Magda was reviewing details on her laptop in an office at Miklos’ head office where he had graciously allowed the girls to work until they got their own place set up.
“You’re actually moving in with him and his mom?” Sienna was baffled. “His mom?”
“She needs Ares and I love her already,” she shrugged.
“Your mom is going to lose her mind.” Dimi didn’t look up from her screen. “You have refused to move back home with her for the last eight years and one day after meeting Ares’ mom you’re shacking up with her.”
“Ares mother never abused me growing up.” Magda didn’t look up from her own computer.
“True.” Darya grunted her approval.
“Your mother doesn’t consider it abuse.” Dimi commented.
“My mother loves me,” Magda sighed, “and I love her but I will never live with her again. I try to
Ares paced in Miklos office furiously as he stared at his friend and his wife. “What the fuck do you mean there is no surveillance?”“Nothing, Ares,” Dimitra said softly. “The entire block is wiped out from the moment Magda’s car passed the stop sign at the corner with her driver behind the wheel. No traffic cameras, no local store cameras, no CCTV of any kind in the immediate vicinity of the gym. Whoever took her from the gym after taking out your security agent who was waiting in Mags car for her must have a lot of money backing them and is good with technology.”“Fuck!” he kicked a chair and it bounced across the room. His security agent was in a coma following a significant strike to the head. He couldn’t speak or talk about what happened. When they’d questioned Magda’s personal trainer, he’d told them she had been at the gym, had gotten into an argument with one of the othe
Magda opened her eyes slowly and blinked. Her head ached, her vision was blurry and her mouth tasted dry and metallic. She tried to swallow but her tongue felt stuck to her palate. She attempted to sit up and her elbows sunk into a pillow-soft mattress yet her body felt pinned to it. The room was dark and only a small filtering of light from a lamp on a table in the far corner.She held a hand to her head and tried again to sit up. “Where the hell am I?” She tried to clear her throat as the words stuck. “Hello?” she called out.A door opened on the other side of the room from where she was facing made her turn her head in the direction but her sudden movement had her head spinning dangerously and it fell back against the pillows and her eyes closed.A man’s voice spoke softly, “Magda, try not to move too quickly. The ketamine in your system is going to make you feel dizzy and nauseous. I have left you water and y
Magda looked up as the door opened and rose to her feet. Alvar stepped into the room wearing a white button-down shirt, the top two buttons undone, a gold chain peeking out at the opening. He had a jacket and matching trousers on and she knew from the fit, it was custom made. Everything about this man screamed money and power. She felt his gaze raking her from head to toe and didn’t shrink away from it.“Good girl,” he approved of her outfit and motioned with his hand. “Come. Dinner is ready.”“And if I don’t want to?”“You don’t get an option, Magda. Please don’t fight with me. Disobedience pisses me off and the last thing I want to do is have to punish you.” He held the door wider, “let’s go.”“How long was I asleep for?”“A full day before you woke the first time. A couple hours the second time.” He led her down a dimly
The next morning Magda woke to the sound of someone puttering in her room and she opened her eyes to see Estella leaving a small tray on the same stand the water had been the day before. She didn’t even look towards the bed where Magda lay but simply set the tray down and then walked back out of the room. The locking mechanism mocking Magda’s freedom.She couldn’t help but feel sad for the loss the woman had been through. The words Alvar had spoken the night before had kept Magda up long into the evening, even after he had walked her back to her bedroom and locked her in.She had cried long and hard over the death of the man who had been her personal trainer for eighteenmonths. He had made a mistake and while she couldn’t forgive him for what he’d done, he certainly hadn’t deserved to die.Hugging her pillow tight she rolled onto her belly and resumed the position she’d spent much of her night in; bur
“We got her,” Miklos voice spoke brusquely before Ares had even said hello to the call.“I’m on my way.”“Take your time. Dimitra wants her to sweat a little bit.”“We don’t have fucking time,” he spit into his phone as he punched the button to call his elevator. “It’s been three days. How the hell is there no trace of her after three days?”“Dimitra will get answers.” Miklos hung up on him and Ares knew it was because he was not going to argue.Ares was tapping his foot impatiently on the floor of the elevator and when the doors opened, he wasn’t surprised to see Jake waiting for him with a scowl on his own face.“How the fuck did he find her before us?” Jake grunted as they walked purposefully to the car waiting outside.“I don’t know but I would stake my company on it involving Dimitra’s hackin
Magda walked along the shore trying to keep her tears at bay. She told herself there were women in the world who were kidnapped who were in far worse situations than the one she was in but she hated this. She hated everything about it. She wanted to go home.This morning after her breakfast, Alvar had taken her into an office space and made her sit quietly on a leather sofa while he worked on his computer. The way he moved his fingers across the keyboard spoke of a man who had decades of practice. He had three monitors in front of him, all positioned away from her view. His face was set and serious and he worked silently. Each time she’d opened her mouth to speak, he’d held up a finger to silence her.Then he had taken a phone call and his rapid-fire Italian was far too quick for her to follow the conversation. All she knew was whoever was on the other end of the phone was probably debating suicide based on the tone of Alvar’s voice beca
By Friday Magda was aware she was on the verge of falling apart. No matter how hard she tried to trust Ares and Dimi would find her, the lack of communication with the outside world was getting to her.Alvar sat across from her at the breakfast table and she was pushing fresh fruit around the plate wordlessly.“Eat.”“Not hungry.”“You’ve lost at least five pounds in five days. Either eat or I bring my physician in to hook you up to an IV.”“Do what you have to do.”He sighed and put his phone face down on the table, “Magda, I have to go out this afternoon.”“Great, another day locked in my room.”“No. I have stationed several guards around the house. You can stay in the house or on the beach. Do not try to leave the property, not that you could because it is an island, but I don’t want to have to go chasing you through a jun
Magda retreated back to her bedroom after sitting on the beach for two hours contemplating her situation. She left the door open and grimaced as Estella followed her into the space.“Estella, I’d rather be on my own.” The woman had been shooting hateful glances all afternoon from the house, watching her like a hawk and likely reporting her every breath to Alvar.“Alvar called and told me to let you know he will be very late arriving this evening. He has an engagement on the mainland. I want to know where you want to eat dinner. Here or in the dining room or on the patio.”“I don’t care one way or the other,” she moved to lay on the bed. “Tell me where to go and I’ll go.” She reached for the glass of water on her nightstand and carelessly she hit it and it smashed to the hardwood floor. “Son of a hobbit!” Mag
CMagda held Ares’ hand as they came down the stairs to the cacophony of lively chattering. It was well after nine and their friends had allowed them to sleep for a long time but eventually Dimitra had enough and she’d burst into their bedroom jumped on the bed and threatened to drag their naked bodies down the stairs.Ares had been annoyed with the intrusion because he said, he’d been happy to simply lay there and watch Magda sleep. Dimi had called him creepy and then had given them five minutes to get their butts down the stairs.When they reached the bottom he grimaced, “I’m really regretting letting them all stay here.”She giggled as she rose on her toes to kiss his pouting lips, “be nice. Eventually they will all go home and it will be only the three of us here,” she paused, “unless you invited my parents to move in, in which case, we need to have words.”He put his ha
Magda giggled as Ares tugged the t-shirt, he’d just put on her, right back off her. He had been such a gentleman to avert his eyes when he’d had her down to her underwear but now his gaze was intense as he surveyed all he had uncovered. He frowned at the lace panties.She knew he was feeling all kinds of emotions knowing she was wearing underwear and clothing another man had bought for her, a man who had admitted wanting her and had even spanked her. He was too respectful to ask the questions she knew he really wanted to ask and she felt very much like she needed to reassure him. He was kneeling between her thighs on the bed, his hands at her hips as he stared down at her and she smiled.“I missed you, my love,” she whispered softly. “All week long, all I kept asking was when could I come home to you.” She tugged one of his hands and pulled him so he was laying atop her again, wrapping her legs around his and holding hi
Chapter 56: Clearing the AirMagda waited as the group of people in the room all exchanged glances and then her mother gave a loud sigh. She cast her mother a stunned side eye. Even her mother appeared to be annoyed with her question. Was her mother on board with murdering her cousin?“Jasper isn’t sane,” Lois said slowly. “We gave her a few options but she was truly quite difficult.”“Mom,” Magda spoke quietly, “she is my cousin, your niece.”“She is my niece but she is insane.” Lois retorted, a flash of her previous controlling attitude coming to surface. “She planned to assassinate you. She deserves all she has coming to her and then some. I would feel sorry for her if she hadn’t been very forthcoming about how much she plotted all of this. This wasn’t a sick person acting out based on chemical imbalances in the brain. She was aware of everything she was doing
Her eyelids felt as if anchors were holding them down and she heard muffled voices as she was carried through the dark of the night into the front door of Ares’ house. Ajax gently lay her onto the sofa. She could hear her mom kneeling right in front of her, felt her brushing her hair off her face.“Magda, please open your eyes. Maybe we should call a doctor,” Lois’ voice was crackling.Magda shook her head and forced her eyes open, “I’m fine. I’m really tired but fine. Mom, I’m so sorry.” She whimpered as she looked into familiar green eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”“Oh sweetheart,” her mother cupped her cheeks, “it’s all my fault. I’m sorry. You have nothing to apologize for. I will make it all up to you. I’m sorry.” Her mother had tears streaming down her cheeks.Magda was fairly certain she had never seen her mother cry be
Magda came down the stairs in the late afternoon hating the way her chest ached. She wanted to go home. Alvar wasn’t allowing her to leave because Jasper had tried to hire an assassin. Jasper. Her cousin. The only person on the planet who could understand what it was like to be subjected to a mother like Lois because she had Lanie. Yet, it would appear the woman hated her for escaping her mother’s thumb. How could a woman Magda loves so much hate her with equal passion? She didn’t understand. It was her cousin and it made no sense and yet, there they were. She wished she could ask her why but she also knew with Dimitra in charge back home, she wasn’t going to tolerate the fact the woman had paid to have her kidnapped and asked for her to be murdered. Dimi was going to take a pound of flesh and then some.She went to the patio and frowned to see nobody sitting there. She looked to the beach and it was also empty, not even the guards which
Lois was out of her chair and in Jasper’s face, yanking her away from Darya with a force Ares was impressed with. She was shaking Jasper hard, making the woman’s head wobble like a bobble-headed toy and she was shrieking at her to tell them where Magda was.He saw Dimitra wave at him to intervene and he shrugged. If Lois wanted to smack the girl around, who was he to stop a family situation? He frowned as Lanie moved in between Lois and Jasper, irritated the woman was putting a stop to Lois’ assault on the woman. However, he was unprepared for Lanie smacking Jasper hard across the face, causing blood to appear on her lip.“She is your cousin, your blood, and your family! How could you? All week long pretending to be concerned and sad when you were behind it all!”Jasper wiped the blood off her mouth and yanked herself away from her mother, “nice, mom. Hitting your pregnant daughter.”“You kidna
Magda woke in the morning, her eyes feeling gritty and tired. She rolled to her side to find Alvar sitting on the edge of her bed.“Creepy much?” she whispered as she pushed her hair off her face.“Good morning,” he smiled softly at her. “How are you feeling this morning?”“Like a barbarian slapped me around and left me to cry in a dungeon.” She glared accusingly.“I apologize for my anger last night. You were warned about being disobedient but I went too far. I am sorry.”“You hit me.”“You’ve been spanked before,” he cupped her cheek gently, his eyes sadly surveying her.“It’s not my kink.” She snapped back glaring at him and when his eyes widened knowingly her mouth fell open as she considered his words. “Oh my god.”He winked at her. “Figure it out?”“You were the one
“She said a man named Alvar?” Ares was confused. “And this guy hates me?” He was trying to tone down how pissed off he was, Dimitra had waited nearly ten hours to tell him Magda had called. She’d called the night before and she had not told anyone until this morning. It was five am and they were in Miklos office at the compound and he was pacing circles. Darya was furious with Dimitra for not calling her right away as well and she was currently sulking in an oversized armchair, swatting at Kostas each time he tried to comfort her. He tore his gaze away from them, “she said the guy who took her has hated me since I was a kid.”“Yes.”“Because I told his cousin to abort our baby and she died during the abortion?” Ares scratched his temple in disbelief.“It’s what she said.”“Dimitra, the only girl I had sex with while in high school, and there was only on
Magda dialed out Dimitra’s cell phone number, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she was certain the guards up the beach and Estella who was watching her from the patio behind her could probably hear it. She had her backs to everyone as she stared over the water.“Dimitra speaking. Who is this and how did you get this number?”“It’s Magda and I have it memorized.”“Holy fuck! Mags. Where are you?”“I don’t know. Is everyone okay?”“We’re fine. We’re trying to locate you. Are you hurt? Injured? Are you safe?”“I’m safe. I’m not hurt. I’m on an island somewhere. I’m being fed and taken care of far better than most kidnapping victims,” she whispered quietly, wiping a tear off her face at the knowledge she had made contact. “A man named Alvar has me. I don’t know his last name or if it&rsquo