Giving in—sitting down at that table and eating the food they’ve provided—feels like surrender. I’m not ready to surrender.
I spend the day pacing the bedroom, testing the window latches (locked), examining the camera angle (comprehensive coverage with minimal blind spots), and mapping the guard rotation schedule through the crack beneath the door. They change every four hours, precise and professional.
The new dinner tray arrives at six. I leave it outside the door again.
By evening, my hands shake when I stand too quickly. The room tilts slightly when I move from the bed to the window. I know this is stupid, pointless resistance that only hurts me.
It’s the only control I have left.
The door opens without warning just after 8:00 p.m. Felix enters, his gaze sweeping the room before landing on me standing by the window. He’s changed from the blood-streaked suit into dark slacks and a white shirt with sleeves rolled to his forearms, looking more like he belongs in a boardroom than overseeing my captivity.
His eyes shift to the untouched dinner tray sitting in the hallway, then back to me.
“You’re not eating.”
I don’t respond. I turn back to the window, staring at the tree line beyond the manicured grounds. The woods are dense enough that I can’t see through them, but somewhere beyond that perimeter is the road we took last night, the city, my life.
“This accomplishes nothing,” he says, his tone carrying less patience than it did yesterday. “Not eating doesn’t weaken me. It weakens you.”
“Good.” My voice comes out hoarse from disuse and dehydration. “Maybe I’ll pass out and you’ll have to explain to whoever’s watching those cameras why your hostage is unconscious.”
“You’re not a hostage.”
I turn to face him, anger flaring hot enough to cut through the exhaustion. “What would you call it?”
“Protected custody.”
“Fuck your semantics.” The curse feels sharp and satisfying in my mouth. “You kidnapped me, brought me here against my will, and won’t let me leave. Call it whatever sanitized bullshit makes you sleep better, but don’t insult me by pretending this is protection.”
His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, the only crack in his controlled exterior. “You were being abducted by men who would have killed you after extracting whatever information you had. I prevented that.”
“Replaced it with a prettier cage.” I gesture around the room, my movements sharper than I intend. “You think I don’t see what this is? Comfortable furniture, nice clothing, meals delivered on schedule—it’s all just window dressing for imprisonment.”
“Then eat the food and be a comfortable prisoner.” He steps farther into the room, closing the distance between us with deliberate precision. “Starving yourself doesn’t change your circumstances. It only ensures you’ll be weak when opportunities arise.”
The phrasing catches me off guard. Opportunities, plural. As if he’s acknowledging escape routes might exist, or situations where I’d need physical strength to act.
“Did you kill my brother?”
The question comes out before I fully decide to ask it, raw and desperate. I’ve been circling it since I found his name in Ethan’s files, since the surveillance footage showed him watching me sleep, since he dragged me into this estate and made it clear I’m not leaving.
Felix goes still. Not the frozen stillness of surprise, but the controlled stillness of someone deciding how much truth to reveal.
“Answer me.” My voice cracks despite my effort to keep it steady. “Did you kill Ethan?”
“No.”
The word is simple, definitive, but his expression remains unreadable. I search his face for signs of deception—hesitation, deflection, the subtle tells that suggest lying—and find nothing conclusive.
“You knew he was going to die.” It’s not a question this time.
His silence stretches long enough to feel like confirmation. The air between us grows heavier, charged with something that makes my chest tighten painfully.
“You knew,” I repeat, and the composure I’ve been clinging to fractures. Tears gather despite every effort to holdthem back, hot and unwelcome. “You knew Sartore was going to kill him and you did nothing.”
“I didn’t kill your brother.” His tone doesn’t soften, doesn’t offer comfort. “I knew he was investigating things that made him a liability, and I knew Sartore would handle it.”
“Handle it.” The euphemism is obscene. “You mean murder him and stage it as an accident.”
