Page 26

The car hums low beneath me, the tires whispering over slick asphalt as we wind farther into the night.

Outside, darkness devours everything—the road twisting in narrow, unfamiliar arcs, the misty rain blurring what few distant lights there are until the world feels stripped bare.

No cities. No towns. Just empty, yawning blackness and the skeletal shapes of trees leaning close, as if they’re watching.

Inside the car, the air grows heavier with every passing mile.

The cabin smells faintly of rain-soaked leather and the sharp, almost metallic scent of wet pavement. It’s too quiet, too still. Every breath I draw feels thick and strained, catching in my chest like smoke.

I keep my hands locked tight in my lap, nails digging crescent moons into the soft skin of my palms.

My stomach twists, a painful knot tightening with every mile marker we pass.

I force myself to speak, scraping together whatever courage I have left. My voice is steady, somehow, even as my insides quiver.

“Take me to my father.”

Jackson glances at me from behind the wheel, his face lit briefly by the passing headlights of a lone truck headed the opposite direction. His smile is calm. Reassuring. Too easy.

“You’ll be there soon,” he says softly. “We’re almost there.”

I nod stiffly, but the relief I expect doesn’t come. Instead, a sharp, cold prickle runs up my spine.

Jackson’s voice stays low, almost coaxing, like he’s talking to a skittish animal. “He’s safe. Everything’s been arranged. No one can touch you now, Alina.” Another smile. Another easy, practiced line. “You’ll be free soon.”

I stare straight ahead, swallowing against the lump forming in my throat.

I want to believe him.

God, I need to believe him.

That there’s a way out of all this. That my father is waiting for me, arms open, ready to explain everything, ready to fix it all. That all I have to do is endure a little longer, stay quiet, and everything will make sense again.

Doubt still scratches at the back of my mind, relentless.

I shift slightly in my seat, feeling the tension in my muscles wound tight like a spring.

“How is he?” I ask, forcing casualness into my voice. “I didn’t even know he got free; Andrei didn’t tell me a damn thing. Has he… said anything about me?”

Jackson nods without hesitation, hands steady on the wheel.

“He’s been worried sick,” he says smoothly. “As soon as he found out where you were, he started making arrangements. You’ll be with him by morning. Everything’s already in place.”

I nod again, slower this time, feeling the words settle over me like heavy, ill-fitting armor.

Everything Jackson says sounds polished. Rehearsed. Like he’s practiced the story a hundred times in his head.

I press my hands harder into my lap, grounding myself with the sharp bite of my nails.

Outside, the road narrows even further.

The forest thickens on either side, looming close, crowding out the last slivers of the world behind us. Shadows reach long fingers across the pavement, swallowing the weak pools of the headlights.

The deeper we go, the less I can shake the feeling clawing up my spine.

The feeling that we’re not driving toward salvation at all.

The car rolls to a slow stop, tires crunching over gravel, and for a moment, neither of us moves.

I stare through the fogged windshield at the house in front of us, my heart hammering painfully against my ribs.

No lights glow in the windows. No warm welcome waits inside.

The house squats low against the landscape, hunched and crooked like it’s been forgotten by the world.

Weathered siding peels back in long strips.

The porch lists to one side, boards warped and cracked.

A broken fence runs halfheartedly around the yard, the gate hanging loose on a single rusted hinge.

Nothing about it says safe.

Every instinct inside me screams to stay in the car, to bolt, to run anywhere but toward that house.

Jackson is already getting out, casual as ever. He slams the door behind him and circles to my side without a word.

I force my body to move, fumbling with the latch, stepping out into the misty night air. The cold hits me like a slap, shocking my legs into motion even as dread sinks heavy into my gut.

Jackson doesn’t say anything. He just grabs my elbow, firm but not rough, guiding me up the cracked steps of the porch.

The boards groan under our weight, the sound far too loud in the suffocating silence.

Inside, the house is worse.

The air is stale and heavy, laced with the faint, sickly scent of mildew and old rot. Dust coats every surface, dulling what little furniture remains. The walls are stained and peeling, shadows swallowing every corner the weak light can’t reach.

I hug my arms around myself, my skin crawling.

This is wrong. All of this is wrong.

Jackson moves ahead without hesitation, boots echoing hollowly across the warped floorboards. He stops a few feet inside, and I catch the slight tension in his shoulders—the way his gaze flickers toward the shadows near the back of the house.

Movement. A figure steps out from the darkness.

Not my father. Not anyone I recognize.

A man, tall and broad, with a smile that cuts like broken glass.

“Matías,” Jackson says and steps aside.

It hits me—Matías Ortega.

I’ve heard the name whispered before—in fear, in disgust. One of the cartel leaders Andrei’s men have fought for years. Ruthless. Unpredictable. A man whose hands are stained with blood thicker than water.

Horror crashes through me.

This isn’t rescue; this isn’t salvation.

This is a nightmare.

I turn toward Jackson, confusion and terror surging up my throat.

He doesn’t look at me, not really. Instead, he exchanges a brief, familiar glance with Matías—and then I see it.

The money.

Matías slips a thick envelope into Jackson’s hand, fast and efficient, like a business transaction. Like a sale.

Realization slams into me, cold and sickening.

Jackson was never on my side. He was never here to save me.

He was here to deliver me.

My voice breaks as I whisper, “You used me.”

Jackson shrugs, utterly indifferent, as he tucks the envelope into his jacket. “No hard feelings,” he says lazily, like we’re discussing a missed dinner date, not the fact that he just sold me to a monster.

Then he turns and walks out the door without another word.

The sound of the door slamming shut behind him leaves me standing alone in the stale dark, surrounded by strangers and the unmistakable scent of betrayal.

Matías circles me like a vulture scenting fresh blood.

His boots drag deliberately across the warped floorboards, each step measured, slow, calculated for effect. He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t need to. The smirk curling across his face says everything—he’s in complete control, and he knows it.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, eyes sweeping me from head to toe like I’m something delicate and breakable. “Here I thought Bratva girls would be tougher.”

I say nothing, but my breath comes faster.

He’s not a large man—not like Andrei—but there’s something off in the way he moves, in the way his eyes glitter too bright in the dark. It’s like standing in the room with a snake, waiting for it to strike.

“Princesa,” he says, the word wrapped in mockery, drawn out like a purr.

“You don’t belong in this world, you know.

All soft hands and scared little eyes. What did you think this was?

A fairy tale?” He laughs, low and sharp.

“You were the reward. The princess locked in the tower. The thing he couldn’t resist ruining. ”

His hand lifts before I can move. Two fingers brush lightly along my chin.

I flinch, every muscle locking tight. The bile rises so fast in my throat I almost gag.

He sees it. Worse—he enjoys it.

“Don’t be shy, princesa,” he murmurs. “You’re the whole reason this story’s going to end the way it should.”

I take a slow step back. My legs tremble, but I force myself to stay upright. To not give him the satisfaction of seeing me break. My fists clench at my sides, nails digging into my palms. My voice is hoarse, but steady when I finally speak.

“Andrei will come for me.”

Matías stops circling. The smirk deepens into something darker, more dangerous. “Oh, I’m counting on it,” he says, spreading his arms like I’ve just confirmed his grand plan. “That’s the point, princesa.”

His tone is gleeful now, electric with satisfaction. He leans in close, his breath warm and sour against my face.

“You’re not a hostage,” he says. “You’re bait.”

The floor feels like it shifts beneath me.

“We don’t want money. We don’t want negotiations. We want him.” His voice lowers, each word deliberate. “Big bad Andrei Sharov. We want him to walk into our hands, thinking he’s invincible. Thinking you’re still worth dying for.”

The breath stutters in my lungs. Cold spreads through me, numb and vicious.

“When he does,” Matías continues, eyes burning with pleasure, “we’re going to kill him. Slowly. Publicly. Symbolically. In front of whoever’s watching.”

I can’t breathe.

“You know why?” he whispers. “He’s gone soft. Over you. All that ice in his veins… melted by some trembling little girl who cried in his bed. It’s pathetic.”

My heart slams so hard against my ribs I think it might break.

Not just fear for myself.

Fear for him. For Andrei.

Whatever else has happened between us, however twisted and wrong and painful it’s been… I know one thing with a terrifying, sick certainty.

He will come for me.

He won’t hesitate. He’ll walk straight into this trap, into whatever bullets and blades they’ve prepared, and he won’t stop until I’m safe—or he’s dead.

That fear? It’s worse than anything Matías could do to me.

If Andrei dies because of me, because he cared when he shouldn’t have, because I let myself believe in him for even one second—

Then I’ll never forgive myself.

Matías keeps talking, his voice full of sharp-edged satisfaction, but I barely hear him.