Not just shifting positions. Thrashing. Her body jerked violently, her legs kicking out, her hands clawing at the blankets. Her head whipped from side to side. Even through the grainy black-and-white feed, I could see the distress written across her face.
My chest went tight. I leaned closer to the monitor, my hand reaching for the volume control before I remembered I'd muted the audio. I'd told myself it was about respecting her privacy—that watching was necessary for security but listening crossed a line.
Now I regretted it. I needed to know if she was making sounds, if she was calling for help, if—
Her mouth opened. Wide. In what I knew with absolute certainty was a scream.
Silent on my end. But I could see her throat working, her chest heaving, her entire body rigid with terror.
Nightmare. She was having a nightmare. A bad one.
I should call Irina. Should have the household staff check on her. That was protocol. That was appropriate.
But I was already moving. My chair hit the wall as I stood too fast. The financial reports scattered across my desk. I didn't care. Didn't stop. Just ran.
The hallway was dark except for the emergency lighting along the baseboards. My feet made no sound on the thick carpet. My heart slammed against my ribs in a rhythm that had nothing to do with physical exertion and everything to do with the image burned into my brain—Sophie's mouth open in a silent scream, her body trapped in whatever hell her subconscious had constructed.
Third floor. The guest wing. My mind was already calculating—how long since I'd seen her start thrashing? Thirty seconds? A minute? How long had she been caught in the nightmare before I noticed?
Her door was at the end of the hallway. Dark wood, heavy, soundproofed like all the rooms in the compound. The master key was in my pocket—I'd carried it since she arrived, telling myself it was standard security procedure and not evidence of my growing obsession.
I pulled it out. My hands were shaking badly enough that I almost dropped it. Counted to four. Didn't help. Counted again.
The key turned. The lock clicked. I had one moment of hesitation—one second where my brain caught up and whispered that this was crossing a line, that walking into her room uninvited would confirm every fear she had about captivity and control and men who thought they owned her.
I pushed the door open. The sight that greeted me made my breath catch—Sophie sat in the center of the bed, wrapped in the blanket like it was armor, shaking so violently I could see it from the doorway. Her eyes were open but unfocused, staring at something only she could see. Her breathing came in sharp, shallow gasps—the kind that fed panic rather than resolved it.
Full panic attack. I'd seen them before. On Kostya after a particularly brutal enforcement job that had required killing a man in front of his family. On Maks when he'd been shot at for the first time at twenty. On myself, in the mirror at 3 AM when the anxiety got so bad I couldn't remember how to breathe without counting.
The symptoms were textbook. Hyperventilation. Trembling. That glazed look of someone trapped inside their own terror, unable to reach the present moment no matter how desperately they tried.
"Sophie," I said quietly. Kept my voice low, unthreatening. Didn't want to startle her further.
No response. She didn't even blink. Her chest rose and fell too fast, each breath shorter than the last. If she kept hyperventilating like this, she'd pass out. I'd seen that too—the way oxygen deprivation made everything worse, made the panic spiral into physical collapse.
I needed to ground her. Bring her back to the present. Give her something concrete to focus on.
I moved closer. Slowly. Each step deliberate and visible so some part of her subconscious would register that I wasn't a threat. The bedroom floor was hardwood here, not carpet, and my footsteps made soft sounds that should have alerted her to my presence.
Nothing. She just kept staring at whatever nightmare had followed her out of sleep.
I reached the edge of her bed. Sat carefully, keeping myself outside her immediate personal space. The mattress dipped under my weight. She didn't react.
"Sophie, listen to my voice." I kept my tone steady, the way my therapist had kept hers steady when I'd been the one having panic attacks in her office. "You're safe. You're in the compound. You're having a panic attack, but you're safe."
Still nothing. Her chest heaved. Her hands clutched the blanket so tightly her knuckles had gone white, fingernails digging into the fabric hard enough to leave marks.
I ran through my options. Verbal grounding wasn't working. She couldn't hear me, or couldn't process words, or was too far gone in whatever hell her brain had constructed. I needed something more concrete. Something that would force her attention outward instead of inward.
"Name five things you can see," I said. "Five things. Start with the easy ones. The bed. The window. The dresser. Can you see them?"
Her breathing stayed ragged. No acknowledgment that she'd heard me at all.
The five-things technique required cognitive engagement she couldn't access right now. I needed something more basic. More physical.
I shifted my approach. Reached out slowly, telegraphing the movement, and touched her knee through the blanket. Just lightpressure. Enough to register as real, as present, as something outside the panic.
"Breathe with me," I said. Firm but gentle. "In for four counts. Hold for four. Out for four. Can you do that?"
