“Leave, Ilana.”
She did.
The door closed behind her, and the house was left eerily silent in her wake. Ilana was gone from my life. For good.
Chapter 21 - Ilana
The apartment smelled like fresh paint and borrowed kindness.
It was small, too small to pace properly, but clean, quiet, and mercifully empty of memories that weren’t already lodged in my chest. It only had one bedroom and a narrow kitchen. A couch was placed in the lounge that looked like it had been slept on too many times to ask questions.
I dropped my bag by the door and stood there, staring. This was it.
Not the life I had imagined. Not the escape I needed. Just survival. At least this was better than going back to my brothers. I could not even think about that. My phone buzzed with a message from Elisse Chernykh. The one person I had called right after Avgust had kicked me out. The only person who felt safe enough to trust in that moment.
Did you get there safely?Her message read.
I sank onto the couch and pressed call before I could think better of it. She answered on the first ring.
“Hey,” her soft voice came through the other end.
My throat tightened. “Thank you, Elisse. For everything.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” she replied. “You needed somewhere safe to stay, and this apartment is Chernykh property, so I can assure you it’s as safe as any place can get.”
I swallowed. “I really didn’t want to involve you, but I had no one else I could even think about going to. Thank you for finding a place for me on such short notice.”
“If it were up to me, I would bring you into the Chernykh house since you are obviously a Chernykh now. But with the revelation of your real identity, things will be slightly complicated here as well. I am not sure how Iosif will react to things once he finds out, even though I know you are not at fault here.”
“I am,” I said, “I should have told Avgust the truth from the very beginning. I lied to him.”
Silence stretched between us, thick but not uncomfortable.
“He won’t talk to me,” I said.
Elisse didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Avgust is stubborn. It will take him some time to talk to you, but one thing I know is that he will come back.”
“I don’t think he will. He thinks I betrayed him, and he hates me now. And I can’t even blame him for it. He is completely right about everything he is accusing me of. I should have thought before lying to him about something as big as this.”
Her voice gentled. “He’s… not in a good place right now.”
“And all of that is my fault.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But it is my fault. I know this much at least.”
I rubbed my eyes, the exhaustion catching up now that adrenaline had burned out. It had been a few hours since I had been out on the streets, but thankfully, Elisse had come through. “I never meant to lie to him. I just did not know what to do. Every choice I made felt like the wrong one, and I had nowhere to go. I had finally decided to tell him everything today, but then he found out for himself.”
“I believe you,” Elisse said immediately.
The tears came then. Quiet and humiliating. I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying to keep them contained.
“He thinks I used him,” I said. “That I stayed there to spy on him and your family.”
Elisse swore under her breath. “Did he actually say that?”
“He did,” I replied, sobbing softly. I had never been unreasonably emotional, but the entire situation was making me cry a lot.
