And the worst part is that for years, I believed him.
I wasn’t born small. I wasn’t born quiet or obedient or pliable. That was something my uncle molded into me with precision, the way a sculptor chips away at stone until what’s left is easier to display.
He taught me to lower my eyes. To smile when spoken to. To listen instead of speak. To measure my worth by how useful I was to the men around him. Every time I pushed back, he reminded me who fed me, who clothed me, who kept me safe from a world I was too weak for.
Safety was his favorite word.
By the time I was eighteen, my confidence was a ghost of what it had been. By twenty, I barely recognized my own reflection unless I was doing something forbidden. Stealing, planning, dreaming of escape in secret. That was the only place the real me still existed.
If he gets me back, there will be no escape left.
Death would be the only option left.
I move through to the kitchen on instinct, grabbing coffee I don’t taste, letting the routine steady me anyway. The guards don’t look at me. No one mentions Leonid.
I won’t let myself wonderwhyhe left.
Because if I do, I’ll start imagining reasons that make me hesitate.
I think of my father instead. The way his laugh used to fill rooms. The way he smelled like contentment and winter air. He was Bratva, but from the old world. The stories he told me weren’t about hoarding wealth or breaking people for sport. They were about loyalty. About protecting families who had nothing. About stealing from men who already had more than they could ever use and giving it to those who needed it more.I only remember small parts of him, but every tiny shred of memory means everything to me. I still find myself wondering how much of it is even real, and how much is my desperation to cling to somethingbetter.
He would’ve hated what Boris became. He would’ve hated what Boris did to me. I’m fairly certain of that.
If my father were alive, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have been raised like property. I wouldn’t have been taught to disappear. I wouldn’t have needed to steal my way out of my own life.
I swallow hard and straighten my shoulders.
Leonid gave me something last night, even if he didn’t mean to.
Proof.
Proof that I’m still capable of wanting. Of choosing. Of being more than what my uncle decided I should be. And that makes staying here dangerous in a way I can’t afford.
Because if Leonid decides I’m a bargaining chip instead of a woman, I won’t survive the disappointment.
I don’t get sentimental. I don’t wait. I start planning. Because running is still my only option.
Leonid
The light in her room is still blue with early morning when I slide out of the bed, careful not to disturb her. Victoria is curled on her side, lashes dark against her cheeks, one hand tucked beneath the pillow like she’s still guarding herself even in sleep. The sight of her like this hits me harder than anything that happened between us in the dark. She looks younger. Softer. Not weak, but human in a way I doubt she ever allows herself to be when she’s awake.
If I stay until she opens her eyes, everything changes.
Last night wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like that.
I planned for curiosity. For tension. For the slow erosion of her defenses through patience and inevitability. I didn’t plan for the way she shattered under my hands like something that had been held together by sheer will alone. I didn’t plan for the sound she made when pleasure finally broke through fear, or for the way it rewired something in my brain I didn’t know could still be connected.
In that moment, she chose to trust me. And trust is more dangerous than desire.
I leave her room without a backward glance because if I look again, I’ll go back to the bed and pull her into my arms and tell her she’s safe in a way no one ever has. I’ll tell her I won’t giveher back. That I’ll burn Boris’s empire to the ground before I let him touch her again.
That kind of promise changes men.
It starts wars.
By the time I reach my office, Bogdan is already there, standing by the window with his hands clasped behind his back. He doesn’t ask where I’ve been. He doesn’t need to.
“You stayed with her,” he says instead.
