Viktor yanked him out the door.

Sitting back in my chair, I held an annoying look with Albert before he got to his feet and left the room. I was blowing out a smoke ring, feeling oddly content, when Mila roused. I bit my cigar between my teeth and pulled the bloody cake to her.

“Medovik, kotyonok?”

Her expression paled, and as a soft chuckle left me, she scrambled off my lap and puked into a potted plant.

cacoëthes

(n.) an urge to do something inadvisable

Head resting against the window, I stared past the spiderwebs of frost on the glass. Moonlight cast a blanket of silver over the snow, and the frozen wasteland glittered like diamonds.

From my vantage point, it felt like I was a princess locked in a tower. Held captive by a monster who shot men in the head at a dining table set with crystal glasses and cake.

After I vomited the contents of my stomach into one of Ronan’s potted plants and wiped my mouth with the back of a hand, for whatever demented reason, he let me walk back to my cage and shut the door. In the midst of bloodshed, it felt like the safest thing to do. But as two more days passed in this room, not even the memory of a man with a bullet hole in his forehead quelled the desire for air. The seclusion began to burn, to bubble, to encase my body and squeeze.

I’d started making tallies on the bathroom mirror with an old tube of lipstick I found, which probably belonged to Ronan’s last “pet,” and I was now at seven days.

A full week in hell.

The door opened, and a chill coasted through me as Ronan’s shadow spread wings across the floor. He pulled a wooden chair toward the middle of the room, took a seat, and rested his elbows on his knees.

My gaze flicked to the open door behind him. I wondered if that guard was still stationed in the hall. At this point, I’d rather be shot than stuck in the same room as this man.

“Are you superstitious now, kotyonok?”

D’yavol in the flesh stared back at me. I didn’t know he would embody a man dressed in black designer suits, tattoos, and a charming façade. I’d never be so naïve again.

I gazed out the window and said, “Yes. If there’s a devil, there has to be a God.”

“You think someone’s going to save you?”

My throat tightened at the idea at least one had already died trying. Ivan suddenly came to mind. I missed him. I missed his safe, comforting touch. I even missed the lack of spark. Now I knew the kind of chemistry between me and Ronan could only be witchcraft.

“You’ve received a lot of calls on your little burner phone since you arrived in Moscow.” His pause was oppressive, so stagnant and heavy, I couldn’t help but give him my full attention. “Some from your papa, but most from another number.”

I tensed at the subtle threat toward Ivan.

“No one can save you from me.” His eyes shone indifference laced with a dark edge. “Not even God.” The words condensed the air, grasping each heartbeat with an accented threat.

His gaze slid down my body, from my loose blonde curls, to my T-shirt, to my bare legs. The mere touch of his stare scorched hot and cold, and the memory of his hand between my legs came to life.

I’d like to believe a calloused thumb would draw a reaction from any woman’s body regardless of the circumstances. Although, my skin stretched taut as his words returned about my mother being sadistic and the fact Ronan could have brought me to release even in that twisted situation. He could have humiliated me in front of those men, in front of a cousin I never even knew existed, but he didn’t. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the reason why.

With the heavy sensation of his perusal flaring an uneasy heat in my veins, I managed to say, “Goodness always prevails in the end.”

Apparently, he found the idea amusing. He leaned back in his chair and watched me through eyes so dark and lazy they must have been formed by smoke pouring from a cauldron.

“What did you do to my cousin?” I asked.

“I let him crawl back to your papa.”

My expression was disbelieving. “Why?”

“Luck,” he said simply.

“You do all your business deals based on luck?”

“Some.” He glanced at the room, relishing in the sight of his fortress of evil. “A little bit of luck got me here, you know.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘narcissism.’”

A hint of humor sparkled in his eyes. “That too.”

I refused to say the word “luck” again because if anyone deserved to have a piano fall on their head while they walked down Wall Street, it was this man. So, I improvised with sarcasm.

“I guess you got really narcissistic when I stumbled into your lair, didn’t you?”

“Mmm,” he mumbled roughly, his stare holding mine. “I guess I did.”

One single confused blink from Ronan would put the world to rights again. It would reassure me we were operating on two different wavelengths: good and evil. But of course the bastard understood me.

His gaze settled on the small crack in the window, the one I created by throwing the chair he sat on at the glass yesterday in a desperate attempt for oxygen. Yulia had set my dinner tray down and fled the room with a tattling look in her eye.

“I hear you don’t like your room.”

“The accommodations could be better.”

He smiled. “I’m sure you’ll find them preferable in my room.”

I hated his smile. Sparkling white teeth and a dignified lift of his lips. He had the smile of a handsome gentleman, and what a lie it was. Though what I hated the most was how his smile made me recall how I fell into his hands in the first place, and how he tricked my body to his side.

I swallowed. “My room’s fine.”

He chuckled at my half-assed capitulation. “Let’s not forget you had a big thing for me.”

“Let’s.”

“Your crush was cute.”

Irritation ran down my back. “As you said before, it could have been anyone else.” I lifted an indifferent shoulder and repeated his words. “Albert maybe.”

Eyes glinting with ice, his presence pulled at the seams of his black dress shirt. He was either possessive of his pets, or he’d just taken a hit to his overinflated ego.

“But as a rule,” I said coolly, “I tend to stay away from men who cut off people’s fingers.”

“Yet you’re still loyal to your papa,” he drawled.

He found a sore spot. I’d forged walls of denial, and I wouldn’t let him tear them down.

“Don’t you have something better to do?” I snapped. Like Nadia?

His eyes flashed. “Watch it.”

My anger drowned beneath the simple warning, and I glanced out the window. “How long are you going to keep me here?”

“However long I want to.”

“I want out of this room.”

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. You don’t get whatever you want.”

I would lose my mind if I was trapped between these four walls any longer. My lungs grew tighter each second, and soon, I wouldn’t be able to breathe. As distress stretched inside, I forced two words past my lips.

“I’ll behave.”