All Chapters of A Prey For My Enemy: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

85 Chapters

Phone Call

— Tatiana — The rules of acceptable behavior, as Dmitri explained them to me with the careful patience of a man who'd been told to explain them carefully: Don't attack the guards. Don't attempt to leave the grounds without permission. Don't attempt to access the security system. Don't remove the monitoring bracelet from my wrist. Although thin, silver and barely there, it was calibrated to alert if it left the property. Follow the rules for twenty-four consecutive hours. Reward: ten minutes. One phone call. Monitored. I followed the rules for twenty-four consecutive hours. I did not attack anyone. I did not attempt anything. I sat in the library and read and rearranged shelves and practiced the three self-defense holds Dmitri had taught me—he'd offered them; I'd taken the offer with both hands—and I did not think about the fact that I was performing compliance for the benefit of a man who had murdered my family, because then I get nothing, and I have always been pragmatic about le

Secret Boyfriend

— JULIAN — The recording plays twice. I don't need it a third time. I have a very good memory for the things that matter, and Tatiana's voice matters. The way it sounds when she's exicted. The way it changes when she is scared. She wasn't scared tonight. That's the thing I can't keep out of my mind. She should have been more scared. I set my phone face-down on the desk and lean back in the chair and look at the ceiling of my hotel room. He knows who I am. I can't shake this nagging thought that sends shivers down my spine in a bad way. Tatiana's stepbrother. I ran a check after she ended the call. Except for his basic details. Kain Morozov is a digital ghost. Fine. I've been known by worse men. The people who worked adjacent to Viktor's network, the ones still breathing, they all say the same thing. You never know what Kain is thinking. You never know what he's going to do next. I find that a little frustrating actually. The man who took my girl is someone I canno

Lingerie as Weapon

— Tatiana — I want to be clear that this was a strategic decision. I had been a prisoner for eleven days and I had tried escape (twice), physical assault (once, generously), intellectual argument (ongoing, results inconclusive), and the systematic deconstruction of every shelf in the library, and none of these approaches had produced any visible change in Kain Aleksei Morozov's composure. The man was a wall with excellent bone structure. I needed a new angle of attack. The online shopping access was, in retrospect, a mistake on his part. I started with the practical items. Books, cardigans, the kind of warm wool socks that are the only dignified response to stone floors and I spent approximately twenty minutes on these before the more interesting items appeared. I would like to say I hesitated. I did not hesitate. I had a thesis and I needed evidence. Dmitri delivered the packages the next morning with the expression of a man who has chosen not to form opinions about the cont

Rain on Glass

— Tatiana — The storm came in from the north and hit the cliffs hard. I sat in the reading chair I have claimed as mine, regardless of what anyone said about whose chair it was. Had my feet tucked up, watching the rain do its level best against the tall windows as I read. Not aloud, this time. Just to myself. The sound of rain on glass has always been one of my favorite sounds: the persistence of it, the way it keeps going without needing to know whether anyone is listening. My mother used to say that rain was the sky grieving. I turned the page. I made myself stop thinking about my mother. The book was good. The lamp was warm. The ache in my chest had settled into something chronic enough that I'd stopped actively noticing it, the way you stop hearing a clock ticking once you've been in the room long enough. I had been a prisoner for thirteen days. I had developed a routine, which felt like defeat and also, perversely, like survival. I made my own tea in the mornings—Vera th

The Visitor

— Tatiana —They let me see him on a Tuesday.I knew it was Tuesday because I’d started marking time by the bread Vera baked on Mondays and Thursdays. Yesterday’s loaf had still been warm when it arrived on my tray, crust crackling under my fingers. Today the bread was yesterday’s. Therefore, Tuesday.A woman of my status and a letter opener hidden in her cardigan should not have been reduced to this. And yet here I was, standing at the tall window of the library, heart hammering at the low metallic groan of the front gate.Do not run, I told myself. You are not a dog hearing its owner’s car. You are Tatiana Nikolaevna Morozov. You have dignity. You have rage. You have—The gate finished opening.I ran.Down the long hallway, silk robe fluttering behind me like a battle flag, bare feet slapping cold marble. I reached the top of the grand staircase just as the front doors opened below.Julian stepped inside.For one suspended second our eyes met across the distance. His face. The compos

Brother

— Kain —I sat in my office with the security feed open and no intention of watching it.I worked. Reviewed eastern route assessments. Made notes in my usual mechanical pencil. I reviewed Anya’s latest intercepts and the secondary safe house inventory. By any observable measure, I was a man seriously engaged in work.The feed was open on a secondary screen.Fourteen days. She had been here fourteen days, and I had already memorized her reading schedule, her sleep cycles, the three places she gravitated to when she needed to think, the way she couldn’t pass a bookshelf without trailing her fingers along the spines.Four hours earlierThe guards had dragged Julian Ashford into my office still bleeding.The British lawyer’s coat was torn at the shoulder, hair disheveled, and a fresh split lip was already swelling. He’d been caught snooping near the perimeter fence on the east cliff path, phone in hand, trying to map the blind spots.“Found him circling the outer wall like a rat,” Dmitri h

Performing Love

— Tatiana —There were only a few things I knew could get Kain riled. And so help me God, I wanted to see him lose control.After yesterday, the small treacherous crack that had opened in my chest slammed shut. Emotion reset to zero. All that remained was clean, cold rage and the need to make him feel something — anything — for what he’d done.If he wanted to watch me run into Julian’s arms, I would give him a front-row seat.I was running a campaign, essentially, and I want to be clear that I understood what I was doing and why: he was impervious to every other form of leverage, and I had located a gap in his armor and I was a scientist about it.I started by wearing the diamond earrings Julian had given me. I asked Vera for Julian’s favorite wine and had her serve it with dinner in the common room, right where Kain usually sat.But the real performance began in the evening.I waited until I knew Kain would pass through the library on his usual route. Then I dragged Julian into the ro

Losing Control

— Kain —Tatiana continued to hammer her fists against the door like it would make any difference. Her hands were already turning red. Julian’s indignant shouts from the other side only made the corner of my mouth twitch.“No amount of force you could muster would open that door. ”Tatiana pounded harder. “Then open the fucking door, Kain!”I stepped behind her and caught both her wrists in one hand. Her skin was hot, pulse racing under my fingers.“Enough.”She snatched her hands back with surprising strength and immediately raised them to bang again. I caught her wrists once more, spun her around, and bent low. In one smooth motion I hauled her over my shoulder.“Put me down, you oversized caveman! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”Her fists beat against my back as I carried her away from the east wing. She twisted and cursed, her voice rising with every step.“Are you going to lock me up too? Throw me in a room like a misbehaving pet? Is that your grand solution, you possess

Bargaining Chip

— Tatiana —I did not leave his room.The moment the door clicked shut behind him I should have run. Instead I stood there in the middle of Kain’s bedroom, heart hammering, body still buzzing from the almost that had nearly happened on his bed. My legs refused to move toward the exit. Something stubborn and reckless kept me rooted exactly where I was.I spotted the book on his nightstand. One I had mentioned wanting weeks ago. I picked it up, curled into the corner of the large sofa near the window, tucked my feet under me, and opened it. The rain continued its steady rhythm against the glass as I waited for him to return.When the door opened again some time later, Kain stopped dead in the doorway.I glanced up from the page. His grey eyes widened a fraction. Genuine shock flickered across that usually unreadable face. He had clearly expected the room to be empty.“Why are you still here?” he asked without looking at me. His voice was rough, guarded.He reached behind his neck and pul

Addendum to the Deal

— Tatiana —He came to my door at six in the morning without knocking.“Get up,” he said.I had been awake. I woke up early, it is a malfunction I have had since childhood. My mother called it a design flaw but I had not been planning to announce it. I was reading, specifically, with my tea going cold on the nightstand, which was a perfectly acceptable use of 6 AM. “I’m reading,” I said.“Get up and put some shoes on.”I looked up from the page I was on and stared at the door. “May I ask why?”“No.”I put on shoes if found in the wardrobe and surprisingly they fit.He took me to the room on the lower level that was either a gymnasium or a very well-equipped torture chamber. It was large, rubber flooring, mirrored wall along one side, equipment that looked used and functional rather than decorative. He was already in the center of it, arms loose at his sides, watching me come through the door.I looked at the version of myself in the mirrored wall with my bed-hair, borrowed sweater and

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