I gave her nothing. I couldn't. One word of comfort, one crack in the mask, and I wouldn't be able to do what I had to do.
She had to believe this was real, because it was.
We pulled onto the gravel road. The crunch under the tires filled the silence. I could practically hear her mind spinning as she took it all in. The change in road surface, the distance from the highway, the acoustics of the surrounding landscape. Filingit away in that extraordinary mind of hers, building a map she couldn't see.
The car stopped. I got out and opened her door and pulled her into the night.
She reached for my arm to steady herself, and I let her for exactly as long as it took her to find her footing. Then I pulled away. The contact lasted maybe two seconds, and it burned through my skin like acid.
She knew Viktor was there.
I saw it happen. The full-body change, like a current running through her. The fear hit her all at once. I could feel it in the sudden rigidity of her arm under my hand, in the way her breathing went shallow, in the way her feet tried to stop while the rest of her kept moving because my grip gave her no choice.
She understood now.
Not everything. But enough. Enough to know that the man who'd held her last night and told her he loved her had brought her to a warehouse where his boss sat waiting, and that whatever happened next was going to be very, very bad.
I shoved her toward the chair. She stumbled, caught herself, hit the seat with her knees. Sat.
I watched her hands grip the edges, white-knuckled. I saw her shaking. Saw the goosebumps on her arms because her dress wasn't warm enough and I hadn't allowed her to get her coat.
I walked away from her to turn on the camera. My hand went to the power button.
And the red light started blinking.
We were live.
***
"I hate you," she said.
The words scraped out of her throat like something being dragged across gravel.
"I hate you. You're a fucking monster. You were always a monster. I can't believe I was so stupid to believe you were anything else."
Something cracked inside me, her words finding their way into a single fracture in the wall I'd built, too small for Viktor to see, too deep for me to reach. My reaction only lasted a half a second, and then I sealed it shut before the next beat of my heart.
But she heard it that slight hitch in my breath. I know she heard it. Because she knew me the way I knew her, in the dark, by breathing and scent and the particular quality of silence a person makes when they're coming apart.
"Finish it."
I tore my eyes from what I'd done and tried to listen to what Viktor was saying.
"I've beaten her for an hour and she hasn't said a word. She's innocent." I held his eyes. "She deserves to live."
Viktor's jaw tightened. He didn't like being told no. Nobody told Viktor no. The last person who'd told Viktor no was currently dissolved in a fifty-gallon drum in a storage unit I'd rented under a fake name.
"That means nothing. That she is too stubborn for her own good. Finish. It." He pointed at the knife in my hand.
I didn't even remember pulling it out. Pain shot through my busted knuckles as I opened my hand and dropped it on the floor. "I'm not slitting her throat like a goddamn dog. Not after this. That's my line."
"This is about loyalty, Milo." His voice was quiet. Dangerous. "About proof. Moscow needs to see?—"
"You've got an hour of video of your fucking proof." I kept my voice even. Practical. The voice of a man discussing logistics, not morality. "You watched me do this to her. I did what you asked. She's not breaking. There's nothing else I can do to get a confession from her. Now let me end this my way."
Viktor stared at me long and hard.
The silence lasted long enough for me to count Raven's breaths. Three. Four. Five. Each one shallower than the last. She was barely conscious.
