Thelightwasallwrong. That was the first thing I noticed—sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows, warm and golden, nothing like the dim fluorescent buzz of my Tenderloin studio or the industrial glare of the storage unit. The second thing was the softness. Sheets that felt like liquid against my skin, the kind of thread count I'd only experienced in hotels where ABT put us up for performances. Expensive. Too expensive.
To begin with, I didn't remember. Just floated in that space between sleep and waking where the brain hasn't caught up to the body yet.
Then it crashed back.
The auction. The stage. The men. The grey dress and the lights and hundreds of eyes cataloging me like livestock. The explosion. The hood forced over my head, rough fabric against my face, stealing air and sight. Being thrown over someone's shoulder while bullets flew and people screamed. The smell ofsmoke and blood and something chemical. Fighting. Kicking. My voice raw from screaming.
And his eyes. Grey. Analytical. The way he'd looked at me on that stage before everything exploded, like he'd seen something I'd buried.
My chest went tight. I sat up too fast, and my bad knee immediately protested—sharp pain shooting up my thigh, the familiar ache that meant I'd stressed it. Again. I was still wearing the grey auction dress. It was wrinkled, slightly torn at the hem. My shoes were gone. Someone had removed them while I was unconscious.
The thought made my skin crawl.
I forced myself to breathe. The panic receded, and the room came into focus.
Massive. Maybe twenty by twenty feet. My studio could have fit in here twice with space left over. Exposed brick walls painted a soft charcoal grey. Dark hardwood floors that gleamed like they'd been recently polished. A king-sized bed with a charcoal duvet and too many pillows—I'd been sleeping in the middle, small and lost in all that space.
The furniture screamed masculinity. A leather armchair by the windows, big and plush and expensive. A mahogany dresser with clean lines and silver hardware. Everything was quality. Everything was chosen. Nothing felt accidental.
I stood, testing my knee. It held. Barely. I moved slowly, keeping weight on my right leg, scanning my surroundings for anything useful.
The walls held clues. Framed architectural blueprints, museum-quality, showing buildings I didn't recognize. The drawings were detailed, precise, beautiful in their complexity. Whoever owned this room appreciated structure. Order. Planning.
A chess table occupied the corner near the windows. Carved wooden pieces, probably antique, arranged mid-game. I moved closer. Black was winning. Three moves from checkmate if I was reading the board correctly. White king trapped, nowhere to run, black queen closing in for the kill.
I wondered if he was black or white in this game. If he played against himself or if this was a real match, frozen in time.
The dresser held photographs in silver frames. Three men who had to be brothers—similar bone structure, similar coloring, same intensity in their eyes. The one in the middle looked like the man from the auction. Nikolai Besharov. Taller than his brothers, leaner, with grey eyes that seemed to analyze everything they touched. Next to him, a massive man with a shaved head and dead eyes. On his other side, a younger man with warm brown eyes and an almost-smile.
Another photograph showed an elderly man with sharp blue eyes and silver hair. His face held the same bone structure as the brothers. Grandfather, probably.
I was in a family compound. Had to be. The Besharov compound. Which meant I was surrounded by soldiers, by security, by a criminal organization powerful enough to afford this kind of luxury.
I moved to the door. Heavy wood, dark stain, modern lock. I tried the handle.
Locked from the outside.
Of course it was.
My heart rate kicked up.
The windows. I moved to them, pressed my hands against the glass. Third floor, maybe fourth. Too high to jump. Even if my knee was healthy—which it wasn't—a fall from this height would shatter bone. I'd be crippled. Useless. Trapped in a different way.
The view showed tree-lined streets and Brooklyn brownstones. Early morning, judging by the light. Maybe seven, eight o'clock. People walking dogs. Someone jogging. Normal life happening while I was a prisoner.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass.
Someone rich had me. Someone powerful. Someone who'd killed the men last night to take me from that auction. I remembered it in flashes—the knife, the blood, the way he'd moved like violence was a language he spoke fluently. Professional. Efficient. Terrifying.
But worse than the violence was the way he'd looked at me on the auction stage. Before the explosion. Before everything went to hell.
He'd seen something.
I'd spent three years building walls, burying Little Sophie under layers of survival and self-sufficiency and sheer stubborn refusal to be vulnerable. Three years of staying big, staying alert, staying armored every single minute of every single day.
And somehow, in the space of thirty seconds on that stage, Nikolai Besharov had seen through all of it.
No. No no no.
