"I made myself vulnerable for you. Ignored every red flag. Dismissed Mikhail's warnings. Chose to believe you were what you pretended to be. And the whole time, you were working for my arch nemesis.”
"After tonight, you're free." My voice drops back to cold neutrality. "Your family is safe. Your debt to Patrick is paid in blood. You can go anywhere, start over, build whatever life you want."
"Without you. Without Mila."
"Yes."
"That's not freedom. That's punishment."
"Then consider yourself punished." I turn toward the door. "Mikhail will bring you updates as they happen. If I don't make it back, he'll escort you and Mila to safety. If I do, he'll escort you to your family, and you'll leave immediately."
I walk out before she can say anything. Before the look on her face can crack through my resolve.
Lock the door behind me.
And head upstairs to prepare for war.
Because in six hours, Patrick O'Rourke dies.
And maybe then, with my enemy's blood on my hands, I can finally stop thinking about the woman in my basement who destroyed me.
Maybe.
Chapter nineteen
Valerie
Time moves differently in the basement.
I've been trying to track it by counting heartbeats and measuring the intervals between breaths, but everything blurs together into an endless stretch of cold silence and endless waiting.
Waiting to find out if Lev lives or dies.
Waiting to find out if my information was good enough, if Patrick took the bait, if this nightmare finally ends.
The uncertainty is its own form of torture.
I think about Mila. Wonder what she's doing right now. Probably sleeping, curled up with that stuffed bear Lev got her, completely unaware that her world might be falling apart.
She's going to hate me when she finds out. Going to feel betrayed by the woman she trusted, the one who braided her hair and read her stories and promised to keep her safe.
I broke that promise the day I walked into this house.
I think about Lev too. Memorize every moment we had together because they might be all I get.
The way he looked at me that first day in his bathroom—cold calculation mixed with something darker.
His hands on my throat in his study, the power dynamic that should have terrified me but made me wet instead.
Watching him with Mila, so awkward and trying so hard to be the father she needed.
The night he told me about Katya and Dmitri, letting me see the pain underneath the armor.
Every time he called me "milaya" in that rough voice that made me feel claimed.
I'm crying again. Quietly. Just letting the tears fall because what else is there to do?
Minutes pass. Maybe hours. The silence stretches so long I start to lose track of time.
