“How are you feeling?” I asked him as I took the chair in front of him.
He shook his head. “They beat the hell out of me to get me to talk to you,” he told me. “I can’t believe I gave in, but they were very persuasive with their fists. How did you get mixed up with these guys?”
“Gage offered to pay me a large sum of money to come down here and talk to you. I had no idea this was what I’d be doing,” I opened up to him. I needed someone to talk to, and I knew that if I had reached out to anyone in my life outside the Kings of Hell, it would have been nothing but questions about where I had been and what I had been up to. Dimitri was the best option I had right now.
“Easy money, huh?” He shook his head and smiled at my foolishness. “You should know better. There’s no such thing as easy money, Dr. Danvers.”
“Please, call me Julia.” I put a hand on his knee and recoiled immediately from my tender gesture.
He heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry you had to witness all of this. This isn’t the place for someone like you. I’m going to assume you’re a very successful professional outside of here.” He narrowed his blue eyes as he talked.
“I wouldn’t say very successful. Moderately, maybe. But, yes, I’m a professor of Russian history and culture, but I thought you already knew that,” I told him with a smile.
“You might have told me,” he said thoughtfully. “It sounds familiar. Still, you definitely carry yourself more like a professional than one of their girlfriends. You don’t seem like the type to hang around thugs like Gage and his men.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re right. I’m definitely not.”
“Well, look, let’s get out of here,” he said nonchalantly.
“I don’t know, Dimitri. There are a lot of guys still here. What if they see us?”
“They won’t notice. And if they do, we’ll be far enough away that it won’t matter. Besides, it’ll be easy to get out without being seen. I saw how little they guard this place,” he persisted.
I thought about it. I really did pause for a moment to let it roll around in my head.
“It would be nice. I already tried to leave once. I think you remember that, but Gage came and pulled me back in,” I explained.
“No, he didn’t. Julia, I’ve already read you. You came back because you wanted to. You felt like you had some kind of responsibility to finish the job you started. And I know why you took this job in the first place,” he said.
My veins ran icy cold, and my stomach dropped. Did he know about my mother? Did he know the financial state I was in? How did he know about me? Did everyone out here on the street know about Dr. Julia Danvers?
“You took this job because you can’t resist the opportunity to work with someone from Russia. You can’t resist the way Mother Russia calls to you. I see it in your eyes when we talk. No matter what else you’re thinking, I can see that letting the Russian words roll over your tongue is like magic to you. It is like exploring a mystery or searching for long lost treasure. What did you lose in Russia?” he asked.
“I didn’t lose anything,” I answered. “I just fell in love with the sound of the language and the people I met through my mother. There’s such a rich history there. The Russia I saw when we visited was not the Russia I saw from home when we came back here. That’s why she draws me in so much. That’s why I can’t resist her. She is beautiful in a strange, misunderstood way.” I let my voice trail off. Why was I opening up to this man? Didn’t Gage tell me that Dimitri would rape and kill me if he had half the chance?
Yet it was Gage who had used sex to keep me here. He knew I wanted him, and he exploited my desire to make me work for him.
“Listen, Julia, I don’t care why you love my home. I am flattered that you do, for sure. But if you let me go, I will make sure you get out of here. I will help you escape with me. Then, you can return to your scholarly life and get away from these hellions.”
I stared into his eyes for a moment. He certainly looked genuine. The worst that would happen would be getting caught and ending up right back here with him, I figured.
“Okay, let’s do it,” I told him.
“Good. If you go out into the garage from here, you should be able to find a knife or something else that will cut these ropes. Then we can leave, and I’ll show you how easy it is to get by these drunks without being seen,” he said.
I opened the door and crept into the pit under the garage. There were a couple of workbenches on the adjacent wall, and sure enough, one of them had a large hunting knife sitting on it.