Semua Bab A Prey For My Enemy: Bab 1 - Bab 10

_Tatiana _Across from me, Aunt Sofia made a quiet sound. Her hand moved toward Uncle Mikhail's tie, straightening what didn't need straightening, or maybe did. He moved her hand away, gently enough that it almost wasn't a rejection. She hesitated for a breath, then adjusted it anyway. He let out a small huff and went still.“You’re breathing on my collar,” Aunt Sofia murmured, not looking up from her peas.“I’m sitting beside you,” Uncle Mikhail replied. “Where would you like me to put my breath?”“Anywhere but on my shoulder.” She turned to glare at her husband.Mother cleared her throat. “The lamb is lovely tonight, don’t you think? The rosemary makes all the difference," Mother finished smoothly, though her eyes flicked toward Sofia and Mikhail with wariness. She had refereed this particular squabble at every family dinner for the last decade. "Sofia, darling, leave the poor man's collar be. He dressed himself perfectly well this morning, I'm sure.""He dressed himself crooked," Au

_Tatiana_The crack of gunfire launched me upright, my chair shrieking across the floor behind me. Father stumbled back, his mouth open, arms thrown wide, reaching for something that wasn't there. A second shot punched through the air before the echo of the first had died, and his body twisted, shoulder catching the corner of the massive table with a heavy thud.A wineglass shattered against the floor, spilling dark red liquid that looked far too much like blood across the polished wood.Mother screamed. It was a harrowing, guttural sound I had never heard a human being make before.Father looked down at his shirt. Blood….so much blood was rapidly blooming across the crisp white fabric. He touched the wound gingerly, as if he couldn’t quite believe it belonged to him.Then his knees gave out.“No.” The word slipped out of my mouth before I realized I’d even spoken. No, no, no. This isn’t real. This is a nightmare. I’ll wake up any second with my book still open on my lap and Father tea

_Tatiana_ The words tore from my throat in a ragged cry, my knuckles striking again and again until a deep, pulsing ache bloomed through every bruised and swollen joint.The panic made me stupid. I knew that even as I kept hitting the glass, as if sheer indignation might split it open and let me crawl back into the life I had just lost. My hands were already slick with blood and shaking too violently to do more than bruise themselves further, but I couldn’t bear the stillness, the impossible fact of being trapped inside a stranger’s car with my mother’s blood drying stiff across my dress.Kain climbed into the driver's seat, never once looking back at me. He started the engine with infuriating calm, like this was an ordinary evening and not the end of everything I had ever known.The enormous front gates started to swing open ahead of us, and I froze.Outside, the massive front gates began to grind open. I went still. I had seen those gates every day of my life. They were iron and scr

_Tatiana_ I looked down at his hands, my eyes catching the tense rope of muscle in his forearm. The thin band of faded pink hair tie caught my attention. A hair tie. Frayed at the edges. My stomach turned over.“Who was she?” I said, my voice gone thin with sudden venom. “The one who owned that.”He did not answer.I leaned forward, my breath coming faster. “Did you kill her too?”Still nothing.I could hear his breathing now. One of his hands slipped half an inch on the steering wheel, then stilled again. The muscle in his jaw jumped once, hard enough to show beneath the skin.Some small, frightened part of me realised what I’d done, but the rest of me kept going, wild and ugly with grief.“Did she bleed like my mother?” I whispered.Kain went utterly rigid.Then he turned in his seat.His hand came up between the seats, fast enough that I flinched back against the leather, certain he was going to grab me by the throat. I squeezed my eyes shut.Nothing touched me.When I forced the

_Tatiana_The words refused to settle.You have her eyes.I stared at him as if another bullet had just passed straight through my chest."Who are you talking about? My mother?" Was he colour-blind? My eyes looked nothing like hers — nothing like my father's either. They used to joke about that, how I'd arrived in the world with eyes that belonged to neither of them, as if I had been assembled from the wrong set of parts and still turned out recognizable enough to keep.“You’re lying,” I whispered, though the words had no strength in them at all. “You’re making things up.”Kain held my gaze for one more weighted second, his quiet composure gone. For a man in his line of work, he changed emotions fzast."I never li," he muttered and resumed walking. I stood frozen for three full seconds before my legs remembered how to move."No." I lunged forward, my hand shooting out to grab his sleeve. "Whose eyes? Who do I look like? Why does that matter to you?!""Let go," he said quietly."Please,