I loved wintertime, though. And not because of my name. It was just a festive period, and happy things made me happy. I always decorated my room, because I could still feel the lights and the garland, hear the music from the snow globes, and smell the scent of pine. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to decorate this year. My pride was planted firmly, and I refused to make the best of this. Hopefully I wouldn’t be around for it anyway.

Turning on my side, I adjusted the pillow under my head and stretched my legs out under the sheets, feeling the space, smooth and cold.

Not warm.

Wait. Where’s…

“Mikhail?” I called out, popping my eyes open and my head up.

The dog slept at my feet, but he wasn’t on the bed. I listened for the jingle of his collar as it did when he rose to answer me, but there was nothing.

“Here, boy.” And I clicked my tongue a few times, calling him.

He couldn’t have gotten out. I locked the door.

Then I noticed the scent of something buttery and sweet, and I sat up, throwing the covers off. My heart picked up pace. She didn’t, I groaned to myself.

I made my way over to my desk, my fingers grazing a ceramic pot with what smelled like tea and a small dish with a flaky croissant. My mother had broken in to leave me food.

Christ.

I walked over, finding my door open, thanks to her. Really, it was probably useless to lock it. If Damon lost the master key to all the rooms, he could, you know, just kick it down, but still… I couldn’t not lock it, so...

I stuck my head into the hallway. “Mikhail?” I whispered.

Nothing.

I pinched my brows together. It wasn’t like him not to respond, and there was no way to get outside without someone to open the door for him.

“Mikhail?” I whisper-yelled a little louder.

I stepped out of the room and slipped quietly into the hallway, the floorboards creaking just a little under my weight.

I rested my left hand on the bannister as I followed it around, the only sound being the tinkling of the crystals on the chandelier above as the draft seeped through the old house. Carpets laid softly under my feet, and the grandfather clock ahead of me and at the top of the stairs ticked steadily, the small noise amplifying how eerily quiet the house was in the middle of the night.

I would’ve heard him bark or growl or felt his sudden movement in bed at least if something made him nervous, right? He was always alert. No one was here now except my mother, sister, and me.

Trailing down the stairs, I held onto the railing with both hands as I took each step, and then I let go, walking carefully to the front door. I checked all the locks, making sure they were twisted into position.

And then I heard a little whine to my right.

“Mikhail?” I turned my head toward the sitting room.

Walking over, I took small steps and reached the rug, feeling him rush up to me, his wet nose hitting my knee.

“Hey, where did you go?” I teased, reaching down to pet him. “What…”

The scent of a cigarette hit me, and I trailed off, my face falling.

My stomach sank, and I stood up straight, my chest rising and falling, steady but quick.

He’d had my dog.

“Don’t touch him again,” I bit out.

“He came to me.”

Damon’s voice came from somewhere deep in the room, and I guessed he was probably in the high-back cushioned chair in the corner by the window. I pictured him sitting in the dark, the only light the small embers from the tip of his cigarette.

I reached down to take hold of Mikhail’s collar.

“You gave your dog a Russian name,” Damon mused.

“I gave him a dancer’s name.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov. I couldn’t help the fact that most of the revered ballet dancers were Russian. It had nothing to do with it being a fucking nod to Damon’s heritage.

Just about to turn around and take my dog, I sensed him rise from his chair as the last of the cigarette smoke dissipated into the air. Keeping my dog close to me, I stepped back to the table against the wall and swiped the pen I knew sat there with a pad of paper for messages. I kept it in my hand, hidden behind my thigh.

There was a time when he scared me, and I liked it. I didn’t like it anymore.

“I don’t want to be here,” I told him. “I’ll find a way out. You know that.”

I faltered for a moment, realizing this was the first time Damon and I had had any semblance of a conversation—albeit reluctant—since he went to prison five years ago. Any other interactions we’ve had have either been brief attacks or bitter threats in passing.

“You have nothing to say?” I prodded.

“No, I just don’t feel a need to respond.” His voice grew closer, and he took a drink of something, the ice in his glass clinking before he set it down on a table. “You can say and make whatever declarations you like, Winter, but ultimately you’ll do what you’re told. You, your mother, and your sister,” he pointed out. “You don’t run this house anymore.”

“I’m an adult. I can go where I like and leave when I wish.”

“Then why are you still here?”

My lip twitched in a snarl, but I hid it quickly. His meaning was clear. Yeah, I could’ve tried to leave the other night. If I were willing to see my friend get arrested for something he didn’t do. He and his father had advanced on me, and I’d retreated, so the truth was, I couldn’t go and do as I pleased, could I? Not without consequences.

“I do love your anger,” he said. “I’m glad it’s still there.”

Yes, it is. My anger seemed to be all I had anymore, and I missed laughing and smiling and the freedom of who I used to be. Before he happened, and the threat of his inevitable return didn’t always linger. Would I have things of my own again? Could I even fall in love anymore? After him?

“Ethan Belmont is the mediocre third son of a CEO of a failing coffee shop chain and a second-grade school teacher,” Damon said. “He spends his entire day locked in his parents’ house playing video games—”

“Designing them, you mean—”

“And sucking on an inhaler, because of pollen, or clutching an EpiPen, because peanut butter touched his bagel,” he went on. “He wouldn’t be able to haul his own body weight out of a burning car, let alone save his wife and kid.”

And you would? Please.

Damon Torrance didn’t save anyone but himself. Not that Ethan and I were seeing each other, but I’d choose him any day over Damon.

“You need a proper man,” Damon taunted, his voice getting slowly closer. “Someone who walks upright and can run a tight ship. Someone who’s a team player in Thunder Bay. Someone who can make you listen. And someone,” his tone turned darker as he stopped right in front of me, “who’s not going to question too hard when not all of his children look like him.”

I exhaled, hoping he didn’t see how my breath was shaking.

I tightened my lips, now aware of his intentions. He intended to marry me off at some point like this was the nineteenth century.

But he still intended to have his fun.

“So, let’s go, then,” I challenged him. “What are you waiting for?”

He leaned into my body, reached behind me, and wrestled the pen out of my hand. “For you to bring bigger dogs to this fight,” he gritted out through his teeth. “You can do better.”

My face flushed hot, and my legs went weak. He tore the pen away from me and retreated. A moment later, I heard him light another cigarette as I fought to tighten every muscle in my body.

“I will,” I told him. “And no matter what you do, I will never obey you.”

“Please don’t,” he shot back, dropping the lighter on the table and blowing out smoke. “I have Arion for that.”

His footsteps approached again, and I braced myself.

“She’ll be useful,” he said. “On mornings when I wake up, and I’m hard, and I just need to get inside something tight and hot.”

My jaw clenched just a little more. The image of him and my bed and one morning so long ago…

I ignored the sting in my eyes. God, I hated him.

“But at night,” he said, dropping his voice low and stopping right in front of me again, “when I always have too much energy, like you know I do, and I remember my mouth on a stomach, damp with sweat, and my fingers stroking a bare little cunt…”

My heart thumped against my chest, the memory of how he felt making me pause.

“Maybe I’ll find my way three doors down the hallway to her little sister’s room again,” he continued. “Slip her panties down her legs and start eating…”

I shook my head, fighting the memories that raced through my mind. “I won’t let you have anything else from me,” I told him. “You raped me. And it wasn’t statutory rape. It was rape.”

“I can see why you might want to believe that. Maybe you feel ashamed or guilty because you liked it.” He paused and then continued. “But be careful, Winter. I can still put you through quite a lot.”

“Oh, I’m scared,” I shot back.

There was nothing else for him to take.

He stood there for a moment, quiet and still, but then his hard voice pierced the silence.

“Mikhail?” he called.

And I jumped.

“Ke nighg-ya,” he said.

What?

My dog yanked out of my grasp and trotted away on the command.

“What are you doing?” I darted forward. “Give me my dog.” And then I called, “Mikhail!”

But I didn’t feel either of them near me now. Where did they go? What was that he said? Was that Russian? Mikhail didn’t know any commands in Russian.

I heard the dog’s collar and tags jingle from a few feet away, and a lump filled my throat.

“That’s a good boy,” I heard Damon coo to him. “He’s smart. He knows who his master is.”