Scamming the Devil

CHAPTER TEN

IRINA VOLKOV

I woke up properly for the first time — actual sleep, deep and unwanted — and lay still for a moment, resenting my own body for it.

Two days in this penthouse and I was already adapting. Already finding the bed comfortable, the sheets soft, the silence manageable. That was dangerous. Comfort was how cages became homes.

Get up. Think. Plan.

How about I find a gun and kill that monster?

I went to the kitchen. Coffee was already made — hot, which meant he'd been up before me and thought to leave it. On the counter beside the cup was a note in Nikolai's handwriting. Precise, unhurried letters.

Library. Second shelf from the top, far left. You missed the best ones.

No signature. No pleasantry.

I stared at it for longer than I should have, then crossed the kitchen and dropped it in the bin. Picked up the coffee. Turned to leave.

Stopped. Went back to the bin and took the note out.

I told myself it was strategic — knowing how his mind worked was useful. That was all it was.

I folded it and put it in my pocket. Even though I hated the idea of that.

The guards were somewhere down the hall, present without being visible. I'd mapped their pattern already — they stayed far enough to seem unobtrusive, close enough to matter. I'd considered reasoning with them, finding some angle, some appeal. I'd dismissed it. Men like that didn't have angles. They had instructions.

What I needed was my phone. My laptop. Both of which Nikolai had removed so smoothly I hadn't even noticed until they were gone. No way to reach Katya. No way to know if Sergei's men had gone back to her. No way to do anything except exist in this gilded box and wait for an opportunity that hadn't appeared yet.

I turned down the hall, and the elevator chimed behind me.

Is he back already?

I didn't turn around. Pushed open my bedroom door and let my eyes move over the room the way they did every morning — windows, locked; walls, solid; the floor plan I had memorized twice over. My gaze stopped at the window. Twenty-three floors. The fall would lead to my death.

I'd thought about it anyway, which told me more about my mental state than I wanted to know.

I sighed. This is so unfair.

The door opened without a knock.

I turned, already tensing — and stopped.

Not Nikolai.

He had Nikolai's bone structure, the same sharp jaw and dark hair, but everything else was different. Where Nikolai was controlled stillness, this one was momentum. He filled the doorway with a kind of easy, unhurried energy that seemed almost physically impossible in this building. He looked around the room, found me, and his face lit up like I was exactly what he'd been hoping to find.

"Hello," he said, waving with genuine enthusiasm. "You must be her."

I blinked. “…Hi.”

“You look…super gorgeous, enchanting. f**k, my brother must have done some eye surgery to be able to bring a woman this beautiful home.”

Ah. The resemblance was obvious.

His words —sent heat rushing to my cheeks.

“Thank you uhm...your name?”

“Oh, my bad.” He chuckled. "Roman Dragunov." He crossed the room and extended his hand like we were meeting at a dinner party.

"Nikolai's younger, significantly more charming brother. You can think of me as the human one." He added.

Despite everything, something almost smiled in my chest. I shut it down.

"Irina," I said, shaking his hand. "Volkov."

"Irina Volkov." He said it like he was testing the weight of it. "Beautiful name. Honestly, everything about this is better than I expected. The men told me Winter King came home with a woman and I had to see for myself because that has literally never happened. Oh, well…except from casual flings." He looked at me with open, delighted curiosity. "You must have done something extraordinary."

"You could say that."

I wanted to laugh. Extraordinary my foot.

"Are you two together? Please say yes, he desperately needs someone to humanize him."

"No."

"Engaged? Secret arrangement? Anything?"

"We're not together in any capacity."

“Hmm…You’re not one of his casual flings too?”

“Huh—what? No!”

He laughed. “Even if you are, I approve of it. I like you already. But, come to think of it, you’re going to make a powerful couple.” He smirked, bringing his finger to his chin and pretend to think. “So, your couple’s names will be…IriNik? How does that sound?” He glanced at me.

“Awful.”

“Oh,” He frowned a little. “Rinakolai?”

“f**k no! Not that.” I glared at him.

“Nikorina?”

“No—”

“Nikkyrina?”

“Roman, please. I don’t have any romantic feeling for your brother. I will never have such.”

Why fall for a man that took literally everything from me.

“Do you hate my brother that much?” He studied me with those bright, assessing eyes — and I noticed, underneath the warmth, that he was actually paying attention. Not as oblivious as he performed.

"I do not like your brother. We are just…enemies.”

"Hmm. And yet you're here. In his penthouse. In the room he had prepared." A pause. "Special enemy?"

“Something like that.” I answered.

He grinned. "Pretty, come on. Let me show you the rest of the building. Real tour, not whatever solo exploration you've been doing up here."

"I'm not supposed to leave this floor."

"I'll handle Nikolai." He said it with the breezy confidence of someone who had spent a lifetime navigating his brother's moods and survived. "Come on. Out of boredom if nothing else. I promise I'm much better company than four walls."

I looked at him for a moment. Thought about the locked windows and the memorized floor plan and the note folded in my pocket.

"Fine," I said. "Out of boredom.” I stated.

Nah, —I was only hoping I could at least see a chance to escape.

He laughed — loud, genuine, completely unguarded. “I would love to show you most importantly, our little underground hotel”

And there was something in his smile.

Dark. Like he’d already imagined how this would end for me.