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Lost in Moscow's Secret 15
I WALKED DOWN THE AISLE stuffing my arms full of snacks: popcorn, chips, something sweet because salty. Obviously, I was eating my feelings, and the woman behind the counter was judging me the entire way.I ignored her, grabbing a bottle of cucumber-flavored soda to wash it all down with.After last night, the impending doomof going home and wearing Carter’s diamond ring tore at my every nerve, but I couldn’t just abandon my life forever. Not for a city that didn’t welcome me. Not even for a man who made me feel for the first time in my life.I wasn’t naïve enough to believe I could hold Ronan’s attention for more than a week. The thought of never seeing him again already ached like a hot coal in my chest. How bad would it be if I gave himmy virginity?I had to go home.It was the only lasting thing I had.I dropped my load on the counter. The cashier looked completely unimpressed with my purchases, but she didn’t say a word as she rang me up.I paid with one of my last ruble notes, p
Lost in Moscow's Secret 16
RONANITOSSED THE EMPTY SYRINGE to the floor when her body went limp in my arms. I’d kept the injection in my pocket since she ran into me on her first night here, waiting for the right moment to put it to use.And this was not the right fucking moment.Anger sent a rush of heat through me as I wrapped an arm around her legs and lifted her, her long blonde ponytail hanging lifelessly. Beneath her coat, she wore a bohemian skirt with a slit to her hip and some kind of blouse that didn’t reach her navel. So impractical for a Russian winter.As always.Her head rolled to rest against me, tear tracks wet on her cheeks. I looked away fromher face and turned to see Albert behind me, his cautious gaze on the girl in my arms. He was as emotionless as ice, but I could only assume the barely-there look in his eyes was reservation about what I might do to her.“I will take her,” he said. I was sure he would.Annoyance flared in my chest. “You’ll go clean up the mess with Adams. There’s blood all
Lost in Moscow's Secret 17
MILAMY MOUTH FELT AS DRY as cotton. A strand of hair tickled my cheek. I reached up to scratch it, but confusion clouded my mind when my hands refused to move.I peeled my eyes open, blinking against the light coming from the television in the otherwise dark and unfamiliar bedroom. My heartbeat trembled when I saw my wrists secured to the armrests of a wooden chair. I yanked against the ropes, but a soft moan brought my gaze to the TV on the dresser. I stared at the scene playing in front of my eyes, revulsion rising in my throat.The moan on the screen came fromme while I sat naked on Ronan’s lap, grinding on his hand. He recorded us.The video was shot from a high corner of my hotel room, on a camera that could have been there my entire stay. Humiliation churned in my stomach and twisted my heart like a wrung-out rag as I watched myself come and shudder against him.Then the video began to play again. I liked Ronan.I cared.And he was only using me.Tears blurred my vision while I
Lost in Moscow's Secret 18
MILA“YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST tried to make an effort,” Ronan said like he was disappointed in me, examining the photo he took.This man was disturbed.The devil walking the streets of Moscow.He put his phone in his back pocket and dropped to his haunches in front of me. Untying the ropes on my wrists, he absently ran a thumb over the raw skin beneath. Those little caresses convinced me only yesterday he cared for me, but maybe that warmth was just a secret villains passed down to one another as a means of drawing their prey in before stomping their hearts beneath their feet.“Is your papa as demented as you?” I asked tonelessly.He looked at me, amused. “Not sure. Never met him. But if it makes you feel better, my mother was just as sadistic as yours.”My eyes flashed with resentment, but his expression and the fact he was close enough to slap me again held my response in. His gaze contained a warning within before he rose and turned off the amateur porn on the TV.I rubbed my wris
Lost in Moscow's Secret 19
IDIDN’T MOVE WHEN THE door shut behind him. A cool draft touched my bare skin and sent a shiver through me. I was naked and cold, my wrists secured uncomfortably above my head, but somehow, I managed to drift off to sleep.Self-loathing was exhausting.I woke to the sun slanting across my body and an uncomfortable pressure in my bladder.For the first time, I viewed the room in daylight. I lay in the middle of a king-size bed with an elaborate iron headboard and a white duvet. Heavy drapes, the color of blood, framed the window with a reading seat beneath. The space was large, conveying wealth in a traditionally Russian way. Seeing no personal effects, I surmised I was in a guest room.My eyes settled on a cracked wooden door leading into what I hoped was a bathroom. I really had to pee, and I wasn’t about to add urinating all over myself to my list of humiliations.I jerked against the ropes, trying to twist my wrists out of them, but they were so tight, all I managed to do was rub m
Lost in Moscow's Secret 20
RONANISAT IN THE LIBRARY behind my desk, an unlit cigar in hand. I refrained from smoking it because my brother occupied the couch with a sleeping Kat. They were always welcome, uninvited or not, but I found myself irritated by the timing.Silence held steady in the roomwith his cool eyes on mine. I knew he had something to say, and I knew what it would be about, but still, I waited.“There’s a naked girl tied to your guest roombed.”My muscles tightened, revolting against the idea he saw her naked—an odd reaction considering I’d never minded sharing women before, not with my brother or anyone else. But I forced myself to lean back in my chair and say, “She’s my pet.”I assumed the uncomfortable feeling originated from the fact I was the one who caught Mila. I put all the work in. I didn’t want anyone else to see her misery. It was mine.“Your pet looks like a Mikhailov.” “That’s because she is.”“Her papa didn’t give in to your demands?”I trimmed the end of the cigar with my cutter
Lost in Moscow's Secret 21
MILATAP. TAP. TAP.I sat on the window seat tapping my finger on the cold glass while trying to get the one lone rabbit in the wasteland of snow’s attention. He’d become my friend the past four days. The four days I’d spent locked in this room.A middle-aged woman, owner of a tight bun, permanent scowl, and, apparently, one medieval black dress, delivered my meals three times daily.“You can call me Yulia. I am housekeeper here. I do not like messes,” was how she introduced herself.I didn’t respond, preoccupied with the perpetually locked door that finally lay open. I’d stepped toward it but froze when I saw a man standing in the hall with an assault rifle held across his chest. I imagined if I ran, a spray of bullets would follow.By what I saw fromthe fixed bay window, I was on the second story of a remote house. Large and built of stone, with nothing but snow and trees surrounding it. If I shattered the glass and managed the jump without breaking my leg, I doubted I would get fa
Lost in Moscow's Secret 22
RONANSWEAT AND ANIMOSITY CLOAKED THE dining room like a saccharine shadow, though it remained silent enough to hear a pin drop. Or just the scrape of my fork.This wasn’t a usual dinner for me, and it wasn’t due to the presence of two of Alexei’s men, whose bruised bodies and egos were bound to their chairs, but because I preferred to eat supper at eight.Polina swept in to grab my finished plate dressed in her nightgown, a frilly sleep cap askew on her head. Curiosity pulled her out of bed no doubt, rather than a desire to serve me herself; gossiping and cooking were two of her finest talents. It was the latter that made her become the only woman I considered marrying, regardless if she was twenty years my senior and probably weighed more than me. Poverty as an adolescent and four years of prison food taught me to enjoy a meal more than most.When Polina continued to stand there and stare at my guests, I told her in Russian, “That will be all.”Sh
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