I follow him, but he’s too fast. The anger I just saw in his eyes wasn’t normal. I don’t want him to act on it. It’s easy to say I’d have Nivi killed, but that’s horrific in reality. And his anger promises serious damage.
I lose him after he turns a corner downstairs. I sprint into the corridor; it forks. I try the left path first, and when I don’t find him, I double back and take the right. There, just around the corner, he stands. Nivi stands in front of him, head bowed, the color completely gone from her face.
“What did you call her?” The roar in his voice echoes through the corridor.
“Slave,” she quavers.
His hand moves to his back. He pulls a gun from the holster and points it at her head.
“Say that again.”
Nivi glances up, then drops to her knees, trembling and crying. “I’m sorry, master.”
“What did you call her?” he repeats, his voice cold enough to freeze oceans.
“Wh—wh—whore.” She sobs harder.
He flicks off the safety. But before he can do anything else, I rush to his side and grab his forearm.
“No, don’t,” I gasp out.
His gaze shifts from Nivi to my hand. It lingers there for a beat, then rises to my face.
A storm rages in his gray eyes. His jaw is clenched tight, brows furrowed, gaze piercing.
“I’m sorry, master, please forgive me,” Nivi sobs.
Other maids gather behind us, but not a single one makes a sound.
I press down on his forearm, trying to lower the gun. He lets me. My hand slides from his wrist to his gloved fingers. I curl my own around them, wrapped over the gun.
“You don’t have to kill her,” I whisper into the small space between us.
He looks down at my hand over his. The tension in him eases—just a fraction. The anger settles into something like calm, but I can see the storm is still there, lurking beneath the surface.
I glance at Nivi. She looks like she might pass out any second. Now I feel terrible for her.
“Let her go.” I look back at him. “Please.”
He looks toward Nivi, his jaw tightening again. I press my hand over his. His eyes return to me.
“Punish her, then,” he says in that softened cold voice of his—still cold enough to send a shiver racing down my spine.
I turn quickly to Nivi. “Write a two-thousand-word essay on how you should have behaved, and read it every morning for a week.”
“This isn’t a school, Princess,” he sneers.
I look at him. “This punishment works everywhere.”
I tug his hand, pulling him away from the traumatized girl.
“This method has been used by the Chinese military to turn loyal American soldiers against their own country.”
I lead him back the way we came, rambling about psychological study, hoping to distract him from poor Nivi.
“They asked the soldiers to write down what they didn’t like about their nation, then made them repeat their own words back to themselves, over and over. They couldn’t argue, because they’d written those things themselves. And that way, they came to accept that they hated their country. Once they believed they hated it, they could turn against it.”
I’m breathless by the end of my speech—from talking, walking, and dragging this mountain of a man along with me. I release his hand once we reach the entrance to his wing.
