Page 120 of Captive Promise

This can’t be happening. It can’t be real.

That’s it.

This is clearly just a really bad fucking nightmare.

I’m going to close my eyes then open them and I’ll be back in my bed.

Whether that’s at Nico’s or at mine, I really don’t care.

Close my eyes. Open my eyes. I’m still in the same place. Fuck. This is truly a living nightmare.

Russo steps back, straightening his suit and staring down at me affectionately. “You should rest, Katerina,” he says, his voice returning to that almost gentle tone. “Conserve your strength. We have a long road ahead of us, and I need you in peak condition for what’s to come.”

He moves toward the door, his footsteps echoing in the sudden, ringing silence. At the threshold, he pauses, looking back at me over his shoulder.

“Your suffering, your sacrifice, it’s going to change the world,” he says, almost reverently. “Take comfort in that. It’s more than most people ever get to claim.”

Then he’s gone, the door swinging shut behind him with a clang that feels like the sealing of a tomb. I lie there in the dark, my breath coming in shallow, hiccupping gasps. Hot and bitter tears stream down my face soaking into the thin pillow beneath my head.

I’m going to die here. I’m going to die, and it’s going to be slow and painful and utterly, utterly meaningless.

But even as despair threatens to swallow me whole, I cling to one tiny, fragile shard of light in the overwhelming darkness.

Nico.

He’s coming for me. He has to be. He won’t let Russo win. He won’t let him use me as a pawn in this sick, twisted game.

He’ll find me. He’ll save me.

He has to.

20

NICO

The twelve hours working with Maksim and Nikolai are the longest of my life. Each minute drags by with agonizing slowness. I don’t stop searching for Katerina.

I don’t eat.

The very concept of rest or sustenance feels like a cruel joke, a mockery of the agony that’s tearing me apart from the inside out.

My mind is consumed by one thought, one driving, desperate need: to bring back the woman I love. To know Katerina’s safe and she’s mine.

I try not to think about what she might be enduring while I pace the halls of my estate like a caged animal.

I try not to imagine the horrors Russo could be inflicting upon her, the pain and fear she must be drowning in. But the images come anyway, relentless and merciless, each one a fresh knife twisting in my gut.

I should have protected her better. I should have seen this coming. Russo knew it was me that took Seraphina and they also knew about Katerina.

My nails dig into the flesh of my palms. You stupid fucking, arrogant idiot. Because of your recklessness, she’s paying the price.

The guilt gnaws at my insides, whispering poisonous recriminations in my ear.

It mingles with the fear, the sickening dread of what I might find when I finally reach her, until I can barely breathe through the weight of it all.

And through it all, there’s another worry.

Luca.