Page 51 of Shattered Altar (Makarova Bratva Duet)

“I want proof that my family is okay,” I insist. “I want a phone call.”

He looks at me with an amused expression. “You must be joking.”

“No,” I say, ironing the tremble out of my voice. “It’s a reasonable request. Just one call to make sure they’re all okay.”

“And what will you give me in return?”

That stumps me. I realize that that is exactly what he’s hoped to achieve. “I… I don’t have anything to give you.”

“Exactly. You have nothing to bargain with. So why would I even bother negotiating?”

My jaw goes slack. He gives me a condescending smile and an arrogant nod before turning away from me.

“I’ll have someone escort you back to your room.”

“No! Wait.”

He turns again, his eyes grazing up my body before settling on my face. “So you do have something I might want? Information, perhaps?”

I realize almost instantly what he means. “You really think I’d tell you anything about my brother? Even if I knew it?”

“It’s the only card you have to play,” he points out. “So why not play it?”

“Because blood is thicker than water.”

He smiles. “You’d be surprised.”

I decide not to analyze that right now. My mind is pivoting wildly, trying to think of some way I can get through to this man. But it feels more than a little like I’m just banging my head against a brick wall.

“I’m not going back into that room,” I say, trying to infuse my voice with the kind of confidence that Dad always promised I had deep inside me. “I won’t do it.”

“If you would prefer different accommodations, I have a cell in the basement that you might prefer.”

So much for subtlety. The threat is so direct that it makes the hair on my neck stand on end.

I know I should keep my mouth shut unless I want rats for cellmates. But something about the way he’s looking at me now makes me reckless.

Correction: something about the way he’s looked at me from the very start makes me reckless.

“Is that where you kept her?” I snap.

I expected a violent backlash. Instead, Aleks chuckles darkly. “Is this the part where I’m meant to confess to taking your brother’s woman?”

“She was his fiancée. Not his possession.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I say angrily. “In my world, taking a woman against her will is definitely not the same as cherishing her. One is love. The other is a crime.”

“There are worse sins.”

“And I’m sure you’ve committed them all,” I say.

“Many times over.” He inches closer to me again. “A smarter woman might watch her tone, if she believed I’ve done what you seem to think I’ve done.”

I frown. He has a point, as much as I hate to admit it. But something else hits me at the same time: if this was just about me, it would be so much easier to keep my mouth shut and wait for this to play out.

But this isn’t just about me. It isn’t even about me at all.

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