman into cardiac arrest. I’m sure I’m beet red,but I do my best to play it off.
“Of course not,” he says. “Not here. I’ll save that for the sexdungeon.”
“Nikolai,” I groan, “we made a deal.”
- Writer
