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“Don’t touch him!”

“Hands up!”

For a moment, all I can do is stare back in terror. But when they start stepping closer, reality crashes in. I can practically taste the cold metal of their guns on my tongue. I’m sure bullets aren’t far behind.

On shaky legs, I slowly raise my hands and move behind the bed. The tears staining my face are joined by a whole new flood as I contemplate my fate.

I am so fucked.

One man separates from the group—the one who initially invited me to sit with Dimitri on the yacht. His face is hard now, furious.

I gulp a shaky breath, overcome with fear.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” he demands, voice betraying the depth of his anger.

Behind him, someone steps toward the bed and presses two fingers to Dimitri’s throat. Noah’s eyes cut to him, and the man grimaces. “Weak.”

“Fuck!” He turns and slams his palm against the wall, and I flinch hard, my legs giving out beneath me. I slide down to the floor, pain radiating up through my tailbone.

“Get her out of my sight,” he growls. “Take her to the dungeon. And call the doctor—call Arabelle. Dima’s life is the priority. Move!”

Rough hands close around my arms and haul me upright. As they drag me toward the door, I manage one last look back at the bed, at Dimitri, still and pale against the dark linen, his chest rising in shallow, too-slow increments. The room tilts around me. I can’t breathe.

“Save the act for someone who cares.” Someone gives me a sharp shake.

My feet scrape the floor, my breathing spirals. I squeeze my eyes shut and count. One through ten, over and over, until my lungs remember how to work.

The men drag me down a flight of stairs and then another. When I open my eyes again, a door is being opened to yet another staircase. It’s dark down there, but someone flips a switch, and harsh light floods the space. I’m shoved forward, and we start down the stairs.

The air here is damp, stale. It sticks in my nose until I sneeze, my hair spilling into my face and cutting off my sight for a moment. My foot slips on a step, but the hands gripping me jerk me back before I fall. Then they let go, and I’m tumbling, my hands grasping for the railing and missing, the hard edges of the stairs battering my elbows and knees until I hit the cold concrete at the bottom.

Behind me, the men snicker. “A taste of what’s coming,” one of them warns, and then I’m yanked back to my feet so fast my vision whites out for a second. I blink through it and get my first clear look at the space as they push me forward.

It really is a dungeon.

A long stretch of corridor lined with holding cells, each with steel-barred doors—the type you’d find in a police station. Inside, nothing but a narrow cot, a sink, and a water closet. My stomach quivers, nausea surging up.

This can’t be happening.

The men drag me to the very last holding cell and open it up, then shove me inside. I go down hard on the concrete—face first. Pain flares across my face. By the time I manage to push myself up, they’ve slammed the door shut.

I hear the click of a lock, and the fading of footsteps down the corridor.

“Wait—” I rasp uselessly after them. “Don’t leave me here.”

A second later, the lights flicker out.

Time in the cell is a formless thing. There are no windows, no clocks, nothing to mark its passing except my own instincts—and I’m not even sure if I trust them anymore.

I sit on the edge of the cot and stare aimlessly ahead.

At least the lights were turned back on—so there’s that.

After the men left, I tried to think practically, but practicality kept dissolving into dread and worry. But not just for myself.

For Millie.

For Dimitri.