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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
Lost in Moscow's Secret 23
MILAHEAD RESTING AGAINST THE WINDOW, I stared past the spiderwebs of frost on the glass. Moonlight cast a blanket of silver over the snow, and the frozen wasteland glittered like diamonds.From my vantage point, it felt like I was a princess locked in a tower. Held captive by a monster who shot men in the head at a dining table set with crystal glasses and cake.After I vomited the contents of my stomach into one of Ronan’s potted plants and wiped my mouth with the back of a hand, for whatever demented reason, he let me walk back to my cage and shut the door. In the midst of bloodshed, it felt like the safest thing to do. But as two more days passed in this room, not even the memory of a man with a bullet hole in his forehead quelled the desire for air. The seclusion began to burn, to bubble, to encase my body and squeeze.I’d started making tallies on the bathroom mirror with an old tube of lipstick I found, which probably belonged to Ronan
Lost in Moscow's Secret 24
RONANHEAD RESTING AGAINST THE WINDOW, I stared past the spiderwebs of frost on the glass. Moonlight cast a blanket of silver over the snow, and the frozen wasteland glittered like diamonds.From my vantage point, it felt like I was a princess locked in a tower. Held captive by a monster who shot men in the head at a dining table set with crystal glasses and cake.After I vomited the contents of my stomach into one of Ronan’s potted plants and wiped my mouth with the back of a hand, for whatever demented reason, he let me walk back to my cage and shut the door. In the midst of bloodshed, it felt like the safest thing to do. But as two more days passed in this room, not even the memory of a man with a bullet hole in his forehead quelled the desire for air. The seclusion began to burn, to bubble, to encase my body and squeeze.I’d started making tallies on the bathroom mirror with an old tube of lipstick I found, which probably belonged to Rona
Lost in Moscow's Secret 25
MILATHE SUN ROSE TO FILL the space with rays, bound wrists, and retribution.Yulia entered the room adorned in black, exuding irritation when she noticed the broken chair on the floor. Unperturbed by the sight of me, she took her time tidying things up while humming a creepy tune. I wondered where Ronan found his employees. The insane asylum?Dried blood marched like ants down my body, itching and chafing. Worse than the crawling sensation was the guilt I fought from rising to the surface. I shouldn’t feel remorse for defending myself, but a tightness still invaded my chest. I wondered if the blood on my skin was an eternal stain I could never wash off. I wondered if that man had family, children. The idea made me sick to my stomach, so, for the hundredth time, I forced the thought away and decided I needed to escape this place before it swallowed me whole.My gaze found Yulia who was dusting the roomwith single-minded purpose. Every woman had to have a little maternal instinct insid
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