Everything hurt.
My skull pulsed behind my eyes like someone was squeezing it in a vise. My tongue was dry. My limbs felt heavy, like my blood had turned to syrup. I blinked hard, trying to make sense of my surroundings, but the edges of my vision blurred and doubled before it cleared enough for me to see.
Metal. There was metal all around me.
The smell of industrial oil, salt, sweat, and metal hit me and then I realized that I was inside something narrow and cold. My back pressed against steel. My knees were pulled up awkwardly against my chest, my spine cramping from the way I’d beenfolded. A crate. Maybe a modified shipping pod. The inside had padding on the floor, but it was thin.
I shifted, groaning as I tried to move. Every muscle screamed. I bit the inside of my cheek to stay quiet. I didn’t know who was listening, or how close they were. I reached up to see if the earpiece was still in my ear, but was disappointed to find it gone.
ARCHEON had apparently found it.
Shit.
Then I remembered the ring on my finger and its tracking capabilities. I tapped my hand against the wall of the crate twice, just in case. The ring was pressure sensitive. Hopefully Demyan had his eyes on me. I had no idea how much time had passed. For all that I knew, it could have been hours.
Please let them be close.
Outside the crate, I could hear distant footsteps. Voices. But not in English. Russian? No. Arabic. One of the Gulf dialects. Probably the local port crew. Good. That meant we hadn’t left yet.
How long had I been out?
I twisted again, trying to shift my weight around so I could figure a way out of here.
If I could get the lid open. If I could just?—
A voice. Close now. “She still out?”
Another voice. Male. Casual. “Yeah. Checked on her ten minutes ago. She’s dead to the world.”
A long silence. Then the sound of some heavy metal thing being set down. A water bottle maybe, or tools?
“You think they’ll keep her alive?”
That question hovered in the stale air like a wasp.
“Not my call,” the other man replied. “They only said to get her on board. After that…”
I stared up at the metal ceiling of my tiny cage, blood roaring in my ears as I listened to the sound of their footsteps fading away.
I wasn’t afraid of dying. I never had been. I was afraid of disappearing. Of being erased. Of not getting to say what needed to be said—to Roman, to Dmitri, to Lev.
To the three men I had come to adore.
Roman with his easy smile and impossible arrogance. The man who walked into every room like he owned it, but kissed like he wasn’t sure he deserved it. I’d met men like him before—charming, dangerous, too self-aware for their own good—but Roman was different. He used his charisma like a weapon, a shield, a mask, and at first, I’d hated him for it. Until I’d realized that he didn’t just charm to manipulate, he did it tosurviveand there was something heartbreakingly human in that.
Roman had slipped beneath my skin without trying, and now I felt like I carried a little piece of him inside me. The smell of smoke and scotch. The echo of his laugh when he thought I wasn’t listening. The way his eyes softened when he said my name—Kara-with-a-K—like he was tasting it, testing its edges.
If I ever got out of here, I’d tell him that. That I saw through the performance. That the man beneath the smirk was the one I’d fallen for.
And then there was Lev.
My heartbeat stumbled at the thought of him.
Lev had never pretended to be anything other than what he was. He’d learned to control the world by controlling himself, and I’d been the only one reckless enough to break that pattern. Every time he’d looked at me, it had felt like standing too close to lightning—dangerous, destructive, and utterly beautiful.
He was precision and violence wrapped in black silk.
And somehow, beneath all of that, he’d learned tenderness.
