Page 28 of Little Blue

“Yes, plane. But how?”

He peers down at me, a frown pinching his brow. “Must I really explain the workings of a plane to you?”

I roll my eyes. His sharpen.

My breath snags before I huff, “I don’t have a passport. Clearly, I wasn’t conscious, as I have absolutely no recollection of traveling anywhere with you. I can’t imagine there’s an airline that would allow you to carry an unconscious woman, without a passport no less, onto a plane bound for another country.”

“There isn’t a commercial airline that would allow such a thing.” His eyes linger on my face, specifically my lips as I bite into the corner. “That’s why I fly private.”

I drop my lip as my jaw unhinges. “P-private? You have a private plane?”

“I do.”

My head snaps back on my shoulders as though he’s slapped me. The recoil is a vicious thing that has his eyes narrowing. My mind reels, my eyes wide as I take in the man before me.

I can’t connect this man—the things he’s done and the power he holds—to reality. I just can’t.

I’ve never known a man like him. A man in possession of the kind of power he commands. The power that allows him to steal a human being with no consequence or question.

“Who are you?”

His hand moves from the small of my back to my waist, where he tugs me into his front. My breath snags at the sudden contact of his body pressed into mine. At the heat that floods into me from this simple, unexpected, life-altering collision. My hand slaps up to land on his broad chest—to steady myself. It only makes me feel more unstable. Because under my palm, through the smooth material of his suit, I can feel the chaos of a wild heart beating violently inside his chest.

Dipping his head, his eyes locked on mine, he tells me, “I am yours.”

“You’re crazy.” I’m breathless.

His lips quirk. “For you.”

There he goes with that again.

“You don’t know me.”

“I know more about you than you think, Irelynn Orla Taylor, twenty-one, will be twenty-two in May. You did not graduate high school and were tossed into the foster system after the deaths of your parents.” My lungs seize in my chest. He doesn’t seem to notice. “You have no family left, and apart from Rae, no friends. Aside from working at Low and Bard Construction, you’ve worked one other job, at a bowling alley. Your favorite color is blue, you smell like cookies.” The blade of his nose runs the length of my neck, and I know he’s scenting me for one of the only luxuries I allow myself. My sugar cookie scented cream that reminds me of Christmas with my mom. I allow myself one jar every November and sob my heart out when I use the last drop. He continues, oblivious to the way he’s stripped me bare and flayed me raw. “You adore your cat and feed him better than you feed yourself. You either have a great love of peanut butter, or you eat it because it’s cheap. Shall I go on?”

My throat is raw with emotion when I shake my head. “No.”

“Good.” He releases his hold on me to place his hand against the small of my back again. Again, he guides me with a firm pressure in the direction he wants me to go.

My mind reels with everything I’ve learned. His name is Ilya Volkov. He lives in Russia, but when I met him at the casino, his accent was perfect, crisp American English. He is cool and clearly calculating. He’s a self-proclaimed monster, a killer without remorse. He has not only the wealth needed to command a private plane, but the power to demand unquestioning loyalty from those who serve him—even when that loyalty demands they look the other way during a kidnapping. He has a mansion tucked deep into the Russian woods, armed by men with guns and dogs with teeth that have been trained to maim.

I’ve read enough mafia romances to have my mind traveling down some insane paths.

Giving my head a sharp shake, I decide I’m being ridiculous. He might be a bad guy—but he can’t be that bad. Can he?

I need to convince him to return me to my one-room apartment with the soggy ceiling. Lucy might be comfortable as a king upstairs, curled on top of a bajillion thread count blanket, but I’m realistic enough to know that this story isn’t going to end well. Not for me, at least.

I make the decision then and there to press every button he has, until he decides to wipe his hands clean of me. It’s risky business, being that he’s a self-proclaimed killer and all. But I’ll just have to take the risk. Because staying with him is not an option.

Thirteen

Irelynn

When I see the massive room with the massive table, I think that’s where we’re headed. Then I’m proved wrong when we bypass it altogether, continuing into another room I quickly realize is the kitchen. Like the dining room, there’s a very large rectangular table sitting perpendicular to a very long countertop that moonlights as another table, with a row of wood stools tucked under the granite overhang.

The counter is part of a very large u-shaped kitchen, where an older couple currently work together. Pots bang, flour dusts the surface of the countertop, and a double fridge bigger than any I’ve ever seen stands on the wall opposite the counter. Adjacent the fridge, that could surely feed an army, is an open door that appears to lead into a butler’s pantry. At the far end of the pantry, I see another door. It’s small and simple, and from the half pane of glass, I see daylight.

I can escape through there, too.

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