Chapter Twelve - Diana
I’ve been planning this for three days, ever since Felix told me the endgame is keeping me alive “as long as necessary.”
I can’t live with indefinite.
The hallway camera outside my room has a blind spot I discovered by accident—a narrow angle near the stairwell where the lens doesn’t quite reach.
I’ve been testing it incrementally, stepping into the gap for longer stretches each night until I’m certain the monitoring room won’t flag the movement as suspicious.
Tonight, I move into the blind spot and stay there.
I count to sixty, waiting for alarms or footsteps that don’t come.
Then I slip down the back staircase toward the service level where household staff enter through a side door that’s supposed to remain locked but sometimes doesn’t latch properly when the night cleaning crew finishes.
The mudroom smells like detergent and damp coats. I grab the darkest jacket I can find—too large, hanging past my hips, but warm enough for November cold. My hands shake as I test the service door handle.
It turns.
The door opens onto a narrow path between the main house and the garage structures, barely visible in the ambient lighting from security floods positioned at intervals along the perimeter. I pause in the doorway, listening for voices or movement.
Nothing.
I step outside and pull the door closed behind me, leaving it unlatched the way I found it. The cold air hits sharp and immediate, stealing my breath. I didn’t think to grab gloves, and my fingers are already numbing as I shove my hands into the coat pockets.
The tree line sits two hundred yards across open lawn, dark and dense enough to provide cover once I reach it.
Getting there means crossing exposed ground where cameras sweep on timed rotations.
I’ve watched the pattern enough to know there’s a twelve-second gap when both nearest cameras pivot away simultaneously.
I wait, counting heartbeats, until the lenses turn. Then I run.
The grass is wet and slippery beneath my sneakers, the ground uneven enough that I stumble twice before reaching the trees. Branches close around me, shadows swallowing the estate lights. I push deeper into the woods, breathing hard, adrenaline screaming through my veins.
The fence runs parallel to the tree line about half a mile in, marking the outer boundary of Felix’s property.
I’ve studied the perimeter enough through windows to know the fencing thins near the eastern edge where the terrain gets too rocky for proper installation.
If I can reach that section, if the gap is wide enough—
There are footsteps behind me.
I freeze, pulse hammering.
Panic spikes cold and sharp. Lorenzo Sartore wants me dead. Felix said it explicitly—there are men waiting for me to make a mistake. If Sartore has people positioned outside the estate perimeter, if they’ve been watching for an opportunity—
I run harder, branches whipping across my face and arms, cutting skin I can’t stop to assess. The forest floor is uneven, roots and rocks threatening to trip me with every step. My breath comes in ragged gasps, lungs burning.
The footsteps behind me don’t falter. They maintain the same steady pace, closing distance incrementally.
I burst into a small clearing near what I hope is the outer fence line and stumble to a halt.
A man stands blocking my path. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a black mask that covers everything below his eyes. He doesn’t speak. He just advances toward me with the controlled precision of someone who’s done this before.
The knife appears in his hand—long blade catching moonlight filtering through the trees.
My scream tears out raw and desperate. I scramble backward, my heel catching on a root, and go down hard. Pain shoots through my tailbone but I barely register it.
The masked man keeps coming, closing the distance with terrible inevitability.
“Felix!” His name rips from my throat before I can stop it, instinct overriding the furious knowledge that he won’t come, that he’s probably back at the estate completely unaware I’ve even left. “Felix, please—”
The man reaches me. He grabs my arm and hauls me to my knees, forcing my head down with a hand wrapped in my hair. The knife presses cold against my throat—not cutting, but present enough that I feel every breath move my skin against the blade.
This is it. This is how I die—in the woods half a mile from captivity that might have kept me alive, killed by men who were waiting for exactly this mistake.
I close my eyes, tears streaming hot against the freezing air.
The knife withdraws, and the hand in my hair releases.
I collapse forward onto my hands, gasping, waiting for the blade to return and finish what it started.
Instead, fabric rustles. The mask comes off.
I look up slowly, vision blurred with tears and terror.
Felix stands over me, completely calm, holding the mask in one hand and the knife in the other. His pale eyes assess me with clinical detachment, expression giving away nothing.
“This is what would have happened,” he says quietly, voice steady and controlled, “if it wasn’t me.”
The words don’t process immediately. I stare at him, breathing hard, trying to reconcile the man who just held a knife to my throat with the one who’s been feeding me dinner and apologizing for letting my brother die.
“You…” My voice breaks. “You were following me.”
“From the moment you left your room.” He sheathes the knife at his belt with practiced ease. “You disabled the hallway camera at 9:47. Then you slipped out the service entrance at 10:03. Made it to the tree line in thirty-five seconds, which is faster than I expected given the terrain.”
He tracked every move. Let me think I was escaping while orchestrating the entire thing.
Fury floods through the terror, hot enough to override the shaking in my hands. “You let me think I was going to die.”
“I let you see what death looks like.” He extends a hand toward me, offering help I don’t want.
“There are men positioned outside this estate waiting for you to make one mistake. Sartore has people watching the perimeter, tracking patterns, calculating when you’ll try exactly what you attempted tonight.
If I hadn’t been following you, if someone else had been in this clearing, you’d be dead. ”
I don’t take his hand. I push myself upright on trembling legs, branches and dirt clinging to the oversized coat. “So this was a lesson.”
“This was reality.” He lowers his hand but doesn’t step back. “You think you’re a prisoner inside the estate. Those walls are the only thing keeping you alive. The moment you cross the property line, you become prey.”
“I’m already prey.” The words come out sharper than intended. “You’re just a different predator.”
Something flickers in his expression—acknowledgment, maybe, or agreement. “The difference is I don’t want you dead.”
“You just want me caged.”
“I want you alive and breathing.” His voice drops lower, edged with something that sounds almost like frustration. “Which apparently requires demonstrating what happens when you try to leave.”
My legs give out. I sink back onto my knees in the dirt and wet leaves, adrenaline crashing hard enough that my vision blurs at the edges.
The knife was real. The threat was real.
For thirty seconds I believed I was dying, and he stood there watching me fall apart with the same controlled precision he brings to everything.
Felix crouches in front of me, close enough that I could hit him if my hands would cooperate. “Can you walk?”
“I don’t know.”
He doesn’t wait for certainty. He pulls me upright by the arm and keeps a steadying hand at my waist when I sway. “We’re going back.”
The walk to the estate takes twice as long as my panicked run into the woods. Felix sets the pace, his grip on my arm firm but not painful, guiding me around obstacles I can barely see in the darkness.
Guards materialize from the tree line as we approach the lawn—three of them, armed, expressions neutral as they fall into formation around us.
They knew. All of them knew this was happening and let it play out.
Inside the main house, Felix releases me at the base of the stairs. “Your room. Now.”
I don’t have the energy to argue. I climb the steps on legs that threaten to buckle, aware that he’s watching me go but too exhausted to care what conclusions he’s drawing.
The bedroom looks exactly as I left it—curtains open, bed unmade, Ethan’s notebook sitting on the nightstand. Nothing has changed except my understanding of how thoroughly controlled this captivity is.
I strip off the muddy coat and collapse onto the bed fully clothed, staring at the ceiling until exhaustion drags me under.
***
Morning arrives too bright and wrong. Sunlight streams through the windows I forgot to cover, illuminating dust motes that drift lazily through air that smells faintly of lavender.
Someone cleaned while I slept.
I sit up slowly, muscles protesting every movement. My arms are covered in shallow cuts from branches, dirt still embedded beneath my fingernails despite the shower I vaguely remember taking at some point during the night.
The bedroom door opens without knocking. The same maid who delivers meals enters carrying fresh linens, her expression professionally neutral.
“Good morning, Miss Clarke.” Her tone is formal, carefully polite. “Mr. Rudenko has requested your presence for lunch at noon. I’ve laid out appropriate clothing.”
She gestures toward the closet where I find garments I’ve never seen before—a tailored dress in deep burgundy, expensive fabric that probably costs more than my monthly rent, fitted precisely to measurements someone must have taken without my knowledge.
“I don’t want to have lunch with Felix.”
“Noon in the main dining room,” the maid repeats, already moving toward the door. “Please don’t be late.”
She leaves before I can refuse.
I stare at the dress for a long time, anger building slowly. This is performance. Theater designed to demonstrate control through civility, to remind me that resistance accomplishes nothing except demonstrating how thoroughly he owns every aspect of my existence here.
The knife in the woods was honest. This is worse.
Refusing to appear means guards will escort me downstairs anyway, and I’d rather walk than be carried.
I shower properly this time, scrubbing dirt from beneath my nails and washing my hair until it no longer smells like fear and forest. The cuts on my arms sting under hot water. I don’t bandage them.
Let Felix see the evidence of what his lesson cost.
The dress fits perfectly, which somehow makes it worse. I pair it with the plainest shoes I can find and leave my hair loose rather than styling it the way the outfit probably demands.
At 11:58, I descend the main staircase and follow the sound of silverware being arranged into the formal dining room I’ve only glimpsed through doorways.
The space is elegant and intimidating—high ceilings, chandelier casting warm light across a table that could seat twenty but is set for two.
Felix sits at the head, reading something on his phone, dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt that somehow manages to look both casual and deliberately chosen.
He glances up when I enter. His gaze sweeps over the dress, the cuts on my arms, my expression that I’m trying to keep neutral despite the fury simmering beneath.
“Sit.” He gestures to the chair at his right. It’s close enough for conversation, far enough that I can’t reach him easily.
I take the seat slowly, hands folded in my lap to hide the trembling I can’t quite suppress. A server appears from somewhere and places lunch in front of me—something elaborate involving roasted vegetables and beef.
I don’t touch it.
Felix sets his phone aside and cuts into his own meal with precise movements. “You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.” His tone carries the same clinical assessment as when he was holding a knife to my throat. “Starving yourself accomplished nothing last time. It won’t accomplish anything now.”
“This whole performance—” I gesture around the room, at the formal place settings and expensive food and the dress I’m wearing “—is worse than the knife.”
His expression doesn’t shift. “How so?”
“At least in the woods you were honest about what this is.” My voice stays steady through effort alone. “You demonstrated what happens if I try to leave. Fine, but don’t dress it up in tailored clothing and formal dining rooms and pretend this is anything except captivity.”
Felix sets down his silverware, giving me his full attention. “The alternative to captivity is death. I’ve explained that repeatedly.”
“Then kill me and be done with it.” The words come out before I fully decide to say them. “I can’t live like this indefinitely. I can’t spend the rest of my life in this house, under surveillance, waiting for you to decide whether I’m more useful alive or dead.”
“You’re not useful either way.” He leans back slightly, studying me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. “Your value has nothing to do with operational utility.”
The phrasing catches me off guard. “Then what does it have to do with?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Silence stretches long enough that I wonder if he’s going to deflect entirely.
“Eat your lunch, Diana.” His voice carries finality that suggests the conversation is over. “We’ll discuss your future after you’ve had time to recover from your lesson.”
I look down at the untouched plate, at food I have no appetite for but that refusing feels like giving him another victory.
In the end, I pick up the fork.