Page 6 of The Enemy's Defector
And I waited.
Then I waited some more.
Only once I deemed it safe, that I was left here all alone to suffer and stay trapped, did I start to open one eye. Seeing nothing but bare, blood-stained walls, I opened my eyes more to take in the grisly scene.
They’d brought me to another torture room, a place where other people had been held or killed.
As I blinked my eyes open more and let them acclimate to the nearly nonexistent light, I sighed and realized I wouldn’t be moved again for the rest of the night.
Dammit.
Anyone else in this position would be afraid. But not me. It wasn’t like they were going to kill me. If they wanted me dead, they would’ve accomplished that long ago.
So what is the fucking point?
Someone had to be making one by having me captured, but until I knew who had put this order out to these random contractors, I’d be stuck in this mystery.
Ensuring there were no cameras in the bare room, I shimmied onto my side. Forcing my arms to move with the slack in my handcuffs, I tucked in to bring my hands in front of me.
Fuck, I’m getting old.
I shouldn’t be this stiff, this hard to move. Being cuffed and captured would put a dent in anyone’s workout plans, so I didn’t scold myself for long. Instead, while I was alone, I bent over more until I could retrieve the small, outdated phone that remained in a thin slot sewn into my pocket. Because itwas powered off and because I’d tampered with it to make it untraceable, no one had figured out that I had it on me.
Squinting at the light as I powered it on, I winced that the battery was draining. I wouldn’t have any way to charge it soon, and it wouldn’t be any help.
Just like I did every day, I typed a single line to send to my computer at home. Calling the program a blog wouldn’t make sense, but that was the simplest way to view this correspondence. This single line was a code that my brothers and I knew—thatonlymy brothers and I knew, and because they would be watching my things in my absence, I was confident they’d see these daily messages of this code and take it for what I intended it to be.
A proof of life.
A heads up that I was okay.
A reminder that I was on the case.
My brothers would know that I had access to my backup phone like this, and with that knowledge, I could reassure them that I wasn’t dead or on the brink of death. They could know that I had the means to call for help but decided not to.
Because there was no way in hell I was giving up this advantage. So long as someone wanted to mess with my family and kidnap me—something they could very well do to my brothers—I would watch and wait until I could know who to go after.
Finished with sending that simple line of code, I powered off the small device and snuck it back in its spot. Every time I put it away, I was torn with indecision about why I didn’t tell Katerina that I was alive, too. She and I had a complicated past, one of friendship then combativeness. We’d faced many ups and downs as the connection between our families evolved over the years, but I had to accept that she had a limit to letting me into her life.
She had a boundary when it came to allowing me to get close, and after that one sordid night when we both caved, she’d vanished.
She’d ghosted me.
She’d ignored my calls and texts, every one of which felt so forbidden just because she was a Kozlov and I was an Ivanov.
After giving me a taste of what it was like to have and hold her, even for a few hours one night, she’d shown me once and for all that she wouldn’t fit in my life as anything more.
Peeved and confused about her treatment of me, I tried to do my best to dismiss all thoughts of her. She couldn’t be my priority now. I had to concentrate and figure out who was behind my capture. I had to focus and concoct a strategy to protect my family members from being taken like this.
Katerina couldn’t be in my mind like this.
Yet, as my body throbbed and pulsed in pain from the last beating, as the hours of the night passed painstakingly slowly, I couldn’t help but recall how much I yearned for one more chance to see her. One more chance to hear her voice and drown in the deep blue of her eyes that once gazed at me with so much hope and mischief… something I deliriously wanted so badly again.
3
KATERINA
Joann wasn’t ready to see me go. She chased after me as I tried to leave my room for the last time. When she took my hand, catching me and squeezing my fingers once, I stopped and closed my eyes at her touch. The contrast of her weathered, cool skin against mine reminded me of how fragile she was. This woman was the only maternal figure I’d had to lean on in my life, in my home, and that was limited to when my uncle wanted us to stay at this mansion compared to other properties.
