Chapter 17
LIESL
Iwake to pale morning light filtering through the curtains, and the immediate awareness that I'm alone.
The sheets beside me are cool to the touch.
I press my palm flat against the mattress where he slept, searching for some lingering warmth, some evidence that last night actually happened.
My body aches—a pleasant soreness between my thighs, tenderness in my breasts where his mouth was.
The physical evidence is there, but somehow it still feels like a dream.
Like I imagined the tenderness. The vulnerability. The way he looked at me like I was something more than a captive, more than leverage.
I sit up slowly, the sheet pooling around my waist. I'm still naked, and still wearing the evidence of what we did—his scent on my skin, the faint marks where his fingers gripped my hips, the stickiness of his cum on my skin.
The room is quiet. Too quiet. I listen for sounds of movement in the bathroom, the shower running, anything that would tell me he's still here. But there's nothing. Just the soft whisper of wind against the windows and the distant sound of birds outside.
He's gone.
The realization shouldn't hurt as much as it does.
Why would last night change anything? He's not mine…
we're not boyfriend and girlfriend. We're some nameless thing that out in the real world would be unacceptable.
It should be laughable to think that he would spend the whole night in my arms, that I'd expect to wake up next to him like we're a couple.
But knowing that doesn't make it easier.
I slide out of bed, my legs unsteady, and look around for my discarded pajamas. I need a shower, but something in me feels like I can't do anything until I see him again. Until I see him look at me, and find out whether everything has gone back to the way it was before.
I need to confirm that last night was real, that the man who held me so carefully actually exists outside of my imagination.
I pull on the lace-edged silky tank top and matching shorts that I was wearing last night before he came into my room, and slip out into the hallway. There's a guard posted now, and he steps forward.
"You're not to leave your room, miss."
I keep walking. "I need to find Andrei."
He follows, reaching out to grab my arm. "Miss—"
I sidestep, jerking away, and spin to face him. "If you touch me, Andrei will cut your hand off."
His eyes go wide. He's younger, and the threat seems to sink in. He takes a step back, hesitating, and that's all the time I need to make it to the stairs, hurrying down to the main floor of the house.
There aren't any guards in sight, and I head toward his office first. The door is locked, and when I knock, there's no response. I don't hear any sounds inside. I go to the dining room next, and see a plate and a cup of coffee abandoned, but no Andrei.
My chest tightens with something that feels uncomfortably like panic. Where is he? Why did he leave without waking me, without saying anything, without—
He's not your boyfriend. Stop being ridiculous.
But I can't stop. I can't shake the growing sense that something is wrong, that the tenderness of last night was an aberration, a moment of weakness he's already regretting.
I'm about to give up and go back to my room when I hear it. A sound from outside—distant but unmistakable.
Screaming.
I freeze in the dining room, every muscle in my body going rigid. The sound comes again—a man's voice, raw with pain, cutting through the morning quiet like a knife.
My first instinct is to run back to my room, ock the door and pretend I didn't hear anything. Andrei told me to stay inside. Told me not to wander. And after everything that's happened, after the ambush and the deaths and the constant reminder that this world is dangerous, I should listen.
But I can't. My feet are moving before I make a conscious decision, carrying me toward the back door that leads outside.
The screaming continues. There's a pause, then another cry of agony, then silence, then the cycle repeats.
Someone is being hurt, deliberately. Methodically.
I know I shouldn't go outside. Whatever is happening out there is none of my business. I'm safer not knowing, not seeing, not being involved.
But my hand is already on the door handle, already turning it, pushing the door open.
The morning air is cool against my bare legs, raising goosebumps on my skin. I'm still wearing nothing but last night's pajamas, my hair a mess, my feet bare on the cold stone path that leads through the gardens to the outbuildings further out behind the house.
I should go back inside. I don't.
I follow the sound instead, moving carefully around the side of the main house, past the manicured gardens and the fountain, toward the cluster of outbuildings at the edge of the property. The screaming is louder now. Closer.
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my fingertips.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to turn around, to go back, to pretend I never heard anything.
But I keep walking. The path curves around a stand of trees, and then I see an outbuilding—small, nondescript, the kind of structure that could be a storage shed or a workshop… or anything innocuous.
Except the door is cracked open, and the screaming is coming from inside. I stop at the edge of the trees, partially hidden by the shadows, and stare.
I can see movement inside. Figures. The flash of something metal catching the light.
And then I see Andrei.
He's standing in the center of the small building, his back to me, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
There's a man tied to a chair in front of him—bloodied, broken, and barely conscious.
I can't see Andrei's face from this angle, but I can see his posture.
He looks relaxed and controlled, like this is just another task on his list, something to be handled with the same focus as everything else.
He says something in Russian. His voice is low and conversational… almost pleasant.
The man in the chair doesn't respond. Can't respond, maybe, given the state of his face.
Andrei moves, and I see the knife in his hand. It's long and wickedly sharp. The blade catches the light as he turns it, examining it like it's a piece of art. Then he leans down and presses the tip of the blade against the man's thigh.
The scream that follows makes my stomach lurch.
I should look away. I should run. I should do anything except stand here watching as Andrei methodically tortures this man, his movements precise and deliberate, like he's done this a thousand times before… because he probably has.
This is who he is. This is what he does. He is not the man who held me last night, who fucked me slowly, kissing me, touching me, holding me afterward. He's not the man who made me feel ecstasy like I've never known, who seemed to come apart and show me bits of his soul as he came inside of me.
This is the real Andrei. The killer. The man who built his empire on blood and fear and violence.
I knew this. I've always known this, since the day he walked into his office while I was tied to a chair. But seeing it—watching him work, watching him hurt someone with the same hands that touched me so carefully just hours ago—is different. It's visceral and horrifying.
He asks another question. The man in the chair sobs something that just sounds to me like incoherent pleading.
Andrei doesn't seem satisfied. He moves the knife higher, pressing it against the man's shoulder, and—
I make a small, involuntary whimper. It's not loud, but it's enough. Andrei goes still. Completely, utterly still, the knife frozen in place. Then he turns his head, and his eyes find mine across the distance.
For a moment, neither of us moves. We just stare at each other—me in my silky pajamas, barefoot and horrified, and him covered in someone else's blood, a knife in his hand.
His expression doesn't change. He doesn't show any emotion at all. He just looks at me, and I can't read what he's thinking—can't tell if he's angry or surprised, or something else entirely.
Then he straightens, says something sharp in Russian to someone I can't see, and starts walking toward me.
I should run, turn and sprint back to the house, lock myself in my room, and pretend this never happened. But I'm frozen, rooted to the spot. Unable to do anything except watch as he approaches, his stride unhurried and his expression unreadable.
He stops a few feet away from me, close enough that I can see the blood spattered across his forearms, the cold calculation in his eyes—the complete absence of the man I thought I saw last night.
"Go back inside, Liesl."
His voice is flat and empty. The same tone he used when he first interrogated me, when I was nothing more than a mistake his men had made.
"What are you doing?" The question comes out barely above a whisper.
"Winning a war." He tilts his head slightly, studying me. "Keeping you safe."
"By torturing someone?"
"By getting information." He takes a step closer, and I force myself not to back away. "Your father clearly doesn't give a shit about your safety. So I'm handling it my way."
The words land like a slap. My father. The war. The constant reminder that I'm here because of choices other people made, caught in the middle of something I never asked to be part of.
"Andrei—"
"Go. Back. Inside." Each word is clipped. Final. "Now."
I open my mouth to argue, but movement behind him catches my eye. Two of his men are standing near the outbuilding, watching us. One of them—young, maybe mid-twenties, with a scar across his cheek—is staring at me. Not at my face.
His gaze takes in my bare legs, all the way up to the bottom of my shorts, then the visible press of my breasts against the silky tank top. It's cool out, and I can feel my nipples pebbling against the material. He takes it all in, and his gaze is hungry, appreciative. It makes my skin crawl.