The call went to voicemail. I stared at the screen. Waited.
Thirty seconds later, it rang again.
I ignored it again. Hit the side button to silence it. Shoved it back in my pocket like that would make the situation go away.
I had maybe ten minutes. Maybe less. He knew where I was. Was probably already in his car. Probably furious that I'd left without telling him, that I'd ignored his calls, that I'd done exactly what he'd been afraid I'd do.
I worked faster. Grabbed what I could and left the rest. The furniture and boxes of old clothes and books I'd never read. The physical weight of a life that was over.
I was shoving one last photo album in my bag when I heard footsteps in the hallway outside.
Heavy. Purposeful. Male.
My whole body went rigid. The Belyaevs. They'd found me. I was alone in a storage unit with no weapon and no escape route and I'd been so stupid, so fucking stupid to leave the compound without telling anyone—
The metal door rolled up with that terrible screech.
Nikolai stood there, backlit by fluorescent lights, his face unreadable.
Not the Belyaevs. Him.
Relief and terror hit simultaneously. Relief that I wasn't about to be kidnapped or killed. Terror because the look in his grey eyes was something I'd never seen before. Not anger exactly. Something colder. More controlled. More dangerous.
He was wearing the same navy button-down from this morning. His sleeves were still rolled up. He stood perfectly still in the doorway, not moving closer, not speaking. Just looking at me.
At my tear-stained face. At the boxes scattered around me. At the Polaroid camera clutched in my hands like a lifeline.
I opened my mouth. "I can explain—"
He held up one hand. I went silent. My heart slammed against my ribs. My throat was tight. I'd never been afraid of him before. Not really. Even when he'd bought me at the auction, even when he'd locked me in his compound, I'd never felt actual fear.
But right now, standing in this storage unit with evidence of my betrayal scattered around me, I was terrified.
Not that he'd hurt me physically. But that I'd broken something between us that couldn't be fixed. That I'd confirmed every doubt he had about whether I could be trusted. That I'd ruined this before it even had a chance to begin.
His hand lowered. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. Dangerous in its control.
"Are you hurt?"
I shook my head. My voice came out small. "No. I'm not hurt." Just crying in a storage unit over a dead man's reading glasses while ignoring your calls. Just breaking rules I knew were there even though we never said them out loud.
"Are you in immediate danger?" His eyes scanned the storage unit like he was checking for threats. Looking for Belyaevsoldiers or weapons or evidence that something terrible had happened.
"No, but—"
"Then we'll talk about this later." He stepped inside. The space felt smaller with him in it. He took up too much room, his presence overwhelming even when he was being careful. "Show me what you need to keep."
I stared at him. That was it? No lecture about leaving without permission? No yelling about how stupid and reckless I'd been? Just help me pack?
Something in his expression softened when he looked at the boxes. At my father's reading glasses still clutched in my hand. At the photograph album open on the floor showing my mother's face.
"Show me, Sophie," he said again. Gentler this time. Almost tender.
I showed him. The chess set I'd already packed in my backpack. The teacups wrapped in newspaper. My father's glasses. The Polaroid camera. The photograph albums I couldn't bear to leave.
He pulled a cardboard box from somewhere—must have grabbed it from the hallway or maybe he'd brought it from the car. Started packing things carefully. His movements were efficient but tender, like he understood that these weren't just objects. They were memories. They were all I had left.
"The samovar," I said, pointing to the ornate Russian tea urn in the corner. My grandmother's. Too big to bring back now but too valuable to leave. "And the books. The ones in Russian."
