“It doesn’t look like a birthmark.” I walk right up to Evie, and she doesn’t as much as blink. She also doesn’t stop me as I drag down the dressing gown just enough so I can examine the scar on her shoulder. My thumb brushes across the puckered flesh, and her sharp inhale has me looking up at her.
“This is a burn mark.”
Her steady gaze never falters. “It is.”
I run my thumb across it again, and her inhale of breath isn’t as sharp, but I still hear it.
“It’s from when I first arrived.” Her accent is getting thicker, telling me she’s upset.
I want to ask where she arrived from, but I don’t interrupt her.
“I wasn’t compliant.” Her lip tugs up, giving me a flash of perfect white teeth. This close, I’d expect to see a blemish on her skin, but she reminds me of a china doll. Flawless except for the one mark. I run my thumb across it one more time before stepping back.
She pulls the dressing gown back up. “It was a lesson I learned the hard way.”
I can still see the defiance in her gaze. The same she displayed towards me, but now that I’m really looking, I think it’s more towards this situation and not just me.
The idea of someone branding or burning her makes my gut tighten.
“This is why I haven’t been selected.” She raises her chin again—a defense mechanism. “You’re flawless in every other way. It’s hard to think one small piece of flesh would do damage.”
“You don’t know the men we are being sold to. They don’t like any flaws. Hard skin, even bad skin, would turn them off. A burn…” She trails off and tightens the belt of her dressing gown.
“It’s odd that they would mark you, then. Devalue you.”
Her gaze snaps up to me. “Well, they did.” Her words are harsh, and I feel there is so much more to this story than she’s telling me, but I drop it.
I step closer to her until we are shoulder to shoulder. She turns her head to face me, her heightened breath fans across my face. “You're beautiful, Evie.”
Her cheeks flame again.
“But something about you doesn’t fit quite right. It’s like the equation is off-kilter.”
She presses her lips together like she can keep all her words deep inside her.
I grin at her. “I like a challenge. I’ll get my truth.” I step away from her and let my words sink in. Being around her, especially after seeing her naked, is hard.
Too hard.
Michail is in the kitchen area. “What did she do while I was gone?” I didn't like the idea of any of them seeing her naked.
“She wanted to be taken to a guest room. So I took her, and Pavel guarded the door.”
I open a bottle of sparkling water and fill a glass.
“She wanted a look around, so we allowed it. Pavel was with her.”
I take out two painkillers and wash them down with water. “At all times?” I ask. It’s a standard question, but when Michail pauses, I turn to him.
He swallows. “No. There would have been a brief time, forty seconds to a minute.”
A lot can happen in that time frame. I’m not fucking happy. I leave the kitchen area and walk back to Pavel. The green light on his headpiece blinks. Michail sent him a warning.
“What took you away from your one duty?” I ask.
“Michail needed me.” Pavel looks nervous, and I don’t want to squeeze the truth out of him. “There was a naked woman in the other building.”
“You left the only witness we have to help us solve this case, so you could look at pussy?”
“It was a minute.” Pavel’s voice lowers.
He’s been with me for years. I step away, and when he tries to defend his stupidity, I raise a hand.
I walk away from Pavel and don’t even look at Michail. I hear a low curse. Yeah, they know they have fucked up. The study door is left open slightly. I push it open fully, and the phone and laptop on the desk have me ready to step back out and hurt Pavel.
I pick up the receiver and redial the last number. It gives me an automatic no longer in service message.
She had tried to ring someone.
I leave the study. “She tried to ring someone,” I tell Pavel.
He pales. “It was a minute.”
“Get the fuck out of my sight.”
Pavel is quick to move.
“Michail,” I call.
He appears. “Guard the door until I find out who she called.”
“Boss…” I cut off his words before I end up cutting off his fucking head for his incompetence.
CHAPTER FOUR
EVIE
I haven’t left the bathroom. Something heavy dropped into my stomach when Lucca called me out on my lie. Now all I feel is the cold of his words.
He had called me beautiful. That thought pressed heat against the cold inside me. It was something I had been called my whole life. It just felt different from his lips. The girls had called me beautiful. Every lady who took care of us called me beautiful. The words from his lips, felt different. It felt like a stamp of approval, which was ridiculous because so was he, just in a different kind of way. His beauty was all the sharp angles of his strong jawline. His deep silver gaze, which when zoned in on me, sends shivers racing across my flesh like an army of small ants.
His beauty was sharp, dark, and alluring.
Dangerous.
I step away from the mirror with the thought of how he had looked at me. I’d never desired to be touched. It’s funny; some of the
