The blanket takes care of the worst of the mess, but I still can’t find my panties. I either flung them somewhere, or they’re buried in the sand.

“Never mind,” I say to Sebastian. “We better just leave. I wasn’t supposed to be out this late.”

“Sure,” he says, gathering up the blankets. “Let’s go.”

He takes my arm to help me back across the sand. I think I’m walking awkwardly, as I do feel a bit raw and sore.

Once we’re back in the truck, Sebastian turns to me and says, “That was incredible, Yelena. Just . . . incredible.”

I feel suddenly shy, and yet I want to tell him what I was feeling in that moment.

Biting my lip, I say, “I wanted you to be my first.”

Sebastian starts the engine.

“This is a first for me, too,” he says, throwing a quick glance in my direction. “The first time I . . . the first time I’m falling in love with someone.”

I’m so dumbfounded that for a moment I think I misheard him.

“Me?” I say. “You’re falling in love with me?”

Sebastian laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I hope that’s okay.”

I’ve never felt two such opposing emotions at once. Absolute joy at the thought that Sebastian could actually love me, and terror at the thought of losing him when he finds out what I’ve done.

Misreading my expression, he says, “It’s okay, you don’t have to say it too—I know this is way too early. I just wanted you to know that this isn’t about sex for me. I mean, I wanted to sleep with you of course. I was dying to. But it’s so much more than that. From the moment I met you, Yelena, I was stunned. You’re a fighter. You’re ferocious, and proud, and brilliant, and I love that about you. You’re brave.”

I can feel tears pricking at my eyes.

He’s wrong.

I’m not brave.

If I were brave, I would tell him the truth. I’d tell my father to fuck off, and damn the consequences.

But I’m terrified of my father. He’s the monster who’s haunted my nightmares since I was a toddler. No one could understand what it’s like to grow up in the shadow of a vengeful god—to know that at any moment if you displease him, he could destroy anything and everything you hold dear. To know that he takes pleasure in hurting you, in crushing out the last bit of your rebellious spirit.

Worst of all, my father isn’t evil all the time. If I could just hate him constantly, that would be easier. He’s so much more insidious than that. He’s bought me gifts and allowed me favors. He’s given me compliments, and even good advice from time to time. He shows benevolence and humanity when it suits him.

He does that to find the weaknesses in my armor. To make me question my own judgment. He provides just enough hope that sometimes I think, “Maybe he’ll let me apply to university. Maybe he’ll let me marry a man I love, someday. Maybe he’s growing kinder. Maybe he’ll love me.”

He uses the carrot and the stick. And he saves up the information he learns so he can hit me with it at the worst possible moment. I never know what he knows or doesn’t. I never know if I’m safe. His manipulation is so entrenched that sometimes I believe he can read the thoughts in my head.

My mother used to bear the brunt of his abuse. But after she died, it focused almost entirely on me.

Now I feel like I’m bound in chains in the darkest of dungeons. Sebastian is offering me a key—a way to get out. But I’m so goddamned terrified that I don’t know if I even have the strength to try the locks. Because my father is always watching.

So all I can do is shake my head silently. Wanting to tell Sebastian everything, but unable to do it.

“You are brave,” Sebastian says, smiling at me. “You stood in the skybox. If you can do that, you can do anything.”

Sebastian drops me off at home. I was supposed to be out shopping, but there’s no point continuing with that ruse, since the malls closed hours ago, and I don’t have any bags of clothing with me.

I can see that the light is off in my father’s office, as well as on most of the main floor. A little kernel of hope blooms in my chest, thinking that he must be out. I’ll be able to sneak in unnoticed.

But as soon as I open the front door, I’m faced with the hulking, silent figure of Rodion Abdulov.

Rodion has worked for my father for twelve years, since his last boss cut out his tongue.

Maybe that’s why he’s so relentlessly loyal—to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the Bratva. To quash any suspicion that he might have resentment over losing the ability to speak. Or maybe it’s just his nature. Whatever the reason, he follows my father’s orders to the smallest degree, no matter how heinous they might be.

He seems to have decided that his most important task of all is to keep an eye on me.

Adrian has a different theory. He thinks Rodion is fixated on me. He thinks Rodion believes that if he serves my father loyally, I’ll be given to him as a prize.

It is true that Rodion watches me constantly, following me from room to room in the house. But the way he looks at me is nothing like love. It’s more like suspicion or hatred. Maybe he knows how I feel about my father, and he thinks I’m dangerous.

I try to walk past him. He shifts his bulk so he’s blocking my way.

Rodion is a beast of a man, with short, dark hair almost exactly the same length as his beard. His small, round head sits on a body the shape of a refrigerator, with no neck in between. His eyes are little slits in the puffy flesh of his face, and his nose has been broken several times. I don’t know what his teeth look like, because he doesn’t speak or smile.

It’s his hands that upset me the most. He has thick, stubby fingers that I’ve seen bathed in blood too many times. Even after he cleans up, the remnants of blood linger under his fingernails, and in the deep crevices of his hands.

He uses those hands to make his own curt, unlovely signs. It’s not normal sign language—they’re signs that he invented, that his boyeviks understand. I understand them too, though I pretend I don’t.

“Get out of my way, please,” I say to him coldly. “I want to go up to my room.”

Slowly, without moving, he points at the door.

He’s asking where I was.

“None of your business,” I say. I’m trying to keep my voice as haughty as possible, so he doesn’t see my nervousness. But Rodion doesn’t shift his position in front of me. His piggy little eyes roam over my body.

I can feel his eyes like insects crawling on my skin. I hate it at all times, but it’s particularly intolerable now, when I’m already feeling nervous about what I’ve just done.

His eyes fix on the skirt of my dress. The hem is dusty from contact with the sand, but that’s not what he’s looking at. He’s looking at the single spot of dark red blood on the skirt.

He turns his palm over, hand open—his sign for “What?” He’s asking me what happened.

“It’s nothing,” I say impatiently. “Just a little wine from lunch.”

Rodion isn’t fooled. He knows what blood looks like better than anyone.

Grabbing the front of my dress, he shoves me up against the wall. I consider screaming, but what good would that do? Any men who came running would be Rodion’s soldiers.