Twisted Throne (Bratva Born #2)

7. Adriana

Adriana

“A ball? You want me to go to a ball with you?” I stare at Barnaby, hope blossoming.

It’s been five days since the horrendous experience with the women he has training me, and I’ve managed to keep his advances at bay by claiming sickness for three days. For the last two, I’ve been trying to do what was suggested to me; namely, I’ve been trying to kick his daddy kink into gear, without getting him so hot and bothered that he forces me into something.

I’ve been acting all girlish and coy, and he seems to delight in it, but I can tell the delight won’t last, and soon he will want more.

This could be the chance I have for escape. The chance for Dimitri, or someone close to him, to help me. I doubt anyone could easily reach me here. It’s a veritable fortress, and I fear that Barnaby is that unhinged, he’d kill me and himself if he thought someone was coming to take me away.

His obsession is like a sick but distorted mirror image of Dimitri’s. Whereas Dimitri made me feel seen somehow, for the first time ever, Barnaby simply makes me feel like an object. A vessel, for all his twisted desires.

“Yes, tonight. Larissa is coming to get you ready. Maybe we should have her give you a massage to help you relax?” He grins at me wolfishly.

The hope kicks up a notch. Larissa said they were trying to get me help, and she’s coming to dress me, so I have to believe that tonight is the night Dimitri might be sending men to save me. Or, at least, attempting to.

“Or,” I say, smiling coquettishly, “perhaps later, after the ball, you can massage me?”

I have no intention of being here after the ball. I’ll be long gone, I hope, and if it means I can put off any kinky fuckery a little longer, then I’ll offer this sick bastard something he’s never going to get.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, my love,” Barnaby says with a sickly smile.

I shudder inwardly, but outwardly I let my smile stretch a little wider, and he seems to believe me because he grins wider too.

“Can I go for a walk in the grounds, if I take a guard? Some fresh air might be nice before I get ready. Put some color in my cheeks, like the girl in the picture?”

At the mention of the painting, Barnaby positively beams.

“When will Sian be home?” I ask.

“Missing your friend, huh?” he replies.

Missing her? I’ll have her head on a platter if I get my way. I nod, though. “She’s my bestie,” I say, all sickly sweet and untrue.

“Soon. She knows we need time.”

I bet she does. She’s not going to like what I’ll have to say to her once she gets here, and boy, do I have a lot to say.

“Yes, you may go for a walk,” he says. “Take Tom.”

I’ve gotten to know a few of the staff, and Tom is one of the nicer guards. I can’t escape anyway, what with the moat, the security cameras, the high fences, and the fact that Barnaby now has guard dogs that look like hellhounds roaming the grounds. I bet they’d rip me to shreds if I tried to climb the wall.

Because I want Barnaby to believe that I'm softening toward him, I smile at him, throw my arms around his neck, and give him a kiss on the cheek, the way I might have done before. “Thank you,” I say. He positively beams at me, and his cheeks turn a nice shade of red. Nice, because it lets me know that I can manipulate him to a degree.

While I'm pulling on a pair of boots, he messages Tom and tells him to be ready in the hallway to take me around the grounds for a walk. We've been sitting in the living room this afternoon, and I had been reading a book while Barnaby read The Telegraph newspaper.

By the time Tom meets me in the hallway, I'm ready with a light sweater, a cotton jacket, and my boots. The clothes are all things that Barnaby procured for me, and they all fit like a glove, because clearly, he's been planning this for a long time.

It strikes me as crazy that I now have two different wardrobes purchased for me by two separate men, without any input from myself. Why is it that the exact same behavior that I find unbearable and creepy in Barnaby, I don't mind in Dimitri? Is it purely because of my attraction for him, or does he do things in a different way than Barnaby, that makes them seem less concerning?

“Ready for a walk, miss?” Tom asks.

“Yes, thank you; I'm looking forward to it.”

We head out the door, and I take a right toward the gardens. I’ve always loved the gardens here. They are beautiful, and people come from far and wide to visit them. Today, they’re empty, except for a couple of gardeners in the distance, pruning some rose bushes. As we wander along, and I observe the plants, bending down to sniff a particularly pungent rose, I see something at the far end of the gravel path. I've walked this way so many times, and this plant has never stood out to me before. I know what it is, though, and I know what it can do .

Something wild beats in my chest. Can I? Should I? Oh, the mischief I could wreak with this.

The plant is angel’s trumpets. It's a beautiful flower, and one anyone can buy in almost any garden center, which is quite odd because it's highly poisonous. It's also hallucinogenic. I know this because of the amount of classical literature that I've read.

Victorian ladies allegedly invited their friends to scandalous tea parties. On the table they’d place a potted angel’s trumpets plant. They would then place the teapot under the trumpets of the plant and shake them so that pollen and sap would fall into the tea. This meant the ladies would have a rip-roaring afternoon, as tongues were loosened and giggles abounded.

Some say that later during the Victorian period, through to the early twenties, people even shook the pollen into glasses of champagne to heighten the effect. This, however, was dangerous because mixing it with alcohol could lead to a state of severe delirium. It could also cause violent vomiting, stomach pains, and in the worst-case scenario—death.

I stare at the plant, and my brain begins to turn faster and faster. Could I? No, I think to myself. It's not worth it. If I get the dose wrong, and Barnaby merely has a bad trip, he will kill me. If, however, Dimitri has sent someone to extract me this evening, then that's a much safer bet. Still, I note the location of the plants, and then deciding that maybe I ought to hedge my bets, I turn to Tom with a thoughtful expression on my face.

“I'd really like to pick some of these beautiful plants and arrange them in a vase. I used to do flower arranging as a hobby,” I lie smoothly. “Do you think Barnaby would be happy with me doing that? We could always ask him.”

“I'll message him, miss,” Tom says.

He takes out his phone and starts to type as I wander amongst the plants, conspicuously ignoring the angel’s trumpets. I bend down and smell at different roses and ooh and ah to myself over the beautiful lilies the garden has grown. Tom turns to me as his phone beeps and gives me a nod. “He says it's fine.”

“Fantastic.” I grin. It’s probably the first real smile I've given since I arrived.

I realized I have nothing to cut the plants with and nothing to carry them in. But Tom shouts to the far end of the garden and calls one of the young men over. He tells him to bring me a basket and some pruners.

The gardener returns with everything I need within a few minutes. He hands it over to me with a shy smile and then ambles back along the path to the patch of garden he was working on. I take great care to pick roses, lilies, and a few sprays of baby’s breath, before I wonder over to the angel’s trumpets. This is going to be tricky because it's not the kind of plant that one normally sees on display in vases. The flowers are incredibly droopy, but luckily for me Tom is completely disinterested in what I'm gathering, and just keeps shadowing me as his eyes sweep around the garden endlessly. I don't know what he's expecting. It's not as if a whole battalion of SAS soldiers all dressed in black are going to scale the walls and sweep me away to safety. I wish they would. Still, his hyper vigilance of the surroundings means that I get to gather as many of the trumpets as I wish.

I wonder if I should add some foxgloves into the mix too but decide that might be going too far. Most people know just how poisonous foxgloves are, and I'm sure that Barnaby would spot them if I tried to take them into the house. It's too risky. He might know about the others too, but a lot of people don't. As far as I'm aware, he's not a keen gardener particularly. He has people to do it for him and keep things looking nice for visitors, but I've never heard him talk about any of the plants in his garden during any of my visits. I've never seen him out here either.

When I've gathered lots of plants to hide the angel’s trumpets within, I fashion a makeshift bouquet arrangement in my basket and tell Tom I'm ready to head back to the house.

Once I'm in the kitchen, with the basket laid on the table, I rummage around in some of the cupboards until I find a large enough vase. I fill it with water and begin to arrange the flowers. My plan is to hide the angel’s trumpets as well as I can in the middle of the other flowers. I'm halfway through the arrangement, with most of the poisonous delicacies surrounded by much taller plants, when Barnaby enters the room. He stands in the doorway and stares at me.

His hand flutters into the air and then covers his heart. He almost clutches it, and for one joyous moment I think he might be having a heart attack. However, his eyes fill with tears, and he shakes his head. “You look so right standing in my kitchen this way,” he says. “If only you knew how many times I've longed for you to be the lady of this house. Now it seems you are fulfilling your role. I told you that we could be happy here,” he says. He walks into the room, around the table, and comes to stand behind me.

It takes everything within me not to stiffen when his arms come around me, and he nuzzles my neck. Instead, I focus incredibly hard on keeping my breathing even and my body languid. If he feels me tense up, he’ll know that I still find him disgusting.

“I must admit that I do love this house,” I say softly. “I was shocked by everything that happened. You must understand how crazy these past few weeks have been for me, Barnaby. It just might take me some time to get used to this. To us.” I cover his hands with my own and then turn my face so he can kiss my cheek.

“My darling girl, I can wait forever as long as I know that one day you will be mine.” He kisses my cheek over and over, peppering my skin with saliva. His hands slowly move up my body and cup my breasts. He sighs into my neck, and for a horrible moment I think he's going to turn this into something else. But then he kisses my neck, lets go of me, and walks out of the room.

“Larissa will be here within two hours,” he says from the doorway. “Don't keep her waiting.”

The moment he exits the room, I bring my wrist up to my cheek and scrub my skin with my sleeve, wiping away all traces of him.

I finish the flower display and carry the heavy vase out into the hallway where I place it and the flowers on the large table rested near the door. There are a few statues and a couple of large photographs in heavy silver frames on this table, and I place them around the vase so that it's not the center of attention when one first walks in the door.

Happy with my work, I head upstairs and take a shower. I really don't need another session with Larissa, and I’m praying that won’t happen. Although I can't lie that my body found it sensual, it's done a real number on my head. Every time I think back to it, I feel as if I've betrayed Dimitri. It's crazy to think that way, because we never made any promises to each other, but if what Larissa said is true, then he's coming for me.

Why I didn’t believe he would, I don’t know. The man says I am his, and he might not love me, or want me and Cade as a package, but what Dimitri Baranov says is his, is his.

The way he looked at me was with such fierce possession it made my toes curl. After all, this is a man who threatened to pluck out the eyes of his own enforcer, dip them in resin, and wear them as a necklace around his neck, simply for looking at me. There's no way a man like that is going to let me go. I was an idiot to lose faith, and Barnaby doesn't realize who he’s messed with.

After I've showered and blow dried my hair, I sit in a silk dressing gown that Barnaby purchased for me, nibbling my nails in nervous anticipation. I’m sitting at the stool by the dressing table impatiently waiting. Just like before, I have no phone, no iPad, and no way of passing the time other than reading, and I love reading but I have been doing so much of it these past few days that even I'm getting tired of it. I do have glasses here, though, quite a few pairs, including the ones I gave Sian.

I think of her fondly calling me Specs and all the times we would sit giggling and telling each other secrets, and the sharp pang of betrayal bites at me once more. How could she do this? I could never do it to her. The very idea of doing something like this to her makes me want to be sick. Still, in a moment of empathy for her, I do understand that she lost her mother as a really young girl, and clearly her father is insane. She must have had a strange, possibly terrible, childhood. After all, who knows what Barnaby did to her? Or what she saw and heard here.

Creaking the door open, Larissa strides in. My gaze meets hers in the mirror, and I smile at her. She is not the enemy here. Despite what her wickedly clever fingers did to me those days ago, she’s not the one I hate. She's such a striking woman, and I wonder if she's happy in the work that she does. When she reaches me, her fingers stretch out and sift through my hair.

“I took a shower before you came,” I say. “My hair is clean and ready, and my face is moisturized so you can make me up. I don't know what Barnaby wants you to do with me, but he said you’d be getting me ready for the ball.”

Her fingers continue to let my hair fall through them, making me shiver. “Yes, we need to make you look beautiful for the masked ball tonight, don't we.” Her gaze burns into me in the mirror.

She’s telling me so much with her eyes. Secrets she can’t speak are communicated with her long, lingering look.

It’s then that I know for real that this is it . Tonight, I'm going to get out of here. We can't speak of it, because as she said when she whispered in my ear after the massage, we don't know where there are cameras or microphones in this place. Barnaby is more than paranoid enough to have them everywhere. I really wouldn't be surprised if there's not some sort of bug in the dresser. And I wonder if there's a camera in the mirror.

Lord, I bet there is. It’s the sort of sick thing he’d do. Place a camera where he can watch me watch myself. I can imagine him right now, sitting in his study, observing us, thinking I have no idea. Deciding I’m going to completely mess with his mind and let him see what he will never have after this evening, I undo the tie on my robe. I let it slip from my shoulders, baring my breasts.

He's already seen them, so why not give him another eyeful, except this will be the last time he ever sees me. I stare right into the mirror, right into the camera that I don't know is there but I presume is. My gaze is defiant, hard even, and I hope that he is unsure of how to react to this.

“So beautiful,” Larissa says as her hand sweeps down my hair, over my shoulders and brushes fleetingly over my breasts, catching my nipples, puckering them and making my pussy ache.

“Let's make you look absolutely astonishing,” she says. “I have the most wonderful mask for you. And I think your hair would look marvelous piled up on top of your head in ringlets at the front, with some left long hanging down your back. Do you trust me to curl it?”

“Of course,” I say.

“Well then, Snow White, let's get you ready.”

I hate Barnaby’s nickname for me. I'm not Snow White—I'm Adriana. And if anyone calls me by any other name, it will only be Dimitri calling me littleblue.

“What does this tattoo represent?” Larissa touches it briefly with her index finger.

It's the same question that Dimitri asked me mere days ago, but what feels like years ago. I give her the same answer I gave him. “Freedom. It's supposed to represent freedom. It's a bird living free out of the cage.”

“It's very beautiful,” she says. “Let's get your slip on first so that you're not sitting here naked and getting a chill while I do your hair, and then we can put your dress on. I hope you like what I chose for you this evening, but I honestly think it's going to make you look like an absolute princess.”

She walks to my wardrobe and opens it. She rummages through the lingerie hung on tiny silk hangers until she finds what she's looking for. She takes out the gossamer thin, silk slip and brings it to me, gently letting it fall over my head. It glides over my skin like liquid, and all the tiny hairs stand on end at the sensation.

My nipples peak, and my entire body feels delicious. It perturbs me how much I react to things such as this. Does it make me sick? Does it make me unfaithful to Dimitri that my body can react this way, even when my mind and emotions don't want to?

“Don't I need a bra?” I ask. “Is my dress like a princess style? All puffy?”

“Most of the women will be wearing those kinds of dresses for tonight. Which is exactly why you won't. I'm going to put you in something that's going to cling to every single beautiful curve of this amazing body of yours. After all,” she says, “we need to make sure that your man really is smitten, don't we?”

I know in that instant that she does not mean Barnaby. Fire sings inside me as I realize that Dimitri hasn't sent someone to save me as I had thought he might. No, Dimitri is coming for me himself. He's going to be there … tonight.

My gaze snaps and meets hers in the mirror. “Make me look the most beautiful I've ever been,” I say.

“Your wish is my command.” She smiles softly and gets to work.