I promised. Then I left before I could do something stupid like cross the room and kiss him again just to see if he'd reject me twice.
TheBelyaevcommunicationswerealmost soothing in their predictability. I'd been working in the library since nine AM, the new phone sitting on the desk beside me like a talisman, cataloging emails and text messages and surveillance reports with the kind of focus that came from having something concrete to control.
Anton Belyaev to unknown contact, July 15th: "Confirm the West Coast routes. We need leverage before the territory meeting."
Sergei Belyaev to Anton, July 22nd: "The Volkov girl is the missing piece. Everything her father knew is in that head."
I typed notes into my document, cross-referenced dates, built the timeline of their obsession with me. It should have been terrifying. Instead it was almost boring. Just men wanting information, wanting power, wanting control. Same story, different players.
My phone buzzed at 3:47 PM. I picked it up expecting a text from Nikolai or maybe Maks with some technical question.
Email notification. SecureStore Self-Storage.
My stomach dropped before I even opened it.
FINAL NOTICE: Unit 237 scheduled for clearance and auction in 48 hours due to non-payment. Remove all items by 5 PM Thursday or contents will be sold to recover outstanding debt of $340. This is your final opportunity to claim your belongings.
Thursday. Today was Thursday. I had one hour and thirteen minutes.
The words blurred. I read them again, slower, like that would change what they said. Unit 237. My father's storage unit. The one I'd been paying for with money I didn't have, juggling bills, always three months behind until I just stopped paying altogether because what was the point when I couldn't even visit without having panic attacks.
Everything was in there. The samovar my grandmother brought from Russia. My father's chess set. His reading glasses. The photographs I'd taken with my Polaroid camera before the Belyaevs grabbed me. Every physical piece of him that was left in the world.
About to be sold to strangers.
My hands were shaking. I set the phone down carefully on the mahogany desk, pressed my palms flat against the polished wood, tried to breathe. Four counts in. Four counts out.
Didn't help.
I'd forgotten. In the chaos of being auctioned and kidnapped and brought here, of signing contracts and cataloging intelligence and falling for a man who'd rejected me, I'd completely forgotten about the storage unit. About the automatic payments I'd been missing. About the warnings I'd been ignoring.
And now it was too late. Almost too late. Forty-eight hours, except the facility closed at five and it was already almost four.
I could go. The thought hit like electricity. Could take the subway to the storage facility, grab what mattered most, and be back by dinner at seven. Two hours, maybe two and a half if the trains were slow. Plenty of time.
Except I wasn't supposed to leave.
Was I? The contract didn't explicitly say I couldn't leave. Didn't have a provision about being confined to the compound. I'd signed up to work here, not to be imprisoned here.
But Nikolai had given me the phone this morning with very specific instructions. Keep it charged and with you always. Because he needed to reach me. Because the Belyaevs were still out there.
Because I was valuable.
I picked up the phone again. Pulled up his contact. My thumb hovered over the call button.
I could ask permission. Could explain about the storage unit and the deadline and needing to salvage my father's things. He'd probably understand. Might even offer to drive me.
Or he'd say no. Say it was too dangerous. Say I couldn't leave the compound without security. Say the risk wasn't worth it for some old belongings.
And I couldn't stand the thought of him saying no. Couldn't stand the thought of losing my father's things because I was too scared to act without permission.
I checked the time again. 3:51 PM. The storage facility was in the industrial district, maybe forty minutes on the subway. I could be there by 4:35, grab the essentials, be back on the train by 5:15. Back to the compound by 6:00, plenty of time before dinner.
No one would even know I'd left.
The rationalization felt thin even as I constructed it. But I wanted it to be true. Wanted to believe I could do this one thing without asking, without explaining, without being dependent on Nikolai's approval for every choice I made.
I wasn't his prisoner. The contract said employee. Said service agreement. Said nothing about being locked in.
