Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 95627 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95627 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
I closed the drawers and went to lift the rolltop. Thankfully, it wasn't locked and after a little pulling it slid open. Inside were several rolled papers. Maps of the entire estate and blueprints.
Then I saw one with faint lines that was different from the others. It was old, but not the oldest in the bunch. It looked like someone had dug Prohibition tunnels throughout the estate.
It showed passages that could take me from the house, if I was reading it correctly and these paths still existed. One looked like it would not only take me out of the house underground but would resurface pretty far from the estate.
If I could get out this way, I could go undetected until I hit the highway.
My heart raced as I traced my fingers over the faint lines on the map.
"This is it," I whispered, the sound swallowed by the shadows in the room. "This is how I get my freedom."
CHAPTER 33
ARTEM
"Did you really think I wouldn't notice?" I kept my voice low, calm, even.
Holding back the storm raging inside of me as I tapped the screen and turned it to face Viktoria.
She sat in a leather chair in front of the desk in the office Gregor had set up for me.
The video I played was of Viktoria snooping in the back room.
I may not have gotten a full cleaning crew in there and had everything locked down. That didn't mean I left any part of this house unsecured. If I was going to do that, I might as well have left her in that apartment with the security that had already failed her.
She met my gaze, not even bothering to watch the video showing her pressing against the hidden back wall of the closet and blindly walking into the dark tunnel.
"I knew you would notice. I just didn't care," she said with a casual shrug of her shoulder, her intense eyes meeting mine.
Her blatant disregard for her own safety was insufferably frustrating.
"Why do you insist on acting like a spoiled child?" I bit out.
"Probably because you insist on treating me like a child."
"Excuse me?" A sudden, sharp pain stabbed through my temples, and my fingers tightened into fists under the desk before flexing wide and pressing against my thighs.
I had beaten people for far less, and I wanted to take her over my knee now, but she had already proven that wasn't going to work. "I am not treating you like a child."
She let out a dark, bitter laugh.
"First, you moved me to the middle of nowhere, without even asking. You pulled me from my classes." She counted the perceived slights on her fingers. "You think you can control who I spend my time with, what I eat, and you have me under constant surveillance. Not to mention you hired a nanny to watch me."
She stared at me in defiance as she listed off the ways I tried to protect her as if they were marks against me. My jaw clenched and the skin at the back of my neck heated.
I was always in control of everything, the least of which were my emotions, but this girl just cut through my control like it consisted of tissue paper instead of carefully tempered iron.
"I did that to—"
"You know, if this is some kink for you, I will tell you right now. I will never call you Daddy."
Another deep breath in as my control over my rage frayed even further. A muffled laugh came from the other room, a reminder we were not really alone.
"Do you know what almost happened to you today?" I asked, ignoring her earlier statement. We could go over the things she could call me when riding my cock later, when we were alone.
"I almost got free of your control? I almost tasted fresh air?" Her unbothered attitude was the single most infuriating thing I had ever encountered, and I grew up with Pavel and Kostya.
"You almost got caught," I said, clenching my teeth.
"No, I did get caught. One of your thugs grabbed me in the woods and dragged me here to you." Viktoria crossed her arms in front of her chest and tilted her head, daring me to do something she was going to regret.
I sucked in a long, deep breath through my nose and thought about what Marina had told Kostya.
Viktoria didn't understand why I was protecting her. She thought it was about control, not about keeping her safe.
Telling Viktoria that she was in danger wasn't enough.
She simply didn't believe me.
Why should she?
Almost every other man in her life had used her, beaten her, and lied to her.
Hell, her professor had been in the middle of manipulating her into a situation where he could coerce her into fucking him.
Why would she believe anything I told her?
I had handed her tuition with strings attached and just assumed that I had bought her trust.