Page 96 of Kingmakers, Year Four

When I want to do pull-ups, I flip my bed on its end and use the steel crossbar of the headboard.

One thousand push-ups. Five hundred pull-ups. One thousand air squats. Five hundred sit-ups. Broken into intervals like the hours of an invisible clock. That is how I divide my day.

The rest of the time, I read.

Marko provides me with books because he doesn’t want me to go mad.

Then I wouldn’t be able to provide the monthly check-ins that keep the ransom money flowing. Also, it would spoil his fun.

He’s due for a visit any day now. I keep track of how many days have passed, scoring the stone walls with an old nail. Marko’s visits aren’t regular enough to predict accurately. He does that intentionally. Routine is dangerous, he knows that.

I always knew he was intelligent.

It was the qualities I failed to see that came back to bite me.

I hear Borys and Ihor rotating positions out in the corridor. Borys shined his boots this morning—a sure sign that Marko is indeed about to visit. I know the Malina’s routines better than they do, though my cell has no windows, and only a small slit in the door through which my meals pass.

I haven’t seen the sky or felt wind on my face since I came to this place.

But I would pass the rest of my days in darkness if I could see my wife one last time.

I’ve been torn in half. The other part of me is wandering, searching . . . longing for me as I’m longing for her.

I know she’s looking for me. I know it as well as I know my own thoughts.

Sloane will never give up on me.

And I will never stop trying to come home to her.

I made a promise to her. And I always keep my promises.

I miss my children almost as badly. My only comfort is that they have their mother with them and Dominik to help protect them.

It’s Sloane I worry about. She’ll drive herself to death looking for me. She’ll take any risk. I worry about her survival more than my own.

I can’t bear being locked up in here when she might need me out there.

I’ve never met anyone more capable than my wife. But no one is invincible, no matter what she and I might have believed about ourselves in the hubris of youth. She needs me, and I need her.

We draw life from each other. In the time we’ve been apart, we’ve both been slowly dying.

I listen for the sounds of Marko’s approach.

I’m buried deep in the earth, in a vast stone tomb, like a pharaoh interred before his time.

I don’t know if I’m in a castle or prison, or even in which country we reside. I was shot four times by the Malina, covering my wife and children so they could escape. I woke in this cell, with tubes running in and out of me, with IV bags and monitors, and a doctor called Lyaksandro who tended to me while always ensuring that I was shackled hand and foot to the cot.

The Malina are careful with their most valuable prisoner.

After all, I’m worth $6 million a month, not to mention the priceless satisfaction I provide to Marko Moroz.

He’s bleeding my family dry, raking in over $252 million so far. Still, I think he would trade every penny for the pleasure of rubbing his revenge in my face.

That’s why he comes for these monthly ransom calls. So he can witness my pain.

I know when his convoy arrives, because I hear the crackle of the radio out in the hallway, and the shifting sound as Borys stands at attention. I don’t know if Marko comes by boat, helicopter, or car. I don’t know if we’re on an island or in the middle of the wilderness.

But I do pick up clues—small, significant clues. And I pass them along in the only way I can.

---