Page 39 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

“Is she important enough to make you lose five years of work?” he asks.

He leaves before I answer, and I remain at the window long after his steps fade.

9

CARA

Iwake in silk sheets I have no interest in, under a roof I didn’t choose, in a country where my status seems to sit somewhere between guest, debt, and regrettable paperwork. I keep my eyes closed. The mattress is soft. The blanket is warm. I pretend for three seconds that this is a hotel with room service and a possible checkout time. Then I jerk upright and sit hunched on the bed, my heart beating so fast I think I’m having a panic attack.

Order has ruined the lie.

The silence is controlled and expensive, and it eats into my bones. For four years, my mornings have been Mikhail’s socks on the floor, toy cars under my feet, cartoon noise from the living room, water boiling over on the stove, Mikhail’s silly shrieks, and coffee reheated twice. Small domestic chaos that proved my life belonged to me.

Here, I hear none of it.

Memory comes back with devilish force, dragging the night behind it. Moscow. Dmitri. Patrick. Mikhail across an ocean. I sit up before grief can choke me.

I curl into a tight ball and refuse to cry.

Crying will make me weak, and I’m not weak. I want to be ferocious. I hug myself hard enough to hurt and tell myself the same thing over and over.

This will also pass.

Panic is useless unless it comes with a checklist, so I start with the windows.

I’ve checked them already. More than once. More than sanity would recommend. I check them again anyway. My mind needs a job, and escape is a better assignment than falling apart.

No seam is wide enough for a nail file, even if I had a nail file, which I don’t. The curtains give me nothing. The rods don’t shift. The wall brackets stay fixed.

The bathroom offers a mounted mirror, smooth fixtures, no loose screws, no detachable shower rod. Not even all those helpful little hotel freebies except soap wrapped in paper thick enough to insult me. The vent sits narrow and high. The outlet plates don’t move. The towel rack has been installed by someone who clearly hates female ingenuity.

I move to the wardrobe.

Internal hinges. Padded wooden hangers. Empty drawers, except for a few folded clothes Mrs. Wentworth must have chosen. Or Elena.

Her name stops me again.

Did she wake up somewhere like this once? Did she count window seams and towel racks while men outside called it protection? Or was she born into this world, some Russian aristocracy with better jewelry and worse exits? Mafia princess, maybe. That would explain the careful, careless aloofness this house has around her name.

Soft sweaters. Black pants. Socks. Underwear still in packaging. Everything expensive. Everything chosen. Nothing is mine.

The bedside lamp has a heavy base, but the cord is short and fixed behind the table. I try it anyway, tugging once, then harder. It gives me nothing.

“Fine,” I mutter. “Five stars for hostage-proofing.”

Whoever prepared this suite expected me to look. That’s almost flattering.

A knock comes.

I have already checked every surface twice and found exactly one possible weapon, a porcelain toothbrush cup. Thrown hard enough, it would break and give me ceramic justice.

“Come in,” I say and hide the cup behind my back.

The pose almost makes me laugh. Apparently, I now live in a world where I’m expected to receive staff while illegally detained and armed with bathroom ceramics.

A young woman enters with a tray. She’s in her twenties, maybe. Brown hair pinned back, black dress, flat shoes, face composed the way all service staff learn to look when wealthy criminals pay their salaries.

She sets the tray on the small table without looking around.