“Don’t know, sir.”
“Find out. Keep her close for a period of one week. Put her in your house. Better yet, inyourroom. Work out whatever interest you have while ensuring she’s trustworthy. Earlier, you said she might be hurt. What did you mean?”
“She said she had a dislocated shoulder.”
“She said or shedoes?”
Connor leans close to say, “Grown men with a shoulder dislocation aren’t able to keep down their yells of agony. There’s a reason it’s an effective torture method. If she wasthathurt, she’d be bawling.”
“You’d be surprised,” Sergei responds coolly. “Shock does interesting things to people. Connor, a word?”
Connor takes my phone from me and walks away. Whatever Sergei says to him makes his features tighten. After two minutes, he says his goodbyes and hangs up.
“Verdict?” I ask.
“She’s your charge. Watch her closely. Keep an eye on her, bug her, keep track of her communications. And figure out if you want to keep her.”
Something in my chest tightens. Part of me leaps at the prospect ofkeepingher. The first image that floats through my mind is a particularly dirty one; Mira, collared and tied to my bed, waiting to take my cock like a good girl. Sobbing through an orgasm. Taking everything I’m fuckingachingto give her.
Mira, in my bed for longer than a week.
The prospect is ludicrous. I don’t know her beyond some surface level facts I’ve gathered. I shouldn’twantto know her, yet I do. The monster within me reaches for her, and that fucker wants her forkeeps.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean, Sergei noticed you sounded protective of her. If you want to keep her, that’ll be the easiest route to ensure her loyalty. If you don’t, find her pressure points and be ready to press hard on them. He’ll want to know your choice at the end of the week.” He shakes his head. “Fucking ridiculous. I should’ve shot her when—”
“Donot.Finish. That fucking sentence,” I warn. “You only get so many passes for being unfeeling. You need to have a code.”
“My code is no loose ends. And that right there,” he points at me, “is why Sergei asked about you wanting to keep her. Figure it out. One way or the other, she’s gotta stay silent.”
Seamus chooses that moment to appear in the distance. He strolls up to us, his steps silent, a black duffle bag swung over his shoulder. He looks between me and Connor with arctic-blue eyes, then frowns.
“You gents care to let me in on what’s going on?” he questions smoothly.
His British accent is suave as hell, something that drops panties and brings blushes to masses of girls wherever he goes. He looks and speaks like an aristocrat, but Seamus Archibald the Third is from a line of title-only nobility. His father has a gambling problem and is shirked by the upper class; his mother refuses to show her face in society out of shame. Seamus fled to the states for college to get away from them and found out that he’s pretty handy with a rifle shortly thereafter.
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re going to have a guest for a bit.”
I give Seamus the breakdown. He proves to befarmore accepting of the situation than Connor. That's Seamus, though; he’s content to go with the flow. Happy to seem like he’s there to help, while inreality he’s thinking about a dozen ways to separate your head from your body.
“Got it,” he says amiably. “I’ll be nice.” He looks over to Connor, who’s frowning.
“I’ll stay out of it unless you fuck up,” Connor concedes.
Which means that I’ll have the opportunity I’ve been searching for to get close to little Mira, even though it’s under the sort of circumstances that might have her despising me forever. If she despises me, I’ll need to press on her pressure points. I’d prefer not to have to do that, so I suppose I’ll now be undertaking the unenviable task of somehow getting her to like me. After I chased her down like an animal, pinned her to the forest ground, and hurt her.Lovely.
“You finish up?” I ask Seamus.
He nods. “Yup. All’s done. Shall we see to our new guest?”
“Connor, head down to the car,” I tell him. “You’ve already scared her. That won’t help matters.” With a grunt, Connor takes the duffle bag from Seamus, turns, and stalks off. Mira watches him go with wide eyes.
“Take it easy,” I tell Seamus. “This’ll be sensitive.”
I affect a casual posture and expression as I stalk back over to Mira, trying to present myself as unthreatening. She watches me closely, as if I’m a lion preparing to pounce.
“Hallo, love,” Seamus greets, stopping beside me. “You look positively dreadful. What happened to your shirt? It looks like a piece of it was torn off by a wild animal.”
