Page 33 of Shattered Altar (Makarova Bratva Duet)

I don’t even realize I’ve fallen asleep until the car comes to a stop and I jerk awake. My jaw drops as soon as I look out of the window to see where we are.

It’s the Wikipedia definition of “mansion”—or at least, it should be, if it isn’t already. A stone fountain big enough to swim laps in sits in the middle of the circular paved courtyard. The columns of the house are fluted with carved ivy and gargoyles leering out of the granite. It looks like you’d need a team of horses just to open one of the huge front doors.

The burly man who carried me to the car opens my door. He offers me his hand, but I jerk away from him and shake my head fiercely.

“If you don’t cooperate, he will use force,” Aleks tells me in a bored voice.

I refuse his hand anyway and get out of the jeep on my own. But my legs are still waking up from the long ride, so I lose my footing and pitch forward. The only reason I don’t hit the spotted cobblestones below is because the big guy catches me.

“If she decides to be rude again, let her fall,” Aleks says offhandedly. Then he strides away towards the studded doors.

Such a charmer.

Once I’m on solid ground again, I follow him inside with the big guy at my back. The doors lead into an entryway that branches off in three directions. A huge wall of glass sits straight ahead and showcases a square of tidy grass with a magnificent willow tree in the center. One of the windowpanes has been pushed open to reveal a doorway.

Behind the tree, I see another wall of glass and what appears to be a living room. The mansion was clearly designed with nature in mind, green spaces integrating seamlessly with the rest of the house, each flowing into the next like it has always been that way, like the whole thing grew up from the earth on its own.

“Take her up,” Aleks orders his goon. He doesn’t even bother to glance at me.

It’s hard not to take his cold rejection personally. The big guy comes towards me, but I back away from him and speak to Aleks.

“How long are you going to keep me here?”

Reluctantly, he turns to me. It’s shocking that the same gaze that made me feel special and seen this morning can now make me feel so utterly, pathetically insignificant.

“As long as it takes.”

“You realize this is abduction, right? You can’t just keep me here.”

“You’ll find that the Bratva works under different rules,” he says.

“What about laws?” I demand. “The ones that govern this country?”

He smirks. “Those laws don’t apply to me.”

“Says who?”

He moves forward at lightning speed. I stumble back against an ornate oval table in the center of the foyer.

“I say,” he hisses. “As far as you’re concerned, my word is law. Forget everything else.” He glances over his shoulder at the gorilla man. “Never mind. I’ll take her myself.”

With that, Aleks grabs my arm hard and drags me forward. We move up a floating staircase to the second floor. Then he veers down a hallway and pulls me through a nondescript doorway.

The whole way here, I expected him to drop me in a rat-infested dungeon under the house. But the room is… nice. Lovely, actually.

A king-sized bed sits in the center, covered in an off-white duvet that looks light as a cloud. The bed frame is simple but stately, with cascading vines and flowers etched into the wooden posts. Natural light pours through the windows and the French doors that open onto a small balcony. A wrought iron table and two matching chairs bask outside in the sunshine.

I look for something intimidating or insidious about the space, but I find nothing. I could almost imagine I’m a guest in this house, rather than what I really am.

A prisoner.

Or rather, I could almost imagine that—if it weren’t for the surly Russian asshole blocking the way out of here.

I shake my head as the panic starts to swell again despite my best efforts to tamp it down. “I… I can’t just disappear,” I stutter. “I have rent to pay. I have a job to get back to.”

“You’re a freelance cartoonist,” he reminds me with unnecessary cruelty. “No one will be looking for you.”

Our conversation earlier flashes in my mind. I told him too much about my life, convinced he actually cared. But of course he didn’t. It was a reconnaissance mission. He was getting to know his target so he could use it all against me later. Embarrassment heats my cheeks.

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