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We sit with that for a moment. The library is quiet, except for the faint ticking of the radiator pipes and the muffled sound of Mara’s claws on stone somewhere down the hall.

“You said she tried to run,” Iosif says at last.

“Yeah, I was testing her. She went out through the bathroom window, without any fucking shoes on.”

“Testing her?” Valentin quirks a brow.

“Yeah. I can’t get a read on her.” When she gets tears in her eyes, it makes my brain short-circuit. It’s highly goddamn inconvenient.

Iosif stares at me. “What makes you think we can?”

“Safety in numbers,” I quip dryly. “Stop fucking interrogating me. Interrogate her. That’s why I called you.”

Trifon looks at me with those dark blue eyes of his, just like our father’s once were. “This isn’t like you, Leonid,” he says.

“What isn’t?”

“Relenting. I’m assuming she’s a beautiful woman. Is that why?”

Every word narrows my eyes further. “Just what are you accusing me of? Yeah, she’s fucking gorgeous. But that’s not why I’ve got her tied to a chair in there. It’s because I give a shit that she’s the closest thing we’ve gotten to a tangible lead in this year-long goose chase and I’m not leaving it up to chance. If I have a blindspot, and I’m not saying I do—”

“Leo,” Iosif huffs, his features twisting into a frown. “No one’s attacking you, bratan. Don’t forget, man, I’ve been where you are. It fucks with your head. I get it. Trif is only—”

My eyes roll. “You’ve been nowhere near where I am, actually. You fell for a woman who was being used as a target in an axe-throwing bar, who you saved out of sheer pity. I purchased a woman at a trafficking auction based on an anonymous tip while hunting a mole that’s been bleeding our families dry for a year. I have no interest in her. I haven’t married her to protect her, unlike some people in this room.” By which I mean every single one of them.

Valentin, at least, has the sense to look sheepish. “‘Kay, don’t rip off our heads. Let’s just get to it if we’re gonna get to it.”

“Fine.” I nod. It’s what I asked for. It’s what I need.

“Iosif, you lead,” Trifon orders, “and keep it conversational. Use the Janella angle. Val, you push when it’s time to push. I’ll bridge the gap. Leo, you coming in, at least?”

I stare at him, my gaze withering, and the walls of my stomach clenching like a fist. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I?”

***

Opening the door to this particular woman secured to an antique armchair with a pair of silk ties has all the potential to be an image plucked from my darkest fantasies.

Instead, it’s a goddamn nightmare.

Four trusted men are standing guard, watching her with eagle-eyed vigilance. After Trifon dismisses them with a single nod, he and my other two brothers precede me into the room.

The church safehouse is largely an open-plan space. I haven’t changed it too much. Hence, one of the couple of rooms allotted to the space is on the smaller, cozier side. This particular room that serves as my bedroom when I stay here—which has been a lot over the past year, more than my brothers know—is nowhere near as grand as the sprawling bedroom at the penthouse. And this fact is abundantly clear when all of our considerable builds cram into the space together.

It had felt like a kindness, before, to tie her with swaths of silk instead of cuffs or ties that would bite at her already wounded wrists. Now, it only feels sickeningly suggestive. I have to force myself to look at her.

Her eyes await me, bright with loathing and betrayal.

I sigh away the knot in my chest and take up a post against the wall by the sparse wardrobe. I say nothing at all.

Iosif pulls up the metal chair one of the guards had been using, flips it around, and drops into it with his arms folded at the top. It’s usually fucking hilarious to me, the way Iosif can pivot from an intimidating figure to a Labrador with a shiny black coat. “Hey,” he says. “Meera, right?”

He speaks so casually, there isn’t a soul who could blame her for being disarmed by it. There’s a friendliness that’s fucking ridiculous, paired with the fact that she’s tied to a chair right now.

It worries me that Meera refuses to look disarmed. Her gaze is withering, but the rest of her expression remains impassive. It doesn’t help her case that she says nothing at all.

“I’m Iosif,” he perseveres, never missing a beat. “That’s Valentin. And Trifon. You already know Leo. You want some water before we dive into shit?”

Meera blinks and doesn’t answer. It appears as if she’s fighting herself over it, since she purses her full mouth into a thin, hard line.