The Devil's CrownPart Two - Monica James Page 0,67
to marry that ублюдок, Frank. But now, I’m telling you; you are staying in Ireland until it’s safe for you to leave,” he orders sharply. “And so help me god, if you disobey me, I will keep you bound and gagged until we arrive.”
His threat isn’t empty.
“You’d probably enjoy it, you sick asshole,” I snarl, thinking of when I walked in on him spanking Renata’s bare ass.
“You’re right,” he counters with a lopsided grin. “I would.”
I should tell him everything, spill the reason I stayed and agreed to marry Frank. But if I tell him that, he’ll uncover what Santo did. A shiver passes over me.
With a huff, I turn back around and decide to ride the rest of the journey in silence.
When we sail into port, I can’t take in my settings fast enough. We’re surrounded by other boats, which is why we can’t stay long. We’re fugitives, and seeing as Latvia was once a part of Russia, we’re still close enough to the mother country to be seen by the enemy.
I imagine once we leave here, Alek will take an indirect route to get us to Ireland to avoid running into any trouble.
I hate that, once again, I have to rely on Alek to come to my rescue, but I’m so far away from home, I don’t know what to do. I could call the American consulate, but Santo often bragged he had allies in high places.
What if one of those allies were working at the consulate and got wind of what I was doing? I need to be as far away as possible from the Macrillos. They won’t stop until they find me, and this time, Santo won’t fall for my charms.
So Ireland doesn’t seem like such a bad plan, but I feel somewhat…robbed. I want to be the one who ends Santo’s life. It’s my right to torture him as he did with me. Maybe that’ll be my closure? I honestly don’t know.
What I do know is that going to Ireland feels like I’m running away. I don’t know how far away it is from here, but I can imagine it’s not close.
The realization of being stuck with Alek for a week, two weeks, alone on this yacht suddenly hits me, and I grip the railing, scared. My resolve to ignore him weakens. I literally have nowhere to go unless I fancy swimming to Ireland. Or I can think of another plan.
Alek steers the yacht into a space before turning off the motor. Deciding to put on some shoes, I turn but am distracted as I watch Alek slip into a short-sleeved blue shirt. His deft fingers fasten each button with no hurry, and watching him dress is suddenly just as sexy as seeing him undress.
He leaves three buttons undone, exposing the sparse dark hairs on his chest. His golden skin seems to glisten under the sunset skies. When he turns his cheek, catching me gawking, I quickly avert my eyes and make a beeline for the staircase, almost throwing myself down the stairs.
With shaky fingers, I slip into my white boat shoes and untie my hair. Alek must think it’s safe here, but with my hair down, I can try to conceal the healing scars on my face, which will make me stand out from the crowd.
I need to blend in, and looking like a reanimated corpse will not achieve that.
Once I’m ready, I reclimb the stairs but stop at the second level when I see Alek swing out a ramp and attach it to the dock so we can disembark. He’s so confident in everything he does.
Inhaling, I hope to breathe in his courage and walk through the living room to where Alek is. He does a double take when he sees me, but is soon to recover and fiddles with some latch on the ramp mechanism.
I stop a few feet away, but his cologne catches the wind, which has me involuntarily moving closer so I can bask in his scent.
“Here,” he says, digging into his pocket and producing a wad of euro. “Buy what you need.”
I don’t want to accept it, but with no other choice, I take it, ensuring our fingers don’t touch. “Thank you. I’ll pay you back.”
His stiff upper lip is a sure sign I may as well have told him to go fuck himself. “Don’t bother.”
“No,” I press. “Remember, I don’t want to be indebted to you—long or short term.”