Page 72 of Take the Sub and Run

The words quavered with grief.

His heart cracked. “You know why I say that, Angel. And it’s not because I don’t want you.”

“It’s because I’m damaged. A victim too scared to leave.”

“No,” he snapped. “Don’t say that about yourself.”

“I tried to escape out the window, but then tried to run back into the house. I know how stupid that was.”

“It wasn’t stupid. You’ve been conditioned to think the only place you’re safe is your house. For fuck’s sake, he told you it was holy ground, and?—”

Andrei cut himself off. There were a lot of pieces of missing information in Sofie’s story, but the middle of the night wasn’t the time to start looking for answers. Especially because asking those questions might challenge what she knew and believed. Though she’d been matter-of-fact about her father’s crimes, with no defensiveness or justifications, he hadn’t gotten the sense she hated the man who’d turned her into his art slave.

He and Landon had sat down and come up with a list of questions after Sofie had gone to bed. Andrei had then done his actual job and started a real case file, sending off a detail-scarce preliminary report.

Rolf was now officially pissed because he’d never intended Club Alibi to be a safe house, and yet so far, that had been its primary use. First with Colette in London, and now with Sofie here in Amsterdam.

“It’s okay. You were already done with me because I lied, and that was before you realized I’m?—”

“Sofie, stop.”

He couldn’t bear the separation anymore. He hadn’t held her, really held her, since he’d pulled her into the tree.

Andrei swept her into his arms, holding her against his chest. A chest that ached when she melted into him, molding her body to his.

“I swear I’m not broken,” she whispered.

“Perhaps we’re all a little broken, Angel.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me.”

Andrei rested his cheek against her head, content to just hold her for a long moment.

“My mother loved me,” he said, surprising himself with the words. “That’s the part people never believe when they hear the rest.”

Sofie tilted her head, saying nothing.

“She was a prostitute. Not by choice. We lived in a one-room flat in a factory town in Czechia. Her clients all work at the manufacturing plant where they made cars. Every time I see a Skoda I think of her.”

When he’d first pulled her to him, Sofie’s arms had gotten trapped between them. Now, she wiggled them free, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing him. It felt good, not just to hold her but to be held in return.

“She’d tell me stories about the places we’d go when we had money. Someday we’d have money. We’d travel. Buy nice things.”

“She sounds like a good mom,” Sofie said.

“She tried. She made sure I was never sexually abused. Refused offers from men who were willing to pay enough to buy one of the Skodas they built to be the first to fuck me.”

Sofie gasped, hugging him tighter.

“But she was less worried about the times the men were annoyed I was there and beat me. Or threw me out while they were with her.

“I ran away. First time, I was nine. Slept in a train yard for three days. I had no plan, no money, but I thought… Thought that if I left, I’d have control over something—anything.”

“Did she look for you?”

“That first time, probably, when I didn’t come back by the second day.”

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