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My eyes flash to his. “What?”
“I’m a realist. I see through the beauty that seduces you, the blind, to the reality that lurks. It’s when a man learns to see through the veil, that he first tastes power. When he steps through the veil—now, that’s when things get interesting.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded and struck. As despicable and horrendous as his words are, there is an unfurling deep inside me—an awakening of dormant intuition—that recognizes, however reluctant, that there is truth within them.
Forcing my gaze to hold his, I demand, “So, you’ll never let me go?”
“For a Volkov man, the vows of marriage are eternal.”
I want to scream. Somehow, I reply calmly, “Is that a no?”
“That is, most definitely, a no.” He catches my chin when I attempt to turn my face from his. Again, he leans in, voice pitched dangerously low. The threat weaved within it is unmistakable. “So, you can stop watching the guards every day as you pretend to read, memorizing their routine, noting where they stand, seeking a break in the fence in which you might escape. There is no escaping this, wife. You are, and will always be, mine.” Holding my chin firmly, he drops his lips to mine. I refuse to return his kiss as he moves his lips against mine. He pulls back, his voice rough enough to scrape shivers from my flesh. “My lovely little prisoner.”
Fourteen
Kirill
“She hates me. My wife hates me.” My fingers dig into my eye sockets as I lean over my desk, tired.
“As does Mother.” My brother’s dark humor knows no limitations. “Papa said she cried.” His laugh is followed up with a mockingly heavy sigh. “Her first son, her pride and joy, married without her.”
I push away from the desk to lean back in my chair. “How long does it take?”
There’s a pause. “Before she no longer hates you?”
“Yes,” I grit. I’m on the edge of patience.
“Well. It’s you, so—never.” My fist curls around the phone.
“Ilya.”
Laughter, then, “Get her a cat.”
The fuck? “I know I didn’t hear that right.”
“I’m serious.” He finally sounds it. “I kidnapped Irelynn’s cat when I kidnapped her. I did it because she loved the thing, and I knew it would hurt her deeply to have been parted with it.”
“Get to the fucking point.” I regret ever confiding in him.
“The point is that when Irelynn was fighting against me, looking for any way she could find to escape, the thing that grounded her was her love of the cat. The cat that she would have to abandon in order to flee.” A clink of glass sounds over the line, and my eyes slide to the bottle of vodka and glass that perch on the edge of my own desk. “Like you said, she hates you now. She’s been plotting her escape—an escape that will fail, but nonetheless, she is plotting. Give her something to love. Something to care for more than she cares about her freedom. And in a way she is not yet capable of caring for you.”
Mulling over the idea, I must admit, it’s rather genius. “You’re a fucking psychopath, you know that?”
“I’m the psychopath, but you’re the wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“I prefer bear, and I don’t wear sheepskin.”
His chuckle is dry. “Everyone knows I’m dangerous, a thing to be feared, a nightmare come alive. But you—you smile and joke—you assimilate, and people spill their secrets that you sharpen into the blades that gut them.” He takes a sip of his drink. “I’d argue, of the two of us, you’re more dangerous, brother.”
More dangerous, maybe. As unhinged? Not a chance.
I say nothing.
Ilya pivots. “Is Artyom still making payments to the mercenary?”
“Yes.” I finally pour myself two fingers, swallowing it back in one go.
“When will the news become public?”
