33. Katya
Katya
My eyes snap open, and the first thing I realize is how gummy everything feels, including my brain.
I sit up too fast, and the room tilts so much that I nearly vomit.
I press both hands to the mattress and wait for it to stop.
My neck aches. There's a dull, specific soreness, and as I press my fingertips against the spot, the memory arrives in pieces: the dinner table, the ripped shirt, the wire exposed, Artem's face very close to mine, the expression I almost named before?—
I get up and nearly collapse. My muscles quiver, but I press forward, grabbing the bedframe to steady myself as I make my way toward the door.
When I reach it, I collapse against it and pull the handle.
Locked.
I try again, harder, sure that my weakness is making it harder to open.
Still locked.
I step back. The gumminess is clearing as my heart starts to race.
Looking around the room, I realize it's not mine. It's bare except for a blanket, and the sight of it makes me panic.
I need to get out.
Now.
I move toward the window and try the handle. It doesn't budge.
I try not to scream as the panic claws up my throat.
I reach for a lamp and realize it's been bolted down. This isn't a guest room. It's a lovely, comfortable prison.
My mind isn't working right. All I can think about is getting out.
I slam my body into the door, trying to break it down. It doesn't move. I kick and slam my hands against it, trying to force it open.
It doesn't happen, and after a moment, when no one comes and my muscles are quivering from exhaustion, I stop.
Tears fall down my face, and I slide to the floor, trying to catch my breath.
Once more, nothing is in my control. I curl up in a ball in front of the door and let myself sob.
I've lost track of time, so when Artem opens the door, I'm startled. It takes me a moment to scramble to my feet. I'm grateful that he allows me the dignity to at least get off the floor.
My head is pounding, and I can barely talk, my tongue is so dry and heavy.
"How long?" My voice comes out rougher than I want it to.
"Eighteen hours."
Eighteen hours. I'd lost nearly a full day.
I think about the wire team Nadia mentioned, stationed nearby, monitoring.
I think about what they would have heard: the ripped shirt, my voice, the silence, and then nothing.
I think about whether that's enough for them to move.
Apparently not. And I have no one but myself to blame.
I underestimated Artem and overestimated Nadia — like a fool.
Luc tried to warn me, but my desperation got the better of me.
"You drugged me and locked me in a room."
"You wore a wire into my home." His voice is even. Uninflected. "You are working with a federal agent. You've been using the tunnel to circumvent your security." He tilts his head slightly. "Frankly, you should be glad this is all I did."
I stay quiet. I can't dispute anything, and honestly, I don't think Artem cares to hear my excuses. He's smart enough to know why I've done all this.
"You've lost certain privileges," he continues. "Your phone. Your access to the grounds. Your ability to come and go without direct supervision." He pauses. "These restrictions will be reassessed when I feel like I can trust you."
I stare at him, mouth dropping open slightly. "You're revoking my privileges," I repeat, not entirely sure I heard him properly.
"Yes."
"Like I'm a child."
"Like you're someone who made a significant error in judgment."
Something hot and absolute moves through me. I'm past the fear, past the disorientation, past the exhaustion of a woman who has been fighting the same war for months. What's left underneath all of it is something cleaner and more dangerous.
"Just kill me," I say.
He goes still.
"I mean it." My voice is steady. I'm surprised by how steady it is.
"If this is what my life looks like, locked in rooms, privileges revoked, six guards and a husband who drugs me when I inconvenience him, then I don't want it.
So if that's where we are, just finish it.
Do it cleanly. Don't make me live like this. "
The room is very quiet.
His jaw tightens once and releases. "Do not say things you do not mean, Katya."
"I fucking mean it. I refuse to live like this. It will kill me. So you might as well get it over with. No one would blame you."
His eyes flash. "No."
"Artem—"
"You could be carrying my child. Or have you forgotten?"
My hand strays to my stomach, and I feel guilt. He's right. I could be pregnant.
I look at him. He looks back at me with those pale, winter eyes that have always seen more than I wanted them to, and I try not to shake as my composure breaks.
"Six weeks," he says. "When we can confirm either way, I'll reassess the situation."
"You'll reassess my life in six weeks?"
"Yes."
"And if I'm not pregnant?"
He doesn't answer. Which is its own answer.
I cross my arms. I look at the window with its decorative iron bars and the garden beyond and the high wall at the property's edge where the hedge conceals the gap my grandmother showed me fifteen years ago and which Artem, apparently, has known about all along.
"Get out of my room."
He doesn't move immediately. He stands in the doorway looking at me, and there's a softness in his eyes that I hate. It reminds me of that first night together. He opens his mouth as though to speak, and then snaps it shut.
Then he steps back. Pulls the door closed. I hear the lock engage.
I stand in the center of the room and listen to his footsteps recede down the hallway, and I wait until I'm certain he's gone, and then I sit on the edge of the bed and put my face in my hands.
I don't cry.
I'm past crying. I wasn't kidding. I would rather be dead than live under Artem's thumb like this, and yet he's determined to keep me alive. Which means I have time.
Six weeks.
He's given me six weeks. Six weeks to think and plan and figure out how to get out.
I think about everything I know. The full shape of it, all the pieces I've collected and filed and refused to let myself look at directly until now.
Artem came here for revenge. Viktor is dead.
The Bratva is transitioning. I suspect the old guard wants an heir — they've never been pleased that Viktor's last living relative was female, and I suspect Artem has promised them that through our marriage.
As much as it pains me to admit, he didn't look fully on board when he came inside me, and he did think I was on the shot.
Not that it matters. I suspect Artem is playing all of us.
And there's Nadia to consider. Artem had known about her for months. The wire only confirmed what he already knew — and made things worse for me.
Artem moved every piece across the board, positioning everything for his final act.
Right?
I shake my head as I examine every moment between us. There has to be something I'm missing.
I think about what he said at dinner, before the wire, before everything.
Because I love you.
I've been treating it as mockery since the moment he said it. The smirk, the predatory quality of it, the way he moved toward me immediately after like the words were a setup for something else.
But.
I think about his thumb against my cheekbone in the office. The way he held me in the hospital doorway while I cried. How he made sure I ate and slept after my grandfather died.
I think about a man who spent three years building a machine of revenge and somewhere in the middle of it made sure my favorite foods were stocked in his kitchen.
I sigh. I honestly do not know who Artem is.
That's the most honest thing I can say. I don't know what's true, and I don't have enough information to decide, and I have six weeks in a locked room to figure it out.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the wrong ceiling, and I start, quietly and methodically, to plan.
Too bad I have absolutely no idea where to start.