"What are you doing?" I demand, my hands curling into fists at my sides.
He turns back to me, his expression unreadable. "Having you shown to your room. You need rest. We'll discuss the details of your stay tomorrow."
"My stay?" The words taste bitter. "You mean my imprisonment."
Something flickers across his face, too quick to identify. "Call it what you want. The result is the same."
The taller guard gestures toward the hallway, his expression professionally blank. I want to refuse, want to plant my feet and force Nikolai to physically remove me, but exhaustion pulls at my bones. The adrenaline that's been sustaining me since those men appeared at my door is finally crashing, leaving me hollow and shaking.
I follow the guards without another word, my spine straight and my chin lifted in defiance even as my world crumbles around me. I don't look back at Nikolai. I won't give him the satisfaction.
The hallways stretch endlessly before me, each turn revealing more evidence of wealth I can barely comprehend. Original artwork lines the walls in gilded frames, paintings I recognize from art history classes I took years ago. A Kandinsky here, what might be a Repin there, pieces that belong in museums rather than private homes. My feet sink into carpet so plush it feels obscene, the kind of luxury that whispers rather than shouts its price tag.
We pass door after door, and I try to count them, try to map this maze in my mind, but I lose track after the seventh or eighth turn. The house is massive, designed to disorient, to make escape impossible even if I could get past the security I know is monitoring every hallway.
The guards stop at a door near the end of a corridor, and the taller one produces a key card. The lock clicks open with a soft beep, and he pushes the door wide, gesturing for me to enter.
My breath catches despite my fury.
The bedroom is larger than my entire apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows dominate one wall, offering a view of manicured gardens that glow in the fading evening light. The space is decorated in cream and gold, all soft edges and expensive fabrics that probably cost more than I make in a month. A king-sized bed sits in the center like a throne, its headboard upholstered in tufted velvet that looks impossibly soft. Matching nightstands flank it, topped with crystal lamps that cast warm light across the room.
To my left, a sitting area features a plush sofa and armchair arranged around a marble fireplace. Built-in bookshelves line the adjacent wall, already stocked with leather-bound volumes. To my right, an open door reveals a bathroom that makes my knees weak.
I move toward it as if pulled by invisible strings, my anger momentarily forgotten in the face of such opulence. Marble covers every surface, white with veins of gold running through it like rivers. A massive soaking tub sits beneath a window, deep enough to swim in. The shower is a glass-enclosed space with multiple heads and controls that look like they belong in a spaceship. Double sinks rest beneath a mirror that spans theentire wall, and the fixtures gleam like jewelry under recessed lighting.
It's beautiful. It's obscene. It's a cage wrapped in luxury and tied with a bow.
The guards retreat without a word, and I hear the soft click of the door closing behind them. The lock doesn't engage, I notice. A small mercy, or perhaps Nikolai's way of maintaining the illusion that I'm a guest rather than a prisoner.
The moment I'm alone, rage floods through me hot enough to burn.
I pace the length of the room, my hands trembling as I process everything that's happened in the last hour. The armed men at my door. The forced car ride. Nikolai's cold declaration that I belong to him now. The file with data from his watch, proof that he's been monitoring my body without my knowledge or consent.
He knew. He knew I was pregnant before I did, tracked the hormonal changes with medical-grade precision while I struggled with nausea and exhaustion, thinking I was just stressed from everything that happened.
My fingers curl into fists as another realization crashes over me like a wave, stealing what little breath I have left.
The watch had GPS.
The thought crystallizes with brutal clarity, each piece falling into place with sickening precision. That custom timepiece he never removed, the one that somehow survived a storm violent enough to sink a yacht, wasn't just tracking his vitals. It had aGPS beacon. Which means he could have called for rescue at any time during those three weeks on the island.
Every moment I thought we were stranded, every night I fell asleep believing we might die there, every time I pushed past exhaustion to gather food or build shelter or keep us both alive, he had an escape route literally strapped to his wrist.
He chose to keep us there.
The betrayal cuts deeper than anything else, slicing through the careful numbness I've wrapped around myself. I think of those nights in our makeshift shelter, his body warm against mine, his voice rough with what I thought was vulnerability as he told me about his mother. The way he looked at me in the firelight, like I was something precious rather than a complication he didn't need.
All of it was a lie. Or worse, a calculated decision to keep me isolated and dependent while he played out some fantasy of being just a man rather than a monster.
My stomach churns with nausea that has nothing to do with pregnancy. I sink onto the edge of the massive bed, my hands pressed against my abdomen where our child grows, and try to reconcile the man who whispered Russian endearments against my skin with the one who just informed me that I'm his property now.
They're the same person. That's the terrifying part. The tenderness and the control, the poetry and the violence, all wrapped up in one devastatingly complicated package.
The door opens without warning, and I'm on my feet instantly, my body coiled with tension. Nikolai enters like he owns the space, which of course he does. He's changed clothes since Isaw him in the study, traded his suit for dark jeans and a black henley that clings to his frame in ways that make my traitorous body respond despite everything.
His eyes track my movements with predatory focus as he closes the door behind him. The soft click echoes in the spacious room like a gunshot.
"Get out." My voice shakes with barely controlled fury.
