I opened my mouth, but closed it fast. I didn’t have an answer, and he knew it.
“That’s what I thought,” he taunted.
My frustration flared, but I didn’t give in to temptation. “It doesn’t mean we just give in to it. I mean, look what happened last time.”
All in one breath, he announced, “We made a family.”
“Kraven…”
“I’m not saying we give in. I’m just saying you stop pretending it’s not there.”
“It shouldn’t be there.”
“But it is. It’s always been there, Kitty. You know it as much as I do. Julius knows it too.”
The truth of what he was saying hit harder than I wanted it to. At least one part was.
“I think you’re wrong about your brother. He trusted us. If he didn’t, he would have never left us alone together.”
“Yeah, to go sell drugs.”
“Yeah… for us.”
He held my expression. “You’re right.” His agreement surprised me.
Is this a trick?
“This”—he gestured vaguely between us—“whatever this is… we don’t have to figure it out today.”
I blinked, thrown off by the sudden shift in our conversation.
“But don’t lie to yourself about us, Kitty.”
My core locked up. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
I fisted my hands at my sides. “Kraven, there is no us…”
The words tasted like battery acid as soon as I lied.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
JULIUS
Three weeks.
Three fucking weeks.
Time stopped feeling real to me. It wasn’t moving forward. Nothing had changed, and I was stuck with these walls closing in on me, day after day.
This wasn’t just a cell. It was a box, getting smaller by the minutes that didn’t seem to pass, completely stripping away whatever sanity I had left. I could see why people lost their shit behind these bars. It was a lot to take in and adjust to.
Freedom wasn’t something I ever took for granted. Especially after being separated from my family more times than I cared to remember. Except that was what this place was for—surviving all the memories of what led you there to begin with.
It didn’t help that every day was the same, making me go stir-crazy. I started counting the hours, the meals, the guard rotations. I counted how many steps it took from my cell to the yard, to the cafeteria, and to the showers.
