I was taking a drink of water when the front door slammed shut. A familiar masculine voice reached me. It took a few seconds to recognize it, and when I did, the crystal glass slipped from my fingers, hit the edge of the table, and the faraway sounds of tink, tink, tink fell to the floor.

Heart in my throat, I shot to my feet.

“Sit down.”

I barely heard Ronan’s command over the rush of blood in my ears. My mind told me to listen, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. All I could do was stare at Ivan as he stepped into the dining room—at the blood on his ripped dress shirt, at his bruised face, and at his hands tied behind his back. The sight of him was so welcome tears burned the backs of my eyes, but the reality of his presence twisted a knife in my gut.

Albert and Viktor stood on either side of Ivan, each restraining him by an arm. The three of them looked awful: cut lips, bruised eyes, and bloody clothes. Albert bled profusely from his side, which soaked his white button-up.

Ivan’s cool gaze found me and softened with relief before it slid down my body to inspect for injuries, but the only wounded ones were the men in the doorway. My empty stomach roiled at the thought Ivan was trying to rescue me from D’yavol’s hands while I was embracing the heat those same hands left behind.

“Ty v poryadke?” Ivan asked me. Are you okay?

Throat too tight to speak, I nodded.

“Mila,” Ronan said in an ominous tone. “Sit down.”

The volatile warning stroked my skin, but I couldn’t move or force my gaze from Ivan’s. Self-loathing and panic bit at my veins, overwhelming me, though when Ivan gave me a look that told me to listen, numbly, I sat. Complying then only intensified the strain in the air. Each second was pulled taut and stretched to impossible limits.

“Pochemu ty zdes?” Ronan growled at Albert.

By their curt words and severe body language, I recognized Ivan wasn’t supposed to be here, in the same home as me, as well as the fact Ronan knew Ivan had been found while he sat beside me and sipped his tea indifferently through breakfast. He wasn’t planning to share the knowledge with me.

Apparently, Ivan had other ideas.

I almost wished for ignorant bliss. If something happened to Ivan; if my selfish act of coming to Moscow got him killed . . . My stomach threatened to expel the small contents inside.

Ivan’s stare conveyed he wasn’t convinced I was unharmed, and he was now probing for mental wounds instead of physical ones.

I’m okay, my gaze promised. But what about you?

Seeing the tears running down my cheeks, his split lip lifted in an unconcerned smile. The sight didn’t alleviate the tight sensation in my lungs. After a strained beat, I realized the men had stopped talking and were now watching our silent conversation.

“Ubiraysya otsyuda,” Ronan snapped impatiently. Get out. “Take him downstairs for now.”

Downstairs? Was there really a dungeon in the house? My heart twisted.

Ivan shrugged the hands from his arms and headed down the hall. As cold and still as a block of ice, I watched him until he disappeared around the corner with Albert and Viktor following.

“How does he know where to go?” I wasn’t aware the emotionless words had escaped until Ronan answered.

“He doesn’t.”

Clearly, he did, but my curiosity dissolved beneath the heavy pressure on my chest. As Ronan stood and nonchalantly slipped his phone into his pocket, my entire being whirled with an idea of how to talk him out of whatever he planned for Ivan.

“I’ll beg you,” I blurted.

He glanced up, the look darkly amused but conflicted by a hint of something cold and terrifying that leaked into his eyes. “I’m not sure it would feel very sincere.”

I wanted to scream at him that this wasn’t a game, but he was already out the door. He was going to go about his day as usual and desert me to slowly die inside.

On my feet, I reached him in the hall and stepped in front of him so he had to give me his full attention.

He stilled, a muscle tightening in his jaw. I understood then, the ticking time bomb wasn’t an elusive, mystical warning. It was him, as tangible as his eyes, posture, and presence. The darkness inside was close to devastating this home to stone and ash, and it would take me with it. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about humiliating myself. Pride no longer mattered—not with Ivan’s life in jeopardy.

I dropped to my knees in front of him, my blood going colder than the hard marble. “I’m sincerely begging you,” I said, a tear leaking down my cheek. “If you let Ivan go, I swear, you can have anything you want from me.”

Ronan had me where he wanted me—a worthless commoner at a king’s feet—but there wasn’t an ounce of pleasure in his stare.

“I can already have anything I want from you.”

“There’s a lot you couldn’t have.”

He held my gaze to the sound of my desperation consuming the hall. “You’re not really known for telling the truth, are you, malen’kaya lgunishka?”

Frustration pushed at me. If I couldn’t convince him with words, then I would try with actions. I reached for his belt buckle, and as I worked to undo it, I realized my hands were shaking.

I didn’t have the faintest idea how to give oral well, but I needed to figure it out because I knew Ronan wouldn’t guide me. He didn’t believe I was innocent in regard to sex. My stomach was so unsettled, I was afraid if he gagged me, I’d throw up. I was going to ruin this. At the thought of losing Ivan on top of my papa, a quiet sob rose up my throat.

Ronan grabbed my wrist to stop me. “As much as this is turning me on, I’m going to pass.”

He wasn’t turned on. He was angry—deadly even, given the ice-cold, heartless look in his eyes. With a low, furious sound, he tugged me roughly out of his way and headed down the hall.

All I knew at that moment was, I couldn’t live with Ivan’s death on my conscience.

“If you kill Ivan, you might as well kill me.”

Ronan paused, but after a few seconds passed, he walked away, leaving me on the floor as desolate as always.

súton

(n.) the end of something

The home sat as still as a grave while I stood beneath the staircase and stared at the elaborate woodwork that hid a door from sight—the one Albert and Viktor just vacated before leaving the house. I expected the entrance to be locked or require a special passcode like it would in any decent spy movie, but it opened right up to reveal cement stairs leading down to hell.

Nerves shook in my hands as I hesitated at the threshold and listened for the tortured screams of damned souls, only to be welcomed by silence and a cold draft. A sane person wouldn’t go down there, but it seemed I was losing my grasp on rationality with the rest of the house.

Closing the door behind me, I rubbed a hand over the goose bumps on my arm and headed down the stairs. When I reached the bottom, I pretended the room was any other unfinished basement with mortared stone walls and a dampness thickening the air, but the fallacy grew harder to accept each time I viewed a bloodstain on the floor as well as the barred cells lining the far wall.

I should have found it a reprieve the cells sat empty sans one and that I wasn’t soundly sleeping upstairs while people rotted below, but there was nothing relieving about seeing Ivan leaning against iron bars and giving me the look he always did when I did something he disapproved of.