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  There had been no scar at his temple, and he would certainly never have become a doctor, let alone one wearing ill-fitting tweeds.

  The small ray of hope that had surfaced through the foggy haze clouding Kat’s mind had already died, and she turned away in disinterest to once again stare out the window into the garden, that sweet veil of apathy having fallen over her emotions, allowing her to retreat to that place where nothing and no one could hurt her.

  Dair felt momentarily stunned—shocked—by the visible changes he saw in Katya Markovic.

  It had taken him some days, after his arrival in New York, of watching and following Sergei Orlov, to ascertain exactly in which clinic and where Kat was ‘resting’. Then another week of checking and rechecking the facility’s security and staff so that he could come up with a plan that would allow him to get in to see and hopefully speak with her.

  He had started that process some days ago by feeding his false credentials into the correct databases, as Dr. Daniel Law, doctor of psychiatry, with more letters of qualification after his name than Dair knew what to do with.

  Next had come an even deeper look into the security of the facility, and the habits and lives of the staff that worked there, looking for that weak link in their system that would allow him access.

  Dr. Clive Fairmont, the resident doctor of the facility, had proven to be that weak link.

  Two weeks after Dair’s late night conversation with Gregori Markovic, he was as ready as he was ever going to be to pay a professional visit on Katya Markovic at the Harmony View Clinic, as Dr. Daniel Law. Conveniently on a morning when Dr. Fairmont, who had supposedly asked for the ‘consultation’, was off playing his usual weekly round of golf. A day when it was also known by the staff at the clinic that the good doctor was not to be disturbed, under any circumstances.

  Dair had held his breath as his false credentials were checked once he’d stopped his hire car at the security gates into the clinic, and then again when he was quizzed, and those credentials checked again once he finally reached the reception desk inside the facility. Credentials he knew would pass even the most rigid scrutiny. Security, and learning all the ways around it and through it, was Dair’s job, after all.

  But now that he was actually face-to-face with his ‘patient’, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the Katya seated across the room.

  As he had expected, she had grown into a beautiful woman. Even without makeup, the bone-structure of Katya’s face was such that she could never, would never, be anything but beautiful.

  But that face was expressionless and far too pale and thin, her eyes appearing black as a starless night against that pallor. As for her hair, that glorious cascade of midnight silk that had once reached down to her slender waist, it was now cut boyishly short, a soft and silky cap shaped to her skull, emphasizing her slenderness, the bones clearly visible at the base of her throat.

  What the fu—!

  How had Katya Markovic ever gotten into this condition?

  Why had she?

  Dair gave one last frowning glance at the apathetic woman sitting in the chair by the window, a blanket thrown over her lower body despite the heat of the room, before turning to the hard-faced nurse still hovering at his side. “I’d like to talk to Ms. Markovic alone—”

  The nurse looked alarmed. “Oh I’m not sure Dr. Fairmont would—”

  “Dr. Fairmont isn’t here,” Dair forced a conspiratorial friendliness into his voice, “so why don’t you take advantage of my visit and go grab yourself a cup of coffee?” he encouraged lightly. “I’m sure you could do with a little downtime, hmm?”

  Her expression brightened at the idea of an unexpected coffee break. “Well if you’re sure…?”

  “Very,” he smiled as he sensed the nurse weakening. “Ms. Markovic doesn’t exactly look violent.” The opposite, in fact. Katya looked almost comatose, and had so far shown no reaction to anything around her, or what was being said, apart from that initial glance in his direction.

  “Oh she isn’t—unless you call her Mrs. Orlov,” the nurse added with a spiteful glance at the patient Dair knew she had been employed to care for exclusively. She obviously took a sly delight in tormenting Kat instead. “Then she needs restraining.”

  “Then I’ll take care not to call her that,” Dair assured mildly—when what he really wanted to do was pin this woman to the wall with his hand about her throat and see how she liked being ‘restrained’.

  He had seen this sort of behavior before, of course, men in the military who used the power of their rank or size to bully the men beneath, or weaker, than them. Luckily, in the area of the military Dair had risen to, the bullies were either conveniently ‘removed’ by the lower ranks, or relocated by the higher ones for their own safety.

  He doubted that Katya had that luxury. Or that freedom.

  “Very well.” The nurse nodded. “There’s a bell on the wall over there, if you should need assistance. And of course there are cameras in all the rooms, to ensure a patient doesn’t self-harm.”

  Dair already knew that from the past week of surveillance and studying the security system. There were even cameras in the bathrooms, giving the people monitoring those cameras a free strip show of the patients every day.

  “Very sensible.” He smiled as he politely but firmly held the door open for the nurse to leave, closing it behind her once she had stepped out into the hallway—before he forgot that he had once been an officer and a gentleman.

  And through the whole of that exchange Katya had remained unmoving, unresponsive, apart from a single telltale blink when the nurse had deliberately referred to her as Mrs. Orlov.

  What the hell had the Orlovs done to the Katya Markovic he had once known?

  Dair quickly crossed the room to where Kat sat so utterly still and silent, before dropping down onto one knee beside her chair. “Katya? Katya, look at me,” Dair kept his voice to a low murmur and his face deliberately averted, very aware of the CCTV cameras in the four corners of the room, and their range.

  He could easily have disarmed them, of course, but that would only have brought members of the staff running, so instead he kept his face at an angle that he knew would never give a clear, full-frontal picture of his face, and so make him more easily identifiable.

  “Would you like to go for a walk outside in the garden with me, Kat?” he encouraged gently.

  There was the briefest flicker of emotion in the depths of those dark eyes—hope?—before it flickered out again.

  Which told Dair that Katya was still in there, at least, even if she was currently unresponsive. He just had to find a way to reach her.

  The violence Dair felt, to punch his fist through a wall, or push someone out of a window for having reduced her to this state, would have to wait. Getting through to Katya, convincing her to trust him when obviously all trust had gone, was his biggest dilemma at the moment; he at least needed Kat’s cooperation to get her out of here. Retribution could, and would, come later.

  Dair knew where every alarm and camera was situated, both in and outside the clinic. He also knew that the security was more geared to keeping the patients in than intruders out. If he’d been charged with the security here he would have done it completely differently. As it was, he was just grateful that the company responsible was nowhere near the high standard of his own.

  There were also several guards patrolling the grounds, but only a few cameras outside, which meant there were parts of the garden they could walk in where they might be seen but wouldn’t be overheard.

  And he badly needed to talk privately with Kat, if only for a few minutes, if his plan to get her out of here stood any chance of success.

  He stood up. “We’re going for a walk outside, Kat— What the fuck!” Dair had removed the blanket from over Kat’s knees, intending to help her up onto her feet. Instead he could only stare down incredulously at the restraints about her ankles and wrists binding her to the chair, and so conveniently hidden bene
ath the blanket.

  Someone—probably that smug bitch of a nurse Sergei Orlov had employed to care for her—had tied Kat to her chair.

  Kat could almost have laughed at the look of shock she could see on Dr. Law’s face as he stared down at the restraints on her wrists and ankles.

  If the smile muscles had still worked in her face. Which they didn’t.

  And if she didn’t feel so puzzled at the way he still reminded her of a man she had known so many years ago…

  It was the same voice and yet not his voice; his voice had been light and flirtatious, where this man’s was a deep and sexy rumble in his chest that seemed so at odds with his studious and disheveled appearance. The sort of voice that made a woman think of hot, wild sex on sheets of black satin. On any surface at all, really.

  Not this woman, of course. This woman was too numb, too dead inside to—

  Liar, a disembodied voice mocked inside her head.

  Even she, who had believed nothing could ever touch her again, had felt a responsive warmth in her body as she listened to that deep and gravelly growl.

  As if her body, completely separate and apart from her inner numbness, knew exactly how it would feel to be taken by the hard thrusts of his powerful thighs, and caressed by those large hands now tugging impatiently at the restraints on her ankles.

  She really was going insane.

  Talking to herself, inside her head. Having sexual fantasies about a man who had in all probability been sent here by either Sergei or Ivan. Another trick, an effort to somehow compromise her, to blackmail her into doing exactly what they wanted her to do.

  If you can’t find any other way, then seduce her. Fuck her. We’ll record it all on camera, and then she’ll do exactly what we tell her to do, or risk that recording falling into the hands of the media.

  Something that wouldn’t only embarrass Kat, but would humiliate Gregori too. Something both Orlovs knew Kat would never allow to happen.

  But she knew Ivan was capable of doing anything, anything at all, in order to cover up what a complete and utter fuck-up his only son and heir really was.

  “Katya—Kat, for God’s sake say something,” Dr. Law grated harshly as he now removed the restraints from her wrists.

  Say something? Kat wasn’t even sure she could speak anymore, her vocal cords feeling as numb as the rest of her.

  Sergei had tried to get her to talk to her brother again on the telephone when he was here earlier. But what could she say? I’m fine. Which she wasn’t. Repeat don’t worry about me, which she knew Gregori would. Gregori had always been her champion. Her big, protective older brother.

  Not this time, Gregori. This time it’s beyond even your power to fix.

  Oh God, she was having another conversation with herself inside her head.

  She was going mad. Genuinely, completely insane.

  Dair was feeling positively murderous as he turned to face the three security guards and two male nurses who had just burst into the room, no doubt in response to having watched him untie Katya on the security cameras.

  The soreness of Kat’s wrists, plus the signs of old abrasions, indicated that this was far from the first time she had been ‘restrained’ in this way. Also, the baggy sweats and T-shirt she was wearing may have fit her once, but they certainly didn’t now, indicating a recent and drastic weight loss.

  Once Gregori knew how his little sister was being treated here, no doubt under the instruction of Sergei or Ivan Orlov—or both—then Dair doubted there would be a single member of the Orlov family left alive after Gregori had taken his revenge.

  Dair was feeling less than reasonable on the subject himself. “Five of you?” He raised his brows in a pretense of surprise. “Isn’t that rather a lot for one restrained woman?”

  “You shouldn’t have released her without permission.” The leader of the pack stepped forward, all of his brainpower obviously in the muscles he showed off so proudly in his tight-fitting black T-shirt. A lack of brainpower that obviously also prevented him from seeing beyond the nerdy bespectacled doctor to the tautly muscled and trained killer beneath.

  A trained killer who, at that moment, would have enjoyed nothing more than beating the crap out of the other man. Anything to relieve some of the violence he was now feeling.

  Dair forced down that emotion as he calmly returned the other man’s gaze. “I want to take Ms. Markovic out into the garden. I believe the fresh air will do her good.”

  “I don’t think so.” The man altered his stance, feet apart as he folded his arms challengingly in front of this chest.

  Dair coolly and calmly plotted the other man’s downfall; a chop to the throat, knee to the groin, same knee to the face as he doubled over, breaking his nose. Yep, that ought to do it.

  Instead he smiled pleasantly. “And why is that?”

  “Not allowed out in the garden. Besides, those doors are never unlocked,” he added with satisfaction.

  Jesus Christ, not only was Katya tied to the chair, she was also locked in here, like a fucking prisoner. Gregori was going to rip Sergei’s intestines out and shove them down the other man’s throat once he learned how Katya had been treated. And then he would start on Ivan.

  If Dair didn’t get his hands on both of them first.

  “Then might I suggest you unlock them,” Dair requested pleasantly through gritted teeth. “I believe, if you would care to check, that through Dr. Fairmont I have Mr. Orlov Senior’s permission to examine Ms. Markovic. I would hate to have to report to him, when I call on him later today, that I did not receive your full cooperation.” Just the mention of Ivan Orlov’s name was enough to cause some of the muscled bully’s posing to slip a little.

  At first Kat had listened to the exchange with her usual apathy, but it had slowly permeated the foggy haze in her brain that Dr. Law wasn’t as mild-mannered as he had first appeared. That he wasn’t at all in awe of the guard she knew only as George, from the times he had been called in to restrain her, and at the same time taken advantage of the situation to whisper in her ear all the filthy things he would do to her if they were ever alone. Threats that had ceased to bother her after the first couple of days, once she realized that George was basically a coward and she was being watched on camera day and night.

  How long had she been here now? Four weeks? Five? Longer?

  When Sergei had first brought and left her here, she’d tried to exercise, determined to keep herself strong, in body and mind, for when she was allowed to leave.

  Which had gone first, she now wondered, her physical or mental strength?

  “Unlock the doors, please,” Dr. Law instructed the guard evenly.

  To Kat’s surprise, after the briefest hesitation, George lumbered across the room and took out a huge ring of keys from his pocket.

  So many keys to so many locks...

  Oh God, did that mean there were other people locked up here too? People like her who needed to be hidden or locked away, for one reason or another, by family or so-called friends?

  Just the thought of that made Kat feel sick.

  Just as the sweet smell of fresh air, as George flung the doors wide open—the first good, clean air Kat had smelled for such a long time—made her feel lightheaded, giddy with the idea of the freedom on the other side of those doors.

  She stood up, unable to resist the lure of that freedom as she stepped out into the garden.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Dair growled at the security guard as he would have reached out to grab Katya’s arm to prevent her from going outside. His control was balanced on a knife-edge at the moment, and he swore, if he saw anyone put so much as a finger on Kat, then he was going to lose it.

  The guard must have sensed the increase in that barely leashed violence because he took a step back. “I’ll have to report this to Dr. Fairmont.”

  “Would that be during or after he’s finished his round of golf?” Dair dismissed dryly as he strode outside to follow Katya; he knew the resident d
octor wouldn’t come anywhere near the clinic today, that the other man would be paying a visit to his mistress this afternoon, while his wife believed he spent the whole day at his private golf club.

  Dair dismissed the other man, and his infidelity, and forgot everything but Katya as he followed her about the garden. There was something not quite right about the way she seemed to float across the manicured lawn, touching a leaf here, an early Spring flower there, a dreamy smile on her lips, her eyes—

  Shit, her eyes.

  How could he have missed seeing that the pupils in her eyes were so dilated that the dark brown iris was barely visible?

  The bastards had drugged her!

  That would explain the apathy too, and the not seeming as if she were quite in touch with herself, let alone aware of her surroundings. Because she wasn’t. Katya was high as a fucking kite on something. Lessening Dair’s chances of getting her to understand anything he wanted to say to her, let alone get her out of here. Hell, Kat was so high right now, he doubted she even knew her own name half the time.

  “Katya,” he spoke to her softly, gently, so as not to alarm her. “Do you know who you are? Where you are?”

  Katya made no reply, suspecting another trick; there had been so many tricks since she came here.

  At first it had been eat your food, Kat, and we’ll let you talk to your brother on the telephone today. Then get in the shower, Kat, and we’ll let you listen to some classical music. Get out of bed, Kat, and we won’t restrain you today.

  Always the carrot and the stick.

  And now this man, this doctor who had to have been sent here by Ivan or Sergei, wanted her to answer his questions without offering her something in return for her cooperation?

  Not going to happen.