Then the lights cut out.
Darkness slams down so fast it feels physical.
“No food,” he says from somewhere near the door.
My fingers tighten around the bars.
“No water. No light.”
“Arsen—”
The latch clanks. He opens the door. Panic claws up hard and sudden.
“Arsen, goddammit—if you leave me in here without water, I’ll die in three days.”
His silhouette is the only thing left, cut out in the strip of white from the open door.
“It won’t take three days, Ayla.”
My stomach drops. He looks back once.
“Your Pakhan will be here long before that.”
Then he steps out.
The door slams shut.
And I’m alone in the dark again.
Chapter 56
Maksim
Morning cuts through the slats of the blinds in hard white lines, too bright for what this room holds.
Too bright for the blood on Gabriel Kaya’s mouth.
Too bright for the chair he’s tied to.
Too bright for the fact that the sun is already up and Ayla is still out there.
I stand in front of him with my hands braced on the table and try not to kill him before he finishes being useful.
He sits tied to the chair in the middle of the room, wrists bound behind the metal, one side of his face swollen from where I introduced him to my fist outside. Dried blood streaks down from his brow into his beard. One eye is starting to darken. Good. Not enough, but good.
He lifts his head slowly, like he’s the one with all the time in the world.
I want to break every bone in his body for that alone.
“If you know where she is,” I say, voice low enough to sound calm, “tell me.”
He spits blood onto my floor.
I stare at it.
Then at him.
“You don’t get to drag me in to your house, tie me to a chair, then ask for favors like we’re friends, Korsakov.”
