Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 47961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
All there was for her was the cold, dark reality of her bloody world. She held my gaze as I entered, a little defiance that shouldn’t have made my cock twitch.
I stepped forward just enough so that my shadow covered her. “Zoya.” She lifted her head slowly. Her voice came out cracked, raw from cold and the hours of silence that had followed her captivity.
“You sent it,” she said. Not a question. An accusation. A fact. “You sent that video to him.”
“You know I did.”
She exhaled through her nose. It was a short, bitter huff that wasn’t quite a laugh. “He’ll come for me. Maybe. If he thinks I’m still his property. If he thinks getting me back will save face with whatever vultures are circling his throne right now.”
Her voice was flat, stripped of hope, edged with something close to contempt. A part of me admired that about her but not enough to be merciful.
“But you know what?” She lifted her chin, blue eyes locking on mine in the lantern’s glow. “I don’t give a shit if he does. Let him come. Let him tear the country apart looking for his little princess. Let him see what it feels like when someone takes what he thought was untouchable.” She leaned forward as far as the chain allowed. It was close enough that I could see how raw her wrists were from pulling at her restraints.
I noticed the faint tremor in her lower lip she was trying to hide.
“I spent my whole life thinking the worst thing about him was the bruises he left on me when he was drunk. I told myself it was just business. Drugs. Guns. Power. I never let myself imagine he was filming people dying. Selling it. Laughing while he did it. So if he comes for me now after everything… I hope he finds you first. I hope he watches you take him apart piece by piece. And I hope I’m still breathing long enough to see it.” Her breath hitched. It was just once, sharp and involuntary, but she didn’t look away. The hate in her eyes wasn’t just for me anymore.
It was for him. For the man who’d raised her on lies and blood and pretty dresses. This disgust for the monster she’d called Papa.
I tilted my head, studying the way her jaw clenched, the way those blue eyes burned even in the near dark. “I know exactly what he’s capable of,” I whispered. “I’ve watched him do it for thirty-eight years. He’ll bargain first. Money, territory, girls, but, most of all, connections and names. When that doesn’t work, he’ll send men. When the men disappear, he’ll start killing anyone he thinks might know where I am. And when he finally tracks this place down…” I leaned in until our faces were inches apart, close enough to smell the faint vanilla still clinging to her skin beneath the sweat and fear. “I’ll be waiting.”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t whisper, “You’re insane.” Zoya just stared back, voice flat and steady. “Good.”
The word hung between us like smoke. No fear. No plea. Just cold, quiet agreement.
And in that moment, something shifted in me. It wasn’t softness toward her, not yet. But the first thin crack in the wall between captor and captive.
She wasn’t begging for rescue anymore. She was waiting for revenge.
As I reached past Zoya’s shoulder, my fingers brushing over the soft skin of her cheek, a flash of electricity trailed up my arm and across my chest. My hands stuttered for a moment from the unfamiliar blooming of something under my skin. Taking a deep breath to clear my senses, I fumbled with the cold steel of the padlock and unlocked it. The chain rattled free from the drainpipe and fell to the concrete with a sharp, metallic clank. Zoya tensed as if I’d raised my fist to her. “Stand up.”
Zoya stayed seated, knees still drawn tight under my coat, chin lifted in that defiant way. I wrapped the chain around my fist twice until the slack pulled taut. “Stand. Up.”
Her eyes flicked to the links coiled in my hand then back to my face. For a second, I thought she’d spit at me. Instead, she rose. Zoya was slow and deliberate, taking her time with the handcuffs still locked around her wrists, like every movement cost her something. The coat slipped off one shoulder, and I stared at how the gown beneath clung to her like wet paper.
Gooseflesh raced across every inch of exposed skin in the unrelenting cold, and before I knew what I was doing, I adjusted my coat, covering her bare skin.
I led her out of the room, chain in hand like a leash. She stumbled twice on bare feet against the rough concrete. I didn’t slow down. Didn’t offer a hand. She caught herself both times.