Page 239 of Sexting His Assistant

The man tied to the chair starts crying harder.

“Please,” he says. “That’s what I was told. That’s the name. I swear. I swear on my mother.”

I step closer.

Pavel says, “Boss.”

I barely hear him.

My hand closes around the front of the prisoner’s shirt, and I drag his upper body forward as far as the restraints allow.

“Say that again,” I say.

The man’s face crumples. “Please.”

“Say it again.”

“Misha Hale,” the man says. “He paid through the handler. I never met him. I only got the name after the second job. They said it came from him.”

The rage hits so hard that for a moment I lose the room.

Not visibly, not in a way the prisoner can understand, but inside, the control I have spent my life building goes thin and useless.

I think of Misha in my bedroom after the attack, throwing me onto the bed with rough care, shouting at me because Nina was nearly shot.

I think of him at her apartment, asking to stay, looking hunted. I think of the car with the false registration. I think of his location turned off.

I think of the missing calls.

None of it fits. All of it fits.

That’s what makes it unbearable.

A small sound comes from behind me. A gasp.

I turn.

Nina’s standing halfway down the stairs, one hand on the railing, face pale, eyes fixed on the man tied to the chair.

For one stupid second, I forget the prisoner.

All I see is her.

Her bruised face. Her loose sweater. Her bare feet in the slippers my mother bought. The shock in her eyes as her brother’s name hangs in the room between us.

“Nina,” I say.

The prisoner moves.

I register it half a second late because my attention is on her.

He throws his weight sideways, chair and all, slamming hard into Pavel’s knee. Pavel stumbles. The chair hits the floor, one wooden arm cracking against the concrete. The man twists with a desperate animal sound, pulling one hand free from the broken restraint, then scrambles up with the chair still half attached to his other arm.

Pavel reaches for him.

The prisoner drives his shoulder into Pavel’s stomach and shoves him back.

Then he runs toward the stairs. Toward Nina.