Chase You To The Sun (7 page)

“This conversation is over,” Hikaru interjected. “I don’t think Bruce wants us to talk about that.”

“That’s right,” Bruce rumbled from across the table. “He doesn’t.”

Shou looked down, suddenly intent on shoveling as much pasta on his spoon as he could. “Sorry,
oyabun
,” he mumbled. “Won’t happen again.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Seriously – what the hell was going on here? Lana’s eyes darted from Bruce to Shou to Hikaru and back. It was clear Bruce hated her father, but he respected her mother – in fact, his employees seemed to know her too. She couldn’t wait for that video call with her dad.

After dinner, Lana wanted to flee to her room and be alone for a while, but Bruce wouldn’t allow it.

“You stay here until we take you to the comm room,” he told here, gesturing at the couch in the middle of the living room.

Lana sat down obediently. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked, being careful not to sound too whiny. Bruce seemed to get rather volatile whenever she was displaying typical ‘little-rich-girl’ behavior.

“Go read a book,” he replied, tipping his head at the giant bookcase near the patio doors.

“Can I?” Lana gazed at the shelves in awe. “Aren’t they, like, ancient? And valuable?”

Bruce shrugged. “There’s no value in books that can’t be enjoyed.”

“True.” She scrambled to her feet again to do as she was told and check out his collection of old paper books. Surprisingly enough, the top shelf seemed to contain lots of poetry. A poem-reading pirate? Whatever next? Or maybe they belonged to Chester. He struck her more as the verse-loving type. His presence in the Randall mansion actually threw her for a loop – apart from being good at breaking into computer systems, Chester came across as relatively harmless.

When Lana made her way back to the couch, Bruce looked up from the pad he was typing away on, sitting in an easy chair close to the TV. “What did you pick?” he asked unexpectedly.

“Uhm – this.” Lana held up the little book that had piqued her interest. It was called Leaves of Grass by a poet called Walt Whitman.

Bruce smiled. For the first time ever, it felt like his smile was entirely genuine. “You know him?”

“No, but it looks interesting.”

He got a faraway look in his eyes. “I celebrate myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” he quoted. “First few lines.”

So it
was
his book, then. “That’s beautiful,” Lana said, cracking the book open carefully. Yellowed, brittle pages stared back at her. “You know the poems by heart?”

“Some of them. The ones that touched my heart when I still had one.”

His remark made him sound so strangely vulnerable and inapproachable at the same time that she didn’t know what to say. Instead of speaking, she sank into the cushions and held the book in her lap, furtively glancing at the giant man who claimed he no longer had a heart. Lana tried to focus on the words on the page as Chester, John, Shou, and Hikaru joined the two of them in the living room, all of them absorbed in some form of communication on their pads. At some point, Chester turned on the TV to watch the news. It wasn’t a local channel – the events in the bulletin were from all over the globe. No way to find out anything new about her location, unfortunately.

“Plague outbreak strikes Oceanian countryside,” the newscaster declared in a dry voice. “Thousands of casualties as Japanese authorities rush to have everyone inoculated.”

“Everyone?” Hikaru muttered under his breath. “Even the unemployed drifters? Fat chance.”

Shifting uncomfortably, Lana attempted to block out the story on the news. She was aware Earth wasn’t paradise – it was a harsh environment for most people. It was difficult even for those Elitists residing in old capitals instead of new colonies in the solar system. However, Earth was beautiful in that it was the only place that stirred truly strong emotions of longing in her. She didn’t know what it was, exactly, that she longed for. Being on Earth was like reading poetry – it made her heart ache, and she didn’t know why.

Her eyes skimmed the lines on the page in front of her. “You shall possess the good of the Earth and sun,” she whispered very quietly. “You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.” Inadvertently, her gaze drifted to Bruce once more, who was talking to John. His sharp features and dark-blond hair peppered with strands of gold didn’t look so intimidating if she ignored his enormous, athletic body and menacing, gray eyes – eyes that looked tortured sometimes, blazing up whenever he clenched his fists or grabbed her by the arm to instill fear in her.

Lana froze when Bruce unexpectedly turned his head to look at her. Had he felt the weight of her stare? Why had she even risked staring at him like that? Immediately glancing away, she fixed her eyes on the book, using it to hide her flustered face behind, her heart tapping nervously against her ribs. When she fretfully eyed Bruce over the edge of the poetry volume after what felt like minutes, his eyes were still on her, his gaze unflinching. Bruce was appraising her with unsettling intensity, a sly smile tugging at his mouth. Suddenly, Lana forgot all about his apparent vulnerability. This man was dangerous – and the last thing she should do was provoke him in any sort of way.

“It’s time,” John announced, just as she was getting up to feign a visit to the bathroom in order to get away from Bruce’s private stare. The hacker was holding up his pad.

“Good.” Bruce got up and slowly extended his hand toward her. “We’re going to talk to your father.”

Lana gingerly slipped her hand in his as she jumped to her feet. Oh, shit. Admittedly, this was a friendlier gesture than him roughly seizing her upper arm, but right now, she’d prefer him pushing her around.

“Let’s go to the comm room.” He pulled her along to the dark corridor behind the stairs. “We have a window of ten minutes for safe communication, so keep it short.”

“Okay.” Lana’s heart skipped a beat when his thumb lightly brushed the back of her hand. It made her entire face heat up. Thank God it was so dark here. “Any stuff I’m not supposed to mention?”

“You will speak to him in English,” Bruce replied. “My Russian is a bit rusty.”

She almost sighed with relief when he let go of her hand to push open the door to what looked like a study. Shelves stacked with hard drives and folders lined the walls on either side of a large desk in the middle of the room. The desk faced a window looking out over the garden, now covered in darkness. An old-fashioned video screen sat on a table to the left of the desk. It flickered to life when Bruce pushed a few buttons on the console wired to the monitor.

“Have a seat,” he said, pulling up a stool from somewhere and planting her in front of the video screen. “He’ll come on in a minute.”

Lana waited, hyper-aware of Bruce silently standing behind her. When the screen suddenly fizzed with loud static, she eagerly leaned forward, tears pooling in her eyes when her father’s face appeared on the monitor. “Oh,
papa
,” she cried out, her voice cracking. “
Ya rada tebya videt
.”

A heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder. “In English,” Bruce warned her.

Crap. Lana cowered, correcting herself. “I’m so happy to see you, dad.”

“How are you, Sveta?” Mr. Ivanov said, his voice unsteady. “Oh God. This should never have happened. I can’t lose you.”

“Nothing will happen to your daughter as long as you follow the instructions I sent you earlier in the day,” Bruce said, lowering his head to look into the camera. “She’s been a good girl so far.”

Lana shifted uncomfortably on her stool. She’d been anything but a ‘good girl’, and it made her feel incredibly guilty. “I’m okay, dad. Nobody’s hurt me.”

“About your demands,” Mr. Ivanov addressed Bruce directly. “You’re going to have to give me some more time to meet them.”

“Why should I?” Bruce replied icily. “You’ve had
years
to meet them. To be honest, my patience is wearing thin.”

“What you’re asking of me is not easy.”

“Dad.” Lana locked eyes with her father. “What is Bruce asking you to do?”

Mr. Ivanov paled visibly. “He’s asking me to stop supplying gemstones to Mars and Luna. And to pay him a ransom of one billion rubles.”

“Will he release me after that?”

“I don’t know.” Mr. Ivanov raised his hands helplessly.

Lana thought quickly. If Bruce wanted her dad to stop shipping tourmaline and emerald to the richest Elite colonies indefinitely, setting her free wouldn’t help his cause. After all, her dad could turn the supply chain back on once she was home again. The only way for Bruce to ensure a hold on Ivanov Mining Industries was to keep her alive and locked up – indefinitely. The hopelessness of her situation suddenly hit her full force. She was never going to get out of here without outside help.

“Can I ask you something,
papa
?” she said timidly, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“Anything,
dorogaya
.”

“Why is he asking you to do this?”

Her father shook his head in confusion. “That’s not important.”

“But it is,” Lana insisted. “There must be a reason why he wants you to halt shipments.”

He frowned. “Sveta, I honestly have no idea, but I can take an educated guess. The man is probably out to get a monopoly on gemstone resources in order to fund his own criminal empire and destroy Elite dominance in the Earth sector at the same time. Imagine what it would do to stock markets and currency stability if we stopped shipping to Mars and Luna altogether.”

“That’s true,” Lana whispered. Her dad was making a lot of sense. “I just – well, he said...”

Mr. Ivanov smiled at her encouragingly. “What did he tell you? Out with it.”

Lana took a deep breath. “He claims the Promethean mines make use of unpaid workers.”

In the silence that ensued, she observed shock flitting across her father’s face, gradually melting into a kind of pained exhaustion.

“It’s – complicated, honey,” he said. “There’s more to the story.”

Even though his answer sounded calm and self-assured, Lana couldn’t help but feel a twinge of doubt at the words ‘it’s complicated.’ A tactful phrase with the power to tear small holes in the fabric of her safe little world. He wasn’t denying it.

“He’ll have to save that story for another day,” Bruce interjected, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Time’s up. Mr. Ivanov, I eagerly await your next actions. We’ll be in touch in a few days’ time.” Before Lana had the chance to say goodbye, he switched off the monitor, abruptly ending the video call. Silence hung heavily between them as Bruce took a few steps back and eyed her intently. To his credit, he didn’t look self-satisfied.

“Can I please go to my room?” Lana said quietly, finally breaking the silence.

He nodded brusquely. “I’ll walk you.”

They strutted through the corridor and up the stairs without speaking. When Lana stopped in front of her room, she looked up at Bruce questioningly. “Do I need to lock my door?” she hesitated.

His simmering, gray eyes looked down on her. “John will stay away from you,” was all he said.

“What about you?” she whispered, vividly remembering that unsettling look he’d directed at her in the living room.

Bruce gave her a faint smile. “What about me?” he said, leaning into her almost imperceptibly.

Lana swallowed hard. “N-nothing,” she spluttered nervously when she realized she’d just single-handedly managed to shift the atmosphere completely. “Just – forget it. I don’t know why I said that.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, don’t you?”

She looked away, unable to come up with a safe answer.

“Are you asking me to come in?” he continued, his dark voice dropping even lower. In the dim light of the second-floor landing, Bruce slipped his hand off her shoulder and leisurely caressed her upper arm, his fingers trailing over her bare skin.

Lana mutely shook her head, letting out a shaky breath when he took a step back.

“Good night,” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Sweet dreams, Lana.”

She couldn’t flee into her room fast enough. Leaning her head back against the closed door, Lana tried to stop her body from shaking uncontrollably. It was all too much – her realization that she’d be stuck here forever if nothing happened, her dad beating around the bush when she’d asked him that question about the mine workers, and the sickening sexual tension between her and the man everybody kept warning her about. A man with secrets dark enough to obscure her sound judgment. A violent man with unexplained pain in his eyes and a heart he claimed didn’t exist anymore.

For the first time since she woke up, she wanted to get out of this place because she was afraid of what
she
might do.

T
he vibrating smart phone under her hand woke her up with a start the next morning. Lana sat up, immediately switched off her alarm and hid the phone under her pillow again. She’d set it at six o’clock, anxious to find out whether the sun had already risen. When she opened the curtains in her room and looked outside, though, the world was still pitch black. No stars or moon were visible, and the sun was definitely not there either. With a sinking feeling, she realized that the force field Bruce had mentioned was still up. Chances were she wouldn’t be able to see the sunrise at all. How would her friends ever find out where she was being kept prisoner now? A sunset time of about eight o’clock probably wasn’t enough to pinpoint her exact latitude and longitude on Earth. Or was it? She had no idea, and she was freaking out. Lana turned on her heels and crawled under the covers again to get out her phone, cursing under her breath when the display showed no reception bars. All communication seemed to be cut off under the blanket of that impenetrable force field. There was nothing for it – she’d have to try again later.

Now that she was awake, Lana felt restless. What she wanted to do most of all right now was take a hot shower or a nice bubble bath. Suddenly, she felt grossed out again at the thought of John touching her while she was unconscious. She wanted to wash off the marks his hands had left on her skin. Yesterday, she hadn’t had the opportunity to locate the bathroom on the second floor – she’d just used the small toilet adjacent to her room before going to sleep – but if there was ever a time she could sneak around undisturbed, it was now, at six in the morning. The rest of the house still seemed to be in deep sleep.