Chapter 26 TWENTY SIX
Chapter 26 TWENTY SIX
ANYA VESCOVI'S POV
Roses and candles layering the marble tiles during a shower would have been cute if they weren't a romantic gesture of a man like Sergei.
My nose wrinkled as I crushed the petals underfoot, crossing the space toward the mirror. The air was thick with an almost sickly sweetness that clung to the back of my throat and most of the candles were almost out, wax hardened to the tiles.
Sunlight filtered in from a window set into the wall, spilling across my skin and catching on every mark I’d been trying not to think about. My nose was red and swollen, not broken, though it had hurt badly enough during the chase that I’d been sure it was. My left cheek bore small wounds from the stones, already darkening. My neck….
I didn’t linger there.
My gaze dropped.
I’d been avoiding it, but my body refused to let me forget. Every few minutes, pain flared beneath the gauze in steady waves, sharp enough to steal my breath.
The knife cut.
My fingers inched toward the gauze.
Slowly.
Until a sudden bang rattled the door and I jumped.
“Anya,” Sergei’s voice was muffled by the wood. “Open the door.”
My breath shook. “I’m fine.”
“The wound needs tending,” manipulation? “Let me in. I know how to clean it.”
The nerve of it made my jaw tighten. “I said I’m fine.”
I was grateful I’d locked the door. He would have come in anyway. His footsteps retreated, or so I thought, until the knob jiggled violently. He paced? He was pacing? The sound of his footsteps moving back and forth just outside the door made me frown. The knob jiggled again, harder this time, like he wanted to rip it straight off the wood.
“I don't want you to stay by yourself,” he said in a husky voice. “I’ll just come in and—”
“And what?” I cut him off.
He sounded like he was losing his patience with me. “JUST… open this door, Anya.”
“NO.”
“Anya.”
I stood my ground. “Go away.”
He cursed low in Russia and then, irritated, “Can you not fucking do this right now?”
“Do what?"
There was a few seconds of silence as if he was past the asking, and was now bargaining, begging me. “Okay, okay. I need you to stay away from the window.”
Odd.
Brown eyes met mine in the mirror.
“Stay away from the window?”
“Just… do as I say. Stay away from the window. For me.”
”Why should I do anything for you?”
“Okay, okay, stay away from the window. FOR YOU."
I hadn't looked at the window until he mentioned it. But now, I did. Trees swayed lazily in the distance. And beyond and before that were just the trees in the sunlight. Nothing unusual in my line of vision. But the treelines only told me one thing: we were isolated.
“Anya?” His gruff voice yanked me out of my thoughts. “AWAY FROM THE WINDOW. NOW!” He roared.
I flinched, muttered an ‘okay’, even though I made no conscious effort to move. The window was closed and the glass didn’t seem to be made out of a flimsy see-through material.
I held my breath.
Waited.
His footsteps receded.
This time, for real.
Through the reflection, I caught the sparkle of my ring as my fingers grazed the damp blood splurge over the milk-white gauze. My eyes bounced, from the dainty diamond ring on my finger to the reflection of my sunken eyes, to outside the window as I loosened the gauze wrap. If Sergei had been the one to wrap the wound, he was too perfect at it.
The gauze dropped to the floor and the wound was exposed.
I let out a sigh of relief I didn’t know I was holding in.
The cut was small. Barely a graze in my lower abdomen, the skin around it was red and swollen, but it looked clean—a thin, neat red line against pale skin, like a careful, intentional stroke. My over-the-top reaction to it last night made me feel more like a wimp now.
Afterwards, I stood in the shower for a long time, the water scalding my skin as the heat penetrated deep into my bones. All around me was a thick layer of steam and every contact of hot water to the wound had me biting into my cheeks. I let the pain soak in, the warmth, the water, before I turned off the tap and got out.
Briefly, I looked through the windows at the trees dancing. Nothing. Just the leaves catching the sun. Cautiously, I unlocked the bathroom door, and peered out to see if Sergei had faked leaving.
My head whipped left, and then right, before landing on a girl in a wheelchair.
No Sergei.
No gun.
But, in the mini living room, hot air spiraled off a steaming plate of food on the table, and a pink-haired girl in a wheelchair was stroking a purring orange cat in her thighs with a trembling hand.