Page 39 of Kept in the Dark

With a musical, emotional noise, she reaches under the lenses of her glasses with both hands to press on her eyelids. “It’s all hypothetical, though. I’m the one with the bandages, not the weapons. What I do is help the people who come to me for help. I don’t judge. What I think someone deserves doesn’t matter, because it isn’t for me to decide.”

“A hypothetical question, then. What if Kyle came to you near death and you had the power to determine his fate with no repercussions? What would you do?” I press.

It is one thing to rejoice in the death of an enemy; it is quite another to picture yourself holding the smoking gun.

She thinks about it for a moment and sighs. “I honestly don’t know. I want to think I would… actually, I don’t even know that. This is kind of blowing my mind. I feel like I just realized I don’t know who I am.”

“You will find it,” I assure her. “And you will be stronger for it. I can tell.”

The moment hangs between us—tense and heavy with unvoiced possibilities—and her golden stare bores into me. If she makes even half a movement towards me, it is over. I will sweep the board to the floor and have her right on the table.

Not immune to the weight of the moment, she swallows. Her eyes flick down, and she takes my rook. It is not even a legal move; she just takes it off the board. “Why did you do what you did in the maze? Why did you attack him?”

Because he hurt you.The answer is right there, but I hold it back because it gives her all the power. She already has it, but she does not yet realize. Once she knows I cannot and will not harm her, she might become unpredictable. She may refuse to cooperate, and I still need answers from her.

And the oldBratvaman in me—the one who craved control and relished in subjugation—will not allow me to hand over my power so easily.

“Because Idobelieve that some people deserve to die,” I reply.

I hold out my hand, palm up, and she stares at it for a second before handing the rook back to me. I place it back on its square with fingers that shake. I need to get out of here before I do or say something I should not.

What has happened to that tightly held control I consider such a point of pride?

“I need to move the boat before the wind picks up. We can finish our game later.”

12

Nicole

There’s no gentleness to him, but a gentle man has never gotten my heart racing.

As Dimitri moves us to another location, I have to go below deck where the rocking is less intense. A particularly large wave tilts the boat, and I can hear the chess set hitting the floor above me while I ride it out with my head between my legs. Well, I guess that game is finished.

My stomach is so unsettled. I don’t think water travel is for me.

After he anchors us, I spend the rest of the day on the deck, reading the only book on the boat in English—Anna Karenina, of all things—and sunning myself.

The sunset is spectacular, and Dimitri joins me for some of it, sitting quietly near me. We watch the fading pastels settling into the horizon together in silence. Then he leaves me a tidy pile of jerky and protein bars like the gym bro fairy and goes back inside to change batteries and mess with the water pump or something else I didn’t quite listen to.

Maybe it’s cowardly of me, but I’m grateful for the distance.

I thought talking to him would help pass the time, but I severely underestimated the effect he has on me.

I’d be an idiot to try to pretend like I didn’t realize how attracted I was—am,still am—to him. Even once he dropped the charming villain act and showed me the man he is under the suit and blood, it didn’t make a difference to my throbbing pulse.

There’s no gentleness to him, but a gentle man has never gotten my heart racing like this.

And while I’m not completely immune to those flashes of sour nervousness and anxiety from being at the receiving end of that fierce, icy gaze, they just get mixed up with the other emotions I feel under the weight of it.

When I talk, he’s so zeroed in that it’s like the world around us doesn’t exist. I found myself voicing thoughts I normally wouldn’t share—like all that stuff about people deserving death that makes me cringe now, remembering how unguarded I was—just so he would stay so locked in. The way he gives me every ounce of his focus makes me feel… important, and interesting, andheated.

In fact, I’m burning.

And it’s only partly because of his… unexpected physical reaction while I was examining him. It’s happened before—people with penises sometimes experience difficulty controlling what is genuinely a very natural response to being touched.

And if I’m letting myself be a little less clinical about it… Lord, he’s big. Everywhere. I don’t need to see his penis face to face to know that. But I’ve thought about it.A lot.

After I've dutifully choked down a chalky protein bar, I head in for the night and stake my territory on the bed, buzzing with nervousness and excitement as I wait for him to join me. Long moments pass, and I hear him shuffling around in the top part of the cabin. Eventually, he turns off the remaining lights, and darkness blankets me.