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I cross the space to the bedroom door, crack it open, and brace for impact. Div and Mara shoot out like two missiles fired from a fucking submarine: they are sleek, black, and aimed directly at the living room.

With a huff, I run after them.

Div gets there first.

I expect her to scream and scramble and generally behave with the alarm and fright she’s been wearing so plainly since I entered the room.

Instead, she instinctively stills, and no longer is there an ounce of panic I can glean from her stance or expression. Like the flick of a switch, she calms. She remains calm, too, as Div shoves up his snout insistently against her knee, and she extends her hand, palm down, fingers loosely dangling and lets him smell her. I spectate as Mara circles once, twice, then settles at the other end of the couch, watching her with shrewd, assessing eyes.

Before I know it, his head is drooping across her lap, and she is petting at his head. Everything about her that had been stiff with terror moments ago is now at ease, almost serene-looking.

I can’t decide whether this woman is simply quick on her feet, or a phenomenal goddamn actress. I’m aware both of my sisters would insist it’s backward as hell not to consider a woman a threat purely because she’s a woman. But there’s just something about her… A softness, almost, that it feels fucked up to impugn.

All I know is that, when my phone begins to buzz with a call from Miron, I’m thankful for the steady ground. I hold up a finger to her—which earns me an impressively withering scowl—and step toward the window to take it.

“I need some good news, Miron.”

“Sorry, bratan,” he sighs. I can hear his frustration plainly. It matches what flares inside my chest. “First number’s a ghost. My girl says it’s been routed through at least three relays before it hit your phone. Second number’s just as untraceable, but she caught it pinging a different cell tower. Could be two different people. Or maybe just one paranoid as fuck son of a bitch.”

In other words, you don’t know. “Which do you think?” I ask.

“I think I don’t have enough to think anything,” Miron snaps. “And the auction—Leo, I’ve been pulling every string we fucking have. Nobody’s talking. The guest list, the organizers, the rival bidders? It’s all in a black box. Whoever runs this motherfucking operation has buried it so deep that no one can get a foothold. I can’t even get a fucking name on the guy who was bidding against you for her.”

Her.

I glance back at the woman. She’s still on the couch, still petting Div, but she isn’t quick enough to look away when I turn. I catch her. Color floods her cheeks, and it shouldn’t threaten to derail my thoughts, but it does.

“Just keep trying,” I tell him. “Try the Zakharov side. Anastasia might have access channels we haven’t touched. It’s worth a try.”

Miron sighs again, more exhausted this time. “Already called her, Leo. She’s on it.”

“Good.” I pause, then lower my voice to a hush. “I need you to reach out to your fed contact and have him run facial recognition on this woman. I want a dossier on her before the night’s out.”

I end the call and pocket my phone.

Her face betrays nothing, except for those effusive eyes of hers—they have fear swimming within their depths once more. And I don’t know whether I’m a fucking idiot for being swayed by the sight or just a man. It’s unforgivable. God fucking damn it, I’m supposed to have a read on every situation I walk into. Instead, fucking look at me: standing in my own safehouse with a woman I paid a hundred and eighty thousand dollars for, two untraceable phone numbers, a faceless rival bidder, and the same fucking mole that’s been bleeding us dry for a year. And nothing to show for any of it. Not really.

Somehow, I’ve wound up with more questions than I started with.

Chapter 6 - Meera

I wake up to a sandpaper-rough tongue lapping at my cheek.

Every lick includes a hot waft of breath that reeks of rancid meat and sour saliva. I choke on the stench hard enough that my eyes fly open.

They are greeted with the sight of a dog.

A very large, very sleek, very black dog, who is standing over me with its snout approximately two inches from my nose, tail twitching like a metronome gone haywire. Behind it, on the floor beside the couch, its twin sits with the rigid posture of a soldier awaiting orders, watching me with dark, intelligent eyes that remind me uncomfortably of their owner.

My owner, too.

Because I was taken off the street on an ordinary Friday night. Because I was snatched from the roadside and thrown into the back of a van, stripped out of my clothing and dressed up like a doll. Because we live in a world where it’s so easy to just violate a woman. And I don’t even know what—

Stop. I have to stop. I can’t do this.

I push myself upright, taking care to go gradually. The room doesn’t tilt as badly as it did before, which I’m going to take as a marginal victory. Someone has added a pillow and a blanket to the couch since I last lost consciousness—a detail that lands somewhere between considerate and horrifying, because it means hands were on me again while I was under, and I didn’t feel it. Even if those hands were just tucking a blanket around my shoulders. Even if the intention was kind. The not-knowing is the part that makes my skin crawl, like an army of ants is skittering up and down my body.

The dog on the couch nudges my hand with its nose. Demanding. He reminds me of the puppy my mother got me on my tenth birthday, before Ray accidentally ran his cruiser over him. I never even decided on a name. Lost in my thoughts, I comply to this dog’s demands without argument—my fingers find the smooth plane of its skull, the velvet fold of an ear, and something in my chest loosens a fraction.