his overwhelming presence, I tell myself as footsteps approach.
I will not let Konstantin bully me any longer.
The curtain swishes back, and he steps into the hospital bay. It’s a small space, made even more so by his size and that crackling energy he carries with him at all times. It’s as if he’s so pissed off at the world that he gives off angry static.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Okay,” I reply. “I’m worried, though, about my grandpa. Are he and Grandma safe from this?”
“Yes, of course. Damen muddied your ties to them, and the phone you call them on is a burner. They’re as safe as I can make them.”
“But I can’t see them yet, not while this new stuff is going on?”
“No, Cassie.” He shakes his head. “I’m truly sorry, but no, you can’t see them at the moment. Once I’ve dealt with the Armenians, you should be safe to do so, though.”
I take in a deep breath and say the thing I’ve been dreading. “Will you pay for me to stay in a safe house or something until this is over?” I ask.
“You’re coming home with me, don’t need a safehouse,” he replies.
“I’m not,” I say. “I can’t, Konstantin, it’s all … too much. It’s scary and strange in your world, and I don’t belong.”
“It’s the only way to keep you safe.”
“If I come back, we’re finished.”
He laughs softly. “Oh, no, we’re not.”
“In what ways do you torture people?” I ask.
His face tightens, and his lips flatten to a straight line of pure rage. “Excuse me?”
“How do you do it?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“Do you have their fingernails pulled out?”
He winces. “No.”
“Do you waterbond them?”
He chuckles at that, some of the anger leeching from his features. “It’s waterboard, Cassie, and no. I don’t torture people.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise at his words.
“Liza knows fuck all about me. I presume that’s where all this is coming from?” He leans into me and fixes me with eyes that are gray not blue, and I know that means he’s pissed. “I don’t torture people, Cassie. Do you want to know why?”
I nod.
“It’s not effective,” he says simply. “I might give someone a slap, a few hits, put the fear of God into them to get them to talk, but actual torture? Breaking someone down? It’s not effective. They’ll tell you anything in the end. When we are trained in evade and capture, we’re trained to play for time in any captivity situation. That’s so our side has time to find us before any torture begins because most people will break eventually. And most people will break a lot more quickly than in the stupid movies.”
“Including you?” I ask.
“Including me.”
“So no torture, but you have killed. Have you ever raped anyone?”
He stands and then sweeps the plastic jug and glass off the table by my bed, sending them clattering into the wall. Thank God, I’d already had the water in the jug, or it would have made a mess. Footsteps sound, and a nurse pulls back the screen.
“We’re fine,” I say to him. “I knocked my jug off accidentally.”
Konstantin picks them up and places them on the table with studied calm. When the nurse is gone, he turns his cold gaze my way.
“You think that of me?” he demands. “You think I’d do that? Rape.”
“You said … to me you said…”
“Cassie, shut the fuck up and listen to me good. I don’t think you have a clue who I am.”
“No,” I say, “I don’t because you won’t show me. You’re all closed up and hard. You’re too hard for me, and you need to let me go.”
“I ought to let you go seeing as you think I’m so low I’d rape someone. I ought to never see you again for that. I can’t, though, because you’re not safe, and I need to keep you safe.”
“Why?”
He rakes a hand through his hair and looks at me. He diverts his gaze to the wall and sighs, then looks at me again. “I don’t fully know why, Cassie. You obviously mean something to me. More than any woman has in a long time. Liza is in this hospital somewhere fighting for her life, half her head blown off and pregnant, and I was with her for months. Yet, I’m here with you. That should tell you something.”
“She said I was too soft for this world you inhabit. I think she’s right. I thought I wanted adventure and romance and maybe even some