That gets something.
Not much. Just the slightest shift in his mouth. Not a smile. Something meaner.
“If you’re good enough to be in the Pakhan’s bed,” he says, voice flat, “you’re good enough to traffic.”
Ice slides down my spine.
Then he adds, “But that’s not what this is, Ayla. This is business. Don’t take it personal.”
I bark out a laugh.
“Don’t take it personal?” I gesture at the bars around me. “You put me in a fucking cage.”
“That,” he says, eyes flicking over the lock, the bars, me, “is because you’re volatile.”
My brows shoot up. He keeps going like he didn’t just insult me to my face.
“And Iknowyou. I can’t let you loose in here.”
I open my mouth, then close it. Because honestly?
Fair.
Still.
“What the fuck,” I mutter.
He says nothing.
I study him harder. The stillness. The scars. The dead blue eye. The good side of his face giving me nothing.
Then the shape of it starts to turn wrong in my head. If this isn’t forGabriel—
A cold thread pulls tight in my stomach.
“Does Gabriel know?” I ask.
Arsen’s gaze settles back on mine. “He does.”
“Then where is he?”
“He knows you’re gone.” A beat. “He just doesn’t know where.”
My pulse stutters.
No.
No, that’s—
That’s deeply wrong. I look at him again. Really look. At the old burns. The old rage sitting under his skin like it never cooled. The man Maksim dragged out of a fire instead of leaving there.
And then it clicks.
Not Gabriel.Maksim.
This is about Maksim.
I go very still. “It’s about Korsakov.”
