6
CORA
I don’t even have tears to blink back.
The storm of faith and fears and courage and doubt that has raged through me for hours is suddenly quiet… which, in a weird way, is the worst feeling of all.
“I almost preferred when you had a little hope,” Mikhail comments. “It was more interesting.”
I look up. Mikhail is watching me with a pout. He looks like a child staring down at the ruined tangle of their Slinkie. He’s destroyed my hope and I’ve destroyed his sadistic fun. The two offenses don’t seem anywhere close to equal, as far as I’m concerned.
“Ah, well. Onward and upward.”
He walks around my chair and fiddles with the chains on my wrist. When he sees my cuts, he winces and pokes at the raw, oozing skin. It takes everything in me not to cry out in pain again.
“That’s gross. You should really clean that up before it gets infected. I have a lot of big plans for you.” Suddenly, his breath is hot against my ear. “Many of which involve your hands.”
The thought of whatever else Mikhail has planned is enough to make me hurl. “If you don’t get me something to eat soon, there won’t be anything left of me, big plans or not.”
The chain around my wrist clatters to the ground. As soon as I’m free, I clutch my hands to my chest. I don’t need to look at the damage to know it’s there. The cool air hisses against the exposed flesh like rubbing alcohol. If I look down, I might pass out. And I don’t dare to be that vulnerable with Mikhail.
“Patience,” he croons, walking around my chair to face me again. “I’m taking you home.”
Home? For one solitary second, I think he means my home. Ivan’s home. Then that fairytale fractures into a thousand, razor-sharp pieces.
“Do you mean… Do you have a house? I thought the Sokolov estate was where all of you lived together.”
Maybe that would be for the best. Mikhail’s rotten apple did not fall far from his daddy’s fucked-up tree, but if we are surrounded by Mikhail’s younger sisters and the household staff, maybe that’ll at least keep him from going completely and totally apeshit. If nothing else, it’ll be nicer accommodations than this foul, cobwebby dungeon.
Without warning, Mikhail grabs me by the elbow and hauls me onto shaky legs. He doesn’t grab me by my wrists, which is the only mercy he has shown me in… well, ever.
“As fun as it would be to take you home with me, I’m a man of tradition.”
I frown up at him, waiting for understanding to click into place.
“I’m not taking you to my home,” he explains. “I’m taking you to yours. I need your father’s permission, after all.”
There it is. Understanding. It clicks into place like the cocking of a gun.
“Alexander?” I rasp. “My… my parents? You’re taking me to my parents.”
Francia admitted she sold me out to my stepfather. I was just so distracted with everything else that I forgot.
Mikhail slides closer to me. Instinctively, I jerk back from him. But he holds me still with a strength that his thin arms shouldn’t be capable of.
“Your mother and stepfather will be so happy to hear our big news,” he drawls through clenched teeth. “They always loved me.”
“They loved your money.”
He shrugs. “Close enough.”
“Don’t you care about… about anything? They only want to work with you because you’re rich. They don’t even know you. Wouldn’t you rather marry someone who actually loves you?”
I feel like a cornered gazelle pleading with a lion for my life. Even as I know it won’t do any good. The same way I was raised to be prey—to stay quiet and obey—Mikhail was raised to be a predator. He is doing what he was taught.
“I’d rather marry someone who can give me what I want.”
“Which is what, exactly?” I ask that as if I have anything at all I could give him.
He smiles and strokes a callused finger down my jaw. I turn away, but he forces my face back to his. “I want everything Ivan Pushkin has.”
Any ember of hope that might have survived snuffs out.
I turn towards the door behind me. The place where Francia dragged Jorden. If she was still back there, we could have tried to fight Mikhail together. We could’ve tried to escape and—
It doesn’t matter. It’s impossible. Then and now.
Jorden is gone and I don’t need to try anything to know that Mikhail isn’t going to let me escape this time. More than that, my stepfather won’t, either. I’ve fooled them all before. They won’t sit back and let it happen again.
Mikhail brushes a thumb over my lower lip. I taste the salt from his fingertip. “Don’t look so glum, Cordelia. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
“In exchange for what?” I ask. “I know you well enough to know nothing comes cheap.”
He smirks. “All it will cost you is your worship.”
I blink, stunned. “Pardon?”
“Treat me as your god,” he says casually. “Whatever I say is gospel. Whatever I want, you give me. Live and die by my desires and I’ll make sure you have every extravagance you could ever want.”
Ivan. I want Ivan.
But I don’t have to ask to know Mikhail will never give me that.
“If you don’t…” He lets his voice trail off as his eyes scrape over my skin. Being under his gaze feels like lying naked on an exam table. He might as well be standing over me with a scalpel. “Well, as disappointed as I’d be to see it happen, you can be replaced, sweetheart.”
“You can’t kill me. That’s what Ivan asked for, right?”
He snorts. “Ivan didn’t ask for a fucking thing. He doesn’t care what happens to you.”
“Then why haven’t you—?”
“Killed you?” Mikhail’s hand slides to my throat. “Because I’m having too much fun. If you want to live, make sure it stays that way.”
I swallow, my throat bobbing against his palm. I don’t want to think about what Mikhail’s version of “fun” looks like.
Then Mikhail drops his hand and steps back. “So you have a choice: come with me willingly and live. Or come with me unwillingly and die.”
Not much of a choice. But in this world of prey and predator, I shouldn’t be surprised. All we can do is play the roles we’ve been given. No matter how hard I fight or how fast I run, this is where I always end up. This is the choice in front of me.
And I’m so, so tired.
I lower my head and nod softly. “Okay.”
“What?” Mikhail calls loudly. “I couldn’t hear you.”
I look up at him. The words lodge in my throat, and I have to force them out. “I’ll come with you. Willingly.”
A slow smile spreads across Mikhail’s face. He brushes my cheek with his cold, clammy hand. “Now, that’s a good girl.”
Mikhail leads me through the side door where Jorden was taken and out into the alley, where a car with tinted windows awaits us. He opens the door and pushes me into the backseat with a hand on my head. Then he pauses for a moment with an easy smile smeared across his face. “Things are finally going to work out the way they were always supposed to, Cordelia.”
He slams the door closed, leaving me alone. I see him standing outside on the phone, but I can’t hear anything. It’s a good thing. I need these quiet moments to focus on my situation. To sort out the jumble of panicked thoughts in my head.
No one is coming to save me. That much is stupidly clear by now. So if I want to get out of this and rescue Jorden, I have to figure out how to save myself.
When I do, I’m going to escape this city—this life—and start over. There’s nothing and no one here for me.
Everything I loved has been taken.