Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88179 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88179 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
If so, it’s no wonder that their loss sent him spinning—and that vengeance was his default response.
At my long silence, Peter’s face tightens further; then a mocking smile curls his lips. “Too much for you, ptichka? I suppose I should’ve come up with some rosy story, one filled with rainbows, puppies, and piñatas.”
“No, I just—” I stop, my throat swollen with emotions. Gathering my composure, I try again. “I just wish someone had been there for you, the way you were for that little boy.”
He blinks slowly and pushes away from the headboard. “I just told you—I was fine. I could always take care of myself.”
“I know you could,” I whisper as he reaches for me, pulling me down to lie beside him as he stretches out on the bed and turns off the light. “But you shouldn’t have had to, Peter. No child should’ve had to.”
He doesn’t reply, but I know he heard me, because the arm looping around my ribcage tightens, drawing me closer as we lie together in the darkness, feeling each other’s warmth and deriving comfort from the steady beating of our hearts.
32
Sara
After that night, it becomes even harder to resist Peter’s efforts to insinuate himself into my mind and heart. I don’t know if he thinks his revelations terrified me and is seeking to make up for it, or if he simply senses my resolve wavering, but he becomes impossibly more attentive toward me, pampering and indulging me beyond belief.
Everyone except me has chores. Peter does most of our cooking, and the other guys are in charge of laundry and keeping the house spotlessly clean. I help with the laundry anyway, so I don’t feel like a total slug, but Peter doesn’t require it from me, and other than that time when I threw the plate, I haven’t had to touch a vacuum or do anything else that I don’t feel like doing.
On top of that, anything I want is mine—within the confines of my captivity, of course. If I mention a preference for silk pillowcases, Peter gets them for me within a few short days. If I express a desire to go for a walk, he drops whatever he’s doing and accompanies me, no longer entrusting that duty to any of his men. Most importantly, though, he does everything he can to ensure I’m not bored.
His dance studio idea is a bust so far—all I use the room for is occasional yoga and some stretching—but I really appreciate the recording equipment he got for me. It’s as high-end as anything a professional might use. I can record and edit anything I want, and while I start with the pop songs I love, I soon begin experimenting with variations on those songs and even try composing a couple of my own, setting the lyrics to music mixes I create from different tunes. Mastering the software and the equipment requires a steep learning curve, but I welcome the challenge. It’s not only fun, but it consumes a lot of my free time, and when I’m trying to find the words to express the song forming in my mind, I don’t think about everything I’ve lost and the fact that I’m an assassin’s captive.
I just focus on the music.
I’ve also started to perform for the guys. It’s an after-dinner ritual now, where Peter asks me to sing as a way of entertaining everyone and I reluctantly (but secretly, quite eagerly) agree to do one song, prefacing each performance with disclaimers about possibly not remembering the words, being unprepared, and so on. Naturally, it’s always a song I rehearse in advance, usually a variation on whatever popular hit I played with in the recording studio that day. I’m too shy to share my own songs, but the guys are so enthusiastic about my renditions of pop music that I foresee a day when I might try performing one of my own pieces.
“You have a really good voice,” Yan tells me after the first week, his cool green eyes assessing me with some surprise. “Peter was right about that.”
I grin at him—praise from our resident psychopath is an exceedingly rare event—and decide to perform two songs next time.
If the guys enjoy it and so do I, why not?
Between the music and my usual activities with Peter, I have enough to occupy my days, but I still miss my old job. Whenever one of the guys gets hurt—which happens with scary frequency during their daily sparring—I get to use my medical skills, but it’s not enough. I need the intellectual stimulation of my profession, all the things I learned daily by treating a wide variety of patients and keeping up with the latest studies. Now I feel out of the loop, isolated from new developments in my field, and when I mention it to Peter during one of our walks, he promises to do something about that.