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“Thank you,” I whisper, fighting the sting of tears rising behind my eyes. “Thank you, Sir.”
“Of course.” Half closing the door, he plucks a pearlescent silk house coat from the back of the door and then drapes it around my shoulders. The silk is cool, like water pouring softly over my skin, and my brow pulls together with my rising confusion. He hasn’t given me anything to wear since I came here. If anything, being naked feels more natural than being clothed, but as I part my lips to ask him why he’s giving me this, he leans down and kisses me deeply.
My heart skips a beat, and I lift my hands, gripping tightly onto his shirt and giving my all into the kiss.
Suddenly, a door I barely noticed opens and Kristof’s sister, Nastja, steps out while drying her hands on a fluffy hand towel. I flinch in fright, my eyes wide, and my heart suddenly pounds in my chest.
I haven’t seen another soul since coming here, and now Nastja stands before me, looking completely unsurprised to see me.
“Alena.” She smiles in greeting.
“You remember my sister?” Kristof asks as he pulls away from me. “She’s here to help you get ready.”
“Get… ready?” My gut twists, and my eyes dart back and forth between them. “Ready for what?”
“I’m cooking you dinner.” Kristof smiles.
“Attempting to.” Nastja snorts, earning a sharp elbow in the ribs from Kristof.
Then, Kristof is gone and I’m left standing awkwardly in front of Nastja.
She’s a strikingly beautiful woman with an accent as thick as Kristof’s. I know little about her and Ivan other than the fact that Kristof helped raise them, and they travel with him often when he has to return to Russia.
Maybe it isn’t a surprise that she knows I am here, and yet, at the same time, a voice rises in the back of my mind. Is this a chance?
A chance to escape, a chance to get help and return to my family?
I bite back an internal scoff.
I should be climbing the walls to escape. I shouldn’t be content with being the sex pet of my godfather, and yet this is the freest I have ever been in my entire life. I squint slightly at Nastja as she tosses the towel back into the ensuite.
Is this a test?
“So,” Nastja begins. “Are you feeling okay?”
Her question catches me off guard, and I frown. “What?”
“Your body, your health, are you feeling okay? No complaints? Have you had your period?”
She barks at me like a mother hen, walking around me like she’s giving some sort of inspection, and I pull the house coat tighter around my body.
“N–No, I haven’t had my period,” I reply, clutching at the silk. “And I feel… I feel fine. Wait, I don’t understand. Why haven’t you handed Kristof over to the police or my father?”
Nastja’s palm collides with my face in a sudden, sharp slap that shocks the air from my body. My head snaps to the side, and I clutch at my cheek.
“How dare you,” Nastja snaps, and her voice takes on a low, dangerous tone similar to Kristof’s when he was angry at me in the club. “He tells me you are loyal, yet you stand there asking such things? Have you any idea what he has done for you? What he saved you from?”
I lift my blurry gaze to her as my cheek flares like fire. “Saved me… from?”
“The Kuznetsovs are cruel people. Mikhail would have fucked you bloody and then shared you among every guard and dog he could find until there was nothing left of you.” She turns and snarls in disgust, pacing before me at such a pace that I’m surprised her heels don’t snag on the carpet. “And your father wanted to give you to them for a better foothold. As if you are a piece of meat and not his daughter.”
“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I didn’t mean… I just didn’t understand if this was a test or something. I?—”
Nastja suddenly stops pacing and nods just once. “Make no mistake, my loyalty is with my brother and no one else.”
“I understand.”
“I am… sorry.” Nastja smiles, and when she takes my hand, her touch is gentle even though her fingertips are a little chilled. “I should not have struck you.”
