All Chapters of Kiss her on thin Ice: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Chapter Sixty-Nine - Miss Prescott'sDoug is the first person to speak.“Someone tell me what happened.”Nobody answers immediately.He looks at the open window, the blood on the floor, and Rita standing against the blackboard. Then his gaze settles on me.“Miss Prescott?”My throat feels raw. I can still feel Rita's hands against my back, the sudden emptiness beneath my feet, and the terrifying moment when I thought there would be nothing to catch me.Zane answers for me.“She pushed Ava out of the window.”The room falls silent.Rita shakes her head. “That's not what happened.”“I saw you,” Ashley says. She's sitting on the floor, one hand pressed against her ribs. “You had both hands on her back.”“I was trying to pull her away from the window.”“You were pushing her.”“I wasn't going to let her fall!”“Then why were you running?” Zane asks.Rita looks at him.For once, she has no answer.Doug takes out his radio and calls for assistance. Within minutes, two security officers arriv

Chapter Seventy One - Volkov SecretThe man in the dark suit took a step toward me.I instinctively moved backwards, bumping into Zane, who immediately stretched out his arm to keep me behind him."Don't touch her," he said.The man stopped, his eyes moving from Zane to me. He looked amused, as though Zane had just said something funny."Move aside, boy."My heart slammed against my chest.Boy?Nobody spoke to Zane like that. At least, nobody I had ever seen. Even the people who disliked him knew better than to treat him like he was nothing.But Zane didn't move."I said leave her alone."One of the men behind the stranger stepped forward. He was taller than the man in front, with a thick neck and a scar running from his jaw toward his ear. He looked at me as if I were an inconvenience he wanted to get rid of."Our orders were clear," he said. "We're not supposed to leave any witnesses."For a moment, I couldn't breathe.Witnesses?I looked at Zane, waiting for him to tell them they h

Chapter Seventy-Three - Blood Doesn't Ask PermissionRussia looked exactly the way I remembered it.Cold. Gray. Unforgiving.The moment the plane touched the runway, my stomach tightened. I watched the ground crew approach through the window, their movements precise and practiced. Beyond them, a line of black SUVs waited beneath the overcast sky.Of course they did.My father never did anything quietly when he could make a statement instead.One of the guards unbuckled his seat belt and stood."We've arrived, sir."I glanced at him. "I have eyes."He didn't react.Across from me, my mother adjusted her coat. She had barely spoken during the final hour of the flight. Whatever strength she had gathered to get through the journey seemed to be disappearing now that we were actually here.I reached for her hand."Mom."She looked at me."We'll get through this."Her eyes searched my face, as if she wanted to believe me but knew better than to trust promises in a place like this."Stay clos

Chapter Seventy five - The Place Beneath the HouseThe first thing I felt was cold.Not the winter cold I remembered from Russia. This had settled into my bones.My wrists burned. My ankles ached. Something hard pressed against the back of my head, and every breath scraped my throat.I tried to move.Metal clanked, echoing around me.For a few seconds, I couldn’t remember where I was. Then the memories returned in fragments.The plane.The estate.My father telling me I would learn what it meant to be a Volkov.My refusal.The blow I hadn’t expected.I remembered standing in his office while my mother argued with him. One of the guards had stepped behind me. I had turned too late.Then darkness.I opened my eyes.The room was almost completely black. A single bulb flickered overhead, barely reaching the corners.I sat on the floor with my back against a stone wall. My wrists were chained in front of me, the cuffs connected to a ring bolted beside my hip. My ankles were bound as well.

Chapter Seventy Seven - The Price of PowerThe dungeon smelled of damp stone, rust, and old blood.I had been down here long enough to lose track of the hours. There was no window, no clock, and nothing to tell me whether it was morning or night. A single light hung from the ceiling, flickering every few minutes as if even the electricity wanted to escape this place.My wrists ached where the restraints had rubbed against my skin.I had refused dinner. I had refused to answer the guards' questions. And when one of them told me my father expected better behavior from his son, I had laughed in his face.Apparently, that had earned me another hour alone.I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes.Ava's face appeared immediately.The last time I had seen her, she was standing in my bedroom, looking at me like I was asking her to walk away from her entire world.Maybe I was.I had no way of knowing whether the message I'd sent her had reached her safely. I could only hope she under