Chapter Six
The house smelled likecitrus and salt and something warm baking in the afternoon heat.
Eliza stood at the kitchen counter with damp hands, rinsing the last of the fruit and setting it carefully into the crisper.The refrigerator was fuller than it had any right to be.Fresh produce.Proteins neatly labeled and sealed.Herbs wrapped in paper towels.There was enough here to plan meals, to think in days instead of minutes, and that alone felt like a luxury she didn’t know how to hold yet.
She closed the fridge gently and leaned back against the counter, letting herself breathe.
There were clothes folded on the island—too many.More than she’d owned in her apartment back in Washington.The memory of her life before she was taken snagged, sharp and unwelcome.
Washington.
The apartment that had never quite felt like home.The job that had looked respectable on paper and rotten underneath.She had been very good at it—good at seeing patterns, at holding entire systems in her head and understanding where they bent, where they broke.She’d told herself it was neutral work.Necessary work.
She knew better now.
She was carrying a lot of information in her head.Names.Numbers.Connections that formed a map of people who wore clean suits and did filthy things.And from what she was learning—slowly, carefully—most of them were evil.
Which meant if she was to trust him, she needed to know more about Nikolai.
And about the people he worked for.
He’d mentioned shutting down a trafficking ring with the man Elias when he called yesterday.Said it simply, like a fact, not a boast.She’d watched him when he said it, cataloguing what wasn’t there—no pride, no hunger for credit.If he was telling the truth, then they were the right people.
She wanted to be sure.
Footsteps sounded behind her, measured and familiar.Nikolai came in carrying two medium-sized boxes and set them on the counter with a soft thud.She finished drying her hands and turned.
The box nearest her was open.
A laptop sat inside, sleek and dark, the kind of machine built for serious work.Her breath caught before she could stop it.
“It’s for you,” he said quietly.“Thought you might want one.”
She stepped closer, eyes tracing the lines, the ports, the subtle details that marked it as top-tier.Better than the one she’d saved for months to buy.Better than anything she’d ever owned.
“And,” he added, watching her carefully, “the internet here is ...difficult to trace.”
She looked up at him then and smiled.
It surprised them both.
Something shifted in his expression—attention sharpening, then settling, like a decision being made.He nodded once.“Come with me.I want to show you something.”
He led her down the hall to his office- a room he pointed to yesterday when he showed her around, but never opened the door.
The space stopped her cold.
