I hold her gaze for a second too long.
“Ptichka,” I say, voice low and steady, “if I use my imagination, I’m liable to bring him back to life just so I can torture him for what he did to you and then kill him again.” I pause. “Slowly.”
“Did he touch you?” I grind out between clenched teeth.
She snorts. Actually snorts, like the question offends her more than it rattles her.
“I am not afraid,” she says calmly. “My father raised me as the youngest of three children. Two older brothers. No mother.” Her chin lifts slightly. “I have thicker skin than that.”
My jaw flexes. “That’s not what I asked.”
“He beat me,” she says evenly. “He thought pain would loosen my tongue.”
“And when that didn’t work?”
“The one time he attempted to touch me,” she continues, voice steady, “I explained to him in detail what my father would do if he laid a hand on me.”
“In detail,” I repeat.
“In very specific detail.”
“And?”
“He chose not to test it.”
Silence settles between us.
“You didn’t give him anything,” I say.
“I told him nothing.”
There’s no pride in it. No drama. Just fact.
I sit back slowly, but the tension in my shoulders doesn’t ease. “Good.”
Her eyes narrow slightly. “You sound surprised.”
“Your father knows you were taken.”
“Yes. My guards would have reported it immediately. By now he will be doing whatever is necessary to get me back. He will not stop searching.”
My eyes widen in shock. “You haven’t called him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
She looks at me then. “Because he warned me about Volkov,” she says evenly. “He told me the man was volatile and resentful. I told him he was being dramatic. I dismissed my security. I placed myself in a situation I had been advised to avoid.” Her jaw tightens slightly. “When I call him, he will hear that before he hears that I survived.”
I reach into my pocket, unlock my phone, and slide it across the table toward her. “He’ll hear your voice first.”
THREE
ANYA
I hesitate,but I pick up the phone. The clock on the stove reads five in the evening. That makes it one in the morning in Moscow. He will be awake. He has not slept properly in years since mother died. He certainly has not slept these past eighteen days.
I dial from memory. The line rings once. Twice. On the third ring, it connects. “Da,” he answers. His voice is controlled. Awake.
