"And I fucking said I'll handle it!" My shout makes him jump and go white as a sheet. Dumb fuckers can't get a fucking point. "Now get out!"
Rashid stands there glaring at me as the partner scurries out in a huff, and I glare back as he walks past me. "You have forty-eight hours to deal with this situation. After that, we'll need to interview her as part of the official investigation."
"Fair enough." I step into the hallway. "I'll send you Sarkov's last known address within the hour."
They file out past me and head toward the elevator while I turn to Matvey who's been watching this entire exchange in silence.
"Lock down this floor," I order. Things inside my apartment may get loud and if they do, I don't want anyone else hearing what's happening. Who knows what Tatiana may say. "No one gets in or out without my explicit permission. Not staff, not customers, not anyone."
"What about the investigators if they come back?" Matvey pulls out his phone to start texting.
"They won't come back." I glance down the hallway toward where my penthouse is. "Not if they value their comfortable positions on my payroll."
I turn and walk out the door, turning again toward my penthouse. It doesn't even matter what Tatiana has seen at this point. If those investigators need to speak with her, she needs to be coached on what to say and how to say it. It's no secret around this place what we do. I know my staff talks.
But what they say to outsiders could be damning, and I can't have that. Especially from her. Yuri's way of dealing with a leak is to silence it.
And Tatiana isn't an employee I intend to "silence" at all. She just has to be controlled.
14
TATIANA
The vodka burns going down, but I take another drink straight from the bottle anyway. I'm sitting on Dimitri's bed with my back pressed against the headboard and tears running down my face. The jerk had his security team lock me in his penthouse, and the door is locked from the outside with Gleb standing guard to make sure I can't escape.
I banged on the door for ten minutes after he threw me in here, screaming at Gleb to let me out. But my hands started to hurt and eventually, I gave up and came in here to Dimitri's bedroom where I found the liquor he hid from me when he realized I was drinking every day on the job. It was his fucking idea to start this and now it’s the only way I can think to cope.
Either he's gonna kill me for being a part of whatever the fuck is going on or he's gonna keep me locked up forever. I just know it. I should never have come back to this place. When that cop asked me to go to the shelter, I should've gone with him and then slipped out and bought a bus ticket immediately. I'm an idiot.
I take another drink and wipe my face with the back of my hand. The room is starting to blur around the edges and my head feels fuzzy, and it's almost comforting. At least when I'm drunk, I can stop thinking so much and go to sleep.
I sit there sipping from that bottle for a long time, and I lose track of exactly how long. But I manage to calm myself a little so I feel numb instead of terrified. I feel safe in this place—safer than out on the street or back in my apartment, and definitely safer than the main floor and the staff locker room. I guess it's ironic considering how uncomfortable Dimitri used to make me feel.
He's not as bad as I thought he was. At least I don't think so. It was easy when I was nothing more than a floor waitress to judge drunk customers by their behavior. I labeled Dimitri as nothing more than a misogynist pig who liked to grope women, but there's more to him than that.
I hear the penthouse door open and close. Footsteps cross the living room and stop outside the bedroom. The door opens, and Dimitri stands in the doorway looking at me and my soggy mess of tears and liquor and he sighs. He looks concerned, not angry or demanding like I expected.
"You've been drinking again?" he asks softly.
"You locked me in here." I don't bother moving. He can come to me if he intends to talk. I've had enough of his crap. "What did you think I was gonna do?"
He walks into the room and takes the bottle from my hand and doesn't say anything about the stain spreading across his comforter where I spilled a little. Then he sets the bottle on the nightstand and sits down on the edge of the mattress.
"I needed to deal with the investigators." He looks down at his hands, which rest folded on his lap, and his voice is so gentle, I hardly recognize him. "I couldn't have you running while I was handling that."
"So you trapped me?" God, I'm angry. The vodka has done nothing to calm that. "Like an animal in a cage."
"I'm trying to protect you." When his eyes rise to meet mine, I swear I see affection in them. What the hell is happening? "The Kozlovs are looking for you, Tatiana. If you'd left this building, you'd be dead by now."
I don't know if I like this version of him. This calm, reasonable Dimitri who's approaching me like I'm a scared animal that might bolt at any second isn't as predictable as the angry boss who gropes me. I don't know what changed between the alley and now, but it makes me more nervous than when he was grabbing me and backing me against walls.
"Why are you being nice to me?" I pull my knees up to my chest. "You've never been nice before."
"Because you're terrified and drinking yourself sick and I need you to trust me." He moves closer on the bed. "And controlling you like you're an object I own has never brought down your walls."
"But that's what you think, isn't it?" I wrap my arms around my knees. "That I belong to you. That you can control what I do and where I go."
"Yes." He doesn't even deny it. "But I'm realizing that approach isn't working with you."
