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I sigh. “Lily, you’re only drawing things out. The sooner you get cleaned up, the sooner we can have dinner and?—”
“Dinner?” she blurts. “I’m not here for pleasantries, Ivan. I’m here to learn about my uncle, and I’m starting to suspect you don’t actually know much about him.”
“On the contrary, Lily, I know everything about him.”
She gives me a suspicious look. “So, tell me. No dinner. I’ll take a shower and get changed, but then I want to know straight away.”
“After dinner.”
“Over dinner.”
“Deal,” I say with a smirk. “Let’s go upstairs. The knob in the shower is a little tricky, but the pressure is good, and the water stays hot.”
I can see the reluctance melting off her slender frame at the mention of a hot shower. With the adrenaline wearing off, and her joints starting to ache from exposure to the cold, convincing her to clean up and get comfortable won’t be difficult.
I just have to make sure she doesn’t try to escape once it’s my turn to wash the filth off my body.
I have a few ideas how I can achieve that…
4
Lily
I’ll admit that the idea of a shower is compelling, so I follow the towering muscular monstrosity of a man that is Ivan up the long staircase to the top floor of his house.
I should really say his mansion, since the place is so huge. It was obvious from the moment I saw him that he was financially well off. The jet-black wool coat gave that away in a heartbeat, but the luxury car and sprawling estate made it impossible to ignore.
A man only gets this wealthy by two means: business or crime. And since I’ve already witnessed Ivan pull a gun without hesitation and start shooting, I’m compelled to think crime is the reason for his substantial material possessions.
But how much crime does a man have to do to have a house this magnificent? The stairs are carved from the darkest marble, lined with silver that appears to be etched with Russian words. They look similar to the etchings on Ivan’s and Dimitri’s rings, but perhaps that’s only because they’re in the same language.
At the top of the staircase, there’s a stained-glass window that casts deep red across the polished mahogany hallway. It warms the entire hall with a divine presence, not quite like a church, but certainly somewhere important.
It has authority, just like Ivan does, as he guides me down the hallway to a door at the very end. “The master bedroom. You may sleep here tonight if you’d like.”
As nice as his house is, I’m not keen on spending any more time here than is absolutely necessary. There’s too much risk being involved with a man like Ivan. For one, he’s the one who attracted the car shooter to Dimitri’s funeral. If it weren’t for him, none of this would’ve happened, and I’d be able to mourn my uncle’s death properly.
A brief distraction. That’s all this is. The mold of sorrow will grow inside me just as soon as I leave his menacing presence.
“Here we are. I like to keep it locked from the outside when I’m away,” Ivan says as we come to a stop in front of the bedroom door. He lifts a large iron padlock on the door, inserting a key. It clicks open with a satisfying metallic weight.
“In we go,” he says, opening the door and ushering me inside.
The first thing I notice about the master bedroom when I step inside is how much it smells like tobacco, both smoked and unsmoked. It’s a rich and heavy scent, but not stifling. It lingers in a comfortable way, layered with cologne and clean linen.
It’s surprisingly neat for a man who isn’t married. I already checked his fingers for more rings and found none. He must have maids, or he’s a psychopath.
Could be both…
“I’ll find you a shirt to wear,” Ivan says, closing the door and locking it.
Claustrophobia grips my heart, but I take a deep breath, trying to retain control over my senses. He hasn’t done anything especially threatening to me yet, and he did save my life. I doubt he’s going to attack me now.
It’s impossible to get rid of the fear entirely, but I manage to push it down to the same place I’ve been keeping my feelings about Dimitri’s death. They’re bottled up in the pit of my stomach and temporarily unable to hurt me.
Ivan moves to a dresser across from the king-sized bed, digging through it until he pulls out a large white t-shirt. “This should do,” he mutters, and I get chills throughout my entire body.
His voice, deep and calm, makes me feel something hard to describe. It’s like having someone run their nails gently across my scalp, or getting shivers from warm water pouring down the back of my neck in the shower.
