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Semua Bab A Prey For My Enemy: Bab 11 - Bab 17

17 Bab

SHE CALLS JULIAN

TATIANAThe phone is a negotiation I didn't expect to win.I'd been mapping out how to ask for it for two days. Building an argument. Listing precedents, because that's what you do when you want something you can't just take. Monitored contact with the outside world poses no security risk he isn't already managing. He's already tracking everything. Giving me the call costs him nothing except the discomfort of watching me want something.I presented the argument at breakfast.He listened without interrupting me. When I finished, he said nothing for a moment, and then he got up and left the kitchen, and I thought I'd miscalculated. But ten minutes later Dmitri appeared in the doorway and handed me a phone."Monitored," Dmitri said, like he thought I might not have figured that out myself."Obviously," I said.I took the phone to my room. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the screen for a minute before I dialed, and I don't know why that felt strange. I've talked to Julian a h
last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-04-23
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JULIAN'S VOICE

JULIANThe 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 cannot read. Or find.I
last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-04-23
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INVENTORY DAY

TATIANAThe room is not that interesting. It's not. But I've also mentally recorded every single item in it, so clearly I am lying to myself.There's a bed. A wardrobe. There's a window with a latch that doesn't budge, and I know because I spent time on it before accepting that whoever designed this room did not want anyone to leave it.So frustrating. The last time I was locked away like this was when I disobeyed father and tried to sneak out to go watch a concert with Julian. It was the first date Julian asked me on and our first fight ever. I still remember his words.“If I mattered enough to you, you’d come.” His hard voice was still over my phone’s speaker. I had told him then that we should come clean to my parents. Who knew maybe the respect they had for him would have compelled them to allow us to date. My words only got him madder.I felt his pain and I wanted to ease it so I left home.My family guards caught me before I made it off the property and reported me to my fathe
last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-04-24
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BOOKS AND A NOTE

TATIANAKain Aleksei Morozov. That's the name I grew up hearing in whispers. He killed them all and when he got to me, he took my wrist instead.I have been trying to figure out why since the car ride and I still don't have a satisfying answer. Right now I have nothing of value. I have no idea of the outside world or what would happen to my family’s estate. Although I am sure Julian would take care of that for me. He’s good at his job.I wasn’t even allowed to bury my parents. Kain is a very bad manHe said he wouldn't sell me, which I suppose is the lowest possible bar for reassurance and yet here I am, slightly reassured. I’m going to kill you Kain, one day. I swear it.No matter the weird excuse he has given his conscience to allow him to kill his own father in cold blood, I will make him pay for the lives he’s taken.I go back to making my list. I haven't checked under the bed yet.I find books there. I get down on my knees and pull them out. Three of them. They're not stack
last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-04-24
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FIRST ESCAPE ATTEMPT

TATIANAThe window latch must have been designed by someone who has never wanted to escape anything, with the way it sits in its housing, and how much pressure you need before it gives even a millimeter.Four days of attacking it from different angles. The latch finally gives out.It makes a small sound that seems enormous in a room where the only other noise is my own breathing.I hold still for some seconds. But when I do not hear any sound from the hallway, I keep going.Cold November air hits my face immediately, and I breathe it in sharply.I have almost forgotten what outside smells like. I take in the faint salt-and-cold smell of the ocean somewhere below.The drop is two floors. I have been measuring it with my eyes every time I stand at the window pretending to look at the view.The courtyard below is made of stone, which is not ideal. But there is a narrow ledge maybe four feet down where the lower wall juts out, and if I can get my feet to that, the second drop is manageabl
last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-04-24
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CAUGHT

I noticed, three days ago from the kitchen window, that the wall there is lower than everywhere else. Maybe half a meter lower. Maybe less. But I am not going back inside that house without at least trying. I have nothing to lose.I hear him behind me almost immediately."Shit," he sounds mildly surprised. His footsteps are heavier than mine but fast for someone his size. "Damn, she's fast."I do not respond because I am still running and also because I am winning, at least for the moment. The far corner is coming up and I am calculating the jump.I can do this. I am actually going to do this, and then my foot chooses the perfect moment to skip a step. I stumble forward, anticipating a bad fall.A hand closes around the back of my collar and the world lurches sideways and my feet leave the ground entirely before I come back down onto the wet grass with considerably less dignity than I left it with.I look up to find Dimitri in front of me, bent at the waist. He is breathing harder tha
last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-04-24
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HOUSE RULES

TATIANASleep is a traitor tonight, refusing to claim me even as exhaustion claws at my bones, my heart keeping up a frantic rhythm like a caged bird throwing itself against the fragile bars of my ribs.I stand at the window with my back to the door, one hand resting on the cold latch like a promise I haven’t yet decided to break.I imagine this is how Rapunzel felt, except I don’t have long hair, and instead of a false mother, I have a false brother.A soft knock unsettles the silence.“What is it?” I don’t need to turn to know who it is. Everyone else who has entered this room since I got here announces themselves with footsteps, no matter how light. I always hear them.But not Kain.It’s like he walks on air.The door closes behind him with a quiet whisper, and my shoulders tense automatically, settling into that familiar, unwilling rigidity they seem to adopt every time he’s near.“House rules,” he says, his voice low and matter-of-fact.Of course it is.What else do monsters offe
last updateTerakhir Diperbarui : 2026-04-28
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