"I'm tied to a chair with a knife at my throat. Why would I lie now?"
The logic cuts through my rage. I study her face, searching for deception, finding only confusion and grief that mirrors my own.
"What do you dream?"
She tells me in broken whispers. Fragments of a garden, Russian words that come naturally to her lips, a boy's laugh that makes her chest ache. Someone calling "Misha, Misha" and she doesn't know if she's hearing it or saying it.
The knife hangs forgotten at my side.
"What was he like?" she whispers, and the genuine need in her voice undoes me. "Please. I need to know."
The words tear from my throat like shrapnel. I hate myself for each one, but they keep coming.
"He was gentle in a family that valued violence." The words come without permission. "At fifteen, he found a wounded dog. Instead of putting it down like Father ordered, he drove it to a veterinarian, paid for its treatment with his own money. Father beat him for it. Mikhail just smiled and said the dog lived."
Her crying intensifies, but she doesn't look away.
"He played chess terribly because he couldn't sacrifice pieces. Said even pawns deserved to survive. He kept a bonsai tree, inherited from our grandfather. Spent hours trimming it, talking to it like it could hear." My voice catches. "He wanted to be an architect. To build things instead of destroying them. Said our family had enough warriors."
I'm pacing now, the knife loose in my grip, lost in memories I haven't let myself touch in years.
"His laugh was loud, unguarded. Nothing like a Volkov should sound. When he laughed, the whole room changed. Even Father smiled sometimes, hearing it."
I lean close enough to taste her tears, my mouth inches from hers. "Tell me why you came here, Sofia." Her lips part, and for one insane moment, I almost close the distance. Almost claim that mouth that speaks my brother's name.
A flicker of something crosses her face. Not quite surprise. More like resignation.
"You kidnapped me," she says evenly.
"You have training. Skills your family doesn't advertise." My mind races through the implications.
I look her up and down, really slowing down to take her in. Legs spread, ankles lashed to the chair legs, wrists tied to the armrests. Rough cotton nightdress riding up to mid-thigh, exposing more than it should.
But maybe it's hiding something too.
I put the tip of my knife into the gap between her legs and use it to drag her nightdress higher, trying not to think about the skin of her thighs that I'm exposing and whether she's wearing anything underneath.
There. Strapped high to the outside of her thigh. A blade. A fucking blade.
"You have a knife," I say.
She doesn't reply, just drills into me with those fucking blue eyes of hers.
She could have used it on me. Stabbed me in the side while I was dragging her down here, or when I pushed her into the chair. She had minutes of opportunity to save herself but she chose not to.
Was she really so scared she forgot about her only weapon? No.Not Sofia. Everything about her is too controlled, too precise. Even tied to a chair with a knife at her throat, she's analyzing, planning.
"You had this the entire time."
She doesn't answer.
"When I tied your wrists. When I pressed the knife to your throat. You could have cut yourself free. You could have killed me when I was—" Talking about Mikhail like a fool. Open. Unguarded. "—distracted."
Still she says nothing.
"Why didn't you?"
She looks up at me. Tears still wet on her face. "I don't know."
