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“You know where he’s keeping her?” Konstantin asks.
“The same place where it all started,” I tell him. “The house where Maksim died.”
81
PAIGE
Petyr leads me to a room upstairs. Strangely enough, The Tiger’s presence was a comfort. Now that I’m alone with Petyr, I don’t know what will happen next.
He pushes through a rotten wooden door to reveal a room with nothing but a moth-eaten mattress shoved in the corner.
“Don’t turn your nose up at my accommodations,” Petyr sneers when he sees my face. “This is what your husband’s home will look like once I’m through with him.”
“You really think the Tiger can kill Misha? He’s tried once already and failed.”
“Tut tut, princess.‘If at first you don’t succeed…’” His voice is sing-song, eerily light for the current mood.
He forces me onto the bed. It smells like mold and urine. I sit on the very edge, trying to touch as little of it as possible.
Petyr scowls down at my stomach, pure disdain written in every tired line of his face. “You’re close to popping, aren’t you? When is the big day?”
“None of your business.”
He smirks. “Once those babies are born, it will be.”
“These babies aren’t going to be born anywhere near you,” I spit. “You’ll be dead. Misha is going to kill you for this.”
He laughs manically. “Misha may be alive, but as long as I have you, he is powerless. He made the foolish mistake of falling in love with you. It makes him weak.”
“Only a fool sees love as a weakness.”
“If you were smart, you’d see that the only path forward for you and yourloveis to negotiate for me. It’s the only path forward for your children, too.”
I place a hand on my stomach, instinctively wanting to protect them from the pure evil standing in front of me.
He laughs and turns to leave. “I’ll give you some time to think about your options.”
When he disappears, the door locks from the outside.
Immediately, I stand up and rush towards the windows, but they’re all sealed. There’s a connecting bathroom, but those windows have been sealed, too. Even if they weren’t, I’d have a hard time escaping through them. Assuming I somehow squeezed my eight months’ pregnant belly through the tiny gap, there’s no ledge and nothing at all to climb down. There’s just a sheer fall to the ground below. It would be dangerous but perhaps survivable—if I wasn’t pregnant. But as it is, it would be a death sentence for either me or my babies. Maybe both.
I’m still staring out the window, contemplating my options, when I hear the rusted gates of this crumbling mansion squeal open.
Petyr’s reinforcements have arrived.
So I do the only thing I can do: I huddle in a corner, close my eyes, and clutch my pendant.
And I pray for a miracle.
82
PAIGE
When I peel my eyelids open, the world outside is still dark.
I make my way to the window and see that Petyr’s men have spread out across the property. They’re guarding all of the entrances and exits, snuffing out any hope I might still have of escape.
The lock to my door clicks open, and I spin around. On instinct, I search for a weapon, something I can swing or defend myself with—but the room is empty. So I brace myself against the window and wait for Petyr to appear.
