Page 22 of Claimed By my Ex’s Uncle

"After the baby comes along?” I explode. "But that’s months away! You can’t seriously expect me to give up my whole life just to⁠—"

"I expect you to do what’s right for you and that child," he retorts hotly. "Our child. And if you won’t handle that yourself…" His lip curls upward. "Then I’ll do it for you."

"I’m going to call the cops," I announce, hands on my hips. "Tell them that you took me under false pretenses and that I want to leave, and now you won’t let me. You really want them poking their noses around here?"

I try my best to sound intimidating, but it’s almost impossible when he’s standing right in front of me, looking totally amused by how desperate I am to take some control back right now. Nothing gets through to him—nothing comes close. In this world, he has complete dominion over anything and everything that goes down, and I’m just lucky not to get swept away by the sheer power of it at any given moment.

"Call them," he says.

“What?” I blurt.

"Call them," he replies, making his way back to the desk, sinking into his seat, looking back at me as he locks his hands behind his head. "See what they do. Be my guest."

I part my lips, scanning his face as I try to determine if he’s getting me to call his bluff or if he really means it. Would he even care if the cops came to this place? He must have some pretty solid connections within the force to have found out about everything that was happening with Petar the way he did. Maybe… maybe he has them wrapped around his little finger the way he does everyone else in this place. His power is hard-won, and it’s not the kind that comes from playing by the rules.

A cold shiver runs down my spine as it suddenly hits me that he might be right, that there might be nothing I can do at all. My entire life, I have thought of the cops as this safe, mitigating force, the worst-case-scenario back-up if something goes so wrong that I can’t handle it myself.

But all this time, I should have known that they don’t run this city. Men like Ilya do. And men like Ilya are used to getting everything in the damn world that they want.

"Fine, I will," I reply, calling his bluff.

His face doesn’t flicker, like he was expecting this answer. "Go ahead."

I glare him down for one more moment, chewing my lip. But then, I turn on my heel and take off towards my room again. Okay, so I’ll do it, and then we’ll see where he stands with all of this. The cops might have been willing to look the other way when he was sliding decent bribes in their direction, but surely they would think better of it when they realized that he was keeping a woman locked up in his mansion with no recourse or hope of escape.

At least, that’s what I tell myself as I grab my phone and slam the door shut behind me. I tap nine-one-one into the keypad and hover my finger over the call button for a moment, trying to muster all the certainty I can that this is the right thing to do. Just one call, and I could be out of here. One decent cop making it his mission to check things out and realizing just how off things were here with me, and I would be free.

I tap the button and lift the phone to my ear, pacing to work off some of the excess stress currently lancing through my entire body. I know it’s not good for the baby, but then, neither is being stuck here.

And neither is being under the thumb of a man who might be more powerful than I could ever have imagined.

Chapter 12

Rose

"Thank you for your time, officer," Ilya remarks, shaking the hand of the police officer who came to the mansion to attend to my call. With my arms crossed over my chest, I glare at the two of them, wondering what the hell it’ll take for anyone to start taking me seriously.

Because… because I just can’t figure this out. I called the police, told them that a man was holding me against my will. They started off battle-ready, but the more I told them, the less enthused they acted about my rescue. By the time I admitted that I had gone with Ilya of my own accord, that he was keeping me in relative luxury, and that he had encouraged me to call them, they seemed much more indifferent than they had before, but they still agreed to send someone out to meet with the two of us and figure out how to move forward.

And it is that officer who stands in the doorway of the mansion right now, shaking hands with Ilya like the two of them are old friends. I want to scream—can’t he see that there’s more going on here than he might know? Or does he just not care? From the second the car drew up outside the gates, I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to get through to them.

Ilya seems mildly amused by the entire fiasco. As soon as he told me to go ahead and call the cops, I should have known that I wouldn’t get anything out of this. He’s not the kind of man who’s going to stand back and allow someone to do something that might harm him or his business—I should know that by now. And yet, foolishly, I let myself believe that there might be a hope in hell of getting out of this mess, even if the walls seem to have closed even more tightly around me as a result.

"Yes, thanks for your time," I mutter, staring at the ground, not wanting to be entirely left out of this conversation.

I’d noticed the officer conversing with Ilya exchange serious looks with him as he no doubt recounted everything that I had told them over the phone—that he was keeping me here against my will, that I wanted out, that I was going to do whatever it took to leave this place behind. I had half-expected to see money changing hands, but I guess when your influence stretches as far as Ilya’s does, you don’t need anything as gauche as cash to make your point.

"And if you need anything else," the officer—what is his name? He didn’t even bother to introduce himself to me—tells Ilya, "you be sure to tell me, alright? Anything we can do to help."

I almost want to wave my hands in front of his face, remind him that I am the one who called for help in the first place, but I doubt it would matter. He has inspected the mansion, been shown my quarters, the open lock on the door, my phone and charger, and decided that I could have escaped if I wanted to. Since I’m not being kept chained to the wall in some dungeon, that counts as freedom for him, or at least good enough.

"And what if I need you?" I demand, taking a step forward, forcing the man to finally engage with me. I stare at him, eyebrows raised, insisting that I get some kind of answer.

His shoulders sag slightly, as though he doesn’t want to have this conversation in front of Ilya, knowing that any sign of siding with me will only hurt his chances to stay on the man’s good side.

"Then you better have good evidence for what you need from me," he shoots back. "Instead of wasting police time with these calls for no good reason."

I part my lips, ready to argue with him, but before I can, he nods to Ilya and makes for the door. Just as quickly as he arrived, he is gone. I listen to the car crunching up the gravel driveway outside until it fades into the distance. I turn back to Ilya, my mouth set in a hard line.