Page 31 of Twilight Sins

“Budimir!” he gasps. “Akim is meeting with a guy named Budimir. That’s all I know, I swear.”

I’ll be damned. A name. We have a name.

Maybe this detour wasn’t such a waste of time, after all.

I take my finger off the trigger and step back. The soldier sags against the car. He looks green around the edges. Something tells me he isn’t used to being threatened.

“Thanks for your honesty.”

He looks up at me, brows pinched. “Are we good?”

I nod and gesture towards the car. “We’re good. I don’t need anything else from you.”

He keeps his eyes on me as he slides down the side of the car and drops back into the driver’s seat.

I really don’t need anything else from him. “Don’t forget this.” I turn the gun around and hold it out to him handle-first.

He reaches towards it with a trembling hand. The moment his fingers wrap around the handle, I curl my hand around his, twist his wrist, and press the gun under his chin.

He doesn’t even have time to beg for his life before I pull the trigger.

I let his arm and the gun fall naturally into his lap. The less posed it looks, the better.

I said I didn’t need anything else from him and I meant it. I sure as fuck didn’t need him driving straight back to Gustev headquarters to tell Akim that I know about their surveillance of Luna and the name of his weapons supplier.

I kick the car door closed, sealing the miserable bastard in his four-wheeled tomb. “Pleasure doing business with you, my friend.”

12

LUNA

It’s not obvious just walking through Yakov’s mansion—especially when you’re there for the first time after a few drinks and feeling dizzy from kissing him in the car ride over—but security is tight.

I didn’t notice the cameras at first, but now, I see them everywhere. Black, beady eyes watching and recording from every smoke detector, clock face, and mirror in the entire house. In the spots I couldn’t find cameras—like in the bathrooms or just outside of what has to be Yakov’s office—there are locked doors. Or, better yet, maids who “just so happen” to pop out of nowhere to see if I need help with anything.

“Some help with my escape plan would be nice,” I said after the third maid approached while I was jiggling the handle to the office. “And if you have a key for this door, that would be swell.”

She smiled like I’d requested a glass of milk and then carried on down the hallway doing whatever evil deed she does around Yakov’s mansion. Probably dusting the spiked weapons cabinet in his dungeon.

I tried the front and back doors as soon as Yakov left. Both were unlocked. I walked right outside and stood on the porch. No one appeared to shove me back inside… but I could feel eyes on me.

A man who has enough maids and butlers and gardeners for a healthy-sized soccer scrimmage definitely has a few security guards hiding in the bushes. I’m sure they’re top of the line, too. He’s definitely paying them enough that they’re willing to tackle me if I make a run for it.

If being sacked by a guard wasn’t enough of a deterrent, my impractical date night heels seal the deal. I can barely walk in them, let alone run.

I slowly complete three laps of the inside of the house. I try to memorize the layout of the place in case it comes in handy later, but mostly, I note that Yakov has annoyingly good taste in art. “Cultured” would be added to the growing list of his good qualities if I hadn’t already mentally shredded, burned, and spread the ashes of that list to the wind.

With no escape plan to hatch and nothing else to do, I eventually wander out onto the back patio and find my way to the pool.

A wide set of stairs lead from the cement patio down to a recessed lounge area. There are chairs and loungers and tables half-submerged in water. In another set of circumstances, I’d grab my sun hat, my book, and plop myself in one of those chairs. I’d soak in the shallow water for hours while I crisped up and read.

But in this set of circumstances, I don’t have a swimsuit. Or my sunhat. Or even a toothbrush, while I’m listing things that would make my life a bit more pleasant. So I settle for lowering myself to the edge of the pool and letting my feet dangle in the water.

It’s honestly not a terrible time. Until I remember I’m being imprisoned by a man who may or may not be clinically insane. And if he isn’t insane and everything he told me this morning is in fact true, then someone is out to get me.

As far as I can tell, there is no good option.

My usual date night routine is to send my friends text messages updating them on where I’m at and who I’m with. If I hadn’t been so mad at Kayla last night, then I would have texted her on the car ride over before Yakov stole my phone. Then at least there would be some small hope that somewhere out there someone is searching for me.

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