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  “If you don’t mind, Mr. Blazik, I’d really like to get on with the interview, I know your time is precious.”

  As was mine, I wanted to stress, but didn’t, just barely restraining myself and clenching my teeth to keep from giving him a much-needed verbal lashing.

  “I blocked out my entire day.”

  Did he want applause? “Right, well, I assure you I can be fast.”

  His dark laugh had me shivering and wanting to lean forward all at once. Men that good looking shouldn’t be blessed with chuckles like that—a freaking sirens call that’s what it was.

  “Amazing… You truly don’t know why you’re here, do you?”

  How many times did I need to repeat myself and why was I getting the sudden impression that the guy was on some seriously hard drugs? I looked closer; didn’t pinpoint pupils mean he was high or something?

  “I assure you I’m not drunk, nor high, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He chuckled again and rubbed his hands together. “Though the idea does have merit, all things considering.” A muscle clenched in his jaw.

  Oh good, so he was a doctor who liked drugs and had more money than God. That should go over well for addiction problems.

  I scooted back against the leather and clicked my pen for, oh, I don’t know, the tenth time. “If you aren’t going to answer my questions, I should probably go.”

  “You won’t be going anywhere,” he said in a quiet voice. “And for that I’m truly sorry.” His eyes met mine, and they seemed… apologetic.

  “Pardon?” Was he threatening me? Warning bells went off in my head as adrenaline shot through my system.

  “Your father…” He tilted his head. “He owes me a debt… of gratitude… I asked for something irreplaceable, something that’s been owed to me for a very long time.”

  My stomach sank as my heart started hammering against my chest.

  “What exactly did my father give you?” I choked out, hating that I probably knew the answer, because my father was ruthless, he was a business man after all, and he never backed out of a deal. It was business over family and our business was darkness itself, horrible, something I blocked out because it made me feel better when I woke up in the morning and fell asleep at night.

  “Well…” Mr. Blazik stood. “I thought that would be obvious.” He turned his back to me and walked over to his desk then pressed a button causing blinds to creep down all the windows. When he turned, the room was already starting to blanket in darkness, making it so that his teeth practically glowed. “He gave me you.”

  The night previous

  Downtown Seattle

  Drip, drip, drip. The sound was a rhythmic cadence to the madness that threatened to destroy my existence. Drip, drip, drip. The blood was fuel, it was life. It was also death.

  The woman’s face was void of emotion, yet I knew she felt every single slice of the knife as I worked.

  Finally, I removed the diseased organ and shook my head. “You’ve been very, very bad, haven’t you?”

  A lone tear ran down her cheek.

  I tossed the organ away, disgusted with the type of woman she was, with the type of human being she represented.

  Sick.

  Diseased.

  A complete waste of humanity.

  “Now.” I reached for my scalpel. “I’ll tell you exactly why you’re going to die.”

  More tears.

  “For your sins.” I brought the blade to her throat. “For selling your very soul to the devil. I’m sending you to the pit of hell.”

  I sliced.

  A gurgle.

  And she breathed no more.

  I rocked back on my heels and exhaled as the world righted itself again. One less disease walking the streets.

  One less.

  Because of me.

  The local police force is asking for anyone with information about the Pier Killings to please come forward. The reward has been raised to fifty thousand dollars. –The Seattle Tribune

  SHE WAS A PUZZLE, ONE I would enjoy unraveling, playing with, touching. Damn, getting my hands on her would be a sweet sin—something I couldn’t do, something I had to deny myself no matter how much I wanted to touch, to feel, anything human, anything warm. Maybe that’s when you know you’ve actually lost all of your humanity—when you crave a stranger’s touch more than you crave your next meal or drink of water.

  She would be water to me.

  But it would be poisoned.

  Touching her would end in both our deaths; he made sure of that, the bastard.

  I cleared my throat and managed to keep my expression calm even though my heart was going into overdrive. She’d grown into a beautiful woman, soft where it counted. She had hips, full lips, a complexion that boasted of her rich heritage, and high cheekbones that accented her large eyes.

  My admission had frightened her.

  I could almost taste the fear in the air. It was a gift, being able to read people, being able to measure the emotions in the room and control them in order to benefit myself.

  I toyed with the idea of letting her go for maybe a second. If I wasn’t so selfish I’d give her a new ID with a passport and send her on her way.

  But I’d always been a selfish bastard, and she was my prize.

  The one I’d waited for, but more than that, part of the contract stated she had to be in the right mind before she was freed, and I knew that even my work wasn’t always a guarantee.

  I bent and pressed the remote switch beneath the table top and brought the lights up. I’d expected her to blink, momentarily disoriented. Instead, she leveled a stare on me.

  “I don’t understand,” Maya said calmly.

  She would be calm in this situation. She was always the type to fight rather than give up—I at least remembered that much about her.

  “I’m not asking you to,” I said simply, my eyes focused in on her smooth neck and then her lips. “And you have no choice in the matter, no say, no voice.”

  Her jaw clenched.

  My heart raced. I loved the fight. It was like waving a flag in front of a bull. I braced myself against my desk, my fingers digging into the mahogany as I evened my breathing.

  “I’m not something you can own or buy or purchase.” Her nostrils flared, “I’m leaving.”

  “You can’t,” I said softly.

  She stood, her knees knocked together, and then she sat and reached into her purse.

  She was going for her phone.

  Because a part of her believed me, which was fine because all I needed was a part of her. I didn’t want her to be whole, and it wasn’t my place to take more than she had to give.

  I wanted a piece.

  In order to give her peace.

  In order for her to discover herself.

  And in order for me to die without regret, without what I did hanging over my head.

  Funny, I’d always believed myself to be a sociopath. Doctors couldn’t figure me out. My own parents were terrified of my intelligence. It made me too damn good at what I did.

  And for a while I had been okay with it.

  Until her.

  And then, my world, the world that had always been so very black and white, started dripping with red.

  Maya Petrov had been my game changer, but I still wasn’t sure if I was going to make her pay, atone for my sins, or destroy us both.

  But what’s the fun in playing chess when you already know all the moves?

  With shaking hands she dug around her purse.

  Her hair was longer than I remembered, her body fuller. Alexander Petrov had known what he was doing when he sent her. I imagined him on the other side of the chess board, grinning like a damn fool. I sighed and looked away, mumbling under my breath. “Check mate.”

  Love is evil. It will make you fall in love with a goat—Russian Proverb

  MY BREATHING WAS ERRATIC, OUT OF control actually. I knew running would do nothing, plus I wasn’t really that type—a runner. My father had ta
ught me that—the same father who had just sold me to the highest bidder. I paused, had there been an auction for my life? My body? My stomach clenched as memories assaulted me—I knew what he did, what he involved himself in.

  My father worked for the Russian mafia it wasn’t a secret in our family or something we tried to hide. After all, he fought too hard to do things the right way, supported all the right universities, went to all the political parties. We were, from the outside, normal.

  But there were always those times when I’d overheard conversations between my parents that I wondered… was my dad as good as he wanted people to believe or was it all a lie?

  I got my answer when the very first boyfriend I had in high school lost his hand in a tragic accident.

  The same hand that my dad had seen said boy place on my body just as I tried to shove him away.

  I didn’t think much of it at the time, until every time I complained about something, an accident would happen. It was why I kept people away, because when they got close, they got hurt.

  It was also why I was a certifiable nerd, pouring everything I had into studying and getting away from my family’s hold on me.

  With a sigh, I pulled out my cell.

  “I wouldn’t.” Mr. Blazik had somehow made his way from the desk to the couch again and was holding my hand, keeping me from dialing. “I really wouldn’t.”

  “He’s gone too far.” I jerked my hand away and dialed my father’s number. It didn’t ring.

  Instead, a chipper voice informed me that the number I was currently dialing was no longer in service.

  With shaking hands I shoved the phone back into my purse and stared at the floor. “How much?”

  “How much, what?” The couch dipped under pressure as Mr. Blazik sat down.

  “Am I worth?” I whispered, voice hoarse.

  He was quiet for a few seconds before answering in a hoarse voice. “For a man like me? Everything.”

  My breath hitched in my chest. Everything hurt, from the betrayal of my father, to the fact that I probably wouldn’t be able to finish my education because somewhere along the way I’d turned into a pawn instead of a daughter.

  “You’re not crying,” Mr. Blazik observed. “I expected more… emotion.”

  “Would that make you feel better about owning me?” I snapped. “Or are tears the only thing that get you off?”

  “You’ll be taken care of.” He ignored my rampage as he pulled out a new iPhone and placed it on the table. Then he opened a black folder, laid a sheet of paper next to the phone, and handed me a pen that probably cost more than some people’s cars. “Sign on the dotted line please.”

  “Are you seriously asking me to sign my life away right now?”

  “It’s not yours in the first place…” His soft sigh was filled with resignation “It’s mine. I own you… but I’d rather you be a willing participant.”

  “You’re just as sick as he is,” I whispered, reaching for the pen and scribbling my name across the bottom of the contract without reading it.

  “I hope you’ll come to regret saying that.” He barely glanced at the paper now bearing my signature. “Now, let’s discuss your… services.”

  “I’m not servicing you.”

  His eyebrows shot up to his forehead. “I’m sorry, did I ask you to?”

  “N-no, but—”

  He held up his hand. “You’ll report to work every morning at eight a.m., you’ll leave when I say you can leave, and everything you do for me is top secret. If any information is leaked to the public… well…”

  Yeah, I knew that look. I’d be leaked to the public—in a very accidental way.

  “So I work for you?” I stood and crossed my arms. “For how long?”

  His smile was wicked, “A year.” He reached out and tilted my chin toward his mouth. “Perhaps more… if I find you agreeable.”

  “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  “I don’t recall asking you to.”

  My eyes narrowed. “So that’s it? You just need a glorified secretary?”

  “Something like that…” He ran his hands through his hair and reached into his pocket, pulling out a key. “Shall we have lunch?”

  “Wait.” I shook my head. “That’s it? My evil father basically sells me to you, and now we’re going to go to Wendy’s?”

  “I hate hamburgers.”

  I clenched my teeth together.

  “But if that’s your preference…” He placed his hand on the small of my back and directed me toward the door. I moved to pick up my discarded phone. “Leave it, that’s your old life, Maya.”

  I hated that he not only knew my first name, but that the way he said it made me shiver.

  “My old life?” I croaked. “And today is what? The first day of the rest of my life?”

  His eyes darkened. “Let’s just hope you live long enough to enjoy it, hmm?”

  Another murder has taken place, this one reportedly, near Starbucks on Pike street. Police ask that Seattle residents trust them to solve the case, the reward for the Pier killer has been raised to seventy five thousand dollars. Any information is helpful. –The Seattle Tribune

  A BLACK FOLDER WAS SLAMMED ONTO the table in front of me, it may was well have been a gavel, the sound emitted carried a certain type of finality. The nail in the coffin. The fat lady singing. The pig flying. It was my end, and I was horrified that the powerful man in front of me had a say in it.

  I couldn’t decide if I was terrified or simply scared.

  “Aren’t you going to read it?” Mr. Blazik asked, his eyes alight with humor. Most likely at my expense, the ass.

  I shoved the folder even harder into my purse and glared. “I’d rather not.”

  “Your loss.” He shrugged, pressing the penthouse floor.

  “I thought we were going to lunch.” The elevator started to move. Panicked, I braced myself against the wall.

  “We are,” he answered, pulling his cell phone from his pocket and firing a text off. “Tell me, are you always this silent?” He shoved the cell back into his fitted black pants and leveled me with a curious stare.

  “Yes,” I snapped. Maybe if I was horrible to him he’d leave me alone, or release me from whatever contract he’d made with my father.

  With a smirk, he nodded his head once and pressed the emergency stop on the elevator.

  In most movies or books that’s where the girl either dies or gets the crap kissed out of her.

  I wasn’t sure what I was hoping for, or why my body had any business arching as he neared, but arch it did, as if ready for his touch.

  Which was ridiculous.

  Because he owned me.

  Quite literally.

  And honestly, I don’t care what anyone says, it may appear sexy when you see it on TV—but it’s not, it’s horrifying. Absolutely degrading. It makes you feel like less of a person, less of a woman, more of a possession.

  And I’d been fighting my whole life to be something more than that.

  Because that was exactly how my father always treated my mom.

  And I despised him for it.

  “Listen.” Mr. Blazik braced his hands on either side of the wall.

  The beeping in the elevator was starting to make my ears ring. My head swam, and I realized I’d stopped breathing. I sucked in a lungful of air that smelled like his spicy cologne.

  “This doesn’t have to be difficult.”

  “Then let me go,” I hissed, pushing at his chest.

  He looked down at my hand, still resting against his body, almost curiously, as if he hadn’t been touched in all his thirty-two years. “Your hands… they’re warm.”

  I jerked my hand back. “What? Only used to working with corpses?”

  His eyes flashed as his body pressed mine hard against the wall. My head nearly collided with a light fixture as I gazed up into his cold eyes. “As of right now, I don’t give a shit who your father is, or who you are. You work for me. I own you. Give me a
ttitude, and it’s only going to make things harder—for both of us. Now,” he said, stepping back and tugging at his collar. “Let me at least feed you since I can hear your stomach growling from here. Then I’ll show you where you’ll be staying for the next year.”

  My stomach dropped. “Staying as in…” I gulped. “Living?”

  “What is living… really?” He shrugged and pressed the red button, and the elevator continued to move up, finally stopping at the penthouse floor. “After you.” He nodded.

  I stepped into the hallway. The floors were a black marble, the walls were a matching gray, and again, it felt cold, like someone had decorated it with only one thought in mind—that it would be easy to clean the mess left by victims of gunshot—or other—wounds from the tile rather than carpet.

  “It’s—” I swallowed hard. “—nice.”

  “It’s hideous.” He stepped around me. “Yet absolutely necessary.”

  “Right.” I blew air between my lips. “Because of the vampires?”

  His hand froze on the lock. “So you do have a sense of humor.”

  “Only with friends.”

  He turned his head, affording me a glimpse of the slight shadow of his jaw and his full lips. “I don’t have many of those.”

  “Shocker.” I crossed my arms.

  With a smirk, he twisted the lock and pushed the large black door open.

  White.

  Everything was white. If the hallway was the location of a vampire coven, then the apartment was something straight from heaven.

  White leather sections covered half the space in front of the living area with a flat screen TV. Large gray fur rugs covered the white marble.

  White drapes hung over the floor to ceiling windows.

  A diamond chandelier hung above my head.

  It almost burned my eyes to blink, everything was so bright. I did a small circle, my eyes resting on the full gourmet kitchen. Stainless steel double oven, gas stove, and an incredibly large fridge that looked like it could hold at least four people inside, dwarfed the rest of the kitchen.