by Twyla Turner
“N-Not officially. I left my journal in a café, and he gave it back to me before running off. But that doesn’t matter.” I shake my head briskly, getting back to the main subject. “You were following me.”
The anger is nearly choking me as the puzzle comes together.
The large disfigured man just nods once but says nothing.
“It was you who drugged me and took me, wasn’t it?”
He actually has the nerve to look away.
I can’t contain my rage. I fly across the room towards the scarred man. Without much thought, I beat on his solid chest as I scream. A sob breaks through the noise, and I realize that I’ve started to cry.
“You did this! Why, dammit?! Tell me why?” I cry as I continue to hit him.
He hasn’t moved an inch or said a word. He’s a wall of solid muscle and bone.
For some reason, I’m more upset with him than with Ivan. Ivan screamed ruthless asshole. So his actions weren’t exactly shocking. But the scarred man and his soulful eyes spoke to me on another level. I would’ve expected more from him.
“Winter, you must stop, or you’ll hurt yourself.” I hear Ivan speak from close behind me. I spin around, breathing heavily. “Skotina is my best and most loyal assistant and bodyguard…”
More like, hired thug.
“…He does not speak. He’s mute. So don’t even try to get him to answer you. It’ll be no use.” Ivan says as he walks over and pats the man on the shoulder. “He will now be your guard. To make sure you don’t run off, but also to make sure you’re protected.
“Now, over there,” he points to double doors, “you’ll find a closet filled with clothes and shoes in your exact size. Have a bath if you’d like, get dressed and meet me downstairs for breakfast. I’ll explain everything then.”
He turns and opens the door. He stops before he walks through and turns back to me.
“Don’t try anything funny. Skotina may not speak, but he’s a lot smarter than you’d think. He’ll know what you plan to do before you even think of it. I wouldn’t recommend testing him.”
And with that, Ivan leaves the room and closes the door behind him. That left his hired muscle and me, alone.
I look up at this Skotina guy and scowl. That seemed like an oddly feminine name for such a massive man. I remember his face so well. As if I bumped into him yesterday. It’s probably because I’ve pretty much thought about him every day since. His puppy dog eyes imprinted on my brain.
I had been so curious to know what his story was.
Now? Now, I could care less. He can burn in hell for all I care.
“So you just blindly do whatever he asks you to do? No matter how wrong it is?” He stares at me blankly. “Never mind.”
My brain is a frazzled mess. I have no idea how I’m going to get out of this. But I feel as if I have to try something.
I run to what looks like a window to the bedroom. I pull back the heavy curtains to reveal French windows. But behind them is all black. I try to open them, but they won’t budge. Some type of sheet of metal has been nailed over the window. I run to the other window and find the same thing.
Desperation nearly chokes me. I sprint past the henchman to the door. My fingers wrap around the knob, and it turns. It’s not locked. As I pull the door a meaty hand slams against it keeping it firmly shut. I spin around to look at the man.
All sympathy and thoughts of kindred spirits I had once felt for him have drained from my body. All I feel is hatred for this man. This goon.
The palm of my left hand cracks across his scarred cheek. Like my body is on autopilot. I have no sense of self-preservation. I just react. I want to hurt him. To maim him.
I slap him several more times, and he just stands there taking it. I start to hit him again, and he moves lightning fast for such a large man. He catches my arm by the wrist, stopping me in mid-slap. I guess he’s had enough.
I try with my other hand, and he catches that one too. He growls low in his throat, and the manacles that his massive hands create around my wrists tighten and I feel the bones pop in my wrist. He doesn’t squeeze any harder. It’s a warning, though. Letting me know that he could break them if he wanted to.
The warning doesn’t sink in. A moment later, I try to knee him in the nuts. Just as Ivan predicted. He already knew what I had planned.
He dodges the blow. Then picks me up and I beat at his chest as he walks towards the king size four-poster bed. He slams me down onto the soft mattress and blankets. His hands once again cuff my wrists, and he presses them down on either side of my head. I feel him straddle my hips and then sits back on my thighs, keeping me from jerking up to knee him in the groin.
Dammit!!!
I struggle, but it’s no use. I can’t move under his weight and strength. Tears well up unwelcomely and spill down my temples. I am at his mercy, and he could do whatever he wants to me. The fear finally rears its ugly head, surpassing my rage. My body trembles uncontrollably.
I feel his hands squeeze my wrists tighter for a second before easing up slightly and I hear a grunt. His way of getting my attention.
I reluctantly look him in the eyes. The eyes that had come to me almost every night as I slept.
I don’t know how I know it, but the look he’s giving me clearly says, “Don’t fight me. I don’t want to hurt you.” Or something along those lines.
Being someone who couldn’t speak, I suppose he’s lived his entire life conveying complex feelings through simple looks.
His eyebrows rise, and he nods, “Okay?”
I nod.
He cautiously slides off of my prone body. Then stands at the edge of the bed as I sit up warily. He sharply jerks up his chin at me and then tilts his head towards a door I can only assume is the bathroom. “Go and get ready.” He steps to the side and sweeps his hand towards the bathroom. “Now.”
Helpless anger, the likes of which, I’m not used to bubbles up my throat. I can taste it on my tongue as I slide off the bed. I scowl at the enormous man.
“He wants me to be his little songbird so badly, I wonder how he’d like it if I went on a bathing strike. I bet funky, hairy armpits and a hooha that smells like a fisherman’s wharf would change his damn mind,” I rant.
I hear him nearly choke and see him squeeze his soft looking lips together, right before I stomp into the bathroom and slam the door shut.
~~~
My shoulders shake with uncontrollable laughter.
Miss Winter Rose is a spitfire, to say the least.
She stood up to me and smacked me around when I have seen grown men cower at my feet from just a look. I could see intelligence in her amber eyes as she tried to come up with strategies to gain her freedom. Unfortunately for her, I know them all.
I also saw anger, fear, and determination. All of those, I would take any day over the look of disgust she laid on me when she first saw me and realized it was I who took her. After the look of kindness, gratitude, and even mild affection she had given me on a sidewalk in Moscow, I could not handle that look of pure hatred she gave me.
It actually hurt physically.
When I’d held her down on the bed, and she finally looked up at me, I watched as some of the anger drained from her. I even saw a glimpse of the look she had given me on the street in Moscow. She was fighting it, though. I could not blame her.
I had tried to ignore how good she felt under me. But she was all soft, feminine curves. Which is hard for a man to ignore. I’d felt myself get hard. I ignored it. I did a lot of criminal shit, but raping women was not one of them.
I let my body cool down as she got ready for breakfast. Or so, I thought. Winter pads out of the bathroom barefoot in a silk robe that had been left in there just for her. One creamy, thick leg peeks out every other step she takes. My mouth practically waters.
She heads to the closet and disappears inside. When she comes out a few minutes later, I do my best not to laugh.
Ivan had his personal shopper stock
the closet full of beautiful clothes in the most luxurious fabrics. Winter managed to find the least fancy items she could find in the whole walk-in closet. She walks towards me in a charcoal gray athleisure suit. Her hair is in its full shocking white, curly afro glory. Her face, clean of any makeup. Making her long, curling white lashes and pink lips stand out even more.
Her eyes sparkle gold with determination.
She’s not ready to lay down and give up just yet.
Ivan has his hands full.
Chapter 6
That closet was probably the closet of every woman’s dreams. Lined with rows of clothes and shoes in every color and fabric. Even drawers filled with the finest lingerie. I’m trying not to think about how Petrov had gotten the sizes right on all of the clothing, shoes, and lingerie as his henchman leads me down to the dining room. But even as I had stood surrounded by the beautiful clothing, I hadn’t been impressed. And to show that I wasn’t, I tried to find the most unfashionable item in the closet. Unfortunately, the athleisure suit is still adorable but the only thing I could find. If there had of been a holey pair of sweats, I would’ve put those on instead.
It was my way of saying, ‘I can’t be bought.’
With a man like Ivan, I doubt my silent protest will matter.
The house, townhome, or condo, I can’t tell which, was relatively large. Decorated in a contemporary way with touches of old-fashioned French provincial thrown in for character. Sunlight streams through the windows. So apparently it’s only my room that the windows are blocked off.
Lovely.
Skotina leads me into a pretty dining room with a long glass table and high-backed, plush white chairs. The table is spread with tons of food that make my stomach rumble. I can’t help but eyeball the pastries as they stare back at me.
I’m starving, but I refuse to admit it.
Ivan sits at the head of the table, smiling at me as if he didn’t have his goon snatch me from my bed in the middle of the night.
Creep.
“Come. Sit.” He waves his hand towards the chair adjacent to him.
I’m tempted to sit down in the chair furthest from him. They both see my plans before I can even execute them. Ivan stands and pulls out the chair he wants me to sit in as Skotina places a firm hand on the small of my back pushing me forward.
In my fury, I refuse to address the tingling feeling I get every time the big man touches me.
I sit and pout like a child. I can feel Skotina behind me, making sure I don’t try to bolt.
“Please, help yourself.” Ivan points to the food on the table.
My brain says, “Revolt! Don’t eat shit!” But my stomach says, “Woman, don’t you smell that?! You better eat that croissant filled with chocolate before we pass out!”
My body is obviously not in sync.
I reach for the flaky croissant and tear off a piece. It’s like flaky, buttery melt-on-your-tongue goodness. I try not to close my eyes and moan in ecstasy. I succeed, but it’s not easy.
From one bite of the baked good, I’m positive that we’re in France now. Only in France can they make croissants this delicious. When Ivan had asked me to sing in his club, he’d said it was in Paris.
“Why would you snatch me from Moscow and bring me to Paris? The very place I was headed to in the first place? And don’t play dumb. If you know my underwear size, I’m sure you knew I was heading to Paris after I was finished with my tour in Moscow.” I squint at Ivan.
“You and Skotina think much the same. He questioned me as well.” Ivan smiled up at his guard as he stood behind me.
“Well…”
“It would be best if the world thought you were taken in Russia.”
I frown, “Don’t you want me to sing at your club? Wouldn’t people see me and then report it to the police?”
“Skotina thought of that too.” He grins before expelling a deep breath. I didn’t ask him how the silent man actually told him all this. None of my business. “But as I told him, my club is extremely exclusive. The members have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and pay yearly dues to…let’s just say…be their true selves. If they snitched about the inner workings of my club, then I will release their darkest secrets to the world. They don’t want that. They stay quiet. Even when beautiful songbirds go missing. So you won’t find help there if that’s what you’re thinking. And that’s if it even gets out that you were taken. I’m sure most people will think you’re taking a much needed private break.”
Little does he know that if Faith or my mom don’t hear from me in a few days, they’ll definitely report me missing.
“What kind of club is this?” I ask as an unsettling feeling runs through my body.
“Oh, just a club for the wealthy and sometimes famous to mingle without judgment or cameras,” Ivan says cryptically.
He’s hiding something, but I can’t figure out what. It feels like I’m unknowingly heading into the gates of hell with a gun to my back, giving me no choice.
“And what if I refuse to sing?” I say defiantly.
Ivan’s smile is slow to spread and confident.
It makes me nervous.
“Oh, you will. I guarantee it.” Ivan leans forward. His smile is gone. “You will sing every Friday and Saturday evening, as well as special events, to a list of songs I provide. No questions asked. When you’re done, Skotina will take you directly to your room at the end of the night, where you will stay until it’s time to sing again. You don’t want to test me on this. Do you understand?”
“What are you going to do? Beat me? Kill me?” I ask skeptically.
Ivan looks at his most trusted guard. The big man walks towards another door that I assume leads to the kitchen. He disappears, and a moment later he reappears. I gasp in shock.
“Faith!”
My manager’s hands are tied in front of her. Her mouth is covered with duct tape. Her eyes are wide and fearful as tears stream down her face.
An image of the man she’d left with floods my mind. I never saw his face, but I’d known there was something familiar about him. It had been Ivan.
“What have you done?” I ask as I turn to look at him.
“Nothing that your manager here wasn’t begging for,” he grins slyly. “Although before I was willing to give it to her, I did make her promise me something. Why don’t you tell her, my dear?” Ivan looks at Faith.
His guard slowly peels the tape from her mouth.
“I’m s-s-soooo sorry, Winter. I-I wasn’t thinking,” Faith stutters out past her tears.
“What did you do, Faith?” I ask warily.
“I signed a two-year contract for you to sing for Ivan’s club,” she sniffles.
“Are you kidding me?!” I say trying not to lose it.
“No, she’s not. A person will do just about anything you ask them to when they’ve been edged all night.” Ivan says offhandedly.
“Edged?”
“Denied an orgasm,” he clarifies with a smile. “Or orgasm control, if you will.”
“You’ve got to being kidding me!”
“So I won’t have to beat you or kill you. I could merely sue you if you choose not to sing.”
“That can’t be legally binding. I didn’t sign anything, my manager did. And under duress.”
“You don’t want to go up against my lawyers, Miss Rose. Laws aren’t the same here as they are in the States.” Ivan informs me as he stands and walks over to Faith. He could be lying, but how would I know.
“I’d rather be taken to court and lose than to sing for you,” I growl out.
“I figured you’d say that.” Ivan suddenly grasps Faith by the neck, she gasps with fear and grips his wrist. “You can either sing, or I can do unspeakable things to your manager. The choice is yours.”
I clutch the back of my chair, ready to jump up and defend my friend.
“Okay, okay! Fine! I’ll sing!” I scream. “Let her go.”
Ivan releases Faith’s neck, and she collapses t
o the floor. I rush over to her and rub her back as she coughs and gasps for air.
“Are you okay?” I ask her in a panic.
“I’m so sorry, Winter. It’s all my fault,” she sobs.
“It’s okay, Faith,” I reassure her. “He’s determined to have me sing for him and apparently nothing was going to stop him.”
“I want what I want,” Ivan says behind me, and a shiver of disgust runs down my spine.
“You’re an asshole.”
“An asshole that gets what I want.”
I turn to give him the dirtiest look I can muster. He just smiles and snaps his fingers. A large man walks in, not as big as Skotina, but definitely bigger than Faith or myself.
“Anton, remove Miss Kym from my home.” He turns to look at Faith. “Miss Kym, make sure you stay in Paris. I want you close by in case Miss Rose here decides she doesn’t want to cooperate. And if you open your mouth to say a word to the authorities… Well, remember that Winter is in my care now. So if any of her friends or family ask, make sure you convince them that she is well and needs quiet time. Her welfare is in your hands and vice versa. Do you both understand?”
“Loud and clear, master,” I say snidely as Faith simply nods her head.
Angry tears sting the back of my eyes, but I refuse to cry in front of this prick. I don’t care what he does, I’m not cracking my lips to sing one note. I seriously doubt he’ll have someone run out and kill Faith if I don’t sing.
God, I hope not.
But I can’t, in good conscience, let him win without some kind of fight.
The guard, Anton lifts Faith to her feet and starts to pull her towards the door. She looks back at me with tears in her eyes. Her face is heartbroken at her part in my imprisonment. I try to school my face to comfort her and mouth, It's okay.
But who’s going to comfort me?
My appetite has vanished, and I can’t stand to be in the same room as this man.
“May I be excused, please? I think I’ve lost my appetite.” I say, refusing to even look at my new boss/captor.
“Skotina, take her back to her room.”
