"Bianca." Misha is beside me in an instant, crouching down to my level. "Breathe."
"I am breathing." But I'm not, not really. My lungs are too tight, my heart racing out of control. Tachycardia. Panic response. The clinical terms float through my mind, useless and absurd.
"You're safe," he says. "He can't touch you here. I won't let him."
"You bought me." The words come out ragged. "You paid five million dollars for me like I was—like I was a car, or a painting, or—"
"It was the only way to get you out."
"You could have stopped the auction. Raided it. Called the police."
"And what would have happened to you in the chaos? To the other women?" He shakes his head. "The Morozovs wouldhave scattered. Taken you somewhere I couldn't find. The only way to guarantee your safety was to play by their rules."
"Their rules." I laugh, and it sounds unhinged even to my own ears. "Their rules say I'm property now. Your property."
"No."
"That's what everyone thinks. That's what the law says, as far as these people are concerned."
"I don't care what they think. I don't care what their laws say." He reaches out, then stops himself, his hand hovering in the air between us. "You're not my property, Bianca. You never will be."
"Then what am I?"
The question hangs in the air. He doesn't have an answer. Neither do I.
I press my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the tears that are finally breaking through. My father sold me. My brothers delivered me. A stranger wanted to buy me and make me disappear. And the only person who tried to save me is a killer who broke my heart and spent two years watching me from the shadows.
This is my life now. This is what I've woken up into.
"What happens now?" I ask, lowering my hands. My voice is steadier than I expected. "Am I a prisoner here? Am I supposed to just—live in this house and pretend everything is normal?"
"You're not a prisoner." He says it firmly, like he's trying to convince both of us. "But you can't leave. Not yet. Sergei Morozov is going to come for you—not today, maybe not this week, but soon. Until I know what he's planning, you need to stay somewhere I can protect you."
"And after? When you've dealt with him, or whatever it is you're planning to do—what then?"
"That depends on you."
"What does that mean?"
He finally lets his hand drop, resting it on his knee instead of reaching for me. "It means you have choices, Bianca. Not many, not good ones, but choices. You can stay here, under my protection, until the threat passes. You can try to go back to your life—your apartment, your school—though I'd have to assign security, and it would be risky. Or—"
"Or what?"
He hesitates. "Or you can disappear. New identity, new city, new life. I have the resources to make it happen. You'd be safe, but you'd lose everything. Your career. Your friends. Your name."
I stare at him. "You'd do that? Just let me walk away?"
"If that's what you wanted."
"Even after paying five million dollars for me?"
A muscle twitches in his jaw. "The money doesn't matter. It never mattered."
I don't know what to say to that. I don't know what to feel. My emotions are a tangled mess—fear and fury and something else, something I refuse to name.
"I need time," I say finally. "To think. To process all of this."
"Take whatever time you need."
