She didn’t die because of me.
She died because of him.
The sobs slow eventually. Not because the grief runs out but because something else pushes through it. Something colder and harder and more urgent.
My father has Luca.
Which means every second I stay here is another second they get to hurt him.
I wipe my face with the heels of my hands. My eyes burn. My throat is raw. But my mind is clearing, and what’s coming into focus is simple.
If I stay in this room, Luca dies.
That’s it. That’s the whole equation. The grief can wait. The rage can wait. The twenty-three years of lies can wait. Because if I do nothing now, my father takes him from me too.
I stand up. My legs are unsteady, but they hold.
Think.
I stuck the bobby pins back in my pocket after picking the desk drawer. I don’t know if Boris is still nearby, but I can’t stay here. I can’t sit in this room waiting for my father to decide when Luca dies.
Kneeling in front of the door, it takes me two tries because my fingers are slick with sweat, but the mechanism catches on the third. A small click sounds from inside the knob.
I freeze, listening, then slide the door open a fraction and peer into the hallway.
Empty.
The stun gun is in my nightstand drawer where I left it before sneaking to the office. I grab it. The weight of it in my palm is the closest thing to safety I’ve got.
I slip through the door and move toward the stairs. Feet light on the carpet, silent as I know how to be. Every shadow looks wrong. Every creak in the house sounds like a footstep. The corridor stretches ahead of me, the landing visible at the far end, the staircase just beyond it.
I’m four steps from the stairs when Boris’s voice cracks through the silence behind me.
“Hey!”
I don’t look back. I run.
The stairs are right there. I take them two at a time, one hand on the banister, the other locked around the stun gun. Behind me, the floor thunders. Boris is fast for his size, faster than he should be, and I can hear him gaining on me as I hit the landing and round the turn toward the lower flight.
His hand catches my collar. The fabric pulls tight against my throat, and my feet stutter on the step.
“Little bitch,” he growls.
I wrench forward, but he catches a fistful of my sleeve and slams me back against the banister. Pain flashes along my spine. His hand clamps around my upper arm hard enough to bruise.
“Let go,” I hiss.
He drags me up a step, then another, hauling me backward toward the hall with all the ugly certainty of a man who has never once doubted his right to put his hands on me.
I fight him like an animal. There’s no dignity left in it. I kick. I twist. I jam my free elbow backward and catch him somewhere soft enough to make him grunt. He tightens his grip until stars spark at the edges of my vision.
“Stop.” His breath is hot and furious near my ear. “Before I break your fucking arm.”
I jam the stun gun into Boris’s side and pull the trigger.
The crackle explodes through the stairwell. Boris’s body does the rest. His muscles seize, his grip releases, and his weight shifts backward onto a foot that isn’t planted on anything solid.
I see it happen. That horrible half-second where gravity decides.
