“You heard me.”
Elena is staring at me like I’ve spoken a different language. “What—what are you doing?”
“Making a decision.” I look back at her, cataloging one last time how she looks—exhausted, furious, beautiful in her defiance. “You’re not going back to this cell. You’re not being released either. You’ll stay in my home until I decide what to do with you.”
“That’s kidnapping—”
“That’s protection. From yourself, from the consequences of your actions, and from the people who would kill you the moment they learned you infiltrated Bratva operations.”
“I don’t want your protection.”
“You don’t have a choice.” I step into the corridor, then pause. “Get some rest, Elena. We’ll talk more when you’re thinking clearly.”
I close the door before she can respond.
Viktor falls into step beside me as we walk back through the underground levels. “You’re moving her into the house?”
“Yes.”
“That’s… unusual.”
“She’s an unusual problem.”
“What’s theendgame [3]here?”
Good question. The practical answer is leverage—keep her contained, use her as insurance against her father or as bait if anyone comes looking. Standard hostage protocols.
The real answer is more complicated.
I can’t release her. She knows too much, saw too much, and her defiance means she’d immediately try again. Killing her removes a potential asset and creates more problems than it solves.
Which leaves one option. Keep her. Under my authority, in my home, where I can control every variable.
Not as a prisoner. As something else.
“The end game,” I tell Viktor, “is making Elena Lawrence understand that her survival depends on cooperation. That fighting me is futile. That her best option is accepting her new circumstances.”
“If she doesn’t accept them?”
I think about her face when I gripped her chin. The fury mixed with fear. The pulse jumping under my fingers. The way her body reacted even when her mind resisted.
“She will,” I say. “Eventually.”
Releasing her is impossible. Killing her would be a waste.
She’s a problem that requires a permanent solution, and I’m beginning to think I know exactly what that solution looks like.
Chapter Nine - Elena
I wake to silence that feels wrong.
Not the oppressive silence of the cell, no concrete walls closing in, no darkness pressing against my eyelids. This silence is soft, cushioned, the kind that comes from expensive insulation and distance from the world.
I don’t open my eyes immediately. Don’t move. Just lie still, cataloging sensations.
Warmth. I’m warm for the first time in how long? Days? The cold that seeped into my bones in that cell is gone, replaced by the gentle weight of blankets, the soft give of a mattress beneath me.
A mattress.
