All Chapters of A Prey For My Enemy: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

TATIANA My breath caught in my throat, a sharp prickle of sweat breaking out along my hairline despite the chill of the early morning. I stood perfectly still on the threshold. I listened for sounds in heavy silence of the corridor. The air in the office smelled of cigarettes. I came looking for the hard receipts of his cruelty, proof that would erase the sickening warmth of his skin from my fingertips and give me back my hatred. His desk was clean. A single leather-bound blotting pad sat in the center, flanked by a brass banker's lamp and a low stack of manila folders. I bypassed the computer first, my hands drawn to the drawers. The bottom right drawer glided open with a metallic click. Inside sat a fireproof lockbox. The key was sitting directly in the lock. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, ugly rhythm. I turned the key. The lid lifted to reveal a shallow tray. My fingers brushed against the matte texture of old photo paper. I pulled the bundle out into the di

_Kain_I drove through the main gates as the estate shrank until the tree line cut it off entirely in the rearview mirror of my sedan, stealing her from my sight. I adjusted the collar of my wool coat. The heavy fabric brushed against the stiff stitches on my neck, and a sharp ache flared through my skin. When I stood at the foot of her bed, her chin had been up, her shoulders braced as if expecting me to strike. Her gaze had flicked to my mouth. Just a heartbeat of curiosity, before she tore her eyes away. Or was she also thinking about last night. “Safe travels,” she had said. Her voice had been entirely too detached for a woman who had just held my life in her hands. I gripped the steering wheel, my palms dry. My hands weren't shaking. The constant, background roar of my life had completely quieted. All because I had slept for three unbroken hours with her spine pressed against my chest. She was my anchor, and she didn't even know it. A brief, cold flash of guilt tightened my t

The clock on my nightstand read 8:37 PM.Twenty-three minutes.I stared at the glowing red numbers until they blurred together.Twenty-three minutes until freedom.Twenty-three minutes until I climbed over the south wall and disappeared from Kain Volkov's life forever.It was everything I had wanted.So why did it feel like I couldn't breathe?The room was silent except for the steady ticking of the antique clock near the window. Every second scraped against my nerves.I sat on the edge of my bed, my hands clasped tightly between my knees.The photographs from Kain's office wouldn't leave me alone.My parents.The warehouse.The video.Julian's name.The genetic confirmation.The truth I'd spent fifteen years believing had cracked wide open, exposing something ugly underneath.I should have felt vindicated.Instead, I felt lost.My gaze drifted toward the door.A memory flashed through my head.A dark room.Rain against the windows.Kain's arm wrapped around my waist.The slow rhythm

_Tatiana_The drive stretched on for nearly an hour, each mile carved out of heavy silence.Julian gripped the wheel with steady hands, eyes fixed on the dark road ahead. I sat rigid in the passenger seat, forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window, watching the world blur past in streaks of shadow and distant headlights. The convoy trailed us—black SUVs with tinted windows, their presence both protective and suffocating.I should have felt free.The estate was behind me now. The cold stone walls. The armed guards. The endless locks and surveillance. Kain.Especially Kain.But freedom tasted like ash. With every passing mile, something ugly coiled tighter in my chest—dread, maybe, or the sickening weight of uncertainty. My fingers twisted in my lap, knuckles white. The files from his office haunted me: grainy photographs, damning ledgers, names that blurred the line between truth and betrayal. And last night... God, last night. Heat flushed my cheeks at the memory, and I sh

The first thing that woke me was the lack of noise.Usually, waking up was a violent jerk back to reality, my lungs burning as if I’d just crawled out of a river. For fifteen years, the mornings had been a grueling inventory of old damage—shaking fingers, the phantom smell of smoke from the warehouse, the familiar weight of ghosts pressing down on my chest before I could even open my eyes.Today, there was just gray morning light and still air.I lay flat on my back, watching a crack in the ceiling plaster, waiting for the predictable spike of adrenaline that never came. My mind was entirely, strangely quiet. When I shifted, my hand brushed the sheets beside me. They were cold, but the fabric was still creased from her weight, carrying the faint, clean scent of her soap.Tatiana.The memories didn't hit me in a theatrical rush; they settled in like a heavy ache. The reading room. The cold bite of the steel she’d held against my ribs. Her face streaked with tears, and the awful, naked