I won’t sit here and wait for my fate to catch up to me. If I’m going to go down for this, I want at least one reckless choice to be my own.
I step back into the hallway. Voices from the study raise, then fade. The guard in the kitchen glances at his phone. He’s bored and distracted.
Now. My time to act is now.
I slip into the kitchen, my heartbeat steady.
“I’m so sorry to bother you,” I say, aiming for embarrassed and harmless. “But…I can’t figure out how to use the coffee machine.”
The guard raises a brow like he can’t believe I’m that stupid. But then, like most men, he can’t pass up the chance to explain how something works.
“First, you have to press the power button,” he says, leaning over the machine.
His keycard dangles from his belt.
I move closer, nodding like I hadn’t even considered his sage advice. I slide the card free without brushing a single thread of his pants. My fingers don’t even shake, which scares me more than getting caught would.
He finishes giving me the play-by-play instructions while making my coffee. He sets the steamy hot mug on the counter. I reach for it, ready to wield it like a weapon when Dominik calls him away.
Even better since I didn’t want to have to scald the man.
The moment he disappears, I make my move.
I position my body between the camera and my hand as I head for the foyer. The keycard slides into the reader.
A faint green light blinks, then there’s a soft click.
Holy shit. It fucking worked.
I open the door to the small elevator vestibule?—
The air shifts.
I know he’s behind me before I even turn around.
Dominik stands in the doorway, his eyes fixed on the keycard in my hand like it’s a live grenade.
His voice is soft. Too soft when he says, “Alina. Where do you think you’re going,dikaya koshka?”
And something traitorous inside me answers to the name.
A secret part of me is even relieved that he caught me.
8
Alina
I sprintfor the elevator even though I know I won’t make it. His footsteps thunder behind me. My swipe of the stolen card barely registers before a hand clamps around my wrist, spinning me around, and slamming it above my head.
The card hits the floor. My heart drops with it.
Dominik’s eyes are storm-gray and furious. Shame stings within me. I shouldn’t care that I disappointed him, but I do. I’ve seen men furious with me before, landlords, cops, my mom’s boyfriends, but none of their anger ever made me feel…safer.
His breath grazes my neck when he speaks: “Don’t. Make me. Chain you. To my side.”
His fingers flex on my wrist like he’s one second away from making good on the threat, and then he lets go like he doesn’t trust himself with the follow-through.
“I had to try,” I whisper.
