Page 75 of Twisted Pact

“We’ve talked about relocating,” I remind her. “This makes it necessary. The restaurant was three miles from here. The metadata on the video shows the time and location. Anyone with basic intelligence skills can triangulate your general area.”

“So, I’m being shuffled around again. To another prison.”

“To another secure location,” Dmitri corrects. “Under full lockdown. No outside contact except through approved channels. Twenty-four-hour guard rotation. Controlled access to all communications.”

Mila sinks back into the couch. “This keeps getting worse.”

My phone rings again. Leonid, probably wondering why I hung up on him.

“We need an answer about the engagement,” Dmitri says before I can decline the call.

“I need time to think,” Mila says.

“We don’t have time. The longer we wait, the more speculation grows, and the more our enemies can use this against us.”

“How long?”

“Until tomorrow morning. Dawn at the latest.”

She looks at me with something that might be desperation. “And if I say no?”

“Then we figure out another way to control the narrative.”

“What other way?”

I don’t have an answer. The engagement announcement is the cleanest solution, and the one that makes the most sense strategically.

Watching Mila sit there looking trapped and overwhelmed makes me want to find alternatives. It makes me want to protect her from this decision, too.

“We’ll figure it out,” I tell her.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the best I can give you right now.”

She stands and heads toward the stairs. “I need to pack. Again.”

“Mila—”

“Just tell me where I’m going, so I know what to bring.”

Dmitri checks his phone. “The compound outside Sergiev Posad. Two hours northeast. It’s an underground bunker in the mountains.”

“Sounds perfect.” Her voice drips with sarcasm. “Another beautiful prison.”

She disappears upstairs. I hear her bedroom door slam.

“She’s not wrong,” Dmitri says once we’re alone. “You are asking her to choose between marriage and death.”

“I’m asking her to let me protect her.”

“Can you hear how that sounds?”

“We’re talking bounties and kidnapping attempts, Dmitri.”

“Fair point.” He walks to the window and looks out. “But you’re doing exactly what I did with Katya. Using protection as justification for control.”

“This is different.”