Page 115 of Trust

I don’t know why I’m bothering to say it. He’s not listening. He’s not going to listen.

He never does.

“I didn’t tell you to let him come inside you!” Adam bellows. “You filthy, lying…” He tosses me onto the bed, and I scramble back, as if that’s going to protect me.

I pant heavily while Adam undoes his belt.

He doesn’t move on to undo his fly, though. He keeps the belt in hand, his eyes furious. “You need to be punished, Micah,” he snarls. “Turn around. Take a belting like a good fucking boy.”

No. My lips part in a wordless plea.

But I turn around anyway.

Please,I plead with any deity that’s listening, any bit of the universe that might have mercy on me,let Ilya get here soon.

TWENTY-ONE

ILYA

“Change of plans,” I say to Boris as the line goes dead. “We’re going to Mishka.”

Boris glances at me from the driver’s seat. “What? Milov said?—”

“I don’t care!” I snap. I find the address to Adam’s house in my GPS’s history and select it. “If Micah dies because you drove too slow, so help me?—”

“Yeah, I got it!” Boris hits the accelerator, going just enough over the speed limit that we won’t get pulled over. Unfortunately, it’s still mid-day in the big city, and traffic isn’t exactly light. The only saving grace is that the address is in the same direction we were originally going in. It’s not a huge detour.

Shit.

I should have listened to my gut. I’d known Micah wasn’t safe.

I’d doubted, for one second, and that could cost Micah his life.

“He’s going to kill him,” I say. I lay my hands flat on my thighs. “I’ve seen this before.”

Boris grimaces. “You don’t think he’s still playing you? This could be entrapment?—”

“My father,” I interrupt. “He killed my mother. He killed her on the night she finally decided to leave.” I let out a dark, inhuman laugh. “After years and years of me begging for her to make the choice… I should have killed the bastard myself. But I couldn’t even get myself to do that. I beat him up, crippled him, and I went to prison while that fucker got to keep living like he’d done nothing wrong.”

“Fuck.” Boris makes a sharp turn onto a side street. “Sorry. I knew your father was complete shit, but…”

“Your old man wasn’t any better,” I point out.

“Yeah, but my mama ran away.” Boris curses and has to swerve to avoid a delivery bike. “Left me behind with him, but what else could she have done? I’d have held her back.”

The way my sister and I held my mother back.

“That cop knows that Micah isn’t his anymore,” I say. “He would rather Micah be dead than let him be free.”

How long can Micah endure?

I don’t know what I’ll do if Micah is dead.

Well.

I know that Adam won’t be as lucky as my father was. He won’t live long enough to die of a heart attack.

I pull my leather gloves on, and for the first time in a while, I don’t feel ill wearing them.