Page 57 of Mission Shift

And I let it take me.

Cold.

Deep, bone-deep cold.

I gasped awake. My breathing was jagged, like my lungs had forgotten how to function. Panic reared its head, but I slammed it back down, forcing control into my trembling limbs.

I had been trained for this.

I knew how to compartmentalize.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on one thing at a time.

A cot beneath me. An almost dark room with a small window near the ceiling.

My head throbbed like a motherfucker, the pain sharp and persistent, but my thoughts—thank God—were still intact. They hadn’t scrambled my brain. Not yet.

I flexed my fingers, one by one. All there.

I wiggled my toes. Still attached.

I rolled my shoulders, flinching. Pain radiated down my arms, as if fire had crawled through my veins. But nothing felt broken.

And…

A shuddering breath left my lips when I realized they hadn’t raped me.

I bit down hard as nausea twisted in my gut. Fedorov and his men had gotten their sick pleasure torturing me, but they hadn’t gone further.

I’d take the small mercies.

I exhaled, slow and steady, curling into myself. The fetal position offered the only warmth I had. I was still here. Still breathing. Still fighting.

For now, it was over. But my mind wouldn’t stop.

All things Braxton played on a loop in my mind.

I squeezed my eyes shut as Fedorov’s revelation slammed back into me like a hammer to my skull.

Braxton wasn’t an innocent aid worker.

Braxton was working with Nikolai Volkov.

Braxton had been part of the fucking Red Wedding in Manhattan.

How could I have been such a fool?

I prided myself onneverbeing deceived. I could read people, sense a lie before it was even spoken. Yet Braxton—Braxton—had played me like a master manipulator.

And I hadn’t suspected a damn thing.

I chewed on my bottom lip.

Think, Daria. Focus.

I forced myself to start from the beginning, from the moment I met him.

Carefully, I considered the way he’d watched me. The way he had always seemed so calm. How he had let me lead. Let me talk. Let me open up.

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