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By the time Mikhail is tucking the phone back in his pocket, I’ve convinced myself that this is almost over. If I just hang on for a few more minutes, Mikhail will untie me and hand me over to Ivan. I’ll go home with him.Home.To his mansion, his bed. I’ll be safe and warm wrapped in the heat of his body.
Jorden went through a phase a few months ago where she wouldn’t shut up about manifesting.Just tell the universe what you want and boom, presto-change-o, you’ll get it.I’m trying to believe in it, clicking my little ruby red slippers together and praying for Ivan to come bursting through the door.
But it stays shut.
And Mikhail’s grin grows wider.
“Oh, you poor thing. Is thatstillhope I see on your face?” Mikhail gives me a sarcastic pout. “Ivan is not coming. Is that what you were imagining? He isn’t coming for you.”
It takes everything in me not to dissolve into tears.
Mikhail senses the weakness and draws closer. His voice is a low, insistent hiss. “Are you finally realizing that you were nothing more than a pawn in Ivan’s game? He never cared about you. You were just the latest woman in a long line of them, willing to suck his cock whenever he felt the need.” I turn my face away, but Mikhail grips my chin and forces me to look at him. “Ivan Pushkin never gave a fuck about you and now, he’s going to marry Francia. You were nothing more than a distraction.”
I want to push back against what he’s saying, but I don’t have the energy. Not when everything he’s saying lines up so perfectly with what I’ve felt all along.
Ivan needed someone else. Someone better.
Now, he has that.
He has Francia.
5
IVAN
I watch Francia talk on the phone. Her voice is an annoying drone, like a mosquito’s. She isn’t saying anything useful.
The deal is done.
You know what to do.
As we agreed…
All I can think about is how close I am to Cora. She’s one phone call away. Right there, on the other end of this line. This is the closest I’ve been to her in days and I still can’t touch her. Can’t see her.
Is she conscious? Is she alive? I don’t fucking know.
The wrongness of not being with her settles in my veins. Especially as Francia hands me the phone.
Her lips are pursed. She’s smug in her success, however temporary I intend for it to be. She wouldn’t look so pleased if she knew all the sick fantasies swirling in my head. Most of them end with her in several distinct pieces.
I snatch the phone away without touching her hand and press it to my ear.
At first, there is no sound. No distinguishing background noise to clue me into where they might be holding Cora. I press the phone harder to my ear, desperate to hear anything. I’m about to reveal exactly how desperate I am and call out Cora’s name…
Then I hear something.
Shuffling. A struggle. Chains rattle and feet skid across a hard floor. But all of that is background noise to the main event.
Cora’s scream.
I know Francia can hear it through the speaker. She’s watching me carefully, but I keep mypakhanmask on and up even as I want nothing more than to rip it off and howl in rage. I’d smash Francia’s fragile skull against the wall if I thought it would help. But whoever she’s working for would kill Cora regardless. Francia has planned for that contingency. She is crazy enough that she’s willing to die before this mission fails.
I’m not willing to let Cora suffer the same fate.
So I bite my tongue and listen to her scream.
When she stops, she’s panting. Another voice comes over the line. A sneering voice I recognize all too well. “How is that for proof of life?” Mikhail Sokolov asks.
