Chapter Fourteen

Ivan shows up an hour later. I’m simultaneously annoyed that he took this long and annoyed that he showed up at all. The limo pulls to a stop a few hundred feet ahead of me, leaving me with the awkward choice of walking straight toward him or turning around.

“Let’s get this over with,” I mutter to myself.

Ivan steps out and leans against the car. The walk is longer than it looks, and he watches me the whole time. I watch him right back, taking in his broad shoulders and trim waist. The cut of his suit is the kind only ten thousand dollars can buy, custom designed to contour his powerful body. No doubt the gravel being kicked up by the eight-lane highway would ruin his Italian leather oxfords.

At least the shoulder is wide enough that I can walk in relative safety. Zooming cars create a wall of light and noise. Night blocks us in from the other side, and it forms an intimate hallway for the two of us. The sun is just peeking over the horizon, casting a weirdly romantic sepia glow.

Up close, I can feel the fury emanating from him. That’s okay. I’m angry too.

“How?” I bite out.

His expression is made of marble, his voice pure steel. “You don’t want to do this here.”

I laugh, which is kind of like waving a red flag in front of a bull. But I’m feeling just that reckless at the moment. I’ve left my home of three years with nothing but a few folded bills in my pocket, all so I can be safe. And now I don’t even have that much. “And you know what I want? If you want me to get in that car, you’re going to have to tell me how.”

He’s silent while my mind fills in the blanks. Did he follow me all the way from his house? I don’t think so. I’ve gotten pretty good at evading his security measures—and his men. That’s what he gets for having them tail me all the time. I know how to lose them.

Did Clara give me up? I didn’t think she would, but obviously something went wrong.

“Your phone,” he says between gritted teeth.

I spread my hands. “I don’t have one anymore. It died. I tossed it.”

“Not a tracker,” he says after a minute.

“Ivan…” I know he doesn’t want to give up his secrets. But he doesn’t want to bodily force me into the car either, not with all these witnesses. Not when there’s still a chance I could run away. He doesn’t have any particular desire to run across eight packed lanes, but in my darker moments, I do.

“A tap,” he says.

Surprise and anger and the smallest bit of hurt battle in my chest. “You listened to my conversations?”

“Not all of them.”

In other words, a lot of them. “Fuck you, Ivan. Really just…fuck you. And you wonder why I don’t trust you. So you know Clara picked me up.”

In one fluid motion he grabs my wrist and twists my arm behind my back. The front of my body slams against the car where he’d been leaning. The metal is still warm from his body.

His voice is low by my ear. “Yes, we knew she picked you up. She wouldn’t tell us anything when we found her, but her phone history led us to the truck stop. Every man there remembered the pretty little girl wandering around. For the right price they gave up which truck she was in and which way they were headed.”

Of course they did. The cars whiz by, no one stopping to check on the girl being held against her will. No one wants to fuck with Ivan, even people who don’t know his reputation. It’s in the way he holds himself.

“You’re hurting me,” I whimper.

He twists harder. “Is that enough information for you? Or do you need me to draw you a fucking diagram?”

“You should have let me go.” My voice is muffled against the car, thick from unshed tears. “I didn’t want to be found. I wanted to disappear.”

He pulls me back only enough to push me into the car. I stumble onto the leather seats and curl into a ball. “Congratulations,” he says, his voice toneless and cruel. “You’ve got your wish. You’re going to disappear from the side of the road tonight, and no one will ever find you.”

Chapter Fifteen

Ivan is silent on the ride home, but that silence speaks volumes. I hear what a bad girl I am, how he’ll punish me. I know it won’t be like before—a spanking while I finger myself. That’s way too generous for how he feels right now. It will be something bad.

What do you want? More money? More pain? Should I start using a cane on you?

He asked me that. And I might find out what a cane feels like today. Or worse.

I’m angry too. Angry that he found me, that he’s dragging me back. But it’s hard to hold on to that in the face of my fear. I never really wanted him to hurt me. I already feel torn up inside, flayed with the barbed-wire bonds of love for a man who can never return it. It’s hard to imagine he can make me feel worse than I already do.

I can count on his determination to find a way.

“Upstairs,” he says as soon as we walk in the door.

It’s blazing daylight outside, but in his house it’s like we’re down in the basement. The windows are tightly sealed, shutters and blinds and curtains locking out the cheery sun. The only light comes from overhead, recessed lighting that leads the way to my room.

My room. I slept here for a year before I convinced Ivan to let me dance at the club and could afford my own place, such as it was. And in that year I never put up a picture, never painted a wall. Never did anything that would mark the bare walls as my own.

I stand in the center of the room, waiting.

He stops at the door, his eyes hard and glittering like diamonds. “No.”

I raise my eyebrows. “No?”

He nods toward the stairs. Keep going. The third floor.

The place he never let me go.

My heart beats faster at the realization that he might tear that wall down.

I take a step toward the door. “Your room?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t seem pleased about it. No, he seems furious. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To sleep in my bed and suck on my cock.”

I flinch at the crude words. It is what I wanted, but he makes it sound dirty. No, he makes it sound sinful. And it is a sin. That’s all I’m made of, sin after sin, sewn together with a string of desire.

“Move,” he says shortly, and I know he’s going to make this as painful as possible.

I climb the stairs with trembling legs, clinging to the railing so I don’t trip and fall. He’s right behind me. I know he’d catch me. He’d drag me up to the room if he had to.

At the landing, I don’t know which way to go. “At the end,” he says, nodding to the right.

The room is massive, but it’s only fitting, considering the bed. There’s a heavy-looking dresser. Other than that, it’s sparse. Kind of like my room one floor down.

“Strip,” he says.

I face him, understanding dawning. This is his punishment for running away. He’s going to give me exactly what I’ve always wanted—sex with him. I wanted that because then he’d be treating me like a woman. Like an equal. Only, he’s not going to do it like that. He’s going to do it painful and cruel. He’s going to make it hurt.

My hands can barely work the button on my jeans, and I shove them down. There’s no grace now. He’s seen me dance onstage. He knows what I look like, practiced, seductive. He’s never seen me like this, falling apart. I’ve never felt like this. Even the first time I met him, afraid and alone, I had determination. I had hope. Now I don’t even have that.

You’re going to disappear from the side of the road tonight, and no one will ever find you.

I take off my tank top and drop it to the floor. Now I’m completely naked.

And he has all his clothes on. I want him to take them off, but I know he won’t. He doesn’t ever. And besides, that wouldn’t make it a punishment.