My chest tightens with something that feels uncomfortably like panic. Where is he? Why did he leave without waking me, without saying anything, without?—
He's not your boyfriend. Stop being ridiculous.
But I can't stop. I can't shake the growing sense that something is wrong, that the tenderness of last night was an aberration, a moment of weakness he's already regretting.
I'm about to give up and go back to my room when I hear it. A sound from outside—distant but unmistakable.
Screaming.
I freeze in the dining room, every muscle in my body going rigid. The sound comes again—a man's voice, raw with pain, cutting through the morning quiet like a knife.
My first instinct is to run back to my room, ock the door and pretend I didn't hear anything. Andrei told me to stay inside. Told me not to wander. And after everything that's happened, after the ambush and the deaths and the constant reminder that this world is dangerous, I should listen.
But I can't. My feet are moving before I make a conscious decision, carrying me toward the back door that leads outside.
The screaming continues. There's a pause, then another cry of agony, then silence, then the cycle repeats.
Someone is being hurt, deliberately. Methodically.
I know I shouldn't go outside. Whatever is happening out there is none of my business. I'm safer not knowing, not seeing, not being involved.
But my hand is already on the door handle, already turning it, pushing the door open.
The morning air is cool against my bare legs, raising goosebumps on my skin. I'm still wearing nothing but last night's pajamas, my hair a mess, my feet bare on the cold stone path that leads through the gardens to the outbuildings further out behind the house.
I should go back inside. I don't.
I follow the sound instead, moving carefully around the side of the main house, past the manicured gardens and the fountain, toward the cluster of outbuildings at the edge of the property. The screaming is louder now. Closer.
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my fingertips. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to turn around, to go back, to pretend I never heard anything. But I keep walking. The path curves around a stand of trees, and then I see an outbuilding—small, nondescript, the kind of structure that could be a storage shed or a workshop… or anything innocuous.
Except the door is cracked open, and the screaming is coming from inside. I stop at the edge of the trees, partially hidden by the shadows, and stare.
I can see movement inside. Figures. The flash of something metal catching the light.
And then I see Andrei.
He's standing in the center of the small building, his back to me, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. There's a man tied to a chair in front of him—bloodied, broken, and barely conscious. I can't see Andrei's face from this angle, but I can see his posture. He looks relaxed and controlled, like this is just another task on his list, something to be handled with the same focus as everything else.
He says something in Russian. His voice is low and conversational… almost pleasant.
The man in the chair doesn't respond. Can't respond, maybe, given the state of his face.
Andrei moves, and I see the knife in his hand. It's long and wickedly sharp. The blade catches the light as he turns it, examining it like it's a piece of art. Then he leans down and presses the tip of the blade against the man's thigh.
The scream that follows makes my stomach lurch.
I should look away. I should run. I should do anything except stand here watching as Andrei methodically tortures this man, his movements precise and deliberate, like he's done this a thousand times before… because he probably has.
This is who he is. This is what he does. He is not the man who held me last night, who fucked me slowly, kissing me, touching me, holding me afterward. He's not the man who made me feel ecstasy like I've never known, who seemed to come apart and show me bits of his soul as he came inside of me.
This is the real Andrei. The killer. The man who built his empire on blood and fear and violence.
I knew this. I've always known this, since the day he walked into his office while I was tied to a chair. But seeing it—watching him work, watching him hurt someone with the same hands that touched me so carefully just hours ago—is different. It's visceral and horrifying.
He asks another question. The man in the chair sobs something that just sounds to me like incoherent pleading.
Andrei doesn't seem satisfied. He moves the knife higher, pressing it against the man's shoulder, and?—
