Page 125 of Maksym

“Good to know.”

Her mouth softened. “If you tell me to stop asking, I will stop.”

I believed her.

That was the problem. Believing someone made refusing harder, not easier.

I drew one breath, then another, and told her my story. Lucia listened without interrupting.

Doc did too, though his jaw had tightened at the words human trafficking.

Maksym’s presence beside me changed subtly. Not surprise. He knew some of this, or enough. But hearing it in my voice was different. My account transformed from briefing to testimony.

I knew how to testify. That helped.

I continued to the night of my abduction—the parking garage.

My fingers wanted the glass back. I did not reach for it.

“Then I remember waking up chained to a bed in a house outside Phoenix with Lucian Devereux sitting in a chair beside me as if he had been waiting for a dinner reservation.”

The room became very quiet.

Lucia’s eyes did not flinch.

“How long?”

“Two years.”

Doc’s breath left him in a slow line.

I kept my chin up because if I lowered it now, something in me might decide that was permission to break.

“He used me as a blood source,” I said. “He liked educated women. Liked reminding me all my degrees and credentials and court victories were irrelevant once he closed a door. He shared me when it amused him. Starved me when it didn’t. I learned his routines. His guards’ weaknesses. Which staff were compelled and which were cruel without assistance. Eventually, I escaped.”

Maksym’s shadows stirred at the edge of the room. I saw them from the corner of my eye, like darkness considering a shape. I did not look at him.

“I reached Amethyst because I had heard enough to know there was a vampire king in Vegas,” I said. “A king whom Lucian hated. I didn’t expect to survive long enough to file the complaint.”

The last sentence came out dry. Too dry.

Lucia leaned back in her chair. Not away from me. Back into the weight of what I had given her.

“Thank you,” she said.

I blinked. “For what?”

“For answering.”

My throat moved. “You’re welcome.”

Doc reached for the charcuterie board and began assembling something on a small plate. Bread. Cheese. A slice of cured meat. A fig. He set it on the table within easy reach of me without comment.

Doctor, indeed.

I stared at the plate.

Then at him.