LITMIR.BIZ

      KARINA HAD LONG SINCE retreated to the sofa, night having fallen hours earlier, when she heard the voices. The sound of them, their tone sharp and urgent, broke into her thoughts. She frowned, irritated by the distraction even if nothing she’d been thinking about had been particularly pleasant.

      She slowly raised her head to look at the closed door, the one Sergei had shut when he left. The barrier was thick, solid. Yet the voices were loud enough, the intensity in them fierce enough, to be heard through the surface.

      A familiar sense of foreboding fell over her. She tried to swallow, only to discover her mouth had suddenly gone dry.

      Something was wrong.

      Part of her longed to stay where she was, safely insulated from whatever lay on the other side of that door.

      The rest of her already knew what it was, what it had to be. What she’d feared would happen from the moment Sergei had brought her here, even more than the idea of something happening to her.

      She barely realized she was rising from her seat until her feet hit the floor. As if in a trance, she forced herself to cross the room and open the door.

      One of the household staff stood a short distance down the hallway. At the sight of her, Karina’s heart fell into her stomach. The woman’s hand was pressed to her mouth, her expression locked in grief and horror and shock.

      And Karina knew she’d been right.

      “What’s wrong?” she asked, the voice seeming to come from far away rather than from her own mouth.

      The woman jerked her head up and just stared at her for a long moment. It didn’t seem possible, but the horror on her face deepened at the sight of Karina standing there.

      “Mr. Yevchenko—He…is dead.”

      Expecting it did nothing to protect her from the sharp pain that ripped through her at hearing the words spoken. She realized some small part had hoped that it would not be true, or that if something had to have happened, he would only be hurt, not killed.

      “How?” she asked, that strange, distant voice coming out as a barely audible rasp.

      “A shooting. He was leaving his vehicle and a car drove by. Someone inside shot at him.”

      Of course, she thought faintly. That was how they would do it. She didn’t ask if the shooter had been caught. She knew better than to think they would choose a way that would lead to them being captured.

      She stood frozen, unable to move, unable to react, unable to do anything but stare at the horror on the woman’s face, knowing it was mirrored on her own.

      The woman started to say something else. Karina didn’t hear her, the sound drowned out by Sergei’s final words to her, the reassurances now painfully mocking, echoing in her ears.

      You are safe here.

      We will not let him win.

      And another voice, one she usually only heard in her nightmares, now as vivid as though the speaker were standing beside her, whispering cruelly in her ear.

      I always win.