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“Drive,” I bite out, bracing against the door, trying to catch my breath. “The farmhouse.Now.” Fuck. We’re twenty minutes out from the house, at best. I pull out my phone and dial, calling the man I left in charge in Yuri’s stead. No answer.We’re too late.
Kat may already be dead.
Chapter Seventeen
Kat
I sense it. Long before it happens, like a ship coming to shore, hidden in the fog. I swear that I sense it, and if I had more forethought or maybe just more confidence, I might even think to tell someone. Yuri isn’t here, but there are others. I could call Aleks.But for a hunch? Is it enough?
My face throbs, the place where I was struck with the ring especially. I slide out of bed, half-thinking of burying a pillow beneath the duvet, like I would when I was a teenager, sneaking out of the house without my mother knowing. But I don’t bother. I do grab a coat, a good one, and step into a pair of boots, despite otherwise wearing pajamas. Then I grab my pistol.It would be stupid, right?I think, as I pace quietly, silently, downstairs. Other than Aleks, we don’t keep any of the guards posted inside of the house, just out on the property.
So, as I go, I begin to turn off the lights.
It would definitely be stupid to sound the alarm just because of afeeling—right?But despite there being nothing obviously out of place, nothing to give any impression something is really going wrong, my heartbeat is haywire. I slowly pace the perimeter of the bottom floor, pulling back the drapes and shades as discreetly as I can and peering out through the glass.
There is no rain tonight. Instead, a thick, dense white fog blankets the grounds. It’s ominous, cloaking the hills, obscuring the outbuildings and even the trees. It seems to make the silence deeper. A kind of sinister insulation.
God…I wish that Aleks were here.Even given the circumstances, my face heats at the memory of how we left things tonight.What was that?That sweetness, that romantic side of him that he showed me tonight for the first time?
Or, no—I guess that’s not true. I’ve seen it before, in glimpses. He tries to be cold with me, to be as hard and unyielding as possible. But sometimes, his affection for me pushes through. And tonight, it didn’t just push through. He let it. He chose it. He put it first. And putmefirst.
Marriage…could it be different than I thought it would be? Could there be something like love in it? Could we make it something realer? Could we make a life, a family together?
After last night…I almost wonder if that’s what Aleks wants. Could it be? To be more than just married to me—but happy, too?
I hear something. It’s a tiny sound, like a breath or like a shift of clothing—but I hear it, nonetheless. Instinct kicks in, a cool low pulse beating through my veins. I slip into the hall closet, and silently, I close the door behind me.
It’s pitch black in here, but slowly, my eyes adjust. What little light that is diffused in the house begins to show through the line at the bottom of the door, and around it. I press my lips together. But between my raging heart and ragged breath, I swear I can’t hear anything. I try to focus. I press my pistol flush against my chest, and set my finger delicately against the trigger.
There—the softest sound. And this time it’s unmistakable: a footstep. My stomach lurches.
There is someone in the house with me.
My pulse rises to a deep, low roar in my ears. I press one ear against the door and listen more closely. Another footstep, then another, and then a third—so deft it could be a cat, and getting closer.How did someone get in without me realizing? How did someone get past the perimeter?
It’s as I’m standing there, gun against my chest, ear against the door, that a horrible thought begins to occur to me. It seeps into me like poison, slow and subtle, corrosive.
One of Aleks’s men…one of them is a rat.
It would make sense—wouldn’t it? It would explain how someone got in that night. We thought they were just being clever, sneaky, patient, to creep onto the estate through the perimeter—but what if those men who took me weren’t just good? What if they weren’t just lucky, that night?
What if someone let them in?
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.It’s the absolute worst-case scenario. Because it means that someone here can’t be trusted. It means that someone here has been bought or blackmailed. Someone who is meant to be safeguarding my life, has agreed to sell it. But who? And why?
And it would also explain, wouldn’t it, how elusive Konstantin has proved to be. What if one of Aleks’s men is tipping him off, telling him when Aleks and the others are out hunting, when they’re looking for him? It all adds up. I don’t want it to, of course, I don’t want it to—but it does. And whether it’s true or not, in this moment, doesn’t matter too much, does it? Because I’m still the girl trapped in the house with someone who wants to kill her. Enemy or ally, it makes no difference when both of us are holding a gun, and hunting one another.
And in this moment, as much as I wish it weren’t true, I’m on my own. I can’t afford to be timid or anxious or afraid. I need to be prepared to fight. I need to be prepared to die.Think of Adam,I tell myself, and that puts a little bit of steel in my spine.Think of your son.I do.
A calm slowly washes over me. I welcome it. And the roaring of my pulse begins to dim and settle, until my ears and eyes are adjusted enough that I actually feel alert, even at an advantage. I may be trapped in this house with a killer, alone, but I did manage to get the drop on them. Right now, somehow, I at least have the upper hand. Something that can prove pretty easy to lose, though, too.
The footsteps have fallen away, but slowly they begin to materialize again. I can tell from their proximity and the way they’re waning that whoever is hunting me is heading toward the hall, and probably the stairs, with my room being the ultimate stop.
Now the question: act, or evade? In another scenario, I’d wait until the intruder was upstairs, then I’d make for the back door and flee out into the dark. But given the conclusion I just came to, that might be the stupidest decision. I’d most likely be running right back into the arms of the enemy. Or someone that Ithinkis an ally. I can follow them, right now, while I still have the advantage of surprise, and catch them at gunpoint. It certainly sounded like there was only one person in the house. I have a shot of talking them down, and if that doesn’t work, there’s always a trigger to pull.
Is that what you want, though, Kat? Is that who you want to be, a killer, no better than them? No better than Aleks? No better than the thing that started this whole mess in the first place?
I could also wait this out. It only now occurs to me, with the footsteps gone, to text Aleks. I do.Someone in the house. Be careful coming in.I wait, but I don’t get an immediate response. Thinking of all of the horror movies I’ve seen, I mute my phone and turn the brightness all the way down before slipping it back into the pocket of my coat.
