"Do I have a choice?"
"No," I say honestly. "You don't."
She nods slowly, like she expected that answer. "Then I'll pack."
She stands and moves to the closet, and starts pulling out clothes. Every movement is careful and restrained, like she's doing this through sheer force of will.
I want to go to her, pull her into my arms and tell her I'm sorry, that I'll keep her safe, that everything will be okay.
But I can't promise that. I can't promise anything except more violence, more danger, more reasons for her to look at me with that cold, distant expression.
So I just stand there and watch her pack, the silence between us heavy with everything we're not saying.
The transport is ready when we come downstairs—an SUV with bulletproof glass and dark tinted windows, the engine already running. Viktor is waiting beside it with two other armed men.
"Route is clear," Viktor reports. "We'll have an escort for the first twenty miles, then you're on your own."
I nod. "Keep the estate secure. Reinforce the defenses. And find out how the fuck they knew to attack today."
"Already working on it."
I turn to Liesl. She's standing a few feet away, her bag clutched in her hands and her face pale in the morning light. She looks small and vulnerable. Fragile and breakable.
"Get in," I tell her, opening the rear door of the SUV.
She doesn't argue or protest. She just climbs in and settles into the far corner of the seat, as far from me as possible.
I get in beside her, and Viktor closes the door.
The driver pulls away immediately, and I watch through the tinted windows as the estate disappears behind us. The damage is visible even from here—the broken gate, the scorched earth near the east entrance, the bodies being loaded into vehicles for disposal. This is what my world looks like. This is what I've built.
And I've dragged her into the middle of it.
I glance at Liesl. She's staring out the window, her expression unreadable. Her hands are folded in her lap, perfectly still, but I can see the tension in her shoulders, the rigid set of her spine. She's holding herself together, but barely.
"Liesl—"
"Don't." The word is quiet but firm. "Please. Just... don't."
I close my mouth and swallow the apology that was forming, the explanations and justifications.
She doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want anything from me except silence.
So I give her that.
We drive in silence through the city, then out onto the highway. The escort vehicles peel off after twenty miles, just as Viktor promised, and then it's just us and the driver. The safe house is two hours away. Two hours of this suffocating quiet.
I should be thinking about strategy, about the Volkovs and what their attack means for the larger war, about Alexander Baumann and how to finally end this. But all I can think about is the woman sitting beside me, so close I could reach out and touch her, and yet further away than she's ever been.
Two days ago, she told me she wasn't mine unless she decided to be. Today, I'm taking her to a safe house against her will, locking her away from the world and keeping her prisoner in a different cage. Proving her right.
I'm not the man she saw that night. The tender one. The vulnerable one. I'm the man who kills without hesitation, who drags her from one prison to another, who can't let her go even when I know I should.
I'm the monster she saw in that outbuilding, covered in someone else's blood.
And I don't know how to be anything else.
19
