Page 82 of The Marriage

The man nodded. “She was trying to sell some things—it gave us a general location. The streets did the rest.”

“Who was she trying to call?” Roman asked.

Kostya jumped into the van so he could drag Masha out. Perhaps if Roman cared about the woman, or had any sympathy for the predicament she found herself in, then her screech when Kostya yanked her by her hair would have bothered him.

Instead, Roman figured, at this point, she deserved what she got. Especially if she had any hand in some of their current circumstances, and he suspected she did. Had she been a man they were looking for, she would have already been beaten beyond recognition before ever being placed at his feet.

“You’ll have to ask her because she’s not talking,” Lincoln replied.

Bound at her ankles and wrists with zip ties, she crumpled to the ground in front of him, and she dared to look up at Roman with tears streaming down her cheeks. Her lips quivered, but she didn’t speak.

He couldn’t afford to let himself feel anything as he stared into the frightened face of a woman who might have answers to his most important question. Masha’s disappearance had made little sense, and given she wasn’t familiar with New York, wouldn’t have survived without help from someone else.

There was only a couple of people she might have been in contact with—Maxim, or Dima. Roman was starting to think regardless of which man he found, one prick would lead him straight to the other. Who was chasing who here?

Where was Karine?

“Get her in the basement,” he ordered the men, pulling a cigarette out to light between his lips.

He’d changed his mind about going to Nevada to find Karine.

He had seen it in Masha’s eyes—she was scared for a reason. She did have answers. Roman intended on prying them out of her.

*

The men carried Masha to the basement of the garage without removing her binds. As Roman flicked his cigarette butt to the floor and approached her, he noticed the gash on the bottom of her lip which bled a little when she grimaced.

It wasn’t a new injury, the split through the healing scab said it had been reopened.

“Who did that?” he asked, curious if she would tell him the truth. Whatever that truth was, even if it was as simple as someone on the streets had roughed her up. Her willingness to be honest and talk was the only thing that might allow her to see the outside of this basement.

Masha wouldn’t meet his eyes, then, but she also didn’t bother to struggle with her ties. Likely knowing it was a pointless endeavor.

“Maxim,” she whispered. “Because he found out I had stolen things that could be traced.”

Masha constantly surprised him.

More than he should let her.

“Leave,” Roman demanded to the quiet space, needing privacy for the conversation and events that might come next. The men locked the basement door behind them when they left, and he already had his sharp gaze back on Masha. “You’re going to tell me everything—right fucking now.”

Masha shook her head, those eyes of hers growing big and wild. “I can’t—you don’t understand.”

“What the fuck did you do?” Roman hissed.

He had no reason to raise his voice. Masha was well aware of what men like him could do. Her whole life was a testament to it.

Still, she said nothing.

Roman gave her a second chance. “How did you find out where Karine was?”

Her admission of being near Maxim geared his questioning in that direction. He was trying to connect dots; testing the waters to see if he hit the right mark with Masha, but she gave him nothing.

Definitely, she refused to speak.

As if she had a choice.

When she dared to square her trembling shoulders in the face of his anger, he lunged at her, grabbing her by the jaw, and digging his thumbs into her cheeks. She gasped, letting out a broken cry while she struggled to get out of his grip, but she was powerless.