Page 33 of Bratva Sacrifice

The door opens. I heave the plate toward it with all of my strength.

Alexei spots it hurtling toward him just in time to sidestep, hissing out a curse as the whole thing whistles past his head, through the door, and shatters against the opposite wall. I don’t even take the time to relish the look of shock on his face, the stupefied expression that clings to it as he stares, arrested—I race for the open door, sliding out into the hallway. My bare feet slap the cold marble floors.

I don’t know where I’m going. It doesn’t matter. Anywhere but here.

My blood is roaring in my ears, the violent rush of it too loud for me to hear the pounding footsteps hot on my heels until it’s too late. I yelp as a hand seizes a fistful of my stolen shirt, cry out again when I’m pulled bodily back.

Hard fingers clench around my upper arm, swinging me toward the nearest wall. I have to throw out my hands to brace myself and keep from slamming into it, and still I find myself shoved up against it, pinned there by the weight of Alexei’s body. My knife. It’s still there, tucked into my waistband against my hip. I just have to get to it.

“That was stupid, koshechka,” Alexei rasps in my ear. “Now you will have to wait for your dinner.”

My cheek is pressed to the wall. I grit out between the clench of my teeth. “I don’t want it. I want my clothes. I want to leave.” My hand inches down, a slow creep that I desperately hope doesn’t look suspicious.

Alexei gives a hard, dismissive sniff. “Why should I give you this, Katya, when you cannot behave yourself? No,” he grunts. “I think you don’t deserve this when you cannot be trusted. And now look—your little tantrum disturbs Anatoli.”

Shit. My shoulders pinch up around my ears. I struggle to turn my head to see for myself, and every hope of escape in this moment evaporates like morning mist. I don’t know when he arrived, exactly. I wasn’t listening to anything but the panicked sounds of my own breath, the harsh tenor of Alexei’s voice. It’s the man from my trains, who I thought might be following me.

He was. One of Alexei’s men. He’s looking at me with a profound annoyance, like I’ve ruined his evening with my escape attempt, or bored him with behaving like a captive could reasonably be expected to. He grates out something in thick Russian to Alexei.

Alexei huffs in my ear. “He says you have weapon on you,” he says irritably, and his hands frisk me. Brisk, efficient. He finds my fork and knife in seconds, expertly relieves me of them, tossing them to Anatoli. “Stupid, Katka,” Alexei chides again. “My men are armed. You would not get far with only a knife. And a fucking fork.”

Probably not. But I had to try. I had to.

There’s another rapid conversation in Russian that I don’t understand. Short, to the point. Over in thirty seconds. At last, Alexei shoves away from me, and I scramble backward, my chest heaving.

Alexei swipes at his mouth, expression thunderous. “Anatoli says probably you will run until you know better. So you have thirty minutes, Katka, until the mess you left is cleaned up and another dinner can be made for you.”

And he turns on his heel and stalks off, muttering Russian words I don’t understand beneath his breath. He’s…leaving me alone? Unguarded?

My gaze flits to Anatoli.

He gives me a hard stare, icy blue eyes cold and judgmental. “Katka,” he says, laconically, in thickly-accented English, “means he is angry.” And then he turns, too, striding down the hallway without a backward glance.

I’m alone again. Without even makeshift weapons. But with thirty minutes to myself.

Chapter Seventeen

Alexei

A half an hour is enough time to cool the heat of my temper. I soothe myself by retreating to the security room to watch on the array of monitors as Katya explores the house, searching for vulnerabilities in my defenses. I know already that she will not find any.

But she must know this, too. Anatoli was right to say so, even if I did not welcome his interference. He might not appreciate Katya’s presence here—still he thinks I am wasting too much of my time with her—but he knows when my temper is burning too hot. When I am at risk of losing it. When I run the risk of burning someone else with it.

I wonder if she could have brought herself to use that knife. I don’t think she has much stomach for violence. The gouges of her claws on my arm were an act of desperation, but a knife is a calculated weapon. One that is chosen rather than wielded on pure survival instinct.

No. She is too soft for this. Too soft to stomach the split of meat and muscle, too soft for that much blood, that much gore. She would heave her guts out before she could do it properly.

I wait as her half hour slips away with no progress other than a canvas of the rooms. I know exactly where she is when, half an hour later, my kitchen staff alerts me that dinner has been remade and the one that she ruined has been cleaned away.

I find Katya in the library on the lower floor, struggling to pry up a window. Even if she could manage it—which I know she cannot—it will only lead her out into the garden.

“You know better now, Katya?” I ask.

Her shoulders stiffen beneath the fabric of the shirt she stole from my dresser. She is wearing my sweatpants, too. They are too big for her, baggy around her knees. One leg is still rolled up, but the other has come loose and dangles down over her foot. I like her hair loose down her back like this. She always gathers it into a ponytail to keep it away from her face. But she is prettier like this. Softer.

Not sweeter. She gives up the fight for the window at last, and her nostrils flare with fury as she turns. “You can scream if you want,” I invite, as I select a seat and motion to the member of the kitchen staff who lingers in the doorway, awaiting my instructions.

Katya doesn’t scream. I can see she already understands this would be a senseless action; a waste of her time and energy. There is no one to hear her. No—there is no one to hear her that cares if she screams. No one is going to save her.