“It was the best day of my life. And night,” he says quietly. “I know we’re very different... but we have something. I do want someone I can trust, and one day, I hope that person is you.”
My eyelids droop. Exhaustion weighs down every limb. I stretch out on the seat and lower my head onto his lap.
“I didn’t expect you to run,” he murmurs, like he still wants an explanation.
I give none.
He wants to trust me, but I can’t trust a madman. I’m puddy in his hands, but those are the same hands that scare me to my core. That make me run.
Love is not born from fear. Neither is trust.
Thus, I fall asleep to that confession, warm against his thigh, the necklace pressed in my palm like a precious memory. There is no use running now.
I will, though. I must. I just need to plan better.
But how?
Chapter 23
Peighton
Iwake up sore everywhere.
Not just from the bites on my leg and arm, but from my broken heart. The cold. The terror. The way my bones shook until they didn’t feel like mine anymore.
And Gustav’s solution?
Drops me off at my dorm like an Uber Eats order and vanishes again.
Unbelievable.
Yes, he saved me from wolves. Yes, he got me off in the backseat afterward like some kind of dark sex dream. But that is not an apology. Not for the dinner. Not for the belt. Not for the way he acted like punishing me was his God-given right.
I’m over it. Or I’m trying to be.
Because wanting a husband who actually behaves like one apparently makes me a delusional American princess.
Fine. Let me be delusional.
And let me plan a better escape next time... after my next class.
My new class is calledKidnapping.
As if my life isn’t enough of a warning label already.
Two Sokolov guards flank me as I walk across the courtyard toward the athletic building. They don’t speak, but they might as well have flight risk branded across their foreheads. I can’t even roll my eyes because one has cuts on his jaw. I’m pretty sure he got hurt chasing me through the woods.
They open the door for me. I step onto bright blue mats covering the floor. A long line of women form near the front. The instructor waits dressed in full karate gear, like we’re in a dojo and not an underground mafia school for future criminals and their families.
He barks orders in accented English.
“Hurry. Line up. Partner assignment.”
Great.
He points at each woman in turn. When he reaches me, he gestures to a young man stepping forward. A handsome one, maybe twenty, with dimples, warm brown hair tied back in a low ponytail, and the kind of boyish smile that disarms you before you remember where you are.
“Brutus,” he says when I ask his name.
