Chase You To The Sun (10 page)

“Well, congratulations on taking my phone,” she started out acrimoniously when her gaze landed on Bruce and John sitting at the dinner table having a late breakfast.

“Congratulations on making it so easy for me,” Bruce replied, his face annoyingly superior. “You hadn’t even locked your door before pouring your heart out to Victoria Weiss.”

Lana blanched. He knew who she’d been on the phone with? That could be potentially dangerous for Tori.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Bruce continued. “You didn’t tell her anything of consequence. I’ll leave the little Elite redhead alone because Novak seems to like her. For old times’ sake.”

“You – you listened in?” she stuttered.

He smiled. “No, but I assume you told her the time of sunset in this place. Except you didn’t, because I made that up.”

Lana blinked. “It’s – not eight o’clock?”

“Afraid not.”

Looking at his smug smile, she couldn’t help but deflate on the spot. “Why did you lie about that?”

“I had to throw you a bone, Lana. John already suspected you were using a phone yesterday, because he picked up a strange signal. So I made sure you had a good enough reason to use it again. And it worked.”

Oh, how she wished she had a punch bag to take her frustration out on. “I fucking
hate
you,” she hissed carelessly, her eyes shooting daggers.

Bruce cocked an eyebrow. “Do you now?” he inquired, his gaze alighting on her lips for a moment. “Such crude words coming from such a proper Elite girl. And I don’t think they’re entirely truthful, either.”

Her eyes filled with tears of shame. “You have no right to keep me here,” she snapped before breaking down in tears, sobbing softly. “Please – just let me go.”

Even though her vision was blurry from crying, Lana could still see Bruce getting up. His hand gripped her arm, but it didn’t feel as if he wanted to hurt her. Instead, he steadied her as he walked her to the sliding doors leading outside.

“You need to calm down,” he said not unkindly once they were both standing on the deck.

“I can’t,” she sniffed. “Not as long as I’m a prisoner in your house.”

“Look. You’ll be a prisoner in this house for a long time to come, and you can’t start throwing hissy fits every time I do something mean,” he calmly explained. “You know who I am. You know
what
I am.”

“You’re ruthless,” Lana whispered, staring up at him.

“That’s right. I didn’t get to be the head of a criminal organization by being friendly.” Bruce looked down at her from up close. “And the next time you fly off the handle at me like that in front of one of my men, I will have to hit you.”

It sounded like he saw it as his duty, not as something he’d enjoy doing. “You’d rather not?” she cautiously inquired.

He gave her a faint smile. “I wouldn’t mind spanking you. Just not in front of other people.”

Lana’s heart skipped a beat, her mouth turning dry. “I’ll behave,” she stammered, her face like fire.

“Good. Now go inside and make yourself useful in the kitchen.”

“But I cooked yesterday,” she protested weakly.

“Hikaru and Shou are making sushi for tonight. That’s always a lot of work.”

“They’re actually making fresh sushi?” Lana cracked a tiny smile. “Oh, that’s pretty cool. I like Japanese food.”

“You do?” Bruce sounded unconvinced for a reason – the Russians and the Japanese usually couldn’t stand each other’s culture and anything related to it.

“Yep.” She nodded. “Almost as much as I like black bread and beet soup.”

He narrowed his eyes, shooting her a gauging look. “You’re funny,” he remarked drily.

“Like a clown?” she couldn’t help but add.

“I told you, we’re not going to use makeup on your face.”

Lana clamped a hand over her mouth to stop a nervous giggle from bubbling up. Maybe he wasn’t trying to be witty.

“It’s okay,” Bruce said, an almost imperceptible twinkle in his eyes. “You may laugh.”

“Uhm, thanks – I guess,” she mumbled, letting out an uneasy chuckle. Turning around to head back inside, Lana tried to relax her tense shoulders. Maybe it was okay to let her guard down just a little bit. Bruce hadn’t tried to hurt her at all today. He hadn’t even hit her when he caught her with that smart phone. Instead, he’d kissed her. In fact, this was the gentlest she’d seen him so far.

The smoldering kiss they’d shared was still fresh in her mind. In a way, she was grateful it had finally happened – she couldn’t have taken much more of that sickening, unresolved sexual tension between them without losing her mind. But what should she do if Bruce came onto her again? Would he – or was the ball in her court now?

If it was, she should probably heed Chester’s words and be careful. No matter how much the tall, handsome pirate intrigued her, the lines between them shouldn’t get blurry. She would have to keep Bruce at arm’s length, or his advances would chase her all the way to the sun and burn her up without mercy.

L
ana spent a surprisingly enjoyable afternoon in the kitchen. The two Japanese brothers really appreciated her help. It was funny how intimidating these two had seemed when she first laid eyes on them, and how friendly they both turned out to be.

“Do you do this a lot?” she asked while cutting strips of cucumber on a wooden board.

“Enough to be called the Sushi Squad,” Shou replied with a wink. His dark-brown eyes glinted mischievously. “Hikaru started doing big sushi dinners because he knows
oyabun
enjoys this kind of food. He’s kind of a suck-up, really.”

Hikaru rolled his eyes. “Plus, I used to be a cook. Don’t leave that out of your story, Shou.”

“What does that word mean?” Lana wanted to know. “
Oyabun
?”

“It’s Japanese for ‘boss’,” Shou explained. “Just the boss of a criminal organization, though. There are a lot of different words for different kinds of bosses.”

“So you used to be a cook?” Lana asked Hikaru. “May I ask how you ended up here?”

“You may.” Hikaru glanced down at his hands, absently slicing a piece of raw tuna. “I worked for the Sanyo family – the Oceanian clan. When a horrible plague struck the region, my wife and son came down with the disease. They weren’t entitled to any vaccine, though, because they didn’t work for the Elite. They were useless to the rich bastards running the show.”

Lana stared at Hikaru in deep shock. “Your boss let them die?”

“Yes, he did. After that I decided it was better to work for a criminal who cares about his people and pays me a lot more. Shou was only too happy to join me, since he was jobless at the time.”

“Oh my God.” She rubbed her face, uttering a shaky sigh. “I didn’t know this kind of thing happened in Oceania.”

“It happens everywhere,” Shou said, his voice terse. “That’s just how the system works.”

“Not in Novi Moscow,” Lana objected.

Hikaru scoffed. “No, sweetheart. The Russians stick their workers in a separate dome so they don’t have to deal with all the unpleasant things related to managing a poor, discontented workforce.”

She opened her mouth, but her retort died on her lips. Hikaru had a point – the Russian Elite did have their laborers’ living quarters in several smaller domes on Ganymede and Europe. She’d visited a few times, but not long enough to really get a feel of the place. Actually, she’d felt uncomfortable walking around the factories, feeling the jealousy and distrust of the employees and wanting to get out of there as soon as she could. At the time, she’d figured they just hated her for being an Ivanov. In fact, even Elite people envied her sometimes for being an Ivanov.

“I’m sorry about your family,” she said. Her words seemed flimsy and hollow.

“Thanks,” Hikaru mumbled. “I’m happy I have a new family now.”

“You really see this group as your family?”

The Japanese ex-cook nodded. “Bruce can be a strict dad, though,” he pointed out with a dark chuckle. “He expects unwavering loyalty, and he doesn’t shy away from using violence to keep us in check.”

“He broke my nose once,” Shou commented nonchalantly.

“Why?” Lana asked, horrified.

“I talk too much,” the youngest brother shrugged. “And sometimes, I talk too much in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

A shiver ran down her spine. “Why are you still here if he did that to you?”

Shou grinned. “He warned me and I didn’t listen. It could have been worse.”

“Yeah, he could have snapped your wrist,” Hikaru smiled good-humoredly. “Like he did to John last year when he tried to pocket some of Bruce’s revenue for himself.”

Lana stepped back, a strangled sound escaping her throat. No wonder John had been terrified when Bruce had warned him off. “Oh my God,” she shuddered. “I’m never going to address Bruce again. Ever. I won’t even breathe in his presence.”

Shou glared at his brother. “Don’t scare her like that,
onii-san
.” Turning to Lana, he continued: “He might be mean to you, but that’s because you remind him too much of himself at that age.”

“H-how so?”

“You know. Elite and clueless about the world outside.”

“Again with the talking,” Hikaru mumbled between clenched teeth. “If Bruce wants to share anything with Lana, he’ll talk to her. That’s not your responsibility.”

“I want to know about my mom,” Lana said softly. “Can you tell me what happened between her and Bruce?”

Shou exhaled. “My brother’s right. I’m done talking. Ask Bruce about your mother. He’ll be willing to share the story with you, if you keep an open mind.”

These men really expected her to go talk to Bruce, a man in the habit of beating up his own employees? Lana bit her lip. It seemed there was no way around it – she wasn’t done talking to the menacing pirate yet. Not if she really wanted to know about what happened five years ago.

“Okay. I’ll ask him,” she said, peeking out into the living room. “Right now. Before I lose my nerve.”

“
Banzai
,” Hikaru told her with a wink.

When Lana stepped out of the kitchen and looked around, she didn’t see Bruce anywhere, though. Wandering around the first floor, she bumped into Chester. He was just exiting the study, the room Bruce also used for his communications with the outside world. “Hey,” she greeted him. “You know where Bruce is?”

“He left with John one hour ago,” Chester replied. “They won’t be back any time soon.”

“Oh.” She felt relieved and disappointed at the same time. She’d have a much easier time relaxing around the house now that Bruce wasn’t here to watch her like a hawk, but that conversation about her mother would have to wait. “Well, do you mind if I go read a book in the woods? You can accompany me if you like.”

He smiled, shaking his head. “I don’t have time for that, but feel free to go outside without me.”

“But – won’t Bruce get upset if he hears about it?” Lana hesitated.

Chester waved her objection away. “I’ll deal with him if he gives you a hard time. As a former teacher of language and poetry, I can’t encourage people enough to spend time reading books.”

“You must have taught him about Walt Whitman’s poetry,” she guessed.

“That was me, yes. It wasn’t part of the curriculum his parents told me to stick to, but I like Whitman, and I’ve always been kind of a rebel.” He winked.

“So Bruce really was Elite once,” Lana mused. “When did he fall out with his family?”

“He was twenty-two,” Chester replied. “And falling out is kind of an understatement.”

“What happened?” she asked softly. “Can’t you tell me?”

“No. It’s rather personal.”

“Fine.” Lana tried to shrug off Chester’s reluctance to share things about Bruce’s life with her. Frankly, it shouldn’t interest her, and yet it somehow did. She still remembered his eyes, ablaze with fury when she’d refused to do her kitchen duty. His distant gaze when he’d recited Whitman’s work to her, declaring he no longer had a heart. Something in his past must have triggered him to grow violent and cold – though that last bit wasn’t always as obvious. Lana’s face grew hot as she remembered Bruce’s strong hands on her ass. His kiss had been anything but cold.

As she trudged to the cluster of trees in Bruce’s enormous back yard, Lana softly hummed a song her mother had taught her when she was a little girl. Being British, Giselle Chapham-Ivanova had always spoken English to her daughter, so Lana was perfectly bilingual. Though she always dreamed in Russian for some reason, the language she most loved to sing in was English.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” she sang in a fragile voice. “But I must sing my baby to sleep – and all these secrets I vowed to keep, will drag me under way too deep.” Only recently had it occurred to Lana that this wasn’t exactly a peaceful lullaby suitable to sing to a child, but it didn’t matter. Her mother’s songs were hauntingly beautiful, self-composed melodies, deeply appealing to the darker, Russian part of Lana’s soul.

God, she missed her mom. What she wouldn’t give to bring her back to life. And now she wasn’t even able to listen to her voice anymore – the recording of her mother saying ‘good morning, sweetheart’ to her in Russian, acting as her wake-up call every morning. If only she were just a tiny bit more courageous, she’d beg Bruce to transfer the sound file to some harmless device she could use as an alarm clock.

Once Lana sat down near the pond with the parts of a freshly picked orange in one hand and her poetry book in the other, she could feel the peace and quiet of the woods seeping into her veins. Chester was amazing for allowing her to sit all by herself. Parking herself here among the trees magically calmed her. For the first time since her abduction, she was able to fully relax. As her gaze danced over the printed pages of Bruce’s old-fashioned book, Lana tried to breathe in and out as deeply and slowly as possible. Everything would be all right. Tori and Alen might find a way to track her location. And if not, her dad would get her out of here. He would give in to Bruce’s demands and she’d be released. And then, her father would explain to her what the story was with those Promethean mine workers. There were no slaves. Her dad was not some kind of crook.

She sat there until the shadows of the trees turned long. Just as Lana left the patch of woodland, the force field came down abruptly, plunging the entire garden into utter darkness. “Oh God,” she gasped, blinking dazedly, then closing her eyes to adjust to the dark. When she opened them again, she could see the winking light of a table lamp peeking through the curtains of the living room. Stumbling through the tall grass, Lana made her way back to the mansion, suddenly grateful that the soft light of her prison looked so inviting.