Hours pass in slow agony. I shower using his soap, letting the scent of him cover my skin like absolution for sins I keep committing. The rough cotton dresses hang in the wardrobe like accusations, but I can't bear them today. Not after everything.
Instead, I find another one of his shirts. White, expensive, the cotton soft from countless washes, nothing like the punishment of rough fabric he's been forcing on me. It hits mid-thigh when I put it on, the sleeves falling past my hands. I roll them up, fastening the buttons with fingers that won't quite steady.
The bonsai on his dresser needs water. I can see it in the slight droop of the leaves. Such a patient art, shaping something beautiful through years of careful cuts. I find a glass in his bathroom, fill it with lukewarm water, and tend to the tree with the same focus I bring to cleaning weapons.
The ritual calms something in me. Each drop of water absorbed by soil, the tree drinking what it needs to surviveanother day of being slowly shaped into someone else's vision of beauty.
Like me. Like what he's doing to me, cut by cut, moment by moment.
The lock clicks. Evening light slants through the windows now. I've lost an entire day to guilt and waiting.
Alexei enters and stops dead when he sees me.
I'm sitting on his bed, bare legs crossed, his shirt riding up just enough to be dangerous. The evening light turns my hair gold, throws shadows that emphasize every curve the shirt pretends to hide.
His eyes travel down. Linger. Travel up. His throat moves in a swallow that tells me everything about his self-control right now.
"That's my shirt."
"I got tired of feeling like a prisoner."
"You are a prisoner."
"Not in this shirt."
The air between us changes, thickens like it does before summer storms. He's still standing by the door, tension in every line of his body.
"We need to talk," he says, but his voice has gone rough.
"I know."
"About Mikhail. About what you remembered."
"I know."
"Sofia…"
"I've been thinking about it all day." I stand, take a step toward him. "About your brother. About what I forgot. About this, whatever this is between us."
"And?"
Another step. I can smell him now. Cologne mixed with the city, with meeting rooms and difficult decisions.
"And I don't have answers. I can't remember what I promised him. Can’t remember if I kept the promise. I don't know why I blocked it out." I'm close enough to touch now, but I don't. Not yet. "But I know one thing."
"What?"
I meet his eyes, let him see the decision I've made. Every time he's touched me, it's been on his terms. His control. His decisions. But I've already betrayed my family for him today. If I'm damning myself, I'm going to take something for it.
“I’m tired of being the one on my knees,” I say, voice raw and shaking with the hunger I’ve been denying. “Come here.”
He hesitates, a million calculations flickering behind his eyes. Muscle ticks in his jaw, the vein in his temple pulses, but still, he doesn’t move. I see the struggle, the war between his need for control and some deeper, bone-deep compulsion to obey me. It’s almost pitiful, the way he wants it and hates himself for wanting it.
“Sofia,” he says, like my name is a code he’s spent his whole life trying to break.
“That wasn’t a request.” I step toward him, slow and predatory, and he flinches like he expects a slap instead of a kiss.
It almost makes me laugh. Almost. Instead, I put my palm to his chest and push. Not hard, just enough to let him feel my strength, to let him feel me taking up space in this room, in his life, the way he’s consumed mine. He gives, lets me march him backward until the backs of his knees collide with the edge of the chair.
