Chapter 15: Natalia

I feel like he’s getting closer to figuring me out.

Closer to knowing I’m not the real Adriana Alvarez.

Like yesterday, I woke with the sun. Thankfully, Mikhail wasn’t in here, so I got some much-needed time to myself.

I spent the whole day walking on eggshells with my ass aching and my mind a disaster.

My ass is still aching and the nerves in my body are tingling from a deadly cocktail of worry and arousal.

Worry, however, is the dominant ingredient to that mixture, and it will either make me sick or kill me.

The worry over what’s going to happen is making me crazy, and what’s worse is I’m alone in this.

I’m all by myself, and I have no idea what’s happening outside the walls of this home.

What clues will give me away?

I keep thinking of what it will be.

There are bound to be many things.

The house staff might have been killed, but what about other people Raul couldn’t have hid Adriana’s identity from?

People like her doctor and her friends.

There are no extended relatives to worry about on either side so I’m okay there, but there would have been other people they were close to.

Adriana also went by many aliases. She had a different name for when she was at school, to when she went out on the town. She also had a different name when associating with her friends, but I can’t trust that she kept her identity a complete secret.

What if she didn’t?

Or, fuck? It doesn’t even need to be a person. It could be pictures.

Raul had pictures in his house of his late wife and daughter, who looked nothing like me. I didn’t even remember those until now.

What if Mikhail’s men find something there?

Now that a few days have passed, it’s all sinking in that I don’t know if I can keep up the charade.

How am I supposed to live the rest of my life as someone else?

How do I do that?

When Mikhail calls me Adriana and I stall because that’s not me, what do I do?

That’s on a simple level. But on a larger scale, something more could happen to give him clues that something’s off with me.

Last night, he picked up on two things I hadn’t even considered. He asked about the engagement ring the real Adriana wore all the time even when she was screwing around. He also asked about the marks on my back.

The men in the cartel are ruthless bastards, but most of the ones with sense like Raul don’t mark the bodies of the women who will earn them money. He wouldn’t have dared hit Adriana anyway because he loved her. By the same token, Felipe wouldn’t have cared if she was covered in bruises and looked like the creature from the black lagoon because of all he stood to make from getting control over the cartel.

Raul stopped hitting and knocking me around when he decided he was going to sell me. That was my get-out-of-jail-free card.

I keep wondering what’s next.

What will Mikhail notice next?

This is the start of my third day here, and I’m a mess again.

To add to my debacle, I don’t like the way my body reacts when I’m with him. Being told to please him in order to survive and keep José alive is one threat that will keep me in line.

He found my kryptonite. But what do I do when I no longer feel like I’m being forced?

What does that say about me?

I don’t know what the hell happens to me when he touches me, but it’s not something good. Or something I should get used to. Last night, I found myself craving more of what he gave me, but if I’m being honest, I’ve felt like that since his first touch in Mexico.

Maybe I have gone crazy, indeed, and I’m on a different level of fucked up.

At seven thirty, I get ready and make my way downstairs for breakfast. The last thing I need is for Aleksander to come summoning me like he did yesterday.

I notice him on the way to the dining room, but I don’t greet him the way I did yesterday, and neither does he, which is fine. It’s clear he doesn’t like me.

I’m used to being disliked, so that works.

I’m surprised when I walk into the dining room and don’t see Mikhail there.

The same maid from yesterday serves me, but again doesn’t talk. Her name is Irena, and the other, who assists the chef in the kitchen, is Shelly.

Both are quite pleasant, but it’s weird they don’t say anything at all to me at any point of the day.

Ten minutes pass with still no sign of him. I don’t know if that means he left the house early or if he’s just late. I eat because I’m nervous.

It’s better if I don’t see him. It’s easier, but nerve wrecking.

The sound of heavy boots connecting with the wooden floorboards has me turning my head. I know it’s him and not Aleksander even before I look around.

I’m right, and the moment our eyes lock, I remember everything he did to me last night.

An unwelcomed blush rushes over my entire body, making it come alive with the memories of how he touched and tasted me.

It doesn’t help that he looks even more gorgeous than he did a few hours ago since we last saw each other. He’s wearing full black again, just like every time I’ve seen him. The wild locks of his hair glisten in the bright morning sun, the longest strands curling under his ears, and the gold hoop in his ear reminds me of the pirate again. Not just because he looks like one, but because of how he raided my body and pillaged my sense of logic from my mind.

What is logic, though, when you have to do everything you’re told?

Those golden eyes lock on mine, and he doesn’t look away when he walks up to the table and sits next to me.

“Good morning, Malyshka,” he says.

He didn’t greet me with any form of pleasantry yesterday. Now that he’s doing it, I wonder what’s happening.

“Good morning,” I reply, keeping my eyes on him.

Like yesterday, the maid walks in to serve his coffee, and as they indulge in a full-on conversation in Russian, I still don’t know if they’re talking about the weather or me. Whatever it is, I don’t like it, and I’m finding everything harder to deal with because my mind is already such a mess.

When she walks away back to the kitchen, he takes a sip of his coffee and turns back to me.

“You look like you have something to say, Malyshka.”

“You speak Russian and English interchangeably,” I state because that’s a safer conversation than anything else I want to ask him.

“I do. My mother was American, and we always spoke English at home.”

That was the same for me—me, Natalia.

Adriana’s parents were both Mexican, but she went to a private boarding school in L.A. until she was eighteen. That’s why she spoke English.

“You seem to speak more English than Spanish,” he notes.

“I do. I went to school in L.A.” I’m grateful for the little key bits of information I know about Adriana’s life.

“I had to learn Russian because of who my father is,” he informs me, and that instantly makes my nerves spike. I’d never given any thought to his father. Who is he? People say the son is worse than the father. If Mikhail is how he is, what is his father like?

“Who’s your father?”

He smiles, and I don’t know if that means I should worry. “You get to meet him on Sunday.”

“Sunday?”

“We have a family dinner on the first Sunday of every month. We’re going.”

So, I can be the center of attention and hatred. The fork that was barely dangling between my fingers drops onto the plate. The sound makes me jump.

“Don’t worry, Malyshka. They won’t bite unless you give them cause to.”

I think they have enough cause to loathe me just for being Raul’s daughter, and I can’t think of anything worse than sitting around a table with a bunch of people who will hate me. Oh wait… I can think of something much worse. Death.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

I glance down at the unfinished scrambled eggs on my plate, and when I flick my gaze back up to meet his, he takes me in with that curiosity again.

“My father is the Pakhan of the Baranov Brotherhood,” he announces, as if I’m not frightened enough.

“Pakhan?” I mumble, and he nods. “And what are you in the Bratva?” I know what his day job is, but what I’m asking about is so much more.

“I am the Obshchak, and hopefully next in line to be Pakhan, if my brother doesn’t beat me to the finish line.”

I don’t know what to say or think other than I’m in more danger than I previously thought. As witnessed, people like him won’t just kill you. They annihilate and show no mercy. I should have known what kind of monster he was from the get-go.

I knew from the tattoos on his chest that some of them must mean something about leadership in the Bratva, but I never imagined my husband-to-be was so high up the ladder.

“Have I scared you, Malyshka?”

“No,” I lie.

He leans closer. “If you’re going to lie to me, you could try a little harder and not looks so guilty. It gives you away.”

I wonder if he can tell I’m a lie. Maybe if he asked me for my name, I’d give myself away by looking guilty and he’d know.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little black velvet box. At first, I wonder what it is but, when he flicks it open, I glimpse the stunning diamond engagement ring inside. It steals my breath away.

“Give me your left hand,” he says in that deep baritone that works its way inside of me.

I stretch out my hand, and he takes it. He pulls the ring out of the box and slips it on my finger. I instantly feel different.

I’ve never had anything so beautiful or expensive on my body. If Adriana considered that piece-of-shit dress I wore from Mexico as worth more than me, what would she think of this?

It instantly shows a difference in wealth. Adriana’s ring did not look like this, and I would not have expected Mikhail to have bought a ring so breathtaking for someone like me.

I’m speechless.

He takes my hand again and holds on to it.

“Do not lose it, Adriana,” he says, calling me by her name. It sounds so weird. “If you lose it, you will not like what happens if I find out. I am not like Felipe. I will not understand why it’s lost, or how you lost it. To be on the safe side, it’s probably best you don’t take it off. At the very least, keeping it on should remind you of who you belong to.”

Who I belong to.

“Like I could forget.”

“Don’t smart-mouth me.” He shakes his head and tightens his grip on my hand.

“I’m not smart-mouthing you.”

“Then don’t talk back.”

“I’m simply saying I wasn’t smart-mouthing you. Do you have to keep reminding me that I’m a thing and I belong to you?”

The corner of his mouth lifts into that sexy smile. The sight makes heat spark in my core with those memories of last night again.

“Yes. Speak to me like that again, and I will spank that tight pussy of yours. But maybe you want that.” A dangerous smile dances across his lips.

“No,” I say quickly.

“Are you sure? You seemed to enjoy your punishment last time.”

“I didn’t.”

“Liar. You keep lying to me, Malyshka.”

My entire body goes rigid at the accusation, and I pray with everything in me that this won’t be the moment he sees straight through the lie I am.

“I’m not lying,” I mutter.

“Yes, you are.”

As he leans closer and closer, I become wrapped in the taunting scent of him, and the glow of primal desire lurking in his eyes tells me I’m safe from the truth.

Safe for the moment, and safe from the truth of who I am.

I’m not safe from everything else and whatever this thing is I feel between us.

That’s what he’s talking about.

That thing that almost feels forbidden.

Sandal wood and musk envelope my mind, luring me to temptation when he runs a finger over the edge of my jaw.

I’m forced to level my stare with his. Then, without warning, he lowers his lips to mine. Not for the faint kiss he gave me in Mexico, but something else that sends shivers through my body.

He pulls back an inch for a few beats, just to stare into my eyes, then his lips come back crashing down on mine again for a cruel, punishing, delicious kiss.

It’s a kiss that mirrors what he does to me.

Hurt me and please me.

Enchant me and terrify me.

Frighten me and captivate me.

All of it, all at once.

My body burns with the pleasure, and my lips part with shock when he slips his hand behind my head to deepen the kiss. He forces his tongue into my mouth, and that’s when I taste him.

The true, raw essence of him. The darkness and death. The power and dominance. The want and need.

Everything is there in this all-consuming kiss. I never knew I craved him until I tasted him.

Mikhail Dmitriyev tastes like delicious sin. Like everything I’m not supposed to have but want.

The pleasure of the kiss fades into the ether when he pulls away, leaving me breathless and greedy for more. Another shocker to my brain.

He stands, and I stare up at him as he licks over his bottom lip. Then, without another word, he walks away without looking back.

He disappears through the door, and I stare at the empty trail he leaves behind.

I stare, once again in shock by my reaction to him, but this time I’m also shocked because I realize I’m drawn to his dominance over me because it brings out my inner desires and everything I’ve always suppressed for one reason or another.

I’m drawn to him because he lulls me into a false sense of freedom.

Something I’ve never had but always wanted.