Page 13 of Santa Daddy
“But now you are target with very dangerous shield. Before, you were nothing. See difference?”
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.” His gaze dropped, scanning my face, my throat. Stopped somewhere south. “But I am rich and powerful, and people call me brutal.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “You’re not even trying to pretend you’re a good guy.”
“Good guy?” He tilted his head like I’d spoken another language. “Kotyonok, I shot man in front of you tonight. Three bullets. Center mass. I do not pretend to be good. I pretend to be efficient.”
His phone buzzed. He ignored it.
“What happens now?” I asked.
He pushed off the wall, giving me back an inch of air. My lungs dragged it in greedily.
“Now you shower,” he said. “Natasha will burn that costume if she finds it. She has taste.” He walked to a sleek panel by the door and tapped something. I heard locks click. “You rest. You do not touch doors, balconies, windows, or anything with wires. You do not look for phones or codes or ways to run.”
Every thing he listed had already been on my mental to-do list.
“My life is not Netflix series about dumb girl outsmarting mafia boss,” he added. “If you try something, I will know. If I know, I will not be friendly about it.”
“This is you being friendly?”
“For me, yes.” He checked his watch like this conversation was a small delay between more important crimes. “Tomorrow, we talk rules. For now, eat, shower, sleep.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You are shaking.” He rolled his wrist, glanced back at me. “Adrenaline. Shock. Fear. Body burns calories. You need food.”
“You’re not my mom.”
“Thank God.” His mouth curled. “I like you too much for that.”
The casual admission did something terrible to my insides.
“Kitchen,” he said. “Sandwich. Juice. Natasha left them. She thinks I do not know she worries I will starve. She is wrong, but I let her mother me.”
“You have a Natasha.”
“You have Natasha now too.” The faintest shrug. “She will not like it. She will get over it.”
“I want to go home.”
“You do not have home.” The words were flat. Not unkind. Just factual. “You have student debt, shit job, cheap apartment with neighbors who do not know your name. You have treadmill, not home. This” – he gestured around us – “is home until I say otherwise.”
A lump built in my throat. Thick. Ugly.
“How do you know about my job?”
His gaze met mine again. “I make call in car. My men call their men. Ten minutes, I can buy your life story. This is world you live in now. Information is easy. Keeping you alive will be hard.”
The honesty knocked the wind out of my lungs more than the threat.
He walked to the door. It recognized him and unlocked with a soft click.
He stepped into the hall, then paused. Looked back at me over his shoulder.
“There are cameras everywhere,” he said. “Except one small blind spot in hallway. You already noticed. Clever girl.”
