Or hopelessness.
I dig my nails into my arms, just enough to sting, just enough to feelsomethingbesides the creeping numbness that’s threatening to consume me.
How the hell is Maksim going to find me?
Does he even know I’m gone?
A cruel voice in my head whispers that maybe he doesn’t. That maybe he’s still chasing down dead ends, tearing thecity apart one building at a time while I rot here in this cage Mikhail built out of cold tiles and quiet punishment. There’s no telling if Maksim even knows I was in the accident. Leo and I were pulled from the wreckage within seconds of being hit.
Who’s to say our disappearance isn’t simply being treated as another attempt at a run-away? That I faked the entire thing just to get away from him and his Bratva again?
No.I can’t think like that. I have to believe he knows what happened and he’s doing everything he can to find out where the hell we’d been taken to. Maksim would know better than to believe some crude lie that I up and took Leo not only away from him, but away from the only family he’s ever known.
Maksim would never stop looking for us.
I bet he’s already burning the city to the ground. I bet the streets are crawling with his men, that his enemies are shaking under the weight of his fury, that every contact and favor and bribe he’s ever stockpiled is being called in one by one until the whole criminal underworld has whispered that Maksim Antonov is out for blood, and anyone who stands in his way will soon face his reckoning.
He has to.
Hewill.
But hope is a fragile thing.
It trembles in my chest like a bird caught between my ribs, wings fluttering weakly, desperate for escape. One cruel word, one broken promise, and it could die in an instant. The thought of him, the certainty of him looking for us, isall that keeps me from unraveling completely. And yet even that certainty feels dangerous, like walking on a tightrope across a bottomless pit.
Because what if he doesn’t make it in time?
What if he’s already too late?
What if Leo is…
I choke the thought down before it can finish. My nails dig into my skin hard enough to leave crescents, grounding me in pain instead of despair. I can’t let myself think like that. If I do, I’ll break. If I break, then Mikhail wins.
Hours pass, or maybe days.
Time folds in on itself inside this room. Still, no food, no water, is brought to my room after the incident. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. The fluorescent light overhead hums softly, mocking me. My stomach aches, in part hunger and another part fear that hasn’t let go of me since I wrapped those cuffs around that nurse’s throat.
I get up and lie down again on the bed under the thin sheets, not because I want to rest but because I can’t keep huddling on the floor curled up in a ball, naked. My body has limits, and I’m dangerously close to crashing into them.
The second I close my eyes, they flutter open again. Every time I drift into unconsciousness, something yanks me back—the memory of Leo’s crying echoes in my head, unrelenting.
I curl my arms around my middle and breathe slowly.
In.
Out.
Don’t break. Don’t break…
But then the door creaks open with that soft, mechanical click, the hiss of hinges that haven’t moved in hours making me bolt upright. I clutch the sheets around my body, shielding myself from view.
A figure slips through the doorway, shutting the door softly behind. It takes a second for my brain to register who it is, but when she turns around to face me, I see her.
The nurse. The one I choked.
Her face is blotchy—red and tear-streaked like she’s been crying the entire time she’s been gone. There’s a shadow across her cheek, a dark smear that could be from a slap, or a punch from someone higher up punishing her for not seeing me snapping and trying to take her as my own hostage.
She doesn’t speak. She just stares at me, her chest rising and falling like she sprinted here. She has a small bundle of folded clothes clutched to her chest with one arm. In the other, I notice something strange. Something that glints silver in the light overhead.