Taken by the Billionaire (16 page)

“Anything that interests you?” asked Sergei.

“Umm… all of it!” I answered quietly, overwhelmed by the staggering array of unfamiliar ingredients. “I don’t know what kombu even is, but I’m ordering it!”

“Crunchy Japanese kelp.”

“Will I like it if I like sushi?”

“Well… they’re not related in the slightest, so I’ll just flip a coin and say yes?” answered Sergei with a noncommittal shrug.

“Well I’m still up for trying it either way!” I said excitedly, and I moved onto the next impossibly difficult course selection. So many amazing foods, so little stomach space!

“Wait… what’s foam? Why do so many of these dishes have foam on them?” I asked, confused.

“It’s just a fancy cooking trick. Just trust the chef and try it,” answered Sergei, prodding me gently to pick a dish already and get on with it. “I absolutely promise you that Le Bernardin won’t disappoint.”

Ten minutes of agonizing over the menu and fifteen minutes of awkward conversation starters later, the waiter brought out our first dish. I had ordered a canapé of butter-poached shrimp with lemongrass foam. Why foam? I had no clue. All I knew was that it was delicious. Sergei was absolutely right.

“So what’re you doing back in New York anyway?” I asked, dabbing my mouth with my napkin as I finished off the heavenly shrimp. It was the single best shrimp I’d had in my life.

“You can’t beat New York for theater, so I came back to grab a Broadway show,” he answered, smiling. “Always wanted to see
Wicked
.”

“It’s a good one,” I agreed. “Pricy tickets, but if you go to the Times Square tick et booth… oh who am I kidding. Never mind. Just buy the damned tickets.”

Sergei laughed and gestured to my empty glass as the waiter returned with a bottle of wine. 1988 Domaine Leflaive Cabernet Sauvignon. I didn’t even want to guess the price tag.

“And for you, sir?” asked the waiter. Sergei shook his head.

“Chardonnay for me, please. Not a big fan of reds.”

“Very good, sir.”

The waiter departed, and Sergei picked up the conversation where he’d left off.

“So yeah – here for
Wicked
, and also—I know I promised no intrigue so I’ll keep it short—I’m here to keep an eye on my mother. Got to make sure Peter doesn’t try anything, you know?”

I didn’t respond. The last thing I wanted was to get involved in the Ibramovic family affairs again, which seemed like such a funny thing to say given I was eating dinner with one of the feuding sons. Apparently I was a glutton for punishment.

In fairness though, we’d been here for almost an hour already and that was only the first mention of his family. If that was as far into the mess as we delved, I’d certainly call it a successful night.

“Holy crap, this wine is good,” I whispered, my eyes wide in awe after the first sip of my wine.

Spicy, sweet, mixtures of flavor ran down my tongue in waves as the wine made its way down my throat. It was
fantastic
, and I made shamefully quick work of the rest of the glass. I know I should have savored it, doted over its palate, but it was just too good to resist. It tantalized my taste buds and simultaneously set my tongue on fire and numbed my lips. So
that’s
why people were willing to pay so much for wine!

The wine flowed and the conversation took off as the waiter brought out yellowfin tuna, followed by crispy kombu, followed by yet another taster—Osetra caviar over a lightly poached egg.

“So you’re a Broadway fan, I take it?” I asked. My lips were puckering slightly from the saltiness of the caviar, but its combination with the perfectly poached egg was delightful all the same. Every single dish had been a hit so far.

“Yep! I love it, and I’d come all the time if I could,” gushed Sergei enthusiastically. “
Les Miserables
,
Phantom of the Opera
, heck, you name it, I loved it. Such fantastic talent in this city!”

“Got a favorite?” I asked. I couldn’t afford to go to many, but I enjoyed a good show on the rare occasion that I could get cheap tickets.

“Oh hell yes I do.
Sunday in the Park with George
,” he answered, gesturing very impolitely with his fork. “Patinkin and Peters worked so well together, and you could almost feel the love and misery from their characters. Such a shame they’re both retired now; absolutely unmatched in their time.”

By the time the main course arrived—pan roasted monkfish with a wild mushroom salad and shaved foie gras—I almost felt like I could tolerate Sergei. He was good company, could hold a conversation, and—true to his promise—had stayed away from the topic of his family’s drama for almost the entire night.

“Why are
you
back in New York, Sarah?” he asked as the waiter brought out a magnificent pear gelee with gingerbread crumbs and—so the menu claimed—sour cherry caviar on top.

“Oh, well… I have to go back to work,” I answered awkwardly. I didn’t want to tell him about my fight with Peter or the poisoning attempt.

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing further.

“More wine, Miss?” asked a different waiter from before, stopping by with a bottle of Pinot Noir.

“No thank you,” I answered as gracefully as I could.

I would have
loved
another glass, but I didn’t want to drink too much around Sergei. Even as nice of company as he was being tonight, I couldn’t help but still feel the slightest bit uncomfortable around him. Maybe it was the intensity of his gaze when he stared at me during conversation, or maybe it was just me channeling Peter’s insecurities again. I couldn’t rule that out. On top of those concerns, I was actually feeling surprisingly tipsy after the first glass.

“Sergei, what do you do for a living anyway?” I asked. I knew about Peter’s electronics company, but I’d never actually heard what his brother did.

“Hedge fund out in Connecticut,” he answered. “I’m pretty much just a passive partner these days, though. They ask for money, I give it to them, and they give me back more of it later. Worked out pretty well so far, so I figured why not keep it up? Plenty of free time, and I make enough for my hobbies!”

Fifteen minutes later, Sergei paid the bill. I begged him three times to show me it—just so I could say I’d seen it, really—but he refused firmly. The date was on him, and my desire to see just how many weeks of salary I’d just eaten went unmet.

He offered me his hand and helped me up from my chair, and I wobbled in my heels as we headed out the door and onto the red carpet again. The wine had hit me harder than I’d expected it to.

The shining white limo was waiting for us out front, and Sergei held the door open for me and helped me into the limo before going around and hopping in from the other side.

“So, you worked for Peter, right?” he asked as he closed the door behind him. “Translator or something? Remind me.”

“Yep! I translated his French and German conference calls.”

“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Sergei with a look of admiration on his face. “You’re fucking trilingual?”

“Well… if you count American and Croatian sign language, I’m pentalingual. For spoken language’s purposes thought, yeah, trilingual.”

“Well holy shit,” he whispered in amazement.

“Okay… awkward question then, but bear with me. I have to ask,” he continued as the driver pulled away from the curb and out into traffic.

“Go for it,” I answered as I stared out the window and watched people walking along the sidewalk.

Hey… why is Sergei in the limo with you now? Didn’t he get here ahead of you?

The foggy thought hit me as my head was starting to spin. How was I this tipsy after only one glass of wine?

“What the
hell
is a woman as smart as you doing engaged to an oaf like my brother?”

I groaned. I should have seen that one coming.

“Seriously!” said Sergei, gesticulating wildly as the driver headed for the bridge back out to Queens. “I keep good tracks on him since he’s always trying to screw me out of my share of the inheritance—and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about that—and frankly, it blew me out of the water when I got his announcement!”

“That fucking engagement notice!” I fumed, fumbling over the words as my tongue seemed to flop around inside my mouth. “I never got engaged to him at all! He didn’t even ask me before sending that stupid thing to you.”

“Wait,
what
?”

Sergei’s eyes grew wide, and I suddenly realized that I’d said too much. Too late now.

“He never asked me, never said even a word to me. We’re not engaged, never were, and I didn’t know a thing about it until I found out in Vela Luka,” I explained, spilling the beans.

I didn’t care about Peter’s secret, but I was still worried about shifting the balance of power between him and Sergei. Any change in the balance was dangerous to me as well, and I certainly cared about my own life. I turned away from Sergei and stared out the window as the bright lights of the city flashed by in the darkness.

My vision was starting to blur. This wasn’t right. Something wasn’t adding up to me. I
never
got drunk on only one glass of wine.

“Well, that certainly throws a kink into my plans,” said Sergei awkwardly from behind me after a long silence.

Plan? What did… oh God, no!

I struggled to turn toward Sergei, and my mind screamed inside my head as it struggled to function. My motor coordination was completely off. He’d poisoned me somehow, hadn’t he? The wine! I’d fallen for the same damned trick from back in the bar! Sergei had replaced the bartender and spiked the bottle!

The pieces of the puzzle started to assemble themselves in what few parts of my brain were still functioning. Two bartenders, two different types of wine, no distinction between the two, and Sergei refusing the Cabernet?

He’d poisoned me.

“Sergei… what… what did you do?” I asked, and I could feel my tongue flopping around heavily inside my mouth like it was made of lead. My words slurred together into a near-incomprehensible stream of mush.

“Just a little something to put you to sleep. Don’t worry,” he answered quietly, and he leaned back against the window and watched as I collapsed onto the seat. “I
thought
you’d be more useful to me alive.”

“Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I really didn’t want to do this to you,” he said in far too light-hearted a tone for my comfort. “You’re a pretty smoking hot babe, really. Shame my brother fell for you so hard, especially since this is totally going to ruin my chances with you for myself, right?”

Understatement of the year
, I thought as my vision started to darken. I wanted to claw his eyes out as I felt him run his fingers through my hair, but the best I could do was twitch a little as I passed out.

"H
iya, Peter! How’re ya doing?”

Sergei’s voice floated in and out of my mind as I slowly woke up from my drug-induced sleep. My head was spinning and a painfully bright light hurt my eyes as I came to. A dull ache throbbed at the base of my skull, and I groaned in pain.

I tried to sit up, but I quickly discovered that I couldn’t even move. It took my drug-addled brain several seconds to realize that I was lying spread-eagle on a dingy, chemical-stained wooden table with my hands and ankles bound tightly to its four posts.

“Ah, she just woke up. Good!” called out Sergei from behind me. “Let me put you on speakerphone.”

I craned my neck as best I could to look behind me. Sergei was sitting on a barstool by a plastic, collapsible table in the corner. The table was completely bare except for a telephone. The entire room was bare, I realized as I glanced around me. Apart from the telephone, tables, and the single light bulb hanging above me and nearly blinding me, the room was completely empty. A rusty metal door to my right broke the monotony of the nondescript, gray cinderblock walls.

I fought against the robes, trying to pull my hands free, but the knots didn’t even begin to budge. I was so dizzy and sluggish from being drugged that I barely had the strength to even struggle.

“Alright, Peter!” called out Sergei from behind me. “We’re going to play a game I like to call ‘How much is your fiancée worth to you?’ tonight!”

“Sarah, are you okay?” shouted Peter through the intercom.

“I’m okay! Tied down, but okay,” I called back to him.

“Hang on one second, Peter,” said Sergei, and he walked over to my table and stared coldly down at me. He was still dressed in his dinner suit, but the cleanly-pressed edge had worn off and left a thin, pale, crumpled-looking man behind it.

“You’re gonna keep your mouth shut until I tell you otherwise, understand me?” he hissed.

“Or what? You’ll tie me down even more?” I snapped back at him.

“Or this,” he said, and he flipped out a switchblade from his inside jacket pocket.

Its blade glittered in the harsh light as he held the blade close to my face, and my heart began to pound in my chest. He wouldn’t really do that, would he? What good would I be to him dead?

He knows I’m not engaged!

Shit.

I was useless to him, wasn’t I? A cold sweat broke out on my skin as he touched the flat edge of the blade softly against my throat, and I began to tremble in terror as he slowly pulled the knife away.

“Actually, let’s skip that game, dear brother!” called out Sergei as he disappeared out of sight behind me. “I know you aren’t engaged. I know all about your bullshit now. How much is it worth, to you, to not have Sarah’s death—a completely innocent bystander in our little feud—on your conscience?”

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” shouted Peter through the phone.

“That’s not an answer,” snapped Sergei. “Name a fucking number, or I’ll name one myself.”

Sergei came back into my line of sight again, leaned his elbows against the table, and stared down at me with a malicious grin on his face as he waited in silence for Peter’s answer.

“You know… if she doesn’t mean anything to you, I’d be glad to have her for myself before I kill her,” called out Sergei. “I can’t exactly let her go free now, can I? So, if you don’t say something, she’s probably gonna have a nice, long swim in the East River, if you get my drift.”