“You’re lying already,” I say. “No one writes what you wrote without someone pushing them.”
“No one pushed me.”
Her voice rises with heat this time. She isn’t trying to charm or manipulate. She’s telling the truth as she sees it.
The car turns off the main road. Streetlights fade behind us. She notices immediately, straightening in her seat.
“Who told you to put my name in that article?” I ask.
“No one.”
“Who are you working for?”
“No one.”
She gives the answers without hesitation. She doesn’t look away from me. Even now.
Her defiance edges something inside me toward a reaction I don’t want to examine. I should be angry. I should see her as a threat. Instead, she keeps catching me off-balance.
“You expect me to believe a student put my name in print without someone feeding it to her?” I ask.
“Yes.”
Her conviction is unnerving.
The car pulls through iron gates that hang open by a single hinge. The abandoned estate sits ahead, its windows dark, its structure intact but worn. It isn’t one of my safe houses. It’s far outside the city, off any usual route, and my men aren’t used to it. I chose it for a reason. I don’t want them too close to her yet.
She looks out the window, taking in the cracked driveway and the overgrown grounds. Her shoulders tense again, but she stays silent.
When the car stops, I get out and open her door. She doesn’t move until I nod once, a silent order. She steps out slowly, her fingers clinging to the doorframe before she releases it.
Inside, the house is cold and quiet. Dust clings to the edges of unused furniture. The walls echo with each footstep.
She stops in the entrance hall and faces me fully.
“Are you planning to kill me?” she asks. She tries to keep her expression steady, but the fear flickers across her features. The question costs her something.
“Not if you stop lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
Her voice is tight, but not pleading. She keeps meeting my eyes. She reminds me of someone cornered but refusing to kneel.
I lead her down the hall to a room with a clean mattress and a heavy door. No bars. No chains. She looks around, taking in the space, then turns toward me again.
“Why did those men try to take me?” she asks.
“They weren’t mine.” The truth surprises even me. I hadn’t planned on saying it.
“Then who—”
“Stop asking questions,” I say. “You’ve asked enough for one lifetime.”
She presses her lips together and steps back as I close the door. Her eyes lock on mine until the last moment before the lock clicks.
It should feel satisfying to confine her. It should feel like control. Instead, something unsettles me as I walk away. Her voice follows me inside my head, repeating every refusal, every honest answer, every question she forced out through fear.
She is too steady. Too certain. Too alive in a way that doesn’t fit with the world she stepped into.
