HIS INVISIBLE CAPTIVE.

CHAPTER 2 The Choice

Dimitri's POV

I should kill her.

Witnesses are loose ends. Loose ends get buried. That's the rule. That's always been the rule.

But I'm standing here in this filthy alley, with my hand wrapped around her wrist, and I haven't pulled the trigger.

She's trembling. I can feel it through her skin — the fine, uncontrollable shaking of someone certain they're about to die. Her eyes are wide. Her face is pale, tear-streaked. There's a small cut on her lip from where she bit it.

She's terrified.

And yet.

She hasn't looked away from me. Not once. Not since I turned around.

Most people look away. They beg. They grovel. They close their eyes and wait for the end. I've watched men twice her size do all three. But this girl — this tiny, shivering stranger — she studied me. Like she was memorizing my face. Like she wanted to know who was killing her.

That's new.

The rain has picked up. It runs down her cheeks, mixing with the tears. She doesn't wipe it away. She doesn't move. She barely breathes.

"Please," she whispers.

Her voice is soft. Shaky. She is pleading, but there's something steady beneath the fear.

"I won't tell anyone. I swear. I don't even know who you are. I don't know anything. Please, I just want to go home."

Home. She wants to go home.

Behind me, one of my men shifts his weight. Waiting. Wondering why I haven't finished this.

I should kill her.

But I don't.

Instead, I release her wrist. She stumbles back, catching herself against the wall, staring at me like I've grown a second head.

"What's your name?" I ask.

She blinks. "What?"

"Your name."

"I—" She swallows. Hard. "Anya. Anya Moreau."

Anya. It suits her. Soft. Small. Unremarkable.

"Do you know who I am?" I ask.

She shakes her head. Water flicks off the ends of her hair. "No. I swear. I've never seen you before."

She really doesn't know.

The most feared man in the city, and this girl has no idea who I am.

"Get in the car," I say.

Her eyes widen. "What?"

"Get in the car. Now."

She doesn't move. Frozen, staring at me like I've asked her to jump off a bridge. Her hands are still trembling. Her lips part, close, part again.

"Please," she whispers. "Please, I won't tell anyone. I'll pretend I saw nothing. I'll—"

"Get in the car," I repeat, slower, "or I'll put a bullet in your head right here."

I don't want to kill her.

The thought hits me like a physical blow. I have to force it off my face. I've killed hundreds of people. I've never once hesitated. And yet this girl makes me want to do something I haven't done in years.

I want to know why she didn't scream.

I want to know why she looked at me like that.

She gets in the car.

I slide in beside her and close the door. The interior smells like leather and cedar. The seats are warm beneath us; the car has been running, waiting, the whole time I was in that alley.

"Drive," I tell Sergei.

He doesn't ask questions. He never does.

The car pulls away from the curb. Through the rear window, I catch a glimpse of the alley — dark, wet, already empty. My men are efficient. By the time anyone finds what's left of the man on his knees, there will be nothing to connect it to me.

Beside me, she's not crying anymore.

That's worse.

Crying, I understand. Crying is what people do when they're still hoping. When they still think there's someone to appeal to. She's stopped crying. Her face is blank. Her hands are flat against her thighs, fingers spread, pressing down like she's trying to keep herself from floating away.

The city slides past the tinted glass — blurred lights, wet streets, the occasional flash of a sign. A woman walking a dog. A man on a phone. People living their small, ordinary lives, unaware that a car just passed them carrying a girl who's never going to be the same.

I should say something. I should tell her what comes next.

I don't.

I sit in the silence and let it stretch. I want to see what she does with it. I want to see if she breaks.

She doesn't.

She turns her head, slow, and looks at me. Not the way she looked at me in the alley — not pleading, not terrified. She looks at me like she's taking inventory. My face. My hands. The cut of my suit. The watch on my wrist.

She's smarter than she looks.

"You never told me your name," she says.

"Dimitri," I say.

"Dimitri," she repeats. She says it like she's filing it away. Like she plans to use it later.

I should be irritated. I'm not.

"You don't look like a killer," she says.

The corner of my mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost. "What does a killer look like?"

She studies me for a moment. Then she turns her head and goes back to the window.

"I don't know," she says quietly. "I guess I thought I'd never have to find out."

The car turns onto the bridge. Below us, the river is black. Above us, the sky is blacker. She watches the water like it might tell her something.

"Where are you taking me?" she asks.

"You'll see."

"That's not an answer."

"No," I agree. "It isn't."

She looks at me again. This time there's something new in her eyes. Not fear. Not pleading.

Anger.

It flickers there for just a second, small and stubborn, before she blinks it away. But I saw it. I felt it land.

Good.

I look away first. I fix my gaze on the road ahead, on the dark city sprawling past the windshield, and I tell myself this changes nothing. She's a loose end. She's a problem.

I'm lying.

The car slides through the night, and somewhere behind me, the alley is already forgotten.

I look at her one more time.

She's staring out the window. Silent tears stream down her face again — she couldn't hold them back after all. She's trying to be brave. Trying not to break. But I can see the cracks. The way her jaw is clenched. The way she keeps swallowing, like she's holding back a scream.

Somewhere in the city, a church bell rings. Once. Twice.

I look away.

Because for the first time in my life, I don't know what I'm going to do next.