Arseny lets out a low whistle behind me.
“Oh boy,” he says. “Filipp’s not gonna see this one coming.”
No. He won’t.
Which is exactly the point.
11
Bella
Iwake up naked in sheets I didn’t choose, in a bed that doesn’t belong to me, in a silence that feels all wrong.
The room is too still. Too soft.
No Betsy sputtering to life. No Lila slamming cabinets in protest of waking up before noon. No Julian yelling at the microwave. Just… nothing.
And my body? Sore in the way that makes me shift under the covers and immediately regret it. My wrists ache—faint lines wrapping them like invisible bracelets. Proof of what last night was. Proof that I let him. That I wanted it.
And still—I slept. Deep, dreamless, actual sleep. The kind of sleep that shouldn’t happen after signing your life away to a man you barely know.
I should be spiraling. I should be panic-texting Elena, Googling annulment laws, but… I’m not. I’m just… lying here.
And that’s what unsettles me the most. Not the sex. Not the marks, not even the contract taped to the inside of my suitcase like a legal crucifix.
It’s the quiet. Theabsenceof crisis. For the first time in years, I’m not waking up mid-freefall.
And the sick part?
This is what I wanted.
What I’ve clawed toward, sobbed for, sold every last ounce of pride to secure.
No more checking account overdrafts.
No more praying that Julian’s school doesn’t call asking about unpaid fees.
No more walking through my house like it’s a battleground, waiting for Peggy or Mike to show up with another legal landmine.
No more Lila crying in her room because she thinks her life is unraveling, and I’m too tired to fix it.
All I ever wanted was for those problems to go away.
And now they have.
Which should feel like freedom.
But somehow, it’s terrifying.
Like standing in the eye of a storm and knowing the wind will come back eventually—louder, meaner, with your name etched into the thunder.
My phone buzzes.
I groan as I roll over, and every muscle in my body revolts.
“Oh God,” I grunt, dragging the word out like it might offer mercy. My thighs are wrecked. My arms, stiff. Even my hips feel like they’ve been reassembled wrong.
I fumble for the phone. It’s glowing obnoxiously bright against the nightstand. I blink at the screen. Notifications—so many.
