Page 28 of Savage Bratva King

I match her stride along the hallway, grateful that she didn’t feel the need to cuff my hand to hers or fasten a rope around my neck.

Outside is outside. Even if I am confined to Leonid’s magnificent, landscaped gardens.

I spot the man in the dark suit at the bottom of the staircase, all bunched up muscles and thick thighs beneath the well-cut cloth. There’s another stationed by the sliding glass doors that open onto the garden like they expect me to try and bolt when I can see the bulge of their guns beneath their dark suits.

I might be desperate but I’m not stupid.

My stomach twists when I recognize the man from the dining room when I was introduced to Leonid. I think his name was Sergei. He nods at Tamara and falls into step on the other side of me. I wonder if he has been assigned to me in place of Ivana, and the thought gives me a surge of renewed strength. If I’m right, Leonid is deliberately keeping us apart for my own protection.

“You have twenty minutes.” Sergei’s accent is clipped, his voice not quite as deep as Leonid’s. “Don’t even think about trying to escape.”

“Why would I when the alternative is being held captive in such scintillating company?”

I walk slowly. If twenty minutes is all I’m allowed, I want to savor every moment. I tilt my face towards the sun, the rays seeping through my skin and warming my bones. The gardens are extensive, lush lawns leading down to a series of tennis courts, old-fashioned walled gardens, and what appears to be a maze. There are Japanese-style pagodas in lacquered red and black, and covered seating areas clothed in climbing roses, the whole expanse surrounded by woodland.

I gasp. I can’t help myself.

I have always loved the gardens of my father’s estate, mainly because it was my mother’s favorite place, but this… This is something else.

“I’m glad that you find my home pleasant.”

I didn’t even hear him coming. My heart races, fueling my silent anger at being confined to my room for so long. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

I keep walking and am surprised when he replaces both Sergei and Tamara.

“Aren’t you busy delivering ransom notes or organizing your next abduction or something?”

I don’t need to look at him to hear the faint snort escape his nostrils or to sense the smirk on his lips. “I delegate such trivial matters to my men.”

Ugh!

“So, what, you gave the order to have me kidnapped and then sat back with a bottle of Jack and waited for me to arrive?” I don’t know why this bothers me so much. It’s obvious that’s exactly what happened.

“It was Negroni actually. I don’t drink whiskey.”

He heads down towards the maze, and my legs follow without me even thinking about it. “I based this maze on the hedge maze at Hampton Court Palace in England. Have you ever been?”

“I…” Deep breath, Gianna. I only have twenty minutes, and if he wants to talk about mazes, who am I to argue? He might lose track of time and let me enjoy my taste of freedom just a little bit longer. “No, I haven’t.”

He enters the maze and turns left. And I follow.

The dense silence shutting us off from the rest of the world is almost immediate. I try to peer through the seven-foot hedges, but it’s impossible to see beyond the surface branches. I gaze up at the solid blue sky and turn three-sixty, but it’s like being cast adrift on the ocean, and when we turn the next corner, I already feel lost.

“Do you know your way around the maze?”

I study his profile, the aquiline nose, the deep-set eyes and heavy brows, the narrow lips and strong jawline. Separately, his features are unremarkable, but thrown together, he would turn heads in a crowded casino. Not that I’ve ever been inside a casino. But there’s something about him that makes me think of roulette tables, vodka shots, and women draped in diamonds and little else.

“No. That would be impossible.”

We turn another corner, and then another, and panic that we’ll be stuck in here until Sergei rescues us makes my pulse race. Is he deliberately trying to get us lost? Are Sergei and Tamara under orders not to come looking for us? And is it such a bad thing if they are?

I should be enjoying my extended period of freedom, but all I can think about is being trapped inside the maze with Leonid Ivanov knowing that no one would be able to hear me if I cried for help.

He stops and faces me, and it occurs to me that he is almost as tall as the goddamned hedges. He tugs a lock of my hair forward over my shoulder. “Are you afraid, Gianna?”

“Of getting lost in the maze?”

“Of getting lost in the maze with me.” His voice is so smooth, it’s almost hypnotic. Is this how he gets his women to be submissive—by hypnotizing them?

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