My last hope to get out of this place and back home had turned to dust before my eyes. It had never been a great plan, but I wasn’t given much to work with. There wasn’t even anything in my room that I could use as a weapon against Diego. It struck me like a knife to the heart that the whole thing was a ruse that Anatoli set up to trick me, make me afraid, or worse, get my hopes up and then dash them.
That day I got no dinner, either. I pounded on the door, but no one answered. When no breakfast arrived the next day, real worry set in. Was this the means of my demise? It seemed too petty and too slow for Anatoli’s liking, but it was right up his alley to make me fearful of it. Still, I wished I could see him, if for no other reason than to tell him what I thought of him and his incompetent employees.
I was good and hungry when the door swung open at dinner time. My hands shook despite conserving my energy. It had been well over twenty-four hours without food, and I had barely picked at the last breakfast I was offered. The smell of grilled meat and fresh bread coming from the tray that Diego held hit me like a brick.
There was no way I’d let him see how much I wanted that food, and stayed sitting in my chair with my notebook open in my lap, my pencil curled in my fist, pointed end out.
“You can leave it and go,” I said, as if I didn’t care either way.
“I don’t think so,” he said, stepping in and closing the door behind him. This was a first, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit. “Tonight, you’re going to pay for your meal.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, rising, keeping the pencil in my fist but out of sight.
Diego put the tray on the desk and turned to me, crossing the room in a few quick strides. His hands were on me as he pulled me roughly to him. “You know what I mean. Stop pretending you don’t want me.”
I stabbed him as hard as I could with the pencil, aiming for the carotid artery in his neck, but with his grip on my arms, I only got him in the shoulder. He shoved me backwards, my head smacking into the wall. I heard a ripping noise—my shirt. With a snarl, I headbutted him, rearing back to do it again, pleased I saw his lip was bloody now. But his eyes were full of fury, mixed with sick desire.
His hand went to my throat, squeezing slowly. I kicked at him, but he was too close; I couldn’t get any momentum or force, and he only laughed as he kept squeezing. As my vision wavered with lack of oxygen, I remembered his gun and reached for his side. There was nothing in his holster.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” he asked. “I know who you are.”
The door flew open, and I used every last bit of my remaining strength to heave him backwards. He barely budged, but a loud crack rang out, and he fell to the floor. A stream of blood trickled from the tidy hole in the side of his head.
I shoved away from the dead body at my feet and sank into my chair, weak from both hunger and just about being strangled to death. Anatoli stood in the doorway, calmly putting away his gun and already calling for someone to take care of thebody. My throat was too raw to say a word as he gave me a long, unreadable look. He finally stepped into the room, grabbed my arm, and dragged me over Diego’s corpse and down the hall. His grip was like steel, his eyes were like ice. He didn’t say a single word.
When I tried to explain, he gripped tighter, shoved harder, sending me into a stunned silence.
Oh God, this was it. He was finally done with me.
Chapter 24 - Anatoli
Damn it. What a fucking mess. I was fully aware of Masha’s ruse to befriend my unfaithful guard and had been waiting to see how far he would go. Something arose that had me out of the house for a day, and I returned to find he had gone too far. The second I learned from the head of the kitchen staff that no meals had gone to Masha for over a day, I feared the worst, that she was already gone. But Diego, whom I’d been suspecting for a while, was still around, so she hadn’t taken his offer to attempt an escape.
Fucking hell, the bastard had starved her, then attacked her. Now he was dead, so I could only be pissed off at myself for thinking that setting up the security in one of my office buildings ahead of the meeting with the Collective was important enough to leave the desert estate. That was the problem with having a place so far out from civilization, not to mention a staff full of weasels who were only out for themselves. It was time to thoroughly clean the house.
But first, Masha.
I hauled her to my own room and whipped out the handcuffs from where I’d left them in the bedside table drawer after the last time I used them on her. Ah, better memories. Her eyes widened at the sight of them, but she barely struggled as I snapped them around one wrist and attached the other end to the bedpost. There were angry red marks on her pale throat, and a bump was rising on her forehead. I reached out and touched it.
“I see you used your signature move,” I said, then rubbed my own recently healed nose that had been a victim of one of her headbutts.
“I stabbed him with a pencil, too,” she said, voice scratchy and weak. She scowled, clearly wishing she hadn’t admitted that, because yes, that meant no more writing implements for my sweet wife.
“You’re not leaving my sight from now on,” I said, making my voice and face hard and cold.
Did she shrink away? Of course not. “I could have handled him on my own.”
Raising a brow, I rose and turned away. “You’re welcome.”
She huffed and puffed as I silently began to work at my desk, my back to her, once again trying to ignore her. Before going upstairs to find the scene that made me shoot Diego rather than make him actually sorry for what he tried, I ordered a meal to be brought up to her. It arrived, and she fell on it with her free hand like a street cur.
“I guess you weren’t trying to starve me after all,” she said between bites.
I flinched, but continued to ignore her. Did she really think I’d do that? It might have been something I threatened, but she’d been eating like a queen since she fell into my care. Another reason a bullet was too easy for Diego. Pushing all thoughts of Masha aside, though it was difficult to say the least, with her handcuffed to my bed, I got to work on my program.
Some new intel had been scraped from the bowels of the internet about the Collective. It seemed my little brainchild had found its way into a private group chat with some lower-level members. There wasn’t too much information that could be used against them, but it was only a matter of time before I got a lock on someone higher up.
“You really are amazing,” I murmured to my screen.
