Roxie's POV
I handed the baby back to Vera and looked at her for what I prayed was not the last time.
"Stay down here," I whispered. "No matter what you hear. Promise me."
"Roxie—" Her eyes were huge in the dark, full of new-mother tears and old-sister fear.
"Promise me, Vera."
"I promise."
I kissed her forehead. I kissed the soft top of little Marcus's head. Then I climbed the wooden ladder up out of the warm dirt and pushed the cellar door open, and I stepped into the kitchen of my childhood to face the man who had built it into my cage.
Darius stood by the great stone hearth, the same hearth I had scrubbed a thousand times as a girl. Four enforcers fanned out behind him, hands on weapons, faces blank.
He looked terrible.
It was the first thing I noticed, and it was nothing I h
