To Leonid, sparing Henry isn’t a mercy. After he kidnapped me, it became very clear thathisconcept of mercy is more twisted than what we know in the sane, civilized world.
His version of mercy is control. He’s granting me Henry’s life because it pleases him to show me who holds the ultimate power over everything I care about.
I realize, with a sudden flash of panic, the extreme danger of pushing a man like him even a millimeter too far.
Over the next two days, I feel worse.
Henry is alive. He’s fed andtaken care of…and by that I mean Leonid has him under twenty-four-hour surveillance.
But my life in this house feels like a gilded cage. Everywhere I turn, it seems like the walls are closing in on me. The guards at every corridor feel like executioners in suits, and my husband’s rules conspire to trap me entirely in his dark world.
It’s hard to breathe.
I’m suffocating.
What I need is realfreedom.
I need to know if I can break his hold.
And in a rushed, poorly thought-out impulse, I attempt an escape during Ace’s shift rotation, testing the mansion’s eastern wing.
I’ll have to go past the bedroom and down the stairs, and after the grand foyer, I’ll make it out through the massive door at the entrance.
I know it won’t succeed, but every instinct in my body screams at me to run. It’s a weak, pathetic plan born of pure panic, and I don’t even make it past the foyer.
Leonid catches me. Not Ace or Mikhail, but my husband himself.
I don’t need anyone to tell me I’m in loads of trouble. Who knows? This could be the day I finally die.
A few meters away from the living room, just down the corridor leading up to the kitchen, he steps out of a smaller door I could have sworn I’ve never seen before today.
There’s no one else in sight.
Leonid walks toward me as I skid to a halt, closing the distance like a predator tracking down a stray lamb, his dark eyes locked onto mine, with one hand stuck in the pocket of his navy blue pants.
“Going somewhere?” he whispers, and before I can even turn to bolt, he lunges forward.
My back slams against the cold stone wall, and the impact knocks the air from my lungs. He pins me there, trapping me between the hard wall and the burning, solid heat of his chest.
“Stupid plan,” he rasps, and mutters something else in Russian.
But I don’t say anything.
I can’t even argue.
My breath comes in ragged, shaky gasps, my chest rising and falling violently against his.
Adrenaline pours through my veins, but beneath the pure fear, my body betrays me completely. A treacherous, electric shock of awareness ripples through my skin everywhere we touch.
“Let go of me!” I hiss, struggling against his iron grip.
“No, ptichka,” he sneers. “What are you going to do about it?”
His grip tightens around my wrists, making sure they’re locked above my head against the cold stone, but the rest of him is pure, unadulterated heat.
I want to say I’ll bite him. I’ll bite him until he has no choice but to let go of me. But my brain shuts down the idea for a different reason.
The physical tension between us snaps like a live wire—a breathless push and pull where neither of us is willing to yield, yet neither can bear to pull away.
