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I leave the room with that image sitting somewhere I don’t examine too closely, and somewhere down the hall I can hear her exhale, long and slow, the sound of someone settling into a fight she hasn’t figured out how to win yet.

6

HARPER

Somewhere between yesterday and today, someone moved me out of the chair.

I wake up on an actual bed, still in the same house as far as I can tell, wrists free, ankles free, a door that locks from the outside instead of restraints that dig into skin. It’s a step up, technically. I try not to feel grateful for it, because being grateful for a slightly nicer cage is exactly the kind of thinking that gets people to stop trying to leave the cage at all.

There’s a man outside my door when I open it. Not Artem. Bigger, quieter, arms crossed like standing there is the whole of his personality. He doesn’t stop me from walking past him into the hallway, which tells me either I’m allowed to move around now or he’s confident I’ve got nowhere useful to go. Both, probably.

I find Artem in a room that looks like an office, papers spread across a desk he doesn’t bother covering when I walk in.

“The second I’m out of here, I’m going straight to the police.” I plant myself in the doorway, arms crossed to match the guard’s, though I doubt it reads as anywhere near as intimidating on me. “I hope you know that. Kidnapping. Unlawful restraint. I watched enough true crime to know exactly what to tell them.”

He doesn’t look up from the papers. “Okay.”

“Okay?” That’s not the reaction I built this speech for. “That’s it? No threats? No ‘you’ll never make it to a police station’?”

“Would that change anything you’re planning to say?”

“No.”

“Then there’s no point wasting the breath.” He finally looks up, unreadable in that same maddening way he’s been since the first night. “Say whatever you want to whoever you want, when you’re free to do it.”

The confidence in that lands worse than a threat would have. A threat I could push back against, get angry at, use as fuel. This just sits there, calm and certain, like he already knows something about how this ends that I don’t.

I leave before I let him see that it worked.

The rest of the day I spend walking the property, slow and casual, the way you’d stroll if you were just bored and curious instead of counting every door and window like your life depends on knowing where they lead.

Old habits from the dojo kick in without me asking.

Note the exits.

Note who’s watching which hallway and when they switch. Note the gate at the end of the driveway, too far to see clearly from here, but close enough that I clock the two men stationed near it, rotating out every couple of hours like clockwork.

The grounds are bigger than I expected, a stretch of lawn running down toward a tree line I can’t see the end of, a garage with its doors shut tight, a stone path that curves around the side of the house and disappears past a hedge tall enough to block whatever’s behind it.

I walk the path anyway, unhurried, hands in my pockets, doing my best impression of a woman with nowhere better to be.

Nobody stops me. That tells me something too, that they’re either not worried about me getting far, or they’ve already thought through every version of me trying.

There’s a side door off the kitchen that looks less guarded than the rest, and I linger near it just long enough to test the handle before someone clears their throat behind me.

“Looking for something?”

I turn around to find a woman leaning in the kitchen doorway, dark hair pulled back tight, an apron dusted with flour at the hip.

She’s got the kind of face that could be friendly or unreadable depending on which way the light hits it, and right now, with Artem walking into the kitchen behind her, it’s aimed squarely at friendly.

“Just looking around. Sorry, I didn’t mean to get in the way.”

“You’re not in the way at all.” Her smile widens, warm in a way that almost convinces me. “I’m Nadia. I run the kitchen here, mostly, and whatever else needs running. You must be hungry. I can put something together if you’d like.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Of course. Whenever you change your mind.” She says it easily, like she’s got all the patience in the world for me. “Pakhan.” Nadia glances past me and straightens, wiping her hands on her apron, her voice dropping softer than anything she’s used on me. “Shall I bring your coffee to the study?”