It wasn’t a question. Not really. But Cam let it percolate a moment before he answered. “I think you’re lost. And I don’t think you’re the only one. Jakov said he’ll be back. Listen to what he says, read between the lines.”
“For what?”
Cam dropped that brotherly hand on my shoulder again, as if he knew it would become the only thing keeping me upright. “For what he’s really trying to tell you.”
[ 7 ]
VIKTOR
“Let me go.”
Freedom was a complex concept. Nuanced, it meant different things to different people, a fact I had not appreciated until I had gained and lost mine several times over.
I stood in the dark hallway, a hostage to the brown eyes staring back at me. My phone was in pieces in the sink, every camera on the property disabled, save the ones that watched over my sister and her husband. Their children.
Family.
I loved them. But terrible things called my name, and Katerina and Ivan were as far from my mind as it was possible for them to be with the herbs in their evening meal scenting the wind—a scent Lida wanted to investigatewith me, drawing me down the hill to a place where I should’ve felt whole.
But I was not whole, and the last year had taught me that perhaps I never had been, not without the kind of help that would kill me.
I want it to kill me.
No. No, I didn’t. I just wanted it tostop.
Regardless, this canine conversation was on borrowed time. I had moments to escape before Jake noticed and took remoteaction severe enough to cage me in, but with Lida’s gaze boring into me, I could not move. “Let mego.”
She made a sound low in her chest—a habit she had brought home from her time with the Rebel Kings, and I could only assume she had picked it up from one of them. Or all of them. They were primal beings, and now my dog was trying to alpha me into staying home.
Was it him?
Of course, Ranger popped into my head. But I dismissed it—I dismissedhim. I had to, or I’d never leave. I’d never move from this spot. I’d die of old age with him imprinted on my brain, and I could not wait that long.
To die.
To live.
To breathe.
I stepped around Lida, ignoring her whine, pushing away the paw that scraped at my legs. “Come now. I will be back.”
She whined again, daring me to repeat the hollow words.
I did not.
I took her down the hill and steered her through my sister’s gate.
Then I left, weaving through the orange groves until I came to the electric fence. Thedisabledelectric fence if my rudimentary hacking had worked. A nasty shock I did not care too much about if it hadn’t.
Shock me.
Kill me.
I was not that lucky. I wrapped my fingers around the metal and nothing happened, my chest brushing the dirt as I ducked beneath the wire.
My conscience made me repair the gap. For my sister. Her husband. Her children. ForLida. And it cost me valuable time. Ihad to run to escape the reach of Jake’s security system, and my damaged body did not thank me for it.
Pain.
