“I just have one question.” I forced the words out, holding myself together because if I didn’t, I would scream at him. And I was tired of breaking. “When you find Renat, will you take me back to Leonid?” Saying it aloud made my chest tighten. I looked up at him. “I heard it. You needed a kidney in exchange. So will you?”
Rodion leaned against a tree, his face turned away like he didn’t owe me a single answer.
“What do you want?” he simply asked.
He didn’t just say that. I stood, heat rising under my skin. “What do I want?” My voice cracked with breath. “I want to gohome, to wake up from this nightmare and remember it as just a bad dream. I want to go back to my parents and pretend none of this ever happened.”
He finally looked at me. “Something else?”
“I…” I raised my hands, frustrated. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Nothing?”
Saying nothing, I turned my back on him. It was useless. He would do what he wanted, with or without my words. He always had. I flinched when I heard him close behind me, his breath brushing my ear.
“Okay. Go,” he sounded like a threat dressed as mercy. “You’ve got five seconds to disappear.”
Startled, I spun to face him. “I swear, I’ll go.”
“Three seconds.”
I walked backward, afraid to take off. My eyes stayed locked on him, waiting for him to pull out a gun. But he didn’t move. I was ready to vanish, but his hand gripped my waist.
“Too slow,” he said, and before I could breathe, he moved and pinned me against a tree.
Fury surged through me. “Let me go.” I twisted, but his hands held me like iron. “Please, let go of me.”
His hand slid under my chin, angling my face. “I’m tempted to grant you one wish, Little Gem, but you are not creative enough.”
“I want to go home,” I whispered to his face.
“One last chance,” he declared.
What was I thinking? That he would let me go because he saw I was innocent? He found out and still sent me to Leonid instead of setting me free.
Gathering what courage I had left, I said, “Don’t send me to Leonid.”
The words came like a prayer. Useless.
“Done.” He brushed his thumb across my lower lip, and Istared at him. Did he just agree? “And what do I get in return?”
He was too close, and I was painfully aware of his eyes examining me like he could see through everything.
“I have nothing to give.”
He gave a low laugh, eyes flicking to my lips, then back to mine. “You have a lot, Little Gem.”
“What do you want?” My attention shifted to the pressure of his knee parting my thighs.
“Now we are talking,” he said. His thumb teased the edge of my mouth, trying to push it inside. I clamped my lips shut. “You’ll find out soon enough.” He pressed his body into mine, locking me against the bark. “Now go back in the house and have that wound looked at.”
He pulled back without warning and walked off.
“Can I ask one more favor?” My voice followed him as he walked away.
“We are done here,” he declared without looking back.
“Can I make one call? Just one.” I hurried after him like a child chasing something that might vanish. “I just want to hear my mother’s voice. That’s all.”