"Am I? Then why did he keep you locked in his penthouse like a treasure? Why did he assign six men to guard you? Why did he become so obsessed with your safety that he walked into an obvious trap?" Sergei stands, brushing off his pants. "No, Miss Winslow. I'm not wrong. He’ll choose one of you.”
He turns to leave, his men following. At the door, he pauses and looks back.
“For what it’s worth, I think it’s going to be you.” He smiles again, as if that should be reassurance. “But it won’t matter. Once he's broken, when everyone sees that the great Ilya Sorokov couldn't protect the women in his life, I'll take everything he has."
Then they're gone, the door slamming shut but the lights staying on this time. Probably so we can see each other and think about what's coming.
For a long moment, neither Svetlana nor I speak. The weight of Sergei's words hangs between us, heavy and suffocating.
"He's going to choose you," Svetlana says finally, her voice flat.
I chew on my lower lip, feeling anger coil in my gut—not toward her, but the situation. No matter what happens, unless Ilya can kill his way out of this, the ending is unthinkable. Either this woman dies so I can live, or I end up brutally murdered. There’s probably going to be some torture mixed in there regardless, and I can’t let myself think about that for too long, or my mind is going to snap. "You don't know that." I think she does, actually, but I don’t want to say that. It seems far too cruel.
"Yes, I do. I saw the way he looked when he broke our engagement. You're the one he actually wants."
"That doesn't mean?—"
She turns to look at me, and there are tears on her cheeks. The sight makes my stomach twist. "I'm going to die here, Mara. And the worst part is, I can't even be angry about it. Because at least it will be over. At least I won't have to go back to my father and face whatever punishment he’ll have for me for failing.”
"Don't say that." I pull harder at my restraints, feeling the plastic cut deeper. "We're not going to die here. Neither of us."
"How? How are we going to get out of this?" She shakes her head. “I’m no quitter, Mara, but you must see that the odds are against us.”
"I don't know yet. But I'm not giving up, and neither are you." I twist my wrists, searching for any weakness in the zip ties. There has to be something.
It can’t end like this.
Svetlana looks away. “My father is no better than Sergei. No matter what happens, my life is basically over.”
“Because Ilya didn’t marry you?”
She nods, and I feel that guilt twist my stomach again.
“So leave. We’ll get out of here and you can… run away. Go somewhere else.Dosomething else…” I realize as I say it that I have no idea what she does now. I don’t know anything about her.
“It’s not that easy,” she says, and I know she’s telling the truth. I knew it wouldn’t be that easy for me to run from Ilya. If her father is as well-connected as she says, it won’t be easy for her to run, either.
“What else do you do?” I ask, trying to find some distraction as I work my wrists up the beam, trying to find some ragged edge.
Svetlana is quiet for a moment, and I think she’s not going to answer, before she finally speaks.
“I was a ballerina. I injured my knee, so it was shortlived. After that, I became a model. I like to take pictures, as a hobby. I’d love to be a fashion photographer.” She laughs bitterly. “But my father needed me to be a wife and produce heirs for Ilya Sorokov, so that was going to be my career.”
I bite my lip, feeling as if anything I could possibly say would be woefully inadequate right now. “I’m sorry,” I say finally, even though I know it’s not enough. She doesn’t say anything in return.
I keep working at the zip ties, and finally—finally—I find a spot where the metal has rusted rough, angling my elbows at a terribly painful angle to get to it. I rub the zip ties back and forth as fast as I can, and all of a sudden, just when I think I can’t take it any longer, I feel one of them snap. My right hand is free, though my wrist is raw and bleeding. I bring my hand around in front of me, flexing my fingers to get feeling back into them.
"Oh my God," Svetlana breathes. "You did it."
"Not yet." I work on the zip tie around my left wrist, my fingers clumsy and shaking. It takes longer than the first one, but eventually it gives way too. "Okay. Okay, now let me get to you."
I try to stand, but my legs won't cooperate. They've been in the same position for too long, and the pins and needles have turned into sharp, stabbing pain. I half-crawl, half-drag myself over to Svetlana, my hands leaving bloody smears on the concrete.
"Your wrists," she says, staring at the damage.
"They'll heal." I can’t let myself think about how bad it might be right now. I position myself behind her, examining her restraints. They're the same as mine were—industrial zip ties, pulled tight. "This is going to hurt."
"Everything hurts." She braces herself as I start working on the plastic.
