“Nikolai?” Enzo asks, frowning. “He asked for us?”
Dante’s gaze cuts through us.
“He asked for you,” he says, nodding toward Enzo. Then he turns his eyes on me. “And the man responsible for her protection.”
I open my mouth, rage already on my tongue, but Dante cuts me off with a raised hand.
“That’s an order. Call me when it’s finished.”
And he’s gone, leaving the scent of ash and finality behind him.
Enzo and I just stare at each other across the table. Neither of us says it out loud, but we’re both thinking the same thing.
Nikolai Orlov doesn’t hand things back.
He takes and he keeps.
Chapter 28
Aurelia
It’s been at least a full day since they dumped me in this prison, and I know my window for escape has already passed. The first few hours are always the best chance—when they’re still moving you, still sloppy, still adjusting to the shift. That chance is gone.
Now my only option is to use the people around me. Watch. Listen. Wait for a slip.
Adrian is the only possibility I’ve got right now. Everyone else has been useless: guards who come in only to sneer, toss insults, and jot down notes about me like I’m livestock being cataloged.
And then there’s the one in the suit. His visits don’t feel like monitoring—they feel like stalking. He studies me the way a lion studies a gazelle right before the pounce. My skin still crawls with the weight of it.
I force myself to breathe through the thought, slow and shallow. The drugs in my system have dulled,I think.
I can’t tell when I’m sleeping; my head still feels stuffed with cotton. But I can feel my fingers now, so that has to count for something.
Deprivation breaks people faster than bruises. I’ve seen it used before; hell, I’ve trained against it. Still, knowing the tactic doesn’t make it easier to endure.
Adrian’s been abnormally talkative since the doctor left, but he also watches in a way that makes me unsure if he’s assessing me as an ally or calculating how much he can take from me. He’s dangerous. But at least danger is something I understand.
I can’t afford to hate him, not yet. He’s the only breathing option I have in this room, and that makes him useful.
I know Enzo and Elijah are looking for me. They have to be. The second I went dark, I’m sure alarms went off in their heads. I can only assume they’ve been moving pieces since the moment I was taken, maybe even negotiating already.
Hell, even my father should know by now. I can picture him, expression carved in stone, already preparing to strike some kind of deal. Everything comes with a price. And for once, I hope I’m worth paying it.
And yet… the longer I sit here, the less certain I feel. Time stretches differently in cages. A minute feels like an hour, and a day feels like a week. Twenty-four hours could mean they’re already on their way. Or it could mean nothing at all.
I can’t let myself spiral. Hope is misleading. Too much of it and I’ll get sloppy. Too little and I’ll break.
I have to walk that razor edge in between—believe that they’re out there, without letting it dull the survival instinct screaming at me to stay aware.
So I breathe. I listen. I watch Adrian shift his weight, the flicker of the light, the drip in the corner that’s been steady for hours. And—
“Are you still alive?”
His harsh voice yanks me out of the fog. My head is heavy, brain fuzzed, but the anger still burns beneath it.
I rasp, trying to focus. “What?”
“You look like shit,” he continues, the words cutting through the haze. “And that’s saying something, because you were very hot when they got you all tied up.”
