Velvet Devil: A Russian Mafia Romance (14)

“Never met him?” she asks, cutting me off. “You were with him at the restaurant. And he was with you in the bathroom when the explosion went off, wasn’t he?”

My heart is beating fast. In a way, it’s nice to know that it’s still kicking. That I’m not dead. Not yet, at least.

“I—”

“Lying will only make things worse for you. I suggest you act in your own best interests and tell me the truth.”

“He was in the bathroom with me,” I admit. “But we… we’re strangers.”

“Did you have sex with him?”

The trembling in my hands is getting worse. I try to squelch the reaction by wringing them together. I’m positive that if I lie, she’ll see through me.

“Yes,” I say. “But… it was a… a… a one-time thing.” I hate how dirty I feel just saying those words.

I’m not that kind of girl. But Isaak Vorobev made me one.

He bent me over a sink and made me beg for all of him.

“Please,” I say desperately when she doesn’t say anything. “I have nothing to do with the man. I just want to go home.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” the woman in the scarf says icily. “Not now.”

The sob pushes out through my teeth. “Why are you doing this to me?” I ask. “What have I done?”

“How do you hit a man without any weaknesses?” she asks me. It sounds like a riddle. My starved brain doesn’t know how to make sense of it. “You find one.”

I shake my head, starting to understand. “You’ve made a mistake,” I say, nearly tripping over my words. “You took me because you think I’m important to him. But I’m not.”

“Then why has he been trying so hard to negotiate your freedom?”

That causes my open mouth to snap shut. “He… he has?”

“He seems to want you back very badly. Perhaps you’re more important than you realize.”

I don’t know what to say to that. So I don’t say anything. Sighing in disappointment, the woman turns for the door. I notice the way her silk pants flow like water.

“Please,” I gasp, reaching out for her weakly. “Some water. I’m begging you.”

“You weren’t very honest with me, Camila,” she says, her tone curling around my name. I don’t bother asking how she knows it. “I don’t think you deserve it.”

“Please!” I cry as she walks out the door.

She doesn’t stop or look back.





At some point after the woman in silk leaves, I fall asleep on the filthy mattress. I wake up to a new noise. Feet pounding. Voices raised in panic.

Something is happening.

I sit up hurriedly and clutch my knees to my chest. Thoughts race through my head. Is it Isaak? Do I even want it to be? She said he was negotiating for my release. But what does that mean?

I don’t want to hope. But hope is all I have at this point.

The sound of heavy footsteps gets louder and louder. Then the rusty grind of a door being forced open. More gruff voices follow, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.

The footsteps congregate outside of my cell. I hear the thump of something big and heavy colliding with the door. Two thumps, three, and then BOOM, the door goes crashing to the ground.

I scamper backwards into the corner. But when I look up, it’s not Isaak. It’s not the woman in silk.

It’s a trio of cops in tactical gear.

“It’s okay, ma’am,” one of them says to me. “You’re safe now. We’ve got you.”

Only then do I allow myself to cry.





6





Isaak





“Well?”

Bogdan eyes me from across the room. He’s looking at me like cornered prey who’s just realized that there’s nothing holding the lion back.

“They’ve put her in the Witness Protection Program,” he admits finally.

“Fuck.”

Bogdan pushes himself off the wall and walks over to me. There’s an armchair right opposite mine, but he doesn’t sit down. He knows better.

“If you want me to locate her, I can.”

He’s been trying to make up the loss of the girl to me for days. The guilt is chewing away at him.

I weigh my options. Do I want her found? And if I do get her location, what then? Do I swoop in and rescue her for a second time like a knight in shining fucking armor? That’s not who I am. That’s not what I do.

Bogdan adds, “But we have to decide quickly. She’s just been handed over to the agency. Which means she’s still on U.S. soil. But once she’s placed, it’s going to be hard to track her.”

I already know this. That doesn’t make the decision any easier.

“Who’s the source?”

“MacMillan,” Bogdan replies. “But he’s in the police division. He has no jurisdiction over the Marshals Service.”

“We don’t have a source in there?”

“No.”

I nod. “Maybe that’s for the best.”

Bogdan’s eyebrows rise.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I snarl.