Velvet Devil: A Russian Mafia Romance (13)

It makes me angry. Did the man who got me here have to be so fucking sexy?

The crank of a lock sends me bolting upright. But the sudden movement makes my head whirl. I’m forced to put my face back in my hands and wait for the dizziness to pass.

I hear a shuffle of movement. There’s the faint click-click-click of heels on tile.

I raise my gaze and try to blink through the dizzy spell, but the morning light is making everything blurry. Or maybe each of my senses is giving up on me one by one.

“You don’t look great.”

I freeze at the unexpected voice. Not a man’s. But a woman, with an exaggerated sense of calm.

“W… who are you?” I stammer. I can make out her vague, distorted outline.

“A friend,” she answers mildly. “Goodness, it stinks in here.”

She stays pressed against the back wall as far away from me and the stench of the disgusting toilet as she can get. I’m blinking away the last of the dark spots in my vision when she wraps a silk scarf around her face to ward off the stench.

My stomach gives a rumble so loud that she hears it, too. “You must be hungry,” she remarks with a chuckle. Despite my best efforts, I start to hope. Is she here to help me? “Thirsty, too, I imagine?”

But even if it weren’t for the sunlight filtering through the slatted opening, she’s too far back, hidden among the shadows, and the scarf is tucked around her face. All I can see are her eyes.

She’s wearing a flowing blouse in a soft lavender. Her pants are dark, but they too flow like silk. The overall impression is someone refined, someone wealthy.

One thing I know for sure: she doesn’t belong here.

But then again, neither do I.

“Please,” I whisper, licking my cracked lips. I taste blood, but I ignore that. “Please let me go.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

My heart plummets even though I’d been preparing for that answer.

“I can, however, offer you something to eat and drink.”

It’s not freedom. But it’s not death, either. I’ll take it.

“Please,” I say with a desperate nod. “Please…”

“I’ll get those things for you in a moment,” she says. Her voice grows cold. “But first, I’d like to have a little conversation with you.” She must notice me shrink back, because she adds, “You don’t have to be scared.”

“Look at me,” I tell her, feeling my anger spark despite my fatigue. “Look at where I am. Of course I’m scared.”

“I won’t hurt you. I just have a few questions.”

If answering a few questions is all it takes to get me out of here, then I’ll answer as many as she wants to ask.

“Good girl,” she says when I nod and relax slightly. Her voice is soft, almost maternal. And yet it fills me with dread. Some vaguely inhuman quality skimming just beneath the surface.

“Do you remember what happened the night you were brought here?”

I bark out ironic laughter. “Yes,” I say. “I’ll never be able to forget it.”

For more reasons than one.

“Good. The man you were having dinner with. What was his name?”

“Isaak Vorobev,” I say instinctively, knowing his name will forever be imprinted on the inside of my brain.

“The two of you make a beautiful couple.”

I frown, but I don’t even think to correct her. I’m concentrating only on getting into her good graces so that I can drink a gallon of water and put out the fire in my parched throat.

“Sure. Thanks.”

“It must have been frustrating to have your dinner ruined.”

That’s such a laughable understatement of what happened that I can only shake my head in dismay. I don’t know who these people are or what they want or why they took me. All I know is that I want out. It’s like my head is capable of holding onto only one thought at a time, and that’s what it’s chosen.

Out. Out. Out.

“It was a shock,” I mutter eventually.

“Surely, you knew what you were getting into. Isaak Vorobev is a dangerous man.”

Again, I can’t help laughing. I knew that from the moment I saw him. But I was dumb enough to trip head over heels into his world anyway.

“I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

“Where were you?” she asks. “When the explosion went off?”

I frown. I can’t really understand her questions. I’m not sure what she hopes to get out of me. But maybe that shouldn’t be my concern.

“In the bathroom.”

“Alone?”

I tense. “Who are you?” I ask, realizing that probably should have been my opening line.

Her eyes crinkle like she’s smiling. “Who I am is not important,” she says. “What matters is, who are you?

“I’m no one.”

“You were with Isaak Vorobev,” she says. “By virtue of association, that makes you someone.”

A shiver runs down my spine. They’d taken me because I was with him? Nothing makes sense.

I just want out.

Out. Out. Out.

I shake my head. “No, you don’t understand. I don’t know him, not really. I’ve never met him before—”