Page 57 of Mission Shift
And I let it take me.
Cold.
Deep, bone-deep cold.
I gasped awake. My breathing was jagged, like my lungs had forgotten how to function. Panic reared its head, but I slammed it back down, forcing control into my trembling limbs.
I had been trained for this.
I knew how to compartmentalize.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on one thing at a time.
A cot beneath me. An almost dark room with a small window near the ceiling.
My head throbbed like a motherfucker, the pain sharp and persistent, but my thoughts—thank God—were still intact. They hadn’t scrambled my brain. Not yet.
I flexed my fingers, one by one. All there.
I wiggled my toes. Still attached.
I rolled my shoulders, flinching. Pain radiated down my arms, as if fire had crawled through my veins. But nothing felt broken.
And…
A shuddering breath left my lips when I realized they hadn’t raped me.
I bit down hard as nausea twisted in my gut. Fedorov and his men had gotten their sick pleasure torturing me, but they hadn’t gone further.
I’d take the small mercies.
I exhaled, slow and steady, curling into myself. The fetal position offered the only warmth I had. I was still here. Still breathing. Still fighting.
For now, it was over. But my mind wouldn’t stop.
All things Braxton played on a loop in my mind.
I squeezed my eyes shut as Fedorov’s revelation slammed back into me like a hammer to my skull.
Braxton wasn’t an innocent aid worker.
Braxton was working with Nikolai Volkov.
Braxton had been part of the fucking Red Wedding in Manhattan.
How could I have been such a fool?
I prided myself onneverbeing deceived. I could read people, sense a lie before it was even spoken. Yet Braxton—Braxton—had played me like a master manipulator.
And I hadn’t suspected a damn thing.
I chewed on my bottom lip.
Think, Daria. Focus.
I forced myself to start from the beginning, from the moment I met him.
Carefully, I considered the way he’d watched me. The way he had always seemed so calm. How he had let me lead. Let me talk. Let me open up.
