Seraphina let out a broken whimper beside me, shoulders shaking. I barely heard it. My entire world had narrowed to the man on his knees in front of me.
I tugged uselessly against the ropes, wrists screaming in protest. “Dmitri,” I whispered, my voice shredded. “Dmitri, I’m here. I’m here.”
His remaining eye lifted.
Found me.
The relief that flickered there—brief, fierce—nearly undid me.
One of the masked men stepped forward, taller than the rest. His voice crackled through a modulator, distorted and metallic. He placed a heavy boot between Dmitri’s shoulder blades and pressed down, forcing his head lower.
“Bow,” the man ordered coldly.
Dmitri didn’t make a sound.
Didn’t beg. Didn’t flinch.
Even on his knees, bleeding and chained, he radiated defiance.
The man turned toward us slowly, savoring the moment. “You see,” he said calmly, “this is what happens when kings forget their walls have cracks.”
My stomach dropped.
This wasn’t a simple kidnapping. This was a message.
And judging by the way Dmitri lifted his head again—bloodied, furious, unbroken—I knew one thing with terrifying certainty:
Whoever had orchestrated this had just declared war.
And Dmitri Volkov would burn the world to answer it.
“Choose, Dmitri Volkov,” the masked man hissed, each word dripping with malice, echoing off the warehouse walls. “Between your mistress, Seraphina Orlov, and your wife, Pen. One leaves here alive, unscathed, and with you. The other... gets sold to the Albanians—enslaved, used, and broken, exactly as they see fit, until her last breath.”
My heart slammed against my ribs, frantic and unsteady.
The Albanians. Even now, in a modern world, their shadow networks operated like relics of a medieval nightmare—human lives reduced to trade, women passed from hand to hand, men crushed under punishment and labor until there was nothing left but husks.
Every whispered tale of what awaited the captured churned my stomach with bile. Chains. Isolation. Unspeakable violations.
My fingers curled around the ropes, white-knuckled, powerless.
How had it come to this? One night—just hours ago—I had been cradled in Dmitri’s arms, feeling the first taste of real peace in years. And now... this nightmare.
And who the hell was behind this? The Orlovs? The Morozovs? The Albanians? Or some shadowy foreign player I couldn’t even see coming?
Why target him like this—why drag him here, force him to choose between me and his mistress? What were they trying to achieve? What was their purpose? I couldn’t make sense of any of it, and the more I thought, the hotter the panic burned in my chest.
Dmitri’s one good eye found mine across the dim, flickering light.
Guilt poured off him in waves, raw and unrelenting.
His split lip quivered, blood slick on his chin; a fresh cut streaked his forehead.
Whatever had happened while we were unconscious—betrayal, ambush, overwhelming force—had ripped through his defenses.
He had failed to protect us, and it was killing him.
From the shadows, two figures emerged, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. A man and a woman, deliberate in their movements, presence radiating cold authority.
