I grab her arm hard enough to bruise and haul her from the room. She doesn't fight, doesn't scream. Just moves with me, bare feet slapping against marble. Down the corridor. Past guards who look away. Good. If any of them had looked at her in this nightdress, I'd have to kill them.
To the stairs. Down one flight. Down again.
The temperature drops with each step. The air turns clinical, tastes of bleach. I feel her resistance now, slight, involuntary. She knows where we're going. I can smell her now, that faded floral perfume mixing with sweat.
"Alexei, wait…"
"You've had enough waiting. So have I."
The basement door opens to darkness. I flip the switch, fluorescents humming to life, revealing concrete floors with drains, the metal table bolted to the center, tools arranged on the walls. The chair waits in the middle. Steel frame, leather restraints.
The concrete radiates cold. This room has heard things. Seen things. The walls hold echoes of men who thought they were tough until they weren't.
I drag her to the chair, force her down. The leather is cold against her skin. I see the goosebumps rise on her arms. I bind her wrists to the armrests, her ankles to the legs. The leather bites into her skin, and she gasps, and something dark coils in my gut. Her pulse hammers against my fingers when I grip her wrist, rabbit-fast and warm.
The restraints are tight enough to mark but not enough to cut circulation. I want her conscious for this.
She's breathing fast now, chest rising and falling in that thin cotton. The poise finally cracking like ice under pressure.
I select a knife from the wall. Not the biggest, something precise. The blade catches the harsh light as I return to stand before her.
"Do you know why you're here?"
She swallows, throat working. "Because of Mikhail."
"Because you killed my brother."
"I didn't…"
"You told your family about the Russian boy sniffing around their princess." The knife presses against her throat, not cutting, just letting her feel the edge. She swallows and I watch her throat work, imagine marking it with my teeth instead of steel. My body's betrayal makes me press harder. "And they carved out his chest with a dagger. That's on you."
Tears finally. Fucking finally. They shine on her cheeks and I hate that they make her more beautiful, hate that my cock notices even as I hold a knife to her throat.
She's crying and afraid and tied to my torture chair, and I'm getting hard. What kind of monster does that make me? The kind she deserves.
"My mother is dying," I tell her, keeping the blade steady. "She's been waiting eleven years to know her son was avenged. Today, I give her peace."
"Will it bring him back?"
The question stops me cold.
"Will killing me bring Mikhail back?" she presses. "Will it undo what happened?"
"It will balance the scales."
"No, it won't." Her voice shakes but she holds my gaze, those blue eyes fierce even through tears. "He'll still be dead. Your mother will still be dying. And you'll have one more body in this room. That's all."
"You don't get to…"
"I dream about him."
The words freeze me completely. The knife wavers.
"Every night. I dream about a boy calling for his brother. I hear Russian words I shouldn't understand. I wake up crying and I don't know why." Fresh tears spill over, real and raw. "There's something I don't remember. About that night. About before."
Silence stretches between us. Just the hum of fluorescents and her ragged breathing.
"You're lying."
