Page 5 of Hostage with Benefits'

“So your family brought your staff from Russia?” I asked, because sitting in silence with my kidnapper seemed worse somehow.

“Some of them.” He took a sip of his water. “Galina refused to stay behind.”

“Doesn’t seem like she takes orders well.”

That same almost-amusement. “She believes she knows better than everyone else.”

“And does she?”

“Often, yes.”

We fell into silence as we ate. From the kitchen, I could hear low murmurs in Russian, clearly Galina and Irina discussing us. I caught fragments: “…good Russian girl,” “…speaks English with no accent,” “…might be good for him…”

Mikhail’s expression darkened. He’d heard it too.

“So,” I said, pushing my empty soup bowl aside. “About that Wi-Fi password.”

His eyes met mine. “You are being held hostage, and your concern is still internet access? Are you one of those people who can’t live without their phone?”

“No, but I have a work deadline tomorrow. A client is expecting mockups by noon.”

“And this matters to you?Now?”

“Bills don’t stop coming because I’ve been kidnapped.”

Irina appeared to take our bowls and set down plates of what looked like beef stroganoff. As she leaned between us, she said quietly in Russian to Mikhail, “She is practical. This is good in a woman.”

Mikhail’s efforts not to roll his eyes were in vain.

After Irina left, he said, “Your father. You two are not close.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “No.”

“Yet he named you Natalia. A Russian name.”

“My mother was half-Russian. Hence the name, hence the rusty language skills. It’s not my father’s doing.”

“And your mother, she is…?”

“Dead. Car accident when I was fourteen.”

“I am sorry,” he said right away.

I shrugged, an automatic response to that particular brand of empty sympathy I’d perfected over the years. “It was a long time ago.”

“And since then, it has been just you and your father?”

“No,” I said, keeping my voice flat. “Since then it’s beenjustme.”

He didn’t ask for clarification, which was good because I didn’t want to give it. Instead, he cut his meat and started eating.

“Your work,” he said after a moment. “What is it that cannot wait?”

“I’m a freelance graphic designer. The client is a tech startup with more money than sense and a CEO who changes his mind every six hours. This project will pay my rent and then some.”

“And if you miss this deadline?”

“They find someone else. I don’t get paid. My rent doesn’t get paid. I die on the streets. Circle of life.”

---