25. The Trap
The Trap
The garden was quiet.
I'd been walking there for hours, my feet carrying me through the frozen hedges, past the iced-over pond, beneath the bare branches of the trees. The cold was sharp against my skin, but I didn't feel it. I didn't feel anything anymore.
Gabriel was gone. Nathan had shown me his true face. Aleksander was using me as bait.
I was alone.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it felt like relief. Like I'd finally stopped pretending and accepted the truth: I was a pawn in a game I didn't understand, played by men who didn't care if I lived or died.
I stopped at the edge of the garden, where the hedges gave way to the treeline. The forest was dark, the trees bare, their branches reaching toward the sky like skeleton fingers. Somewhere beyond them was the city. The diner. The life I'd left behind.
I turned to go back to the house.
And then I felt the hand over my mouth.
I woke up in a basement.
The floor was cold concrete beneath my cheek. My wrists were tied behind my back, the rope rough and biting. My head throbbed, a dull ache that pulsed with every heartbeat. The air smelled like mold and rust and something else—something metallic that I recognized from the warehouse.
Blood.
I opened my eyes. The room was dim, lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. There were no windows. No doors that I could see. Just the concrete walls and the damp floor and the shadows that moved in the corners.
And there were men.
They stood in a semicircle around me, their faces half-hidden in the dark. I counted five of them, maybe six. They were large, broad-shouldered, the kind of men who'd spent their lives doing violence. One of them was holding a knife. Another had a gun holstered at his hip.
The man in the center stepped forward. He was older than the others, his hair silver, his face lined with the kind of cruelty that comes from years of getting what you want. He was wearing a suit—dark, expensive, the kind Aleksander wore.
"Monika Mire," he said. His voice was soft, almost gentle. "We've been waiting for you."
I didn't speak. I couldn't. My throat was raw, my mouth dry, my tongue too thick for words.
"Don't worry," he said. "We're not going to hurt you. Not yet. You're too valuable for that."
He knelt in front of me, his eyes meeting mine. They were grey—the same grey as Aleksander's—but colder. Dead.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"Daxitr Volkov." He said the name like it meant something. "I killed Aleksander's first wife. Twenty years ago. She was beautiful, your predecessor. You look a little like her. The same dark hair. The same steady eyes."
I felt something cold slide down my spine.
"He's been hunting me for decades," Volkov continued. "He's killed everyone I've ever loved. My brothers. My cousins. My sons. He's been slowly, systematically destroying my family. And now he's found me." He smiled. "Or he thinks he has."
"You're the one he's been looking for," I said. My voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.
"Yes. And now I have you." He touched my face, his fingers cold against my skin. "He'll come for you. He always comes for the women he loves. That's his weakness. That's always been his weakness."
"He doesn't love me. He's using me."
"You believe that?" Volkov laughed—a low, ugly sound. "You really believe he's capable of using you and nothing else? I've known Aleksander Mire for twenty years. I've watched him destroy everyone who ever crossed him. And I've never—never—seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you."
"He's using me as bait."
"Bait, yes. But also love. They're not mutually exclusive, little one. He loves you. That's why he's coming."
I felt the tears building, hot and sharp, behind my eyes. I blinked them back. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
"He won't come," I said. "He'll let me die."
"No." Volkov shook his head. "He'll come. He always comes. And when he does, I'll kill him. Slowly. The way he killed my family. And then I'll kill you."
He stood, turning away from me.
"Watch her," he said to the other men. "I'll be back soon."
The door closed behind him. I was alone with the shadows and the cold and the knowledge that I was going to die.
He'll come. He always comes.
The words echoed in my head, over and over. I tried to believe them. I tried to convince myself that Aleksander would ride in on a white horse and save me from this basement, from the men who wanted to kill him, from the fate that was waiting for me.
But I couldn't.
Because I knew the truth.
I was just bait. A tool. A means to an end.
And when the end came, I would be discarded.
I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to the sound of footsteps.
The door opened. Light flooded the room, blinding me. I squinted, trying to see who was coming.
It was Volkov. He was holding a phone, the screen glowing in the dark.
"He's here," he said. "He's at the gate. He's demanding to see you."
I felt something shift in my chest. Hope, maybe. Or fear.
"He came alone. No guards. No weapons. Just him." Volkov smiled. "He's either the bravest man I've ever met or the stupidest."
"He's not stupid," I said.
"No. He's not." Volkov knelt in front of me, his eyes meeting mine. "But he is in love. And love makes even the smartest men do foolish things."
They brought me upstairs.
The house was an abandoned farmhouse—or it had been, once. The walls were peeling, the floors rotting, the windows boarded up. The men led me into the main room, my wrists still tied, my legs shaking beneath me.
And there he was.
Aleksander.
He was standing in the center of the room, his hands raised, his face calm. He was wearing a suit—dark charcoal, the same one he'd worn the first night I'd met him. There was no blood on it this time. No bullet holes. Just the man I'd come to love and hate in equal measure.
He looked at me. His grey eyes met mine, and I saw something in them that I'd never seen before.
Fear.
"Let her go," he said. "She's not part of this."
"She's the only part of this that matters," Volkov said. "You killed my family. My brothers. My sons. You took everything from me. And now I'm going to take everything from you."
Aleksander didn't flinch. "I killed your family because you killed mine. Elena. Our child. You took them from me. And I've been hunting you ever since."
"You think that justifies it?" Volkov laughed. "You think your grief is more important than mine?"
"It's not a competition," Aleksander said. "It's a reckoning."
They moved so fast I didn't see it.