Page 91 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

Stay calm.Stay quiet.Think.

The truth wouldn’t save me.

No one would believe it, anyway.Not here.Not now.

I pressed my forehead to the table, trying to steady my breath, trying to hold on.Then I thought of Vera, and I saw her face.The quiet solidarity in Vera’s eyes, her careful silence over the years.How far she’d gone to protect me.

And now I had to decide: burn the last bridge, or drown.

My voice was quiet.Steady.

“Perhaps you’d like to check with my wife’s parents,” I said.“Andrey Smirnov, and Sofia Smirnova.”

He froze.

Didn’t breathe.Didn’t even blink.

I lifted my head slowly, watching him.He stared at me like I’d just started speaking in tongues.I didn’t repeat myself, because I didn’t need to.

He stood up without another word.The chair scraped back behind him.For a long moment, he just stood there, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Then he turned and walked out of the room.

The door slammed shut behind him.

And I was alone again.

But this time, something had changed.

Had I just saved myself—or signed my death warrant?

* * *

Three hours.

That’s how long they left me chained to that desk after the monstrous bastard walked out.

The bulb buzzed on, and on, and on.I counted every flicker like it might keep me sane.

Somewhere around hour two, my body gave up.I pissed myself.Hot at first.Then it was cold and humiliating.The smell soaked into everything.My clothes, the chair, and my shame.

I tried not to cry.

That part I still had control over.Barely.

But the genuine fear, the kind that chewed marrow from bone, was what they were doing to Dimitri.

Had he cracked?

Had they hurt him?

Had he admitted to loving me?

No.God, even if he had, I wouldn’t blame him.He wasn’t like me.Dimitri didn’t know how to lie.He carried his truth in his chest like a bird that wouldn’t stop singing.That was what I loved about him.And it was what could kill us both.

If he’d told them everything, then the Smirnovs wouldn’t lift a finger for me.They’d hang me out to dry with a smile and call it justice.A pervert.A danger to their daughter.To the State.To decency.

But I’d never stop loving Dimitri.

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