“I didn’t think it would’ve helped,” Nora says, and I see her big dark eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry, Julian. I wanted the girl gone by the time we returned, and I told Rosa to make it happen. I was sure you wouldn’t go along with it.” Her chin quivers as the tears spill over and roll down her cheeks. “Please, if you have to punish someone, it should be me, not Rosa. She was just being a good friend to me. Please, Julian.” She reaches up to touch his face with her free hand, and I avert my gaze as Esguerra catches her wrist and pulls her flush against him, his nostrils flaring. The tension between them turns thickly sexual, and I suddenly feel like an intruder, a peeping tom observing an intimate moment.
Clearing my throat, I step toward Rosa and grab her upper arm, pulling her to her feet. “I’ll let you two figure this out,” I say, marching the maid toward the door. “In the meanwhile, I’ll have Rosa watched by the guards.”
Neither Esguerra nor his wife justify my statement with a response, and as I exit the building, I hear the sound of something falling, followed by Nora’s choked cry. Rosa sucks in her breath—she must’ve heard it too—and her shoulders shake with a fresh bout of tears.
“Don’t worry,” I say, giving the girl an icy look as I lead her away from the building. “Esguerra may be a sadist, but he won’t hurt her—much. You, on the other hand, are still a question mark. If Nora lied to protect you…”
I don’t complete my statement, but I don’t have to.
We both know what Esguerra will do to Rosa if she allowed Nora to take the fall for her.
30
Yulia
I wake up groggy and confused, hurting from head to toe. Groaning, I stumble out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. Still half-asleep, I take care of business, and it’s only when I’m washing my face that it dawns on me that I’m alone—and untied.
A soreness at the back of my neck reminds me of the reason for that: the tracker implants. Lucas must be certain I won’t be able to run away again.
I lift my hand and touch the bandage on my nape, then turn to peer at my back in the mirror. Besides the spot I’m touching—and amidst a mottled canvas of bruises—there are two more areas where the trackers went in. The bandages on the wounds are simple Band-Aids now; Lucas must’ve changed them while I was sleeping. I vaguely recall the doctor giving instructions about that.
I also remember what happened afterwards, and a violent blush sears my face, chasing away the remnants of my sleepiness. I’m not sure why I egged Lucas on like that, but at the time, it seemed to make sense. He clearly cares little about me as a person, and I wanted him to admit it. I wanted him to prove to me once and for all that I’m nothing more than a convenient body for him to fuck, a sexual object that he can and will hurt at will.
Except he didn’t hurt me. He gave me pleasure, and then he took his own with his fist, leaving me covered with his seed.
“Yulia?” A knock on the door startles me, and I turn, my pulse jumping into the stratosphere. The voice is not Lucas’s, and I’m completely naked.
“Yes?” I call out, grabbing a big fluffy towel off the rack and wrapping it around myself.
“Lucas asked me to watch you this morning,” the man says, and I exhale in relief as I recognize Diego’s voice. “I hope I didn’t scare you. He said you might be sleeping for a while, and I was in the kitchen, grabbing myself a snack, when I heard the water running. You okay? Do you need anything?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks,” I say, my heartbeat slowing a bit. “I’ll just, um… I’ll be right out.”
“No problem. Take your time. I’ll be in the kitchen.” I hear retreating footsteps.
On autopilot, I brush my teeth and run a comb through my hair, untangling the wild blond mess. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m even trying to look presentable. The face staring at me from the mirror is like something out of a nightmare. My lips are already beginning to heal, but the left side of my face, where Kirill hit me, is one giant ugly bruise. Smaller scrapes and bruises decorate the rest of my face and body—except for my back, which looks even worse than my face.
No wonder I’m still in pain.
Carefully, I rotate my neck from side to side, trying to ease the stiffness in my muscles. My head aches with the movement, but not as much as yesterday. The doctor had been right about the mildness of my concussion; I had passed out on the plane as much from shock and exhaustion as the head injury itself.
Feeling marginally better, I tighten the towel around myself and walk to the bedroom to change. All the skimpy outfits that Lucas got for me are still there, and I select a pair of shorts and a T-shirt at random, grimacing in pain as I put the clothes on.
When I finally make my way to the kitchen, I find Diego there, spreading cream cheese on a toasted bagel.
“Hey,” he says, giving me his usual charming grin. “Are you hungry?”
My stomach chooses that moment to rumble, and the young guard’s smile widens. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he says, putting his bagel down on his plate and getting up. “What would you like? Cereal, toast, fruit? Here, sit.” He gestures toward the table. “I’m under strict orders to make sure you don’t do anything strenuous today.”
“Um, cereal would work.” I walk over to the table and sit down, feeling disoriented. It seems like only minutes ago, I was in Ukraine amidst gunfire and explosions, and now I’m in Lucas’s kitchen, talking about cereal with one of the mercenaries who killed my UUR colleagues.
My former UUR colleagues, I mentally correct myself. I ceased being part of the organization when I made the choice to disappear instead of carrying out my assignment.
“Where’s my brother?” I ask, remembering what Lucas told me about the guards watching him.
Diego gives me another grin. “He’s with Eduardo. The poor guy drew the short straw.”
I blink. “Oh?”
“Let’s just say your brother is not very happy to be here.” Diego walks over to the fridge and takes out a carton of milk. Pouring cereal into a bowl, he adds the milk, grabs a spoon, and brings the bowl to me. Before I can ask, he says, “But he’s okay, so don’t worry. Nobody’s going to hurt him.”
I pick up my spoon, though I no longer feel hungry. My stomach is tight with anxiety. Of course Misha is not happy to be here. How could he be? His uncle was killed in front of his eyes, and he must be terrified out of his mind. And if Obenko didn’t lie about Misha’s relationship with his adoptive parents, they must be worried sick about him. Unless he lives at the UUR dorms, like other trainees? If that’s the case, they might not be aware of what happened yet, though I’m sure someone is bound to notify them soon.
What a disaster—and it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t been so weak, Lucas wouldn’t have known anything about UUR. I let my captor break me, and then I inadvertently led him to my brother—the very person I was trying to protect. I remember yesterday’s argument with Misha, the accusations he threw at me, and I want to curl up and cry.
“Are you all right?” Diego sits down across from me and picks up his bagel. “You look really pale.”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, dipping my spoon into the cereal and bringing the soggy corn flakes to my lips. “Just a bit out of it.”
“Of course.” Diego gives me a sympathetic grin. “Jet lag is a bitch, plus you got it pretty rough yesterday.”
He focuses on his bagel, and I choke down a few bites of cereal before putting down my spoon. I didn’t lie about being out of it; my thoughts are all over the place, my mind jumping from one question to another. The future—especially my brother’s future—is like a terrifying black hole looming in the distance, so I try to focus on the present and the near past.
“How did you know where to find me?” I ask Diego when he’s done with his bagel. “In general, how did you locate that facility?”
“Oh, yeah, that…” The guard gets up and takes his plate over to the sink. “I’m afraid your rescue was more or less luck on our end, but I’ll let Kent fill you in on that.”
Great. Another person stonewalling me. Does every person on this compound regard me as Lucas’s property to such an extent that they can’t answer my questions on their own?
Suppressing my frustration, I force myself to eat another spoonful of cereal before getting up to dump the rest of it in the garbage.
“What are you doing? Here, I got it.” Diego intercepts me before I can get to the sink, grabbing the bowl out of my hands. “You need to rest today.”
“I’m fine,” I say, then lean against the counter, the weakness in my knees belying my statement. “I want to see Misha—Michael, I mean. Can you bring him here or take me to him?”
“Nope,” Diego says cheerfully. “Eduardo took him to the training gym an hour ago. Why don’t you rest for now, and then we’ll see what Kent says later?” The guard is smiling, but I can sense the steel underneath his easygoing facade. He’s not about to let me do anything other than rest and wait for Lucas to come home.