Chapter 3
SVETLANA
For a moment, I think I'm hallucinating.
The cold does that sometimes. So does the hunger, and the pain.
My mind conjures up faces from before, ghosts of a life that doesn't exist anymore.
I've seen my father standing in the corner of this cell.
I've heard my mother's voice calling my name.
I've felt phantom hands that were gentle and kind, from other men who touched me before all of this, before I opened my eyes and remembered where I was.
So when I see Kazimir Orlov standing in the doorway of my cell, backlit by the dim corridor light, I think he must be another ghost. Another cruel trick my broken mind is playing on me.
But ghosts don't breathe or stare like they’re seeing one of their own. They don't have that coiled readiness that always made Kazimir look like he was one second away from violence. They don't swallow hard, fists clenched at their sides, brows furrowed as if thinking through what to do next.
He's here. He's actually here.
But the only reason a man like Kazimir Orlov would be in a place like this, in a cell like mine, is because he wants something from me.
I know what men want from women in cells.
"No," I hear myself say. My voice is hoarse, barely more than a whisper. "No, please—"
I try to push myself further into the corner, but there's nowhere to go. The stone wall is solid against my back. My body screams in protest at the movement—everything hurts, everything feels broken or bruised or bleeding—but my fear is stronger than the pain right now.
"Svetlana," he says my name again, and there's something in his voice I don't understand. Something that sounds almost like shock. "I'm not—I'm not here to hurt you."
I laugh. I can't help it. The sound comes out cracked and bitter, echoing off the stone walls, and it hurts, too, scraping across my throat that’s still bruised from where Pyotr choked me after I spat in his face. "Of course you are. That's what men do here. That's what this place is for."
"Listen to me." He takes a step into the cell, and I flinch so hard I feel something tear in my side. He stops immediately, hands coming up in a gesture that I think is meant to be reassuring. "I'm getting you out of here."
The words don't make sense. I stare at him, trying to process them through the fog of pain and exhaustion that's been my constant companion for so long at this point that I can't remember what it feels like to think clearly.
"What?" I mumble dumbly, my lips feeling thick from where Evan split them open.
"I'm getting you out," he repeats, slower this time. "We don't have much time. Can you walk?"
This is a trick. It has to be a trick. Some new game one of the men thought up, some fresh torture designed to break whatever pieces of me are still intact. Give me hope and then rip it away. Let me think I'm being rescued and then—
"I don't believe you," I say flatly.
His face creases with frustration, and his jaw clenches. "I don't care if you believe me. We're leaving. Now."
"Why?" The question comes out sharper than I intended. "Why would you help me? You didn't before."
He physically flinches at that. "That's not—we don't have time for this."
"We don't have time?" I feel something hot and vicious rising in my chest, cutting through the numbness that’s settled over me like a fog. "You show up here and tell me we don't have time? You left me. You and Ilya both. You walked away, and you left me to—to—"
My voice breaks. I hate that it breaks. I hate that even now, even after everything, I can still feel the betrayal like a fresh wound.
That night is burned into my memory. The warehouse.
The cold that felt so awful then, but now would feel like a balm compared to the Russian cold.
Mara Winslow, comforting me, encouraging me, helping me despite how our paths crossed.
Sergei dragging us back into our chains when we were on the verge of escape.
The fear of having a gun pressed to my head, knowing I was going to be tortured to death because the alternative was Ilya choosing me over Mara, and I knew he never would.
And then the shootout, the smell of blood and death and gunpowder and gore, the fear, the chaos.
The moment when I realized I’d been saved and Sergei was dead, but knowing that hadn’t fixed anything for me, because I’d failed to keep Ilya.
My engagement was still broken, and I knew I was better off dead than facing my father with that news.
I’d seen Kazimir notice me cowering against one of the support beams, and he’d taken one step toward me.
Just one, before Ilya told him to stop. And I’d hoped, during the brief span of that one step, that he was going to take me out of the warehouse and I would have a moment alone with him, a chance to beg him to get me to safety.
I’d seen the way he looked at me, now and then, when he thought no one would notice.
I thought I could convince him to help, to get me out of the city somehow, away from my father, before my world could collapse in on me.
But Ilya ordered him to stay and, like a dog, he did what he was told.
Now I’m here.
Ilya had looked at me like he couldn’t care less if I was dead. Kazimir had looked at me like—like it hurt him to walk away. But he'd done it anyway.
They both had.
"You had a choice then," I whisper, my voice thready and shaking. "You chose to leave me."
Kazimir's hands curl into fists at his sides. "I had no choice then. Ilya—"
"Ilya, what?" I cut him off. "Ilya ordered you to abandon me? And you just followed orders like a good little soldier?"
"Yes." The word comes out hard and flat. "That's exactly what I did. Because that's what I am. That's what I've always been."
The honesty of it catches me off guard. I expect him to make excuses, to justify what he did. But he just stands there, looking at me with what almost looks like regret.
"But I have a choice now," he continues. "And I'm choosing to get you out of here. So you can hate me all you want, Svetlana, but you need to decide right now if you want to stay in this cell or if you want to take the chance I'm offering you."
I stare at him. My mind is racing, trying to find the trap, the angle, the reason this can't possibly be real. I glance down the hallway behind him, but there’s no one else that I can see. I can’t see a trap, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one waiting.
"What's the plan?" I finally ask, my voice cracking.
Relief crosses his face. "The compound is mostly asleep. Iosef and his men are all drunk to hell. There are guards, but I watched their rotations, and there’s a door at the end of the hallway with the cells.
If there’s anyone watching it, I’ll take them out.
We’ll get a vehicle out of the garage and get to a point where I can radio for extraction.
I’ll get you out of here and back to Boston. ”
I stare at him. It sounds too good to be true. It probably is. But what’s the alternative? Keep rotting in here until they finally decide to give me another chance to be their toy?
“Can you walk?” Kazimir asks again impatiently, and I glance down at myself.
I’m wearing a threadbare silk slip, which is torn and filthy now, and my feet are bare.
I have bruises on top of bruises, cuts that haven't healed, ribs that might be cracked.
I haven't eaten a full meal in longer than I can remember.
"I don't know," I admit.
"We'll have to find out." He moves closer, carefully, like he's approaching a wounded animal. "I'm going to help you up."
Every instinct I have screams at me not to let him touch me. But every instinct I have also screams at me to get out of this cell, to take any chance at freedom, no matter how slim.
I don't have anyone else. No one else is coming for me. No one else even knows I'm here.
It's Kazimir or nothing.
"Fine," I bite out. "But don't think this means I forgive you. Don't think this makes us even. You owe me this. You owe me so much more than this."
"I know," he says quietly.
He reaches for me, and I let him. His hands are careful as he grips my arms and slowly lifts me up.
Pain explodes through my body, and I bite down on my lip hard enough to taste blood, refusing to cry out.
With the possibility of freedom on the horizon now, I’m afraid that if I’m too weak, he’ll leave me after all.
I don’t know why he’s sticking his neck out for me like this when he never did before, but I can’t help but think that it won’t last if I can’t keep up.
My legs shake when I try to put weight on them. The room tilts and spins. Kazimir's arm slides around my waist, supporting me, and I hate how much I need it.
"Can you make it?" he asks.
"I don't have a choice, do I?" I grit out through the pain, hating all of this. My body doesn’t feel like mine any longer. It used to be strong, fit, capable of posing in all sorts of contortions for photographers, gliding across a stage, performing jumps and turns, walking into ballrooms in impossibly high heels. My once-injured knee has been painful since I got here, but it’s disappeared into the mass of other hurts.
"No," he agrees gruffly. "You don't."
With his arm supporting me, we move toward the cell door.
Each step is agony. My bare feet are still sore from where they were beaten after I tried to run, and the cold stone floor feels like ice against my raw skin.
The old cuts on my soles threaten to reopen, tugging at the skin, and I wince with every step, expecting to feel hot, sticky blood beneath my toes.
Just walking is more pain than anyone should have to endure.
But I keep moving because the alternative is staying here, and even though I can only imagine what they’ll do to me if we’re caught, now that the possibility has presented itself, I would rather die trying to escape than spend one more night in this cell.