Page 12 of The Bratva's Hunted Bride
I give it one more try before giving up. They must be painted shut or sealed in some other way. With enough time and a tool, maybe I could chip away at it, but for right now, that’s not a viable exit.
There’s a second door on the far side of the bedroom, and I tiptoe across the room toward it, pausing every few steps to listen for movement in the house. It’s quiet, but I doubt he left me alone here. I check the corners of the room for cameras, but don’t spot any. That doesn’t mean they’re not in here, though. He could’ve hidden them in one of the hideous armoires. Drilling a hole in one could only improve it.
Pushing open the other door reveals an en suite bathroom, and as soullessly ugly as the bedroom is, this one is a thousand times worse. While the bedroom looks like something out of a stock photo, this bathroom resembles a demented king’s fever dream. The walls are entirely covered in gold wallpaper featuring a rose motif, which struggles for dominance in the ugly competition against a gilded, baroque mirror. And to top it all off, the floor is tiled in peach.
“This is not the bathroom of a sane man.” But there are bigger things to worry about than horrible design decisions, so I make my way over to the window beside the tub.
This one overlooks a side yard, and the green grass below is a more inviting place to land, even if it won’t cushion my fall by much. But again, the window doesn’t move, no matter how much I push. I lean my head against the glass and fight back an upswell of tears. Just this morning, I was surfing, savoring a rare slice of freedom. It had cost me so dearly.
Now, I was trapped in a madman’s house with no way of escape. From here, I could see the immense fence wrapping around the property. Cruel iron barbs topped each post. There’d be no climbing that. Even my threats were groundless. Without my phone, how would my brothers even begin to find me? They had no way of knowing who had taken me. The chances of rescue were sitting at zero.
***
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to my stomach. “I was careless this morning. I might’ve screwed things up for us really, really badly.”
The bed dips beneath my weight as I sit on the foot of it and drop my head into my hands. A sob rips through me. Seriously, what the hell? I didn’t ask to be born into the Popov family. I never wanted to be a part of a crime family, and I’ve never done anything even remotely illegal. To the best of my ability, I’ve stayed as far away from the mafia side of things as I could, but I still got sucked into it.
It’s completely unfair. I’ve often thought that life was unfair to me—denying me the freedoms I watched my friends enjoying, denying me even a regular old job—but all of that is nothing compared to this latest twist. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until the flood of tears stops.
That’s when I look down at myself and realize I’m not wearing the same things I wore yesterday. My bikini top and jean shorts have been swapped out for a loose white t-shirt, about four times my size, and a pair of gym shorts. These aren’t my clothes. Which means that Timofey must’ve changed my clothes while I was asleep.
It doesn’t matter that he’s already seen me naked. Already held me, kissed me, fucked me. And it definitely doesn’t matter that the sex was hot as hell. This is a violation. He put his hands on me when I couldn’t do anything to stop him, and who knows what else he might’ve done while he was at it.
Rage overrides common sense, and I charge out the door into the hallway. It’s empty, so he’s not standing vigil outside the door waiting to pounce on me, which is some relief, but not enough to slow me down.
“Timofey!” I bellow, stomping down the hallway.
This place is huge. Each empty room I stick my head into looks a lot like my own, exacerbating that hotel feeling, and I wonder if they have equally deranged bathrooms.
“Talia?” Timofey calls back from somewhere below me. He’s on the first floor, so I backtrack down the hall and head for a spiral staircase.
I don’t know why, but the sound of my name in his mouth infuriates me, as if he has no right to that level of familiarity. He stands at the bottom of the staircase, and my steps slow when I spot him, the instinctual part of me recognizing him for what he is—a threat.
“You’re a pervert,” I snap, standing a few steps away from him so that if he wants to grab me, he’ll have to work for it. “Is this your thing? Kidnap innocent women and then undress them when they’re unconscious? Is this some kind of freaky kink thing?”
His eyebrows draw up in confusion. “What? No. You were sweating in your sleep,” he says, matter-of-fact. “I didn’t want you to catch something. You’d already fainted, and I wasn’t sure what was going on, if you were sick or injured in some way.”
It’s not the answer I was expecting, but he doesn’t sound like he’s lying. But maybe he’s just a good liar. “And that’s all? You were just being what? A good nurse?”
“I was trying to, anyway. It’s not exactly my area of expertise.” He scratches the back of his neck, and I almost feelbadfor yelling at him. Fuck that. He’s just trying to manipulate me.
“Not like kidnapping and holding women hostage? Is that your area of expertise?”
Two lines crease his brow. “No, I’ve never done this before.”
“You’re a pervert,” I talk over him, moving down a stair and jabbing my finger at him. “Just admit it, you felt me up while I was sleeping and changing my clothes because I was sweaty is just some excuse you cooked up.”
“I swear on my life I didn’t touch you any more than I had to to change your clothes.” He lays his hand over his heart, and there’s another flash of earnestness that makes me question everything I’m yelling at him.
Don’t get duped, I remind myself. He’s a psycho kidnapper who likes to play with knives. So what if he didn’t molest you while you were sleeping? There are plenty of other reasons to hate him.
As if to drive that point home, he adds, “I don’t need to feel girls up in their sleep, Miss Popov. I can do that while they’re awake and willing.”
He climbs one step, and despite the step still between us, he’s a little taller than I am. I tilt my chin up to glower at him.
“In fact,” he says, dropping his voice to that low, raspy growl that practically melted my panties off of me the first time I met him, “I bet you’d be more than willing if I tried it right now.”
It’s so audacious that it leaves me speechless. And so obviously wrong. Like I’d ever let this man touch me again after what he did. Just the fact that I ever let him touch me makes me want to scrub my skin off.
