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“Be good,” he repeats, and this time it is an order.

I don’t respond.

He reaches out, gently grips my chin with his thumb and forefinger, and angles my face toward him. “Be good,” he says for a third time.

“Kay,” I squeak.

That seems to be enough for him because he lets me go and he turns to leave. He pauses at the door on the way out and looks back at me.

“Do I have to say it a fourth time?”

“No,” I sigh. “I got it.”

“Good girl,” he says, flickering a wink at me as he walks out.

God. I am not a good girl, and he barely knows me. Sure, we’ve had sex three times under a series of ever more dire circumstances, and we’ve been around each other since I was a teen, but that’s not the same as really knowing someone like me long enough to start bossing me around.

I am going to go out today. I am going to take matters into my own hands. I am going to go kick my brother’s ass for daring to betray me, for starters.

I wait fifteen minutes, until I am sure that he is gone, and then I go downstairs to see what’s going on. Tinker is messing with a computer, and Jacob is reading something on a tablet. They glance up as I enter. Tinker gives me a little wave, Jacob nods.

“I’m going to go for a walk,” I say.

“Nope,” Jacob says, the word falling out of his mouth, heavy and final.

“I’m not allowed to use my own legs now?”

Tinker giggles and glances over at Jacob, then back at me. She can sense the tension in the room, obviously, and it entertains her. I do feel bad for saying her cooking wasn’t good. It wasn’t, but she is sweet.

“You can use your legs, but you can’t go outside. We don’t want you being seen. Your brother might not know that you’re not in Russia, but the others are smart enough to work out that their men didn’t come and save you at the last moment. They will be hunting you.”

“Let them fucking hunt me,” I say, sounding braver than I really feel.

Jacob looks up from his tablet. He’s not Henry in terms of being naturally imposing, but he’s pretty far from a little bunny rabbit.

“Henry told me to contact him if you had any problems following the rules,” he says. “Do I need to make that call?”

“Do I need to make that call?” I snark the question back in a sassy, totally immature voice.

Tinker snorts to herself.

Jacob goes back to his tablet.

I wonder what the hell I am supposed to do in this little house that has absolutely almost nothing going for it.

“I can’t even go into the garden?”

“No,” he says. “Stay inside, and away from the windows.”

“Oh, so sun’s out too,” I say.

“Everything is about to be out if you keep acting that way,” Jacob says. “I can call Henry and have you put in an even more secure location.”

“Like where?”

“The basement.”

I draw in a scandalized breath. “You wouldn’t!”