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I feel my eyes go wide and round, the insult hitting. “My father works hard!”

Andrei snorts and pours more vodka. “Your father. Sure. I am sure he has worked very hard.You, on the other hand…” He gives me a derisive look. “Printsessa-pevun’ya. Princess songbird.” His lip curls. “Printsessa-kaprizulya. Princess brat.”

Something in his voice makes heat curl in my stomach despite the obvious derision in his words. There’s somethingdark there, too, something beyond his clear disdain for me and my life. He wants me out of his mansion, but he wants something else, too.

I wrap my arms around myself, licking my dry lips and ignoring the way his gaze flicks to my mouth. "I don't believe you," I whisper.

Andrei tosses back another shot. "Yes you do."

"No, I?—"

“You do.” He sets the glass down. “You know that I am not lying.”

I feel a tear well up and try to escape. I swipe angrily at my eye. I refuse to let this man see me cry, to see that he’s broken me.Again, if I count the other day, when he kissed me and I foolishly kissed him back. When he made me forget, for a second, that he’s my captor. A bad, dangerous man.

When I got off imagining what else he might have done to me, and felt so guilty afterward. Even though—especiallybecause—the orgasm was the best I’ve ever had. Even with another person.

"My father wouldn't abandon me," I whisper. But I can hear my voice waver, and I know he does, too.

Andrei’s jaw tightens. "He already has."

"Then why are you telling me this?" I glare at him. “If he’s already abandoned me and he’s working with the enemy, why are we having this conversation?” I jerk my chin upward, trying to fake bravery I don’t feel. “Just go ahead and kill me. That’s what happens next, right? Just shoot me and get it over with.”

I see him look at me for a long, drawn out moment. “That is what I should do,” he admits.

And then he takes another shot. As if just the thought makes him need a drink.

Against all my better sense, a small flicker of hope warms within me. If he wanted to kill me, he would have done it assoon as he came back, I reason. He wouldn’t have taken so long standing here, talking to me, drinking. He doesn’t want to kill me.

“I don’t think I’m going to do that,” he admits.

I scoff. I can’t help it. Allowing myself to believe him feels too dangerous, like it will make it all the more horrible when I find out that he’s not telling the truth and that I’m going to die. “Sure.” I sniff, curling my upper lip. “You’re going to let me live. And what? Stay here? Go home? Your men won’t stand for it, if you keep me or let me leave. That’s how all this works, right? I’m the enemy now, so I have to die.”

His lip curls into a sneer. He slams the glass down, so hard it makes me flinch, so hard I think it’s going to break. And then he comes toward me, his movements so graceful and deadly they make me think of a big cat. Heprowlstoward me. It’s the only word I can think of to describe it. His jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscles twitching.

“You think I’m a monster.” His voice is a low, deadly growl.

I back up, quickly, nearly tripping over the chair in my haste. I see the door to the library, but I’d have to go past him to get to it. And where would I go, from there? The estate is filled with his guards, his men. I would never escape.

I back up further, toward the library shelves, until there’s nowhere left to go. And he keeps coming, until he’s right in front of me, staring down at me.

“You think I’m such a horrible man,” he grits out. “A murderer. A vile beast. But look at what your father is doing to you.” A slow, vicious smile curves his lips, the first one I’ve ever seen on his face. The kind of smile I’d hoped to never see. “That good, upstanding businessman who raised you. He’s abandoned you, Liesl. Abandoned you to the wolves, while he plots to get richer. And if you’re still alive when the dust settles and he’s gotten what he wants, well… then that will be a bonus, won’t it?”

“Stop,” I whisper, but he doesn’t.

“Tell me, Liesl, what it means that yourhorriblejailer hasn’t shot you dead yet, while your father plots and betrays you on the other side of this city?”

I swallow hard, looking up at him. He’s coldly, terrifyingly beautiful. Every inch of him looks like he was sculpted by a god. His jaw, his cheekbones, his full lips. His lean, muscled body, his veined forearms. His hands, long-fingered and brutal, stained in…

My breath catches in my lungs.Bloodstained. There’s blood on his fingers, in the creases, under the nails.

He’s right. I’m not dead yet. He could have killed me after the first forty-eight hours, and he didn’t. He could have killed me before we ever had this conversation, and he didn’t.

I don’t think he wants to, deep down. I think he’s trying to find any way he can to get out of it.

That ember of hope sparks into a flare.

“Maybe you aren’t so horrible,” I whisper. “Deep down. Maybe you’re not as bad as you want to think you are.”