Page 26 of Cruel Submission

My face heats at the memory. The Persian rug beneath my back. His mouth on mine. The way he’d looked at me after, like I was something precious he was terrified of breaking.

And then that phone call.

The way his whole body changed. Went rigid. The softness draining from his expression until all that remained was the mafia boss, the man I sometimes forget he is when he holds me like I’m the only thing keeping him tethered to earth.

I have to go.

No explanation. No promises of when he’d return.

Just gone.

Just the way he always goes.

I pull on a pair of loose jeans and an oversized sweater, watching my reflection disappear beneath the fabric. Safe. Hidden. Buying myself more time.

The house feels too quiet this morning. No sign of Arkady. No heavy footsteps of security guards in the hallways. I’m left alone with my thoughts and the endless list of tasks that never seems to shrink. I start the way I always do—phone calls to coordinate with the handymen to oversee the never-ending list of tasks required by a house this size, sorting through laundry that smells like expensive cologne and gun oil, organizing the pantry because someone decided to put the pasta where the rice belongs.

Normal. Routine. Like I’m not hiding a baby. Like I wasn’t almost trafficked to Dubai a few days ago. Like the man who pays my salary didn’t make me come apart on his library floor yesterday before disappearing without a trace.

By late morning, I’ve moved outside to tend the garden. The roses need pruning, and the physical work helps quiet the questions circling in my head. I’m elbow-deep in thorns when movement at the main entrance catches my eye.

A car pulls up. Not one of Arkady’s usual black SUVs with tinted windows and armed drivers. This one’s smaller. More ordinary. A woman steps out wearing light blue scrubs—a nurse, maybe—and she checks her phone before looking up at the house.

My hands go still on the pruning shears.

She’s waiting for someone. Makes a call. Another car arrives minutes later, and a man in a white coat emerges. A doctor.

They head into the house together.

My chest tightens.

Is Arkady ill?

The thought slams into me with unexpected force. It would explain so much—the dark moods, the tension, the way he sometimes touches me like he’s memorizing the feel of my skin. Like he’s running out of time.

Oh God.

I stand frozen in the garden, soil under my fingernails and thorns snagging on my sweater, watching the front door long after it closes behind them. Part of me wants to march inside and demand answers. But the rest of me—the part that knows my place here, that remembers I’m the housekeeper who happens to warm his bed, not his wife, not his confidante—keeps me rooted.

Time passes. I’m not sure how much. I go through the motions of deadheading spent blooms, my mind elsewhere.

Then I see him.

Arkady emerges from the east wing—the private section of the house I’m not supposed to enter without permission. He’s been spending more time in there lately. I’d noticed but hadn’t asked. You don’t ask Arkady Laurov questions he’s not ready to answer.

He walks to his car with that lethal grace that makes my stomach flip even when I’m trying to be rational. Dressed in all black, hair slightly mussed like he ran his hands through it too many times. The doctor and nurse are nowhere in sight.

The car door slams. Engine roars. Gravel crunches beneath tires.

Gone again.

I sink onto the garden bench, the morning’s careful composure cracking around the edges. What is he hiding? What is he dealing with that requires medical professionals and disappearing acts? The questions circle and circle, finding no answers. I finish the pruning in a daze, then move inside to tackle the endless ironing, the phone calls, the small logistical issues of managing supplementary staff and stocking supplies. But my mind keeps drifting back to that doctor, that nurse, the grim set of Arkady’s shoulders as he drove away.

Evening comes too fast and too slow at once. I’m in my room, book open on my lap, but the words swimming meaningless across the page, when the knock comes. Sharp. Decisive. The sound he makes when he wants something.

I set the book aside and cross to the door, my heart already beating faster.

Arkady stands in the hallway. Still in black. Still looking like danger wrapped in expensive fabric.