Chapter 9

I finish my cigarette and stub it out on the vintage brass ashtray that was left on the front porch by the previous owner. Never thought I’d use it, but maybe my men knew more about what was in store for me when I kidnapped Ekaterina Sidorova than I did.

She’s feisty.

She’s unhinged.

She’s probably plotting my murder, and she’s threatened to cut off my balls in about ten different ways so far, all of them excruciating.

It’s hot as fuck.

I head back into the cabin. My watch tells me I’ve been letting her cool her heels with her wrists duct-taped for the last half hour. It’s what she deserves for throwing food at me like a child after she destroyed the bedroom. Not to mention the mouthy threats she keeps tossing my way. She’s lucky duct tape around the wrists and a chain on the ankle is all I’ve done. A Bratva goon I suspect was Dmitri Sidorov handcuffed Saint’s woman to hisbed naked and scared the shit out of her. What I’m doing with Ekaterina is child’s play by comparison.

It’s eerily quiet inside the cabin as I tromp through the main room, a combination kitchen and living room with an old potbelly stove. There’s no electricity this far out, but the generator running in a nearby shed powers the place, and the guy I bought the cabin from had the foresight to dig a well and put in a septic system. The cabin has no more than the basics, but if I could, I’d live here instead of my penthouse in the city. When I bought it on a whim, I didn’t know I’d need it to hold a Bratva princess hostage, but shit gets weird in the Mafia world real fast.

Which is also why I’m somehow not surprised when I open the bedroom door and Ekaterina Sidorova isn’t on the mattress on the floor where I left her. In fact, she’s not anywhere. The duct tape I wrapped around her wrists is frayed and lying on the subflooring, curled in a C. The bed frame is partially torn apart, and there’s no chain. No Russian hellcat either.

Fuck.

I reach for the piece at my waist, pulling it out. It doesn’t take me long to clear the small bedroom and attached bathroom. My hostage has disappeared on me. Which means she’s either hiding somewhere else in this cabin, or she ran off while I was hiking down the driveway for cell service to taunt herstronzobrother.

Either way, this isn’t good.

But she’s not going to get far.

I perform a quick scan of the rest of the cabin. She’s not in the second bedroom or the combo kitchen and living room, and this place doesn’t have a basement, an attic, or closets. At least I have the keys to my Navigator, and she’s been forced to go on foot. In the dark, no one else for miles around, running won’t go well for her.

In fact, given the short amount of time it took me to get to the clearing—which I stupidly did for the sake of walking off my hard-on—I don’t think she could have gotten far. Odds are strong that she’s hiding somewhere within sight of the cabin, hoping she can get the jump on me and steal my car.

Not a fucking chance, hellcat.

I head back outside, and a quick flash of light catches my attention. My head swivels to the generator shed. It’s windowless and resembles nothing so much as an outhouse, but there’s a thin crack at the bottom of the door. And I know instantly that’s where she’s hiding. She must have flicked off the light at the last second.

A second too late.

“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” I call, slowly and calmly moving in the direction of the shed.

Inside, the generator is chugging away. There’s an exhaust vent that’ll keep her from succumbing to carbon monoxide poisoning, but she doesn’t know that. It’s a reckless gamble, and she’s risking her life. Fury pounds inside me, roaring like a demon. There’s not even much room for her to hide in there. She’d have been better off running.

But she’s also caged herself in neatly for me. The shed is made of cinder blocks. No windows. One door. There’s no way for her to escape except one, and my Glock and I aren’t about to let that happen.

“I know you’re in there,” I call out as I approach the generator shed. “You may as well come out.”

But she doesn’t heed my advice. Of course she doesn’t.

I move slowly, making sure she can’t hear me approach as I get closer. I have no other guns here but the one in my hand, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t found another weapon to arm herself with. Much like the rest of her insane family, Ekaterina Sidorova is capable of anything.

Three steps to the shed, two, one. My next motions are so fast they’re almost simultaneous. I open the door and hit the switch, gun raised. Light floods the shed, and I see her instantly. She’s crouched alongside the big rectangular generator, wielding a steak knife that she must’ve stolen out of one of the drawers in the kitchen. Resourceful of her. She thinks on her feet. The Russian hellcat is smart enough to be reckless and just a little bit dangerous. I can almost admire that. Too bad it’s not going to get her far.

The barrel of my gun is trained on her heart.

“Drop the knife.”

She doesn’t react, just watches me with big blue eyes that are framed with thick lashes, her hair hanging down her back and around her face. She’s fucking beautiful. I shouldn’t notice the way her tank outlines her perfect tits or how her jeans cling to every mouthwatering curve of her thighs and ass, but I’d have to be dead not to.

“Drop it,” I repeat.

She lunges at me.

I catch the wrist holding the steak knife as she rushes me, squeezing until it clatters to the floor. My pistol is still on her.