“Get out,” he orders.
I’m ready to argue, to remind him I’m not the same woman he met a year ago. But before I can say anything, he’s out of the car. His door slams in my face.
“The whole confident, black widow thing is really working for you,” Jax says, twisting around in the front seat with a wide grin. “I’m just not sure it’ll work on him.”
He chuckles as I climb out of the car and follow down the gravel path after Leo.
The trees get thicker the further we go. Jax and Gaiman linger just close enough to be noticed and just far enough not to eavesdrop. I’d be a fool not to notice they’re doing it intentionally.
Clearly, they’re blocking me in.
“What’s the matter, boys?” I ask them, throwing a glance over my shoulder. “Scared I’ll make a run for it?”
“Nah,” Jax quips. “I just like the view from back here.”
“Jax.”
The man flinches at the sound of Leo’s voice. It’s my turn to laugh as Jax hurries past me to walk with Leo, his shoulders slouched in regret.
Leo says something to him, but they’re too far away for me to catch exactly what. Then Jax melts into the trees and disappears completely.
“Where are you taking me?” I call up to Leo.
The moment I ask the question, he turns sharply and walks into the trees. I jog to catch up with him.
The moment I do, the trees open, and I’m looking out on a snowy oasis.
Snow-capped peaks and white valleys flow seamlessly into one another, a single unbroken pane of ice as far as the eye can see.
As beautiful as the view is, I’m distracted by the modern cabin that rises three stories into the clear blue sky.
The fa?ade is mostly glass, framed by logs as thick as a man’s waist. Through the windows, I catch glimpses of the interior. A piano soaking in the pale sun. A spiral staircase, a stone fireplace, a shelf of books.
A rock path leads up to the front door. Leo opens it for me as we approach. “Go inside.”
When I hesitate, he arches an eyebrow. “Unless you’d prefer to freeze to death?”
I grit my teeth and follow him inside.
I expect Jax and Gaiman to be there, too, but neither one makes an appearance. All the men that accompanied us up here seem to have melted into the snow.
The moment I step into the cabin, warmth covers me like a blanket. I sigh with gratitude—these mountains really are cold.
The living room is beautifully decorated. Rustic furniture, roughly hewn from the trees that carpet the mountainside. Paintings set in thick iron frames depict the landscape in the winter, the spring, the summer, the fall, at sunrise and sunset, in storms and in sunshine. The floor is layered with rugs in every shade of deep burgundy, emerald green, and gold.
I sigh—this time, with irritation. Leave it to Leo Solovev to have a remote mountain getaway that looks like the interior spread of an architectural magazine.
“Your room is on the third floor,” Leo tells me as he walks towards the sprawling bar in one corner of the room. “The blue door. It faces the mountains.”
I smell the whiskey the moment he opens the bottle and pours himself a drink. My boots click across the wooden floors as I walk to the bar and take a seat two stools away from him.
Truthfully, I’d rather stand on the opposite side of the room from him, my back pressed against the glass so he can’t sneak up on me from behind. But I can’t show any fear.
Leo feasts on fear.
I don’t wait for him to offer me anything. I pluck the bottle from his hand and take a swig right from it.
It burns my throat on the way down, but I don’t flinch. When I’m done, I set the bottle back on the counter.
He looks at me with one raised eyebrow. “Trying to prove a point?”
“What point would that be?”
“That you’re a tough girl now, I suppose.”
Patronizing asshole. Instead of biting back, I take another swig of whiskey. It’s safer than getting into it with Leo. This time, it’s hard not to wince against the sting.
“You might want to take it easy,” he tells me.
“I can hold my own.”
Condescension drips from that smile as he reaches for the bottle. Before he can reach it, I slide it away from him, keeping my grip tight around the bottle’s neck.
“I’m not done.”
“You should be,” he says. “But you’ve never known what’s best for yourself.”
I answer that with another swig. “Where are my parents? What have you done with them?”