the sharp pinch of the needle in the top of my hand didn’t send my blood pressure diving like I expected. Maybe it was already too low. Or maybe being captive in this house changed my body’s perception of what I should fear. It wasn’t a needle or blood. Somehow, it wasn’t even D’yavol on his haunches in front of me.
I opened my eyes to see the IV was in, the bag set up. A cool fluid shot through my blood, up my arm. My tired, half-lidded gaze met Ronan’s, and the moment stretched through time and space as my body fought the poison within. But holding this man’s stare was like looking into a well that granted immortality. It shimmered, beckoning me to jump into its dark depths, and obliterated the fear inside I might never make it back out.
“Am I going to die?” The soft words escaped me.
His gaze darkened. “Nyet.”
One should never trust a monster, but as something heavy filled my chest, I believed him. If anyone understood death, it was this man with eyes as black as coal. That is, unless an unsuspecting victim got too close and saw they sparkled like tanzanite.
I let my head drop against the back of the couch. He still had puke on his hand, having wiped some of it on his pants, yet he looked put together, too composed to be real. The sight reminded me of his previous words. “I swam.” A memory resurfaced, of my papa teaching me to swim off a yacht in the Atlantic after he strapped so many flotation devices to me I would be carried away like a balloon in a strong wind.
A nostalgic smile touched my lips as I asked, “How did you learn to swim?”
He watched me for a second. “When I was eight, in the back seat of a car after my mother put a brick on the gas pedal and drove it into the Moskva.”
The smile slipped from my lips. I stared at him, the words tightening around my throat with cold fingers. He didn’t look away. He didn’t even seem to realize the horror of what he just said. Thankfully, Kirill interrupted the chaos in my mind by handing me a mask and gesturing for me to place it over my mouth. Avoiding Ronan’s gaze, I breathed the treatment in for a few seconds while the doctor checked my blood pressure and spoke to him in Russian.
Suddenly too tired to keep my eyes open, I drifted in and out of consciousness.
I woke to movement and the softness of my bed beneath me.
“Up,” Ronan said.
Understanding the command, I groggily lifted my arms, and he pulled my dress over my head. He ripped the seam from the collar to the sleeve so he could get it off with the IV in my hand. It was my favorite dress, but I didn’t have the energy to complain. Not even as he unclipped my sweat-soaked bra and pulled it off along with my underwear and socks.
I was naked, inside and out. On his haunches beside me, he worked the IV bag through my bra strap, and my chest tightened when I saw the faint mark on his cheek. I couldn’t stop myself from running my fingers across it.
He stilled, eyes lifting to mine.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “For hitting you.”
We stared at each other so long my hand grew tired and slipped from his face. I must have fallen asleep again. When I opened my eyes, Ronan was gone, and Kirill silently read a book in a chair beside my bed.
agathokakological
(adj.) composed of both good and evil
Albert occupied the chair in front of my desk, his careful gaze and silence on my skin. He had a good reason to be cautious. It was a while since I’d been so angry my hands shook—three months exactly, when I found Pasha’s body mutilated by Mikhailov hands.
The irony of the situation was one of the reasons I’d forced myself to sit here and wait for the rage to cool before I shot my men one by one to find the traitor in our midst. The other reason . . . well, it made me a little nauseous. It was the idea Mila’s soft eyes were almost permanently snuffed out by a cup of tea. The burn in my chest whenever I thought of it reminded me of the time I fought for air in an old Volkswagen filled with icy water.