I left her on the bed, my large jacket still covering her body. I threw an extra blanket over her, just to make her feel more comfortable. I left her there then went to my bedroom down the hallway. My hands were covered in dirt from forcing her to the ground, and there was a scratch on my watch from scraping it against a rock. I rinsed my hands, took a shower, and then called Egor.
“How’d it go?” he asked the second he picked up the phone.
Shitty. That’s how it went. “She’s asleep down the hall.”
“And it went smoothly?”
No, just shitty. “She didn’t go quietly, if that’s what you mean. I’ve got her ankles shackled to the bed frame since she’s a flight risk. When I drove her home, she jumped out of the car…out of a moving car.” I shook my head. “She’s crazy.”
He chuckled into the phone. “She keeps you on your toes. But that’s what I like about her. She’s got an ass that won’t quit and a mouth that won’t shut.”
Very strange way to describe your sister. “I would have told her I was rescuing her instead of keeping her, but she was insulting me left and right, and before I had a chance, I was chasing her into a field. But I’ll tell her when she wakes up.”
“About that…”
I stopped in the center of my bedroom, near the foot of my king-size bed. I had a big window that overlooked the countryside, and there was a large flat-screen TV over the fireplace.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t confide that information to her.”
Why the hell not?
“I’ll be out of the country for a while and I can’t retrieve her, so I want to teach her a lesson while she’s there.”
Teach her a lesson? She was just stripped naked in front of a group of demons and auctioned off like a piece of livestock. She didn’t seem afraid, but there was no way she wasn’t. I didn’t mention that to him, because if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to think about my sister being treated that way. “I don’t follow, Egor.”
“It was her stupidity that got her captured in the first place. I tried to protect her. I tried to get her to listen to me, but she was too damn stubborn. Now look where she’s at. She’s lucky I had the power to get her out of that situation. If she knows she’s safe, there won’t be a lesson to learn. So keep her in the dark, Carter.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“I just paid you a fortune. It can be part of the deal if I want it to be.” He turned hostile quickly, his seething anger spilling over the line.
“How am I supposed to deal with her?”
“In whatever way you feel is necessary. Put her in a room, chain her to the wall, and threaten to kill her if she tries to leave. Pretty simple.”
I paced across the hardwood floor, my bare feet hitting the rug around my bed. “You want me to threaten your sister?” Now this wasn’t making any sense. How could he give me authorization to treat her that way?
“Yes.”
My right eyebrow slowly rose toward the ceiling.
“Do whatever you need to do to control her. We’ll make the exchange a month from now, and I know she’ll be so happy to see me. Do we have an understanding, Carter?”
He wanted me to pretend to be something I wasn’t, a slave owner. He wanted me to take this woman’s rights away, to keep her locked up like a prisoner. “It’s more complicated than that. What reason do I have to keep her? Why did I buy her if I’m just leaving her in a room for a month?” The only reason men spent a fortune on a beautiful woman was to fuck her. If I wasn’t doing that, what other purpose was there?
“Good point,” he said. “Then enjoy her, Carter. I think you’ve earned it.”
I halted in my tracks, considering what he’d just said with trepidation. This man gave me permission to rape his sister, to do whatever I wanted to her until she was in his possession again. I hadn’t reached this level of success by being a stupid man. I was observant and intuitive, and I knew all of this was bullshit. “She’s not your sister.”
Egor didn’t respond, but the silence was full of his amusement.
This man wasn’t related to her at all. I didn’t know that backstory or how she got stuck with the Skull Kings to begin with, but I knew I’d stepped into another shadow of the underworld. The smart thing to do was not ask any questions. Once I handed the woman over, my hands would no longer be dirty in this twisted narrative. I did this for the money and no other reason. The specifics were none of my concern.