Page 25 of Maksym

“I will not reach again unless you ask,” I said.

Her breathing trembled. It took several seconds before she nodded, and even then the nod looked less like forgiveness than acknowledgment of a rule written down.

“I will never hurt you,” I said.

She looked at me then, and I wished I had chosen different words. Promises were cheap in the mouths of monsters. I had killed enough oath-breakers to know how easily language could dress rot in silk.

So I added, “I do not expect you to believe that because I say it. I will prove it, or I will be nothing but another man who wanted credit for words.”

Her expression shifted by a fraction.

“We will take this one day at a time,” I continued. “One hour, if necessary. You will be taught what you are. You will be fed. Protected. Given answers.”

“And if I want to leave?”

Outside the door, Taras’s heartbeat did not change. But his stance adjusted.

I held Grace’s eyes. “You cannot leave the estate.”

Her face hardened instantly.

I lifted one hand, palm open, then lowered it again before the gesture could become too much. “Not as punishment. Not as ownership. Lucian will be searching for you. If he does not already know you came to me, he will soon. He held you for two years. He brought you to Vegas. He will have people, watchers, debts owed. If you leave these wards before I understand the scope of his reach, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

“Your guarantee isn’t the measure of my freedom.”

“No,” I said. “But his intention to reclaim you is the measure of immediate danger.”

Her jaw flexed.

I watched the lawyer return, wounded but present. She did not like my answer. She searched it for locks, hidden claims, legal traps disguised as concern.

“And if I decide later that I want to go?”

“Then we will discuss later when later exists.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the only honest one I can give tonight.” I leaned back, forcing distance into my posture. “If you ask me whether I would let you walk out this door and into Lucian’s hands, the answer is no.”

Her eyes flashed.

“If you ask me whether I intend to keep you as a prisoner,” I said, “the answer is also no.”

“How convenient that you get to define the difference.”

“You may define it too.”

She gave me a look of open disbelief. I wanted to smile. Not because any part of this was amusing, but because there she was again, blade-bright in the ruins.

“I am not stupid,” she said.

“No. You are not.”

“I have no desire to press my luck outside these walls. I barely know what happened to me. I don’t know what I can do, or what I need, or whether I’m going to wake up tomorrow craving the nearest pulse.” She swallowed, and the disgust that crossed her face was turned inward. “I’m not running into the desert to prove a point.”

Relief moved through me so swiftly I had to keep it from showing too plainly.

“But don’t confuse that with trust,” she said.