Elena’s POV

The footsteps grew louder.

Each one landed with deliberate weight, as if the person walking already knew the distance between the door and the place where I lay restrained. My wrists burned against the ropes. The hard surface beneath me pressed every bruise into sharper awareness. The warehouse air tasted of rust and old water, and somewhere high above a thin line of gray light cut through the dark like a wound that refused to close.

I braced myself.

Liana’s gun remained steady. Her eyes never left my face, but something in her posture shifted,anticipation, almost satisfaction. She had called someone.

She had said “bring him in.”

And...