My new sketchbook sits on the nightstand. I grab it along with the fancy pencils and settle by the window. If I can't leave, at least I can draw my captivity.
The city is first. All those buildings and streets. The people living ordinary lives, going to work, meeting friends, and making choices about their own damn existence. All so free.
The sketch comes out angry with harsh lines and heavy shadows. The skyline looks beautiful and hostile at the same time, close enough to touch through the glass but impossibly far.
Next is Pyotr. He’s all muscle and murder-face, with scars that probably come with sound effects. I’d draw him in black ink if I could, all doom and gloom. But the eyes… the eyes look almost bored. Annoyed, like he’s already over this whole situation. Same as me.
My reflection hits the glass, and I sketch that train wreck too. Tiny thing in a shirt three sizes too big, hair like it lost a fight with gravity. I look young. Vulnerable. Nothing like the confident woman I pretend to be at the diner.
I look like who I am—someone out of her depth, playinggames with people who know the rules while she just learned the board exists.
Hours pass. The light changes, afternoon bleeding into evening. Pyotr doesn't move except once, when someone delivers food. He accepts it, checks it with methodical thoroughness, and brings me a covered plate.
"Eat," he says in heavily accented English.
The first word he's spoken to me all day.
I don't touch it in an act of petty rebellion, even to me. Refusing the food doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t give me power.
He shrugs and takes the plate away before eating it in front of me. Every bite is loud and deliberate, like a silent punishment.
I squirm, half amused, half furious. "Are you allowed to… eat my food like that?"
He doesn’t answer. Simply chews, eyes forward, like I’m invisible.
Night falls, and Ivan still isn't back. I wonder if this is the rest of my life—waiting, drawing, going slowly insane as Pyotr stands guard and Chicago glitters beyond the glass.
I need to get out. Need to do more than sit here accepting this.
Ivan's office door is locked, but that only makes it more tempting. What's he hiding in there? Evidence of his crimes? Money? Weapons? A phone line that works?
I dig through my duffel bag until I find a bobby pin and straighten it out, bending it into shape for the task ahead. I've picked exactly one lock in my life—my own bathroom when I was twelve and locked myself in by accident. But how hard can it be?
I start working the latch, careful to stay out of Pyotr’s line of sight. Turns out, the lock puts up a challenge.
I'm crouched at the door, bobby pin shaking in my sweaty fingers, when his voice cuts through the silence.
"Tsk tsk."
I jump so violently that I drop the pin. It bounces across the marble floor with a tiny metallic sound that feels deafening.
Rather than Pyotr, it’s Ivan, standing by the elevator, still in his suit but with his tie loosened. There's a dark stain on his sleeve that might be blood. I don't look closely enough to confirm.
"Breaking into my office?" He walks toward me, eyes dark with an emotion that isn't quite anger. "Bad girls don't get rewards. They get punished."
The way he says ‘punished’ sends heat straight through me, despite everything.
"You're insane!" I scramble to my feet, back pressed against his office door. "I'm not going to sit idle while you?—"
"No?" He's close now—too close. "What will you do instead? Pick more locks?" His hand comes up, fingers catching a strand of my hair. He tugs it gently, tilting my head back.
My breath catches. "Let go."
"Dmitri's men are looking for you, you know." His thumb brushes my jawline, just under my ear. "They've already been to your apartment."
"You're lying." But my voice comes out breathless.
He pulls out his phone with his free hand, the other still tangled in my hair. He taps the screen and holds it out to me, his body pressing closer to keep me trapped against the door.
