THIRTY
BRI
It’s been over a week.I don’t know the exact number of days because he controls that too, along with time and space and information, and all of it blurs together after a while. But my body knows. My arm still aches beneath the sling, a deep, bruised pain that flares whenever I move wrong, and the stitches itch as they heal. The worst of the bruises have faded from angry purple to sickly yellow, but that almost makes them feel more real instead of less.
Someone came for me on the second day. She was a professional and efficient, with steady hands and a blank expression. She didn’t ask questions, and she didn’t look me in the eye, just cleaned the wounds I couldn’t see and wrapped my arm before adjusting the sling like I was nothing more than another task on her list. She gave me pills and instructions and left without another word. I didn’t try to stop her because I already knew better.
We don’t stay anywhere long. One night per hotel, sometimes less, and always a new city and a new room that somehow looksexactly like the last one. The same neutral art on the walls, locked windows, and thick curtains greet me wherever we go.
He has money. Real money, the kind that smooths everything over before it ever becomes a problem. He gets every advantage that money brings. I’ve seen private elevators, hotel staff who don’t ask questions, drivers who already know where we’re going before we get in the car. He has connections everywhere, and I can feel them closing in around me like invisible walls. I thought I knew what it felt like to be trapped. I was so very wrong. Blade kept me safe inside to protect me from these monsters. I’m never alone, but I’m always isolated, and I’m starting to understand that’s the point.
I learned his name three days in. We’re sitting across from each other in the hotel room, the curtains half drawn and the city glowing in muted reflections on the glass. He’s relaxed, jacket draped over the back of a chair like he owns the place. Drinking a glass of whiskey and staring down at his phone like he always does.
I watch him for a long second before I speak. “What do I call you?” I get up the nerve to ask.
He looks up slowly, eyes sharp and assessing, like he hadn’t expected the question but isn’t surprised by it either. “Why do you need to call me anything?” he asks.
“Because I’m tired of pretending you don’t have a name,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “And because you keep calling me by mine.”
A corner of his mouth lifts, faint but amused. “That’s fair.”
He leans back, considering me, and for a moment I wonder if he’s going to brush it off or make me wait just to remind me hecan. Instead, he says it casually, like it’s nothing. Like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “Alexei.” The way he says it is smooth, careful. The accent slips through just enough to notice, rounding the edges of the word.
I repeat it quietly. “Alexei.”
His eyes flick to my mouth. “Moscow,” he adds, as if that explains everything. It does, somehow.
“You’re Russian,” I say.
“Yes.” The word is simple, but there’s weight behind it. History. Distance. Something cold and old that doesn’t need to raise its voice.
“And this?” I gesture vaguely around us. “All of this.”
He shrugs. “This is business.”
I look at him again, really look, and the truth settles in my chest like a stone. The calm. The control. The way he moves through the world like it already bends for him. Knowing his name doesn’t make him less frightening. It makes him real. And somehow, that makes everything worse.
He keeps me chained with words instead of cuffs, and he knows exactly how to use them. “The Iron Reapers think you flipped,” he tells me one morning over breakfast, his voice calm, like this isn’t the most terrifying thing he could possibly say. “They think you worked with us. That you set Blade up to be killed. The fact that you’re the one who pulled the trigger, is so fucking satisfying.”
My fork freezes halfway to my mouth, and my chest tightens so hard it almost hurts.
“And you weren’t there when they arrived,” he goes on. “There were no signs of a struggle. No trail. Just you gone.” He tilts his head slightly, studying me. “Tell me, Bri. What would you think if the roles were reversed?”
I don’t answer, because I don’t have to. He knows. “They think you killed him,” he finishes. That’s the part he repeats. Over and over. Like a mantra he wants etched into my bones. “They won’t protect you. They won’t listen to you and let you explain what really happened. You are the enemy to the Iron Reapers, to your family.”
Staying with him is the only thing keeping me alive, and that’s exactly what he wants me to believe.
“If you reach out to your sisters, they’ll track the call,” he tells me. My chest tightens, and my hands curl at my sides. “You call them, you lead them straight to you,” he continues evenly, “and then what happens to them is on you.”
So I don’t call and not because I don’t have my phone, I could have used one by now, but what’s the point? He’s right.
I exist inside this tiny, suffocating bubble. Hotel. Car. Office. Restaurant. Back to a hotel. Alexei wants me isolated and dependent and quiet. I wear clothes that don’t belong to me. Designer dresses that fit too well. Shoes that cost more than my old rent. People look at me and assume things, and I can see it in their eyes. That I’m spoiled. That I’m rich. That I chose this, chose him. He never corrects them and I’m too scared to tell them. What would happen if I spoke my truth? Would he kill me? Why hasn’t he killed me?
I follow him everywhere like a pet on a short leash, quiet and observant and careful not to draw attention, and I hate howgood I’m getting at it. And he likes it. I can tell by the way his gaze lingers when I walk beside him, by the satisfaction he doesn’t bother hiding when people assume I’m his. “You’re adapting well,” he tells me one night, watching as I adjust my sling automatically before sitting down. “That’s a strength.”
I stare straight ahead. “It’s not like I want this. I sure as fuck don’t want you. I don’t have a choice.”
He smiles slightly. “Everyone does, malyshka.”
