Page 16 of Terror at the Gates

“Probably not,” I admitted.

“Then no.”

“Are you going to let me have that knife back?”

“No.”

“Zahariev,” I said, turning toward him. “I need—”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, cutting me off.

“I don’t want your help,” I said. “I want to do this myself.”

I needed to, for reasons he wouldn’t understand.

“I know you want to,” he said, meeting my gaze. “But right now, you can’t, so let me take care of it.”

I appreciated his offer, truly. There was comfort in knowing that he would help me if things got bad, but I was capable, and I wanted to earn my living.

“If you would just let me work—”

“Lilith, we have been through this.”

“No one has to know,” I said. “Isiah didn’t know me!”

“And look where that got him,” Zahariev countered.

“Where did it get him, Zahariev?”

“In the fucking ground,” he said.

“You didn’t.” A twinge of guilt turned my stomach.

“We have rules in Nineveh, Lilith. You know them well. He threatened you. He touched you. He gave up his life. Imagine the bodies that would pile up if you danced for me.”

“Those rules don’t apply when I work for you.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“Fuck you,” I said. I’d come here to escape one prison, and he wanted to put me in another. “You might not pay me, but that doesn’t mean other men won’t.”

I tried to open the door, despite the fact that the SUV was still moving.

“Child locks, Miss Leviathan,” said Felix.

I released the handle and let out a frustrated growl as I sat back in my seat. This was not the first time we’d had this conversation, and it had gone as well as it had all the other times.

We were quiet after that. I thought about how I was going to make money, and not just something that got me by for the month. Real money. An income. The issue in Nineveh was, outside the clubs, people weren’t looking for women to run their shops.

Finally, Felix came to a stop outside my ruined apartment complex. I was never so relieved to be home. I started to open the door but remembered I was basically locked inside.

Felix exited the driver’s seat and let Zahariev out first, which irritated me. I didn’t need him to walk me to the door, though he would.

He always did.

I didn’t look at Zahariev as I left the SUV, heading straight for my second-story apartment. A few residents who gathered to smoke occupied the stairs. I didn’t know them by name, but I knew their apartment numbers. Usually, when I came home, they didn’t move, so I had to play hopscotch just to get to my apartment.

Tonight, with Zahariev looming behind me, they fled.

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