All Chapters of A Prey For My Enemy: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

My mother doesn’t even try to hug me.She just stands there, drilling her eyes into my face like she’s looking at a piece of furniture she bought at an auction. Just appraising me. Cold. Totally detached, but with this tiny, nauseating speck of satisfaction in the corners of her mouth.“Come inside,” she says. “We have much to discuss.”The two guys with the rifles slot themselves right next to my shoulders, moving me forward like cattle. Julian slinks behind us, three paces back, completely silent. The smug, pretty-boy routine he’s been pulling for years is shattered. He looks like a dog waiting for a kick.They herd us down into that basement room. There’s no fake blood on the floor this time. No theater. Just pristine white marble gleaming under those aggressive, buzzing fluorescent lights.My mother slides into the chair at the head of the massive table. I don't sit. I refuse to sit. Julian just hovers against the far wall, trying to make himself look invisible.“You’ve grown into

They left me in the secure wing for what felt like days.No windows. No clock. Just soft lighting that never changed and the faint hum of ventilation. Food appeared through a slot in the door three times a day. I ate mechanically. I slept in fits. Mostly, I sat on the floor with my back against the wall and turned the necklace over and over in my hands.The ledger.The reason my mother had faked her death. The reason Julian had died. The reason Kain had taken me in the first place.I didn’t know how to open it. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. But it felt heavier now. Like it carried the weight of every lie that had shaped my life.On what I guessed was the third day, the door opened.My mother stepped inside alone. No guards. She was dressed in a crisp white blouse and black trousers, looking every bit the Matriarch—elegant, untouchable, and completely in control.She closed the door behind her and studied me where I sat on the floor.“You’ve always preferred the floor when you’re

The rain is just pulverizing the rusted tin roof of this warehouse, sounding like a steady stream of machine-gun fire overhead.I’m standing in front of a wall of flickering monitors, my arms locked across my chest so tight my shoulders ache, my jaw clamped down until my teeth groan. Three days. Three fucking days since Tatiana vanished out of that manicured garden. Three days since Julian’s little playground went totally dark and left me staring at blank screens.Dmitri is hovering by my shoulder, his breathing heavy and sour. “We found the compound. It’s got deep underground levels, heavily fortified. We’re still trying to map the exact layout before we—”“I don’t give a shit about the layout,” I growl, not even looking at him. My eyes are glued to the last grainy frame of her on the screen. She looks tiny under those massive trees, her shoulders hunched, but there’s this raw, dangerous heat in her eyes.She’s alive. I can feel it humming under my skin like electricity.“Any word on

The hallway is just a blinding choke of grey smoke.The alarms are a relentless, high-pitched scream in my ears, and the gunfire is cracking so fast it sounds like wood splintering right next to my head. I’m shuffling backward against the wall, that dented metal breakfast tray clamped in both hands like some kind of pathetic shield, my heart hammering against my ribs until I’m dizzy from the lack of air. [1] Then the smoke parts. And there he is.Kain.He punches through the fog at the far end of the corridor like a nightmare that crawled right out of the concrete. He’s covered in black tactical gear, his knuckles are split and dripping red, and his eyes are just scanning the hall with this cold, lethal focus. The exact millisecond his gaze hooks onto my face, the entire world just collapses into a pinprick.“Tatiana.”His voice isn't loud, but it slices right through the roar of the alarms like a razor.I just freeze.For one fraction of a second, the universe stops spinning. The mu

The fire is just snapping and spitting in the stone hearth, throwing these long, jittery shadows across the log walls. Outside, the mountain wind is absolutely screaming through the pine needles like a threat. Inside, the silence between Kain and me feels twice as heavy as the freezing air outside the glass.I’m sitting here turning that tiny plastic data chip over and over in my sweat-slicked fingers, watching the red orange light bounce off the circuits. Such a pathetic little piece of junk. Such a massive, crushing weight.Kain is shoved right up against me on the sagging leather cushions, his thigh heavy and warm against mine. He hasn’t said more than three words since he cracked the silver pendant open. He’s just watching me with that intense, drilling look that used to make me want to bolt out of the room.“I remember the exact afternoon my father handed this to me,” I mutter, my voice sounding thin in the big room. “I was thirteen. He pinched my jaw and made me swear to never,