“I don’t have children’s ibuprofen or a thermometer. I don’t know where they keep medicine in this house.”
“Then find someone who does.”
I press the call button by the bed and wait.
Nothing.
I press it again.
Still nothing.
Of course.The entire staff is downstairs covering the dinner. Theessentialdinner that I was told to stay away from.
My gaze returns to Anya. Her face is flushed and damp. She’s watching me. Depending on me.
The instruction was to stay upstairs, but the instruction did not account for a child’s temperature spiking or an unattended call system.
Rolan Belov would want someone to help his daughter.
“I’m going to find you some medicine,” I say. “Five minutes. I promise.”
“Okay.”
I move as fast as I can, going to the private kitchen, but find no medicine. I check every cabinet, every drawer. Nothing.
The staff kitchen is downstairs, where I was told not to go.
I take the service stairwell, and the lower level seems empty. The kitchen is dark, and the stations are vacant. Everyone has been deployed to the dinner. I discover a first aid kit under the sink. Bandages, gauze, antiseptic. No fever reducers. No children’s medicine.
I need to find someone. The only people in this house who can help me are in the room I was told to avoid.
Anya’s forehead is burning. Maren said 103 means the ER, but I have no idea if she’s at 103. I don’t have a way to find out.
I hear muffled voices.
I follow the sound, trying not to make a noise.
The corridor is wider down here, better lit, with stone floors and recessed lighting. I hear them better now, low conversation, the clink of crystal.
The corridor ends at an archway. Through it, a dark wood candlelight chandelier hangs from the ceiling.
I take one more step, and the room opens before me. It’s vast with a twelve-seat table, currently occupied by five men and boasting an elaborate dinner service. Guards stand at the walls — not only the estate guards I recognize, either. And at the head of the table, facing the archway, facing me, is Rolan.
He sees me before anyone else does.
His eyes lock on mine across the room, and a flicker passes over his features. Definitely not the reaction I was expecting. He’s not angry; he seems disturbed.
It’s there and gone in a fraction of a second, replaced by a mask, but I caught it. In the half-second before the control clicked into place.
The room goes quiet, and every head turns. Every pair of eyes lands on me, the small woman in jeans and a sweater and socked feet, standing in the archway of a room she was explicitly told not to enter.
A man across the table — middle-aged, silver-haired, wearing a suit that probably costs more than my annual debt payment — tilts his head and studies me with the curious, unhurried interest of a cat that has spotted a mouse.
“Well,” he says, and his voice is smooth, accented — not Russian, which I learned to identify as the days went by — carrying an amusement that makes my skin crawl. His eyes move across my face with more than just curiosity. This man enjoys what he’s looking at. “Who is this?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
Rolan stands, catching my attention. The motion is fluid, but there’s tension in his jaw. Every man in the room shifts when he stands. He is the center of gravity in this room, and everyone in it orbits him. Seeing the way these dangerous-looking men react to his movement tells me Rolan Belov is not a businessman.
