Minutes later footsteps clattered up the stairs again. By the sound of it, more than one set. Keys jangled, and Georgia’s door swung open. A guard she hadn’t seen before crooked his finger, and when she rolled off the bed, he grabbed her shoulders and shoved her out the door. In the hall a second guard, the man who spoke perfect English, fumbled a key into Savannah’s room. His entry was cut short.
“Fuck you,” she yelled. “Don’t you dare come in. I’m not ready.”
“Well, get ready. Vlad wants you downstairs pronto.”
The guard holding Georgia uttered something sharp in Russian. The guard who spoke English rolled his eyes. Georgia’s guard pushed Georgia toward the stairs. Her wrists were still cuffed, and she was off balance. She had to focus to keep from falling. When they got to the bottom, the guard turned her away from the kitchen into the living room.
It was a good-sized room with bright track lighting at one end. The rest of the room lay in deep shadow, but she made out a couple of easy chairs with a small table between them. A man filled one of the chairs. The guard pushed her into the lit area. The illumination from the track lights was blinding, and she squinted. She needed to shade her eyes. The guard released her but stayed a few feet away, his hand on his holster.
Out of the darkness came a male voice in heavily accented English. “Welcome, Georgia Davis.”
She kept her mouth shut.
“It is long time.” There was a rustle and the man disentangled himself from the chair.
Unlike the other night, he was now in the light. Georgia took a good look. She recognized the high cheekbones, the sharp Slavic features, and the pale blue eyes that glittered like diamonds. His hair was more silver now, but on him it looked good. He was casually dressed in a sweater and leather jacket. He just missed being handsome, but she could see why women were attracted to him. Still, something was off. She tried to figure out what. Was it his flat expression? The smile that didn’t reach his eyes? No. Something else.
She turned, mentally calculating how many steps it would take her to get to the kitchen.
“I wait for you long time.” Vlad blocked her view by moving in front of her. He crossed his arms.
“I’ll bet,” Georgia said.
“You and other woman took my life.”
He was referring to Ellie Foreman, who was the first to discover that the money Max Gordon had been laundering was Vlad’s. And with that Georgia realized what was off. They had ruined his life; he’d barely escaped and had returned to the Ukraine, humiliated and broke. Yet now he was behaving in a restrained, almost pleasant manner, as if they were chatting about the weather, not his undoing. The degree of self-control that required had to be enormous.
“You seem to have survived,” Georgia said. “Like a cockroach.”
He gestured to the guard in the room with him. “Bring me water.”
The guard scurried out and returned with a filled glass from the kitchen.
“Not that,” Vlad knocked the glass out of the man’s hands. It fell and smashed into pieces, spilling water on the hardwood floor.
The guard jerked back. Georgia winced at the sudden violence.
“Bottle. Bottle water,” Vlad seethed. He gazed at the broken shards of glass, ground the heel of his boot, crushing them into smaller bits and pieces. “Pick up. Now.”
The guard nodded, bent down, and tried to sweep up the pieces with his hand. Blood oozed from his palm.
“Stop. Stupid. Get bottle.”
The guard bolted from the room with the remnants of the glass.
Vlad reverted to the icy calm he’d shown earlier. Georgia pressed her lips together. His unpredictable mood shifts were going to be dangerous.
“Yes. I survive,” he said pleasantly. He hadn’t reacted to her cockroach remark. It must have sailed over his head. “And now…how do you say in English? Turn around we play?”
“Turnabout is fair play,” Georgia said, her voice low.
“Yes. Turn-around is fair play. You see, I not forget.”
Georgia remembered Vlad had been a soldier. He could be ruthless, but the men in his unit were devoted to him. His wife, Mika, had said he would rule the world one day. She was only half joking. Georgia decided her only option was to make him lose his cool. If he did, maybe he would make a mistake. She just needed one. A tiny misstep would give her an opening.
“Did you have a nice swim in the river?” she asked.
He smiled lazily, as if he knew what she was trying to do but wouldn’t let her bait him. “They say cockroach survive World War Three.”