I forced myself not to flinch. Not to show the revulsion crawling through my veins.
"And then what?" I asked. "You kill him and take me back to Serbia? Force me into some kind of marriage?"
"Force?" He laughed softly. "I don't think force will be necessary. Once Rodion is dead, you'll have no one else. No family, no protector, no options. You'll come to me because there's nowhere else to go."
"You don't know me very well."
"I know you better than you think." His hand moved from my cheek to my hair, fingers threading through the strands. "I know you grew up in violence. I know you ran from it, built a little life for yourself, pretended to be someone ordinary. But you're not ordinary, Keira. You're a survivor. And survivors do what they have to do."
I held his gaze, refusing to look away. "You're right. I am a survivor. That's how I know I'll survive you, too."
Something shifted in his expression. The civilized mask slipping, just for a moment, to reveal the predator underneath.
"I was hoping you'd have some fire in you," he said softly. "It's going to make breaking you so much more satisfying."
He released my hair and stepped back, adjusting his cuffs with precise, deliberate movements. "I'll be back soon. Try to rest. It's going to be a long night."
He left, the lock clicking into place behind him.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my whole body shaking. The place where he'd touched my face felt contaminated, like his fingers had left something foul behind.
But beneath the fear, something else was burning.
Anger.
He thought he could break me. Thought he could take everything I'd built and reduce me to property again. Just like my father. Just like Cormac. Just like every man who'd ever looked at me and seen only what I could give them.
I pressed my hand against my stomach, feeling the life growing there. My child. Mine and Rodion's. The future we were building together.
I would not let Branko Petrovic take that from me.
Whatever happened tonight, I would fight. And if I couldn't win, I would make him bleed for every inch he took.
***
Time passed slowly.
I paced the room, too wound up to sit. Listened to the sounds of the house—footsteps below, voices too muffled to understand, the occasional creak of old wood settling.
How long until Rodion came? An hour? Two? Or was he already on his way, racing through the darkness to find me?
I thought about what Branko had said. Breadcrumbs. A trail leading right to this door. He wanted Rodion to come. Wanted to face him, defeat him, take everything from him.
That meant there would be a confrontation. And in a confrontation, anything could happen.
I needed to be ready. Needed to find a way to tip the scales, even slightly, in our favor.
I searched the room again, more carefully this time. The bed frame was too heavy to move. The vanity was bolted to the floor. The wardrobe—
Wait.
I moved to the wardrobe, examining it more closely. The doors hung loosely on their hinges, the wood old and brittle. And there, on the inside of one door, a piece of metal was coming loose. A hinge pin worked free after decades of neglect.
I worked at it with my fingers, ignoring the pain as the metal bit into my skin. After several minutes of effort, it came free—a metal rod about four inches long, pointed at one end.
Not much of a weapon. But better than nothing.
I tucked it into my sleeve and sat back down on the bed, trying to look as defeated as I had before.
