But the only reason a man like Kazimir Orlov would be in a place like this, in a cell like mine, is because he wants something from me.
I know what men want from women in cells.
"No," I hear myself say. My voice is hoarse, barely more than a whisper. "No, please?—"
I try to push myself further into the corner, but there's nowhere to go. The stone wall is solid against my back. My body screams in protest at the movement—everything hurts, everything feels broken or bruised or bleeding—but my fear is stronger than the pain right now.
"Svetlana," he says my name again, and there's something in his voice I don't understand. Something that sounds almost like shock. "I'm not—I'm not here to hurt you."
I laugh. I can't help it. The sound comes out cracked and bitter, echoing off the stone walls, and it hurts, too, scraping across my throat that’s still bruised from where Pyotr choked me after I spat in his face. "Of course you are. That's what men do here. That's what this place is for."
"Listen to me." He takes a step into the cell, and I flinch so hard I feel something tear in my side. He stops immediately, hands coming up in a gesture that I think is meant to be reassuring. "I'm getting you out of here."
The words don't make sense. I stare at him, trying to process them through the fog of pain and exhaustion that's been my constant companion for so long at this point that I can't remember what it feels like to think clearly.
"What?" I mumble dumbly, my lips feeling thick from where Evan split them open.
"I'm getting you out," he repeats, slower this time. "We don't have much time. Can you walk?"
This is a trick. It has to be a trick. Some new game one of the men thought up, some fresh torture designed to break whatever pieces of me are still intact. Give me hope and then rip it away. Let me think I'm being rescued and then?—
"I don't believe you," I say flatly.
His face creases with frustration, and his jaw clenches. "I don't care if you believe me. We're leaving. Now."
"Why?" The question comes out sharper than I intended. "Why would you help me? You didn't before."
He physically flinches at that. "That's not—we don't have time for this."
"We don't have time?" I feel something hot and vicious rising in my chest, cutting through the numbness that’s settled over me like a fog. "You show up here and tell me we don't have time? You left me. You and Ilya both. You walked away, and you left me to—to?—"
My voice breaks. I hate that it breaks. I hate that even now, even after everything, I can still feel the betrayal like a fresh wound.
That night is burned into my memory. The warehouse. The cold that felt so awful then, but now would feel like a balm compared to the Russian cold. Mara Winslow,comfortingme, encouraging me,helpingme despite how our paths crossed. Sergei dragging us back into our chains when we were on the verge of escape. The fear of having a gun pressed to my head,knowingI was going to be tortured to death because the alternative was Ilya choosing me over Mara, and I knew he never would.
And then the shootout, the smell of blood and death and gunpowder and gore, the fear, the chaos. The moment when I realized I’d been saved and Sergei was dead, but knowing that hadn’t fixed anything for me, because I’d failed to keep Ilya. My engagement was still broken, and I knew I was better off dead than facing my father with that news.
I’d seen Kazimir notice me cowering against one of the support beams, and he’d taken one step toward me. Just one, before Ilya told him to stop. And I’d hoped, during the brief span of that one step, that he was going to take me out of thewarehouse and I would have a moment alone with him, a chance to beg him to get me to safety. I’d seen the way he looked at me, now and then, when he thought no one would notice. I thought I could convince him to help, to get me out of the city somehow, away from my father, before my world could collapse in on me.
But Ilya ordered him to stay and, like a dog, he did what he was told.
Now I’m here.
Ilya had looked at me like he couldn’t care less if I was dead. Kazimir had looked at me like—like it hurt him to walk away. But he'd done it anyway.
They both had.
"You had a choice then," I whisper, my voice thready and shaking. "You chose to leave me."
Kazimir's hands curl into fists at his sides. "I had no choice then. Ilya?—"
"Ilya, what?" I cut him off. "Ilya ordered you to abandon me? And you just followed orders like a good little soldier?"
"Yes." The word comes out hard and flat. "That's exactly what I did. Because that's what I am. That's what I've always been."
The honesty of it catches me off guard. I expect him to make excuses, to justify what he did. But he just stands there, looking at me with what almost looks like regret.
"But I have a choice now," he continues. "And I'm choosing to get you out of here. So you can hate me all you want, Svetlana, but you need to decide right now if you want to stay in this cell or if you want to take the chance I'm offering you."
