Page 4 of Savage Surrender

No, it would be up tome, up to me alone to save myself and Maxim. As soon as I could strategize a plan to end my father, I would do so on my terms. I had to escape without a trace and ensure no one would hunt me and Maxim down without the rule of my father in place.

The drive back to my father’s house didn’t take that long. As usual, the ride there seemed too short. For all my twenty-three years of life, I’d been a pawn in his schemes. I’d been expected to do as he said, existing with a short leash.

Unwilling to exit the car and go into the house, I stared out the window for a few seconds too long. Daring to daydream that I were anywhere else, I tuned out the sound of the driver getting out and closing his door, the sight of him walking around to open my door. He wasn’t moving out of chivalry or to be a gentleman. He was nothing more than another ward seeing to my imprisonment.

With the door open and the cold air hitting my face, I shivered. Yet, I couldn’t will my body to move. I didn’t want to see my father’s face. I didn’t want to hear his ugly voice.

“Get out,” the driver ordered, glaring down at me.

I did, with a resigned sigh, as I left the peace of the car to head inside.

My father was waiting for me, no doubt annoyed that I’d insisted on seeing Maxim today. He saw every visit as a waste of time. According to him, all my time should be spent catering to hisneeds, to whatever my father decided was necessary for me to do or concern myself about.

Over the last few days, those awkward ones between the winter holidays when nothing seemed to go on as usual, he’d been busy on the phone and holding meetings. Today, though, he seemed to be prepared to catch up with me.

“Sit.” From his perch on one of the antique chairs in the biggest living room, he pointed at the sofa. His face remained lined, both from wrinkles and a scowl. Nothing about his visage suggested any paternal love or care. Here, like this, I was just one employee among many, apparently failing to please him.

I sat, used to perfecting my mask of indifference. On my face, he would see nothing. No fear. No excitement. No love. Not even a need to please or willingness to do my duty.

“What have you learned from the Baranov bitch?” His tone was cutting and impatient, like it always was.

“Nothing.”

His scowl deepened. “Nothing?”

“I haven’t spoken to Eva since the semester ended.” He wouldn’t get a rise out of me. I was telling the truth. I hadn’t spoken to Eva Baranov since I helped her and her bodyguard lover, Lev, escape. My father had teamed up with the Ilyins to have Lev captured. It was all a complicated series of lies and maneuvers, but I declared myself a traitor when I gave Eva a small file to cut the bindings holding her in place. I went against my father’s duplicitous intentions when I told her how to get out of that warehouse.

Those truths would never be shared with Igor Petrov, though. I would take that deception to the grave.

I wasgladthat Eva was safe—not because we were friends but because I hated how my father would attempt to ruin everyone’s lives without a care.

He shot to his feet, though, furious. “The Ilyins are pissed about how this all ended. They blamemefor the fact that Lev got away. That the Baranov girl escaped.”

Of course, the rival family would be mad at him. He’d tried to con them by pretending to help set up the capture. I crossed my arms and said nothing.

He wasn’t done lashing out, though, stalking toward me and hunching over. Thrusting his pointed finger at me, he narrowed his eyes and glowered at me. “I swear, Irina, if you helped her, if you had any part in how they got away, Iwillfind out.”

I refused to react, not letting him see any fear or worry. I couldn’t in this game of power and punishment. If he suspected I'd helped the enemies get free, he’d dole out his punishment on Maxim, not me. Because my father knew how to hit where it hurt the most, and that was in seeing to Maxim’s pain and suffering.

“You are my daughter, Irina.” Straightening from his slant, he puffed out his chest and looked down his big, ruddy nose at me. “You are my daughter.”

Tell me something I don’t know, asshole.

“You are my spy. My servant in this family.”

I hate you.

He lifted his head higher, to emulate a more regal stance as he viewed me. “You are mine to do with as I please. In all ways. You are mine to order as I see fit.” Grinning in a malicious snarl, he added, “And that is all you’ll ever be.”

Keeping my narrow gaze on him, I promised that wouldn’t be true.

You’re wrong. You have to be wrong.

Until I could kill him and be free, he could assume that. For now, though, while I could vow to kill him and sever his control someday, I only had the immediate future to look forward to.

I can’t wait to get back to school. Back on campus.He only ever sent me there to spy on the drug business he was setting up. But it would also be a break from being in this house with him, a pause from having to live with him and put up with him day in and day out when my heart longed for the freedom of another life—one where no one would ever use me as a pawn.

3

---