Goosebumps ripple over my skin as I force myself onto my hands and knees. My arms tremble so hard I almost buckle, but I force my head up anyway.
Things come into focus. Metal bars. A bed. A room.
Gavriil’s room. Gavriil’s bed. Gavriil’s cage.
I let my head drop, breath scraping in and out. Every movement costs me, but if I go down again, I’m not sure I can get back up.
I wrap my fingers around the bars. They’re weak, clumsy, like they don’t belong to me. I haul myself up and press my forehead to the metal. The room tilts. Nausea slams into my throat.
I turn my head just in time and retch bile onto the floor. There’s nothing in me, but my body tries anyway. I cling to thebars while spit strings from my mouth and my knees threaten to buckle.
I’ve been sick with the flu before, but nothing has ever hollowed me out like this. This is a type of pain and discomfort that I would’ve never been able to even imagine.
But I can’t stop. Not yet.
I drag the back of my hand across my mouth, my skin feeling cold and hot at the same time. My stomach lurches again, but nothing comes up besides a weak gagging sound. My knees shake, but I manage to keep my feet under me.
The bedroom door opens. My pulse spikes as Gavriil steps in with a white robe draped over his arm. What now?
“I’m going to make you a deal, Alina,” Gavriil tells me as he walks up to the cage door, looking as well-groomed and put-together as always in his suit.
Using the bars for support, I make my way toward the cage door, using up all my strength just to lift and move my bare feet across the floor.
Something unreadable crosses his face too quick to name.
“If you eat just a few bites, I’ll give you this robe,” Gavriil offers as he smooths his hand over the fluffy material. “Faux fur.”
How generous of him. No cruelty to animals, just me.
I eye the robe. It looks warm enough to stop the shaking. Thick enough to make the floor less brutal.
I glance up at Gavriil’s face. It’s unreadable, except for the faint curve of his mouth. He’s so certain I’ll take it.
He isn’t offering me this out of kindness. This is just psychological manipulation, pure and simple. It’s what he does best, and I’m not falling for it.
Even if there is a trace of care in his heart for me, I’m not going to let that distract me. If anything, I’m going to figure out how to weaponize it for my gain.
When I don’t reach for it, his expression tightens.
“Come on, Alina. It’s a good deal,” he says.
But what does he get?
I look away. If I take it, I give him what he wants: proof he can move me with rewards instead of pain. I can’t do that. I’ve come too far to succumb to him now.
Gavriil sighs heavily and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He taps around a few times before turning the screen toward me as a video plays. “What the hell happened to this woman who fought off three Bratva warriors?”
It’s the security camera footage of the night Dominik and his men kidnapped me off the street. I lean closer to get a better look, watching myself fight with everything I had to escape them. I landed some pretty good blows, even though I was much smaller than them.
Back then, I thought I was going to die if they took me.
Little did I know that everything was going to change. I was going to feel more alive than I ever did before with Dominik.
Until now.
“That’s the Alina I know,” Gavriil says once the video ends. He tucks his phone back into his pocket and meets my eyes through the bars. “I miss that fire.”
My pulse hammers, and I hate that I hear something like sincerity in his voice.
