He towers over me, his hands clenched into fists. I stay right where I am, not giving him the courtesy of standing up to meet him face-to-face.

“Where is she?” he demands.

I take a long sip of my drink.

“Where is who?” I say blandly.

Callum’s face is rigid with rage, his shoulders like stone. I can tell he wants to jump on me. He may only be held back by the fact that Simon has just appeared at my side, drawn by the clear signs of impending confrontation. Simon raises an eyebrow, asking if he should intercede. I lift an index finger off my glass, telling him to wait.

Spitting out each word as if it’s painful, Callum says, “I know you have Nessa. I want her back—NOW.”

I lazily swirl the ice cubes around in my glass. The music is too loud to hear the sound they make, chinking together.

Keeping the bored expression fixed on my face, I say, “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The club is dark, but not too dark to see the pulse jumping in the corner of Callum’s jaw. I know he wants to hit me more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life. His struggle to deny that impulse is beautiful to behold.

“If you hurt her,” he hisses, “if you so much as break one of her nails . . .”

“Now, now, Alderman,” I say. “Threatening one of your constituents in a public place can’t be good for your approval rating. You don’t want a scandal so soon after your election.”

I can tell he wants to rage, and threaten, and try to break my neck.

But none of that will help him.

So, with Herculean effort, he regains his control. He even tries to humble himself. Of course, for an arrogant prick like Callum Griffin, his humility is shallow and short.

“What do you want?” he growls. “What will it take to get her back?”

There are so many answers I could give him.

Your empire.

Your money.

Your life.

He’ll pay it all, and he still won’t get Nessa back.

She’s mine now. Why should I ever let her go?

“I wish I could help you,” I tell him, taking a last sip of my drink. I set down the glass and get to my feet, so Callum and I are exactly eye to eye. He has a little weight on me, but I’m faster. I could cut his throat right now, quicker than blinking.

But that would be too easy, and too unsatisfying.

“There was a time when we could have helped each other,” I tell him. “My father came to you, like you’re coming to me now. Do you remember what you said to him?”

Callum’s jaw jerks again as he grinds his teeth together, biting back everything he wants to say.

“I turned down his bid for a property,” he says.

“Not quite. You said, ‘What could you possibly offer me?’ I’m afraid we’re on the other side of the coin, now. What do you have to offer me, Griffin? Nothing. Nothing at all. So, get the fuck out of my club.”

Callum lunges at me, wrenched back by Simon and Olie, my two biggest bouncers. Watching Callum Griffin be dragged out of Jungle and tossed out on the street, while dozens of club-goers gawk and record the whole thing on their phones, is one of the most delicious moments of my life.

I sit back down in the booth, finally feeling that sense of catharsis I’ve been looking for.

12

Nessa

Encounters with Mikolaj leave me feeling raw and frayed. His ferocious blue eyes seem to strip off my skin, leaving every nerve exposed. Then he pokes and prods at all my most sensitive places, until I can’t bear it another moment.

He terrifies me.

And yet, he’s not completely repulsive, not in the way he should be.

My eyes are drawn to him and I can’t look away. Every inch of his face is burned into my mind, from the way his sweep of pale blond hair falls against his right cheek, to the dent in the center of his upper lip, to the tense set of his shoulders.

When he took my hand, I was surprised how warm his fingers felt, closing around mine. I guess I expected them to be clammy or covered in scales. Instead I saw strong, flexible, artistic hands. Clean nails, cut short. And only one strange thing: he was missing half the pinky on his left hand.

Mikolaj isn’t the only one with a missing finger. One of the other guards has the same thing—the dark, handsome one, whose name might be Marcel. I noticed it when he was smoking below my window. He offered Klara a cigarette with the damaged hand, but she shook her head and hurried back inside the house.

I’ve been around enough gangsters to know such things are often done as punishment. The Yakuza do it. The Russians, too. They also remove tattoos when a soldier is demoted, or brand him with a mark of dishonor.

I haven’t gotten close enough to Mikolaj to see what his tattoos represent. He has so many, more than the average criminal. They must mean something to him.

I’m curious, and I don’t want to be. I hate how he draws me in. It’s like hypnosis. I’m humiliated by how easily I agreed to dance with him. He used the thing I love the most to get at me, and when I came back to reality, I couldn’t believe how easily I had lost myself.

This man is my enemy. I can’t forget that for an instant.

He hates me. It blazes out of his face, every time he looks at me.

This will sound incredibly sheltered, but no one has ever hated me before—not like this. I sailed through school with plenty of friends. I’ve never been bullied, or even insulted—at least, not to my face. I’ve never had anyone look at me with loathing, like I’m an insect, like I’m a pile of burning trash.

I always try to be cheerful and kind. I can’t stand conflict. It’s practically pathological. I need to be loved.

I can feel myself squirming under his gaze, trying to think of a way to prove that I don’t deserve his contempt. I feel compelled to reason with him, even when I know how impossible that would be.

It’s pathetic.

I wish I were brave and confident. I wish I didn’t care what anyone thought.

I’ve always been surrounded by people who love me. My parents, my older brother—even Riona, who might be prickly, but I know she cares about me, deep down. Our house staff spoiled and adored me.

Now it’s all been ripped away, and what am I without it? A weak and frightened girl who is so deeply, deeply lonely that I would even sit down to dinner with my own kidnapper again, just to have someone to talk to.

It’s sick.

I have to find a way of surviving here. Some way to distract myself.

So the next morning, as soon as I wake up, I’m determined to start exploring the house.

I’ve barely sat up in bed before Klara brings in my breakfast tray. She has a hopeful, expectant look on her face. Someone must have told her I agreed to eat.

True to my word, I come sit at the little breakfast table over by the window. Klara sets the food down in front of me, laying a linen napkin in my lap.

It smells phenomenal. I’m even hungrier than I was last night. I rip into the bacon and fried eggs, then shovel up mouthfuls of diced potatoes.

My stomach is a bear fresh out of hibernation. It wants everything, absolutely everything, inside of it.

Klara is so pleased to see me stuffing potatoes in my mouth that she continues her Polish lessons, naming everything on the tray.