The Cruelest War (Gilded Brutality #2)

CHAPTER 1

ROSE P.O.V.

The first thing I registered was the cold.

A bone-deep, gnawing chill that seeped into my skin, through the remnants of my silk robe, and straight into my marrow.

It wasn’t the sterile cold of Liam’s archives, or the crisp winter air of Manhattan.

This was the cold of damp earth and forgotten places, a tomb-like chill that clung to the air and tasted of mildew and rot.

My head throbbed, a dull, insistent ache behind my eyes, and my mouth was a desert, thick with a coppery taste that wasn't just thirst. Blood.

It always came back to blood, didn't it?

My eyes fluttered open, struggling against the heavy haze that clung to my brain.

Darkness. Not absolute, but a murky, suffocating gloom, pierced by a single, weak bulb hanging from the ceiling like a dying star.

The light cast long, dancing shadows, turning every corner into a potential threat.

My vision swam, but the blurred shapes slowly resolved into crude stone walls, slick with condensation, a concrete floor stained with something dark and unsettling, and the rusted iron of a bolted door.

A basement. A fucking dungeon, more like it.

A wave of nausea washed over me, churning my empty stomach.

I pressed my palms against the gritty floor, pushing myself up, a whimper escaping my lips as pain flared in my shoulder.

My arm was still screaming from where those bastards had torn the silk robe, dragging me away, but the deeper ache was in my ribs, a dull bruise blooming beneath my skin.

I could feel the rough fabric of what remained of the robe clinging to me, barely covering my breasts.

Shame, hot and prickly, joined the cold.

Liam.

His name ripped through my haze, a silent scream in my mind.

The image flashed, vivid and brutal: his eyes, wide and unseeing, staring up at the opulent ceiling of his penthouse, his dark hair fanned out around his head, soaking in his own blood.

The sickening crack of the blunt object against his skull.

The sudden, agonizing collapse of his powerful body.

Liam. My stomach churned again, bile rising in my throat.

He was gone. He had to be. No one survived a blow like that.

A sob hitched in my chest, raw and unwanted.

I swallowed it back, clamping down on the emotion.

No. I wouldn't cry. Not here. Not for them.

I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. The sheer, audacious nerve of it!

To drag me, his supposed "guarantee," away from him, to leave him bleeding and broken. Who the fuck were these people? Valentin, surely. The viper in Liam’s inner circle.

But the hulking figure, the one who delivered the final, crushing blow...

he wasn't Valentin. This was deeper. More complex.

A truth that now, I might never uncover.

I pushed myself to a sitting position, leaning against the cold, rough wall, my teeth chattering despite my best efforts to control the tremor.

My bare feet scraped against the concrete.

They had taken my shoes, my dignity, everything but the clothes on my back.

And even those were shredded. But they hadn’t taken my mind.

My eyes, still swimming with fatigue and terror, began to scan the cell, taking in every detail.

My historian's mind, a survival mechanism forged in years of dissecting ancient puzzles, clicked into gear.

No windows. Just that single, sad bulb. The air was stale, thick with the scent of dirt and something else... faint, metallic. Like old blood. Or rust. A drain in the corner, a dark, ominous hole. No bed, no chair, no amenities whatsoever. Just a bare, miserable space. My prison.

Panic threatened to overwhelm me again, but I shoved it down, hard.

Liam might be dead, but I wasn't. Not yet.

And if there was even a sliver of a chance he was alive, if he was out there fighting, I sure as hell wasn't going to roll over and die in this fucking hole.

My stubbornness, my infamous Collins tenacity, flared, a tiny ember in the freezing darkness.

A scraping sound echoed from beyond the heavy iron door. My heart leaped into my throat, hammering so hard I could feel it vibrate in my temples. Footsteps. Heavy, deliberate, approaching. The metallic tang in the air seemed to intensify.

The door groaned, a long, drawn-out shriek of metal on metal, before it swung inward with a jarring clang that made me flinch.

A tall figure filled the doorway, silhouetted against a slightly brighter, but still dim, hallway.

He was large, broad-shouldered, and completely masked.

Not a ski mask this time, but a balaclava, leaving only the cold, dead glint of his eyes visible.

Behind him, another man, equally masked and formidable.

My breath hitched. They were here.

The first man stepped into the cell, his gaze sweeping over me with an unnerving stillness.

He carried no weapon in his visible hands, but I could feel the coiled threat emanating from him.

His presence was as imposing, as predatory, as Liam’s, but without the complicated layers of desire and control that had defined our twisted dance.

This was pure, unadulterated malevolence.

He stopped a few feet from me, staring. I stared back, refusing to drop my gaze, even as every instinct screamed at me to cower. My chin tilted up, defiance a bitter taste on my tongue. Let them see it. Let them know I wouldn't break easily.

He finally spoke, his voice low, guttural, a rough cadence that immediately branded him as Russian. "Sleeping beauty wakes." His American accent was surprisingly good, but the underlying harshness of his native tongue was unmistakable. "Or should I say, moya roza?"

My blood ran cold. Moya roza. My rose. Liam’s pet name for me, whispered in moments of rage, of possessiveness, of desperate, brutal passion.

How did he know that? This wasn’t just a random faction.

This was someone who knew Liam intimately.

Someone who had been close enough to hear his private whispers.

"Who the hell are you?" I croaked, my voice rough from disuse and fear.

He chuckled, a dry, humorless sound that sent shivers down my spine.

"Impatient, aren't we? Just like Morozov always said.

A feisty little thing." He took another step closer, and the metallic tang in the air grew stronger.

His eyes, though obscured, seemed to bore into mine, dissecting me.

"We have a few questions for you, Rose Collins. About your... employer."

"I don't know anything," I lied, my voice wavering only slightly. "I'm an art historian. He... forced me to work for him."

The masked man slowly shook his head. "Don't insult my intelligence, devushka. We've been watching you. Watching Morozov. Watching your little games. Your 'curiosity,' as he called it. You found things. Things he couldn't see. Things about Valentin. And other matters."

My heart hammered against my ribs. They knew. They knew everything. My investigations, the crescent moon cipher, Valentin’s betrayal. It wasn't just Valentin himself, then. This was a wider network.

"I found nothing," I insisted, trying to project a blankness I didn't feel. "Liam kept me locked away. I was his captive."

"Oh, you were a captive alright," he sneered, his voice laced with a dark amusement.

"A captive he fucked on every surface of that penthouse, by all accounts.

A captive he entrusted with his most dangerous secrets.

A captive he chose to protect, even as his empire burned around him.

" He paused, letting his words sink in. "A captive he bled for. Quite literally, it seems."

The image of Liam’s bleeding head flashed again, and a fresh wave of grief, sharp and potent, tore through me. My jaw tightened. Don’t break. Don't you dare break.

"What do you want?" I demanded, pushing past the pain.

"Information," he replied, his voice losing its playful edge, becoming hard and sharp. "Specifically, we want to know what you uncovered about Konstantin Volkov. The old dog is more cunning than we thought. And Morozov, for all his bluster, was surprisingly blind to the true threat."

Konstantin Volkov. The name clicked into place with horrifying clarity.

An old member of the Bratva council, respected, almost a patriarch.

A man Liam had trusted implicitly. A man I had dismissed in my notes, thinking he was merely a peripheral figure.

But the name had come up in the older ledgers, the ones with the subtle crescent moon cipher.

The mastermind. My blood ran cold, fear a tangible thing clawing at my throat.

"I don't know who that is," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

My mind raced, trying to put together the pieces.

If Volkov was the true mastermind, then Valentin was just a pawn.

And Liam, for all his ruthless intelligence, had been caught in a trap far older and more intricate than he'd ever imagined.

The masked man took another step, closing the distance between us.

He squatted down, bringing his face level with mine, his eyes glinting in the dim light.

"Don't lie to me, Rose. We know Morozov was beginning to look into his father's old ledgers, the ones with the 'art history' project.

And we know he tasked you with finding the anomalies.

The anomalies that led straight to Volkov.

You are good, devushka. Better than you let on. And you saw something."