My name sounded strange on his tongue. Personal. Intimate. As if my name too belonged to him.
“You don’t even know me.”
His jaw flexed. “I know enough. You’re Russian. Educated. Stubborn. The kind who fights until she has no choice but to adapt. You’ll survive if you’re smart enough to listen.”
I shook my head, voice trembling now. “I can’t. I can’t marry a stranger. This is insane.”
“Insane would’ve been leaving you there in the middle of men like that.”
He said it so simply that I didn’t have an answer.
The silence between us thickened, filled only by the faint ticking of a clock on the wall.
I stared at the papers between us. My name was written neatly beside his: Avgust Chernykh. The letters looked unreal, like they belonged to someone else.
I thought of my brothers, how they had promised safety and yet left me alone anyway. How easily I had vanished, and none of them had come for me. None of them had been able to find me yet. I thought of the men in that room, laughing as they bid, the way one of them licked his lips like I was dessert. And then I thought of the man standing beside me now. Calm, composed, and terrifyingly certain. But not cruel. Not like any of them.
“Why me?” I asked softly, still unable to rationalize it.
He was silent for a moment, then said, “Because when you looked at me, you didn’t beg. You dared.”
I closed my eyes. My fingers shook as I reached for the pen.
The scratch of ink on paper sounded louder than thunder.
When it was done, I pushed the document back towards him and stood. My hands were cold, my chest tight. “There. You got what you wanted.”
He glanced at the signature, nodded once, and then my eyes again. “What I wanted,” he said, “was to make sure no one could touch you again. Remember that.”
I stared at him, every muscle in my body strung tight with exhaustion and rage. “You think that makes you the good guy?”
“No,” he said. “It makes me the one who owns the gun and won’t hesitate before using it.”
He picked up the papers, slid them into a folder, and locked them in a drawer. “You’ll stay here tonight. There’s a room down the hall. You will find clean clothes and food. Use it.”
I didn’t move. “And then what?”
“Then,” he said, turning away, “you’ll start getting used to being Ilana Chernykh.”
Chapter 4 - Avgust
She didn’t run.
That was the first thing that surprised me.
Most people would’ve tried to slip past the guards before dawn, or maybe bribe one with promises or tears. But not her. She didn’t try to do anything of that sort.
When I checked the surveillance feed that morning, she wasn’t near any doors or windows. She was standing in front of the wall of paintings in the west hall, still wearing one of the shirts I’d sent to her room. It was plain white cotton, too big on her, with sleeves that she had rolled up to reach her elbows. She walked barefoot on the cold marble, which was both surprising and amusing at the same time.
Coffee steamed in my hand as I watched her through the glass panel. She tilted her head at a canvas, as if studying it for clues.
I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or concerned.
When I walked inside, she turned, but didn’t move away.
“You have too many of these,” she said, pointing at the wall.
“Too many what?”
