He told me he had feelings for me. He kissed me like I mattered. He carried me to bed, held me while I slept, told me a bedtime story about a knight and a dragon that felt like it was written just for us.
And all the while he had that message burning a hole in his pocket.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see stars.
Was any of it real?
The waterpark. The bookstore. The way he looked at me when I called him Daddy in the diner. The gentle way he applied cooling gel to my sore butt in the car, whispering that I was his good boy.
Or was it all just… strategy? Keep the target calm. Keep him compliant. Keep him from running until the order came down and he could finish the job quietly.
I don’t know.
And I don’t know what hurts more: believing he never cared at all, or believing he did—and still chose orders over me.
The bus rumbles onto the highway. Trees blur past the window. The sun is finally rising, weak and pale behind thin clouds.
I stare at my reflection in the glass—pale, red-eyed, hair a mess—and feel something shift inside me.
Not anger. Not yet.
But resolve.
I can’t go home.
I can’t go back to Ivan.
I can’t trust anyone who’s ever been part of that world.
But I’m still breathing.
I still have my backpack and Claw.
It’s not much.
But it’smine.
I rest my cheek against the window and let the vibration of the bus travel through my bones. I don’t know where I’ll go when we reach the city. I don’t know how I’ll eat, or sleep, or stay hidden.
But I know one thing with absolute certainty: I’m done being anyone’s pawn.
Not my father’s.
Not Viktor’s.
Not Ivan’s.
The highway stretches ahead—endless, gray, uncertain. I hug Claw tighter
Somewhere between the small town that’s disappearing in the rearview and the terror of my home city that waits at the end of this journey, I’m finally starting to figure out who Artyom Landon Lane Galkin is going to be when no one is trying to kill him. There has to be a future for me if I can make it out of this.
And Iwillmake it out.
Even if I have to do it all alone.
No matter how scary it is…
Chapter 16
