We are done being cornered. Done playing defense. Let Mikhail think he’s still in control, let him believe this ends the wayhewants. We’ll show him reality.Truereality.
He has no idea the kind of reckoning we’re about to unleash.
3
IVY
When my eyes finally focus enough to make out what she’s holding, my entire body instantly goes numb.
A scalpel.
For a split second, I think she’s here to kill me.
To finish the job I couldn’t, to carve me open as retribution for humiliating her, for making her cry in front of her peer, for the way I wrapped that cold metal chain around her neck and pulled until her body thrashed beneath me, until she gasped and clawed at the chain desperately for air she couldn’t have. All because I wanted to use her as leverage against Mikhail. All because I never considered what doing something like that could do to a person.
I see it all over again now—the panic in her eyes, the way her fingers clawed at mine, the sound of her gagging against the metal links. I used her like bait. Like Mikhail is using me. And now she’s come back to return the favor. An eye for an eye.
The silver edge gleams under the overhead light when she shifts on her feet. It’s a warning, a promise of what’s yet to come. An inevitability I will soon face because I had been stupid enough to think Mikhail cared about his staff in some capacity.
I swallow, my throat raw.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t blame her for using it on me. Hell, if I didn’t have Leo to worry about, I’d gladly offer her my neck just to get this suffering over with. That would be simpler than this, more merciful than this slow erosion of my sanity day by day, being stuck here with no hopes of ever getting out.
“What are you doing?” I croak.
She doesn’t answer. She only stares, eyes glassy and haunted. There’s no fury in them, just a tired, distant look I know all too well.
Even though I know there’s no point in doing so, I hold my hands up in surrender anyway. There’s no reason for her to listen to me, for her to take mercy or pity on me when I nearly did the unthinkable. But still, I try anyway.
I try for my boy. “Please… don’t.”
Her entire body trembles.
Her neck is heavily bruised. Even in the dim, flickering light, the bruises on her neck are unmistakable. A harsh ring of purple stretches across the pale skin where the chain bit into her, my desperation on full display for me to see.
Guilt slams into me instantly.
God, I didn’t mean to hurt her. That wasn’t the point. I was trying to force Maksim’s hand, trying to get my son back. I wasn’t thinking about her. She was just the tool I needed in the moment.
And the worst part? She’s not even the enemy. She’s just another piece in Mikhail’s twisted game. A pawn, like me. Doing what she’s told to survive. Maybe he threatened her. Maybe he promised her something in return for her silence. Maybe he promised her nothing and simply expected her obedience like he expects it from everyone.
Maybe she just knows exactly what happens to the people who say no to him.
I hold her gaze, my chest aching, willing her to see me not as the monster who wrapped a chain around her throat, but as what I am now—a desperate woman who made a terrible, irreversible choice.
And what she is, what she’s always been, is unfortunate collateral. A bystander in a war she never asked to be drafted into.
When she starts to move, my heart stutters.
She approaches the bed slowly, fingers still curled around the scalpel like she hasn’t yet decided what to do with it. The bundle of clothes is still clutched tight to her chest, almost like a shield she’s prepared to use if I somehow manage to wrestle the blade out of her hand.
My mouth opens before I can stop it. “I’m so sorry.”
She halts, not far, just a few feet from the bed. She blinks in surprise like she hadn’t expected me to speak at all, let alone apologize.
The words rush out now, faster than I can stop them. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just… I was scared. Iamscared. You don’t know what it’s like to be locked in here. To not know if your child is alive. You don’t know what it’s like to imagine a thousand different ways he might be suffering without you. To picture it, over and over, because your mind won’t give you any peace.”
Her expression shifts, uncertainty flickering behind her guarded expression.